How To Breathe Underwater

or "Coup? What Coup?"

So this is just a quick (and rather expensive) note to let anyone interested know that Ulala and i are both now PADI certified Open Water Divers!! YAY!! What an amazing feeling to breathe underwater and to see all the fish and corals in their natural habitat! We had an excellent teacher and a great course. We were also able to dive at Sail Rock and at Koh Tao (Aow Leuk), which are two of the best dive spots in this whole region. The weather and the visibility have been amazing!

Also, despite the military coup in Bangkok we are still in Thailand and right as rain. The only reason we even knew that there had been a coup was because i happened to flip on the news in our hotel room. It was unfortunately FoxNews (an oxymoron to be sure) but all the Thai tv channels had been taken over by the military and shut down. It doesn't appear that the Bangkok airport is affected so i doubt we'll have any trouble getting out. People still seem to be flying in just fine.

So please, don't worry. We are FINE. And diving has been an incredible experience and i am hoping to do it again real soon. Tomorrow we're taking a guided tour of Koh Samui and then on the 23rd we'll do a little shopping and then catch our flights.

Hope everyone is well!! i'll post pictures heer when we get back to Osaka!!

-ian.

Thailand ikoh!!!

translation: Let`s Thailand!!

The Life of Ian continues to be busy: i am almost done packing for our trip to Thailand. we leave tomorrow morning (the 17th). we will be flying into Bangkok and spending the night and then wandering the city for a few hours before (hopefully) catching a flight down to Koh Samui for a four day intensive scuba diving course. Ulala and i will be (hopefully) taking our PADI Open Water Diving Certification. then we fly back to Osaka on the night of the 23rd arriving back at the lovely Kansai International Airport (KIX) around 6am on the 24th. it should say something about my state of mind that i spent significantly longer deciding what to pack into my i-Pod mini than into my backpack...

While on Koh Samui we will be staying at the (hopefully) lovely Samui Mermaid resort on Hat Bang Rak ("Big Buddha Beach") (no i didn`t choose it for the name!) here is a map of that section of the island so you can see where we`ll be. i would like you to note that our hotel/resort has a nice view of the giant Buddha statue that gives the area its colourful name and also pleae note that we are walking distance from a crocodile farm, a somewhat inaptly named "secret" garden, and a MONKEY THEATER!!! personally i`m hoping to see them do Hamlet but we`ll just have to see.... we`re also close to the "Samui shooting sport" which (hopefully) has no relation to the Monkey Theater.



Wish us luck in travel and scuba!! Jerry Seinfeld: "Scuba; another sport where the main object is to NOT DIE." singing: "don`t die... don`t die don`t die don`t die, look there`s a fish there`s a rock. don`t care, just don`t die. cuz living is good and dying ... not as good." i plan on humming that while i`m under water.

indeed, let`s Thailand!! (hopefully)

quick update

i`m flying out the door in a minute to go to work. it`s been a busy week but there are lots of unanswered e-mails in my inbox so here is a quick update:

-My first DJ gig on Saturday night went really well! yay!! (see pictures below) and i even got offered another gig in October! WOOHOO! to see the event announcement click HERE.
-My overnight stay in Kobe to work at Tarumi and see Gabe was also nice. He and Ayako and Hanano seem to be doing really well. (Thanks again Gabe for letting me stay!)
-Tonight Ulala and i are going down to Bentencho to take a preliminary look at scuba equipment and training (nothying in the water yet) before we head over to Thailand next week to take our Open Water Diving Course.

more later!