Just Hanging around

Thursday seemed to be a rather uneventful day for me.  A couple TVC castings, of which I certainly won’t get as I am not exactly a prime example of some that is good at dancing to Bollywood music.

Friday was a cluster of a day that involved the girls being late for pretty much everything they could. I am a pretty chill guy and it takes a lot to get me ticked off, but tardiness is not something I tolerate well.  I understand that there are circumstances that we all come across that prevent us from arriving precisely on time, but generally within a few minutes is no big deal. For me, the line is drawn with blatant disrespect of time, and failure to acknowledge the actions. A number of the girls have done this to us respectively this week. Some of this might be a bit of a cultural thing as it frequently is Brazilian girls that do this.  Not all of course, and it is a bit of generalization based on observed actions. Juliana did this to Irwan and I twice in Singapore, then again at a job, now here in Bangkok it has been happening frequently.

Kevin and I had a botched casting because the casting was run incredibly poor; we ditched that for a casting with Thai Airways.  This casting was much more pleasant and I feel very confident that one of us has what they are looking for.

Now onto the fun for the evening, all of the models with the agency were “booked” to attend a wedding of a very prominent professional’s son. This was hand down one of the most impressive receptions that I have ever been to. Rather than just talk about it, picture time.

More details about the TVC, I will be writing it later tonight and hopefully posting tomorrow. The TVC is going to be broadcast in France and is advertising an pool cleaning robot who is out on the town for an adventure.  I happen to be the window-cleaning guy who has the robot pass by while hanging from a skyscraper. Fortunately I was only about 30 or 40 feet up for the filming. 

Feeling a little spiritual * TONS OF PICS*

As usual when I start getting busy my dedication to writing diminishes. Formerly this would upset me, but hey I am writing to keep happy. I am presently sitting in a cab in bangkok rush hour. It's been 52 minutes and we have moved a total of 3.8 km. But today's trip was totally worth it. 

Before I get to that however, some house cleaning. Fill everyone in on the past few days. That shoot on saturday, the one that required me to shave my legs, no it wasn't to make me a lady boy (number one guess), it was for a underwear shoot. That's right, I am officially a Thai underwear model. No thongs thank god, but the shoot certainly involved some testicle carriage in the form of briefs. As usual I always have fun shooting, and being in my underwear was no different. With music playing I danced around a bit giving big smiles and laughing at the fact I had the clients, crew and my bookers totalling 12 people watching the shenanigans.
Marlon was in town over the weekend so I managed to meet up with him after and grab a few beers. He introduced me to some new friends in bangkok as well. It was nice to get out a bit even though I was tired from shooting.
Sunday and Monday consisted of many tvc castings. 5 between the two days. One casting for a hair conditioner involved me pretending to be a hair getting toasted by the evil hair straightener and blow dryer. I also had the opportunity to cast for the main role in a toothpaste ad. As I mentioned I don't have a ton of experience with acting, but I can feel myself becoming more comfortable and natural with actions when I am being put in front of the camera. 


Another casting was a callback for a salad company. It was great I met the directors and everything. Unfortunately I didn't get casted for it. But I did get casted for a different TVC. Thats right I will officially be making my first TV commercial appearance in the very near future. It's for a vacuum cleaner in France. I will be taking on the role of a window cleaner on a high rise building and looking in and seeing a beautiful woman use some incredible vacuum. 

Warning: Tons of Pics!

I had nothing to do today! For the first time since arriving in Bangkok I didn’t have castings or work. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not complaining, as a matter of fact I like being busy. Anyway, I wasn’t the only one that had time Tuesday to spare. My little sisters here also had the day free, so we made a little detour to The Grande Palace. A picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a ton of them. Link to more pics

Barbara so happy that she had to throw a shall over her pants

Its 40 degrees and I had to wear jeans. No showing your legs or shoulders in religious temples

The entire Grand Palace was incredible. I spent much of the time with my jaw dropped, also keeping track of the little'uns. My favourite part was the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, unfortunately no pictures of this as photography is prohibited. The inside of the temple was very elegant and had incredible paintings all over the walls and the roof, I immediately thought the Cistine Chapel when seeing this. 

We toured around outside the palace as well. People are incredibly pushy trying to hawk their goods. Silk books, wooden elephants, tuk tuk rides, boat tours, etc. 

Relax!

The way we receive our castings feels very spy ish. Each day around 6 pm a fax comes in, my ears perk up, curiosity for what the following day has in store for me. Yesterday's schedule contained 2 castings both for property management. Convenient I thought, as I had just placed the copied images the Aska (thanks man) provided for me into my book. Images from the shoot from when I first arrived in Thailand, check em out.

The castings went quite well, the clients at the second one really seemed to like. Then again it's always so hard to tell with these kind of things as there were 9 other guys. Wish me luck!

After finishing the castings Kevin and I stopped by a pub across the street Durty Nelly's for a pint and some grub. I had braised beef and he had chicken. It was a very filling meal for both of us and totalled 700 TB, so somewhere around 20 bucks CAD.

I came home and completed a GSP: Rushfit Core and Ab Strength video with the Air Con cranked.

BEEP BEEP BEEP. Basil Exposition came in on the fax with the next days lineup. One casting, van pick up 9:30, casting at 11. Well its usually not that simple, but we needed to drop Kornelia off at her casting and Bangkok traffic is terrible.

The casting was a gong show to get to once we arrived at our destination. 21st floor is what we were told. Well the building we entered the elevator goes up to 5. Thats a bit of an issue, secondly asking for directions when you don't speak thai is much more difficult. My english has gone back to very simple and a great use of hand gestures. Eventually we arrive at the casting and all is well.

Waiting for the van to pick us up we wandered around to a 7-11 to buy a top up for my phone. Turns out the initial SIM card they provide is stacked with a whopping 50 baht (about 1.66 CAD). This doesn't last very long when you take a couple phone calls and texts. Sorry Karen haha, this is why I couldn't reply to your text the other night. I think I have a new operation for you though, operation cardamon. En route however, I discovered the best tasting mango I have ever had. 2 mangos all diced and peeled, so delicious, 20 baht. Naturally I ate it all.

I was taken back to the agency just to chat some business and then head for a haircut. I certainly felt this was very much needed. My hair is incredibly messy and out of sort from the gym now so I will try and snap a pic soon.

I picked up some pad thai from a street vendor for evening meal. WOW! Was this pad thai ever awesome!

On my cab ride home from the agency, which cost about 70 TB, I had an awesome cab driver. There was massive language gap, but we had decent conversation. He taught me to count to 10, although I can only remember up to five. We also talked about avoiding lady boys (basically a lady boy and a no no no and shake head and push away). Also discussed Canada and the mountains, I showed him a few pictures on my phone, his mind was blown away.  He taught me a few other little things in thai but I forgot unfortunately.

Kevin managed to swing a deal with the Fitness First thats a 15 minute walk from the condo. So we went there for a workout. For those that don't know fitness first would be the equivalent of a WHC or Goodlife. Although crazy! Not one pull up bar, just the silly pull up machines.

You can cook?

 

Yesterday was a relatively busy day, which was kind of nice to have.  Life is a little easier in Bangkok getting to and from castings and the agencies than it was in Singapore as I have a driver to take me. I don’t know if this increases my fear of being ripped off by cab drivers or not, but I like the idea of having a driver. I can relax along the way to castings and just watch the scenery as I drive by.

During our expedition about town, I couldn’t help but notice the motorcycles/scooters, zipping by only inches away from colliding with a vehicle and so many of them or the sight of street meat vendors at every bend, nook and cranny. That particular aspect of life you can’t imagine viewing in a normal day in Canada and rarely in Singapore. I will try and snap more pictures of those things today.

At the agency I met, did some snaps and a briefing. I learned some of the cultural things to be aware of, such as:

•       Don’t touch anyone’s head at any time whatsoever
•       Don’t ever show the bottom of your feet
•       Sawasdee krab (hello) accompanied by wai (putting your hands together like you are praying)
•       Thai’s avoid confrontation at almost all costs
•    Everyone smiles all the time

After finishing up there I took the opportunity to buy some groceries. My ingredient reading skills are relatively useless here, as I can’t read Thai, so that made things a little more challenging. I hope to do more cooking here as food is relatively cheap 52 TB for 2 chicken breasts (that’s less than 2 bucks), 15 TB for 1 lb. of Bananas, and 20 TB for an entire papaya. All said and done I spent half of my pocket money 1300 TB on these groceries.

I had three castings, and I found it quite convenient that we have a driver. The first casting was for a Sony camcorder TVC, so make up goes on. The second was for a fashion show, which was pretty straightforward, and the 3^rd was a movie audition. My acting skills in my opinion are certainly sub par, but hey a casting is a casting.  We will see how everything turns out in the coming days.  

After arriving back at home and just vegging out for a bit, I decided to make myself some dinner. With my freshly purchase jasmine brown rice, I decided to cook it the old fashioned way, in a pot. 10 minute rice no problem. Well after 30 minutes of waiting for the water to boil, I gave up on the stovetop; it just doesn’t get hot enough. So microwave was the way to go. Likewise with the eggs, 15 minutes to fry an egg is ridiculous!