The day that never ends

After spending nearly the past 6 months in SE asia…again I find myself trapped in a time capsule sending me back in time. Of course I am referring to the plane that sends me across the international dateline.  And what would this trip be without a bit of adventure and reflection.

Fresh on my mind I thought nothing better than to sum up the adventure of my work experience since I departed Canada in January. Reviewing my tally’s I completed work for:

•        2 tv commercials
•        5 magazines
•        2 billboards
•        more fashion shows than I could imagine have ever doing around 8
•        1 advertising campaign
•        6 ultra luxury events
•        5 lookbooks

There is possibly more but that’s about as far as my memory serves me with this regard. It’s been a relatively productive experience, but as that goes I have also managed to grow more as a person.

Last year around the same time (possibly a week later), I wrote a post called, reason, season and lifetime. (Reason Season Lifetime Post)This was related to an outstanding email I received from a past client. To prevent blatant repition I thought best to just some it up before continuing to my next point. 

People are introduced to your life in many ways, each person serves a purpose in some respect or another. For some the role is small, and others it grows to serve a larger impact in your personal development.  Without placing people into specific boxes you naturally discover where someone sits in that scale of reason, season and lifetime.  Using my past adventures as examples I thought I may enlighten you:

Photobomb Success

The reason: The easiest example for this would be a client on a job. Maybe a photographer or stylist, While sometimes you get along great and others its an oil and water separation you work together for the purpose of completing a job.

A season: I will continue with a model example again. A seasonal influence on your life is frequently a roommate or classmate, maybe someone that you work on a project with. For the month, 2 months or an extended amount of time, you help each other out. However, at the end of that period, lets say a modelling contract, you essentially stop communicating. The relationship provided what it needed during the season, but no longer is something that has extended influence. I find many of the people I meet slide into this category whether it was university, modelling or otherwise.

Lastly, a lifetime. As you travel about your daily life or around the world there are people you connect with on a deeper level. These people, make extended efforts to maintain a line of friendship and you do the same. Sometimes its that gym rat buddy from university, a roommate from travels abroad or even just a happenchance encounter that blossomed into something more than a passing of shoulders. These are my favourite obviously, at the same time they are also rare. 

As I go back and read this I can name specific people who each sat into a particular category I mentioned above. While some influenced me more than others each person is very important in my life and I thank them for it. My travels have extended my friendships far beyond the reaches of Canada’s vast boarders and interestingly enough introduced me to some amazing people on my global doorstep.

Oops, almost forgot about the adventure of the day. The genius I am booked a 7 am flight out of Singapore to come home. Silly and smart at the same time, I realized that by pulling an all nighter with a friend and a few coconuts would help me crush 8 hours of the 20 something of travel time.

In standard fashion I arrived 2 hours early for my international flight. Upon boarding we sat waiting on the plane for an additional 3 hours while one of the doors was not closing properly. Eventually we were all deplaned. The good news is, the plane was safe to fly, the bad news was the door would be inoperable and safety standards stated that rows 18-38 needed to board a different plane. Guess who had lucky seat number 34C.

As luck would have it I missed my connection towards SFO almost instantly, so I felt no pressure to get anywhere ultra quickly. I obviously wanted to get home, but the few empty seats I would rather surrender to someone on business or travelling with children, and that I did.  Alternatively, I was rebooked for a 12:45 flight to Hong Kong, then through Vancouver and finally making it back to cowtown. The downside I wouldn’t be flying on United’s old school fleet. Gosh darn it.

I seriously have to commend all the customer service and everyone from United, Cathay and Air Canada for their efforts. This messed up door created quite the shit storm, and while some passengers reacted poorly, these staff managed to stay calm and get shit done.

Unfortunately with all that commotion, my bag is sitting somewhere. As of this exact moment, I have no clue, and neither do the airlines. But they are seriously working hard on it and I have great appreciation for that. Lost baggage claim is all ready, and despite it originating with United’s issues all the 3 airlines have put in a diligent effort to find it for me.

I am a lucky person to be honest. My flight is taking back home, where I have most my clothes so a few days without that suitcase isn’t going to hurt me (unless I want to play squash) and despite a large delay, I am only arriving home 5 hours later than originally scheduled while following a vastly different route.

I am always listening to music as I write my blogs, one of the few times I listen to music (its usually audiobooks and podcasts). As I pitter patter across the keys I can see fingers rattling off the ivory keys to the tune of Mozart (concerto of two pianos and orchestra in e flat).

Happy Birthday to me (presents woo hoo)

As time rolls around so does my biological clock striking another year on my tally. While not feeling any older this year, every day I do feel wiser and more experienced.

 

For those that follow me on instagram (@wintonyk) you will have seen the whirlwind week I had last week. Sunday was the TVC, Monday was a lookbook for Nobody Jeans, Wednesday was Mitsubishi Ralliart, and Thursday Iames Thai clothing. The downside to all this was no castings, which leaves me this week on Thursday having yet to have worked. 

In the past I haven’t received much as a model, a belt, maybe button up shirt. Something has changed lately though, or I have just been lucky. Huge thanks to Bagspace for the great wallet (actually got me to start using a wallet again). More thanks goes out to the Team at Nobody jeans for a sweet hat. And lastly thanks to Circle, Danae and Pichai for the sick watch and bag for my birthday. 

Friday we celebrated with dinner and myself singing with the band, Saturday more ears were graced with my wonderful voice, and Sunday a Mexican night at a friends place. I danced, I laughed and had a really good time. It has taken a little while, but I have really started to feel at home here in Bangkok again. I have developed a solid group of friends, some will only be while I am here and others can friendship for many years to come. 

Stay tuned for my next post as it will have many new pictures.

Are you ready to Evolve?

 Where I left you off I had a great time hanging out with a bunch of new friends, talking MMA, Hockey, NFL and a little about Singapore. Monday I didn’t have much on the schedule, but once again try and find something new, something great to do.

I had my regular meeting on Mondays at the agency. We talked a little about traveling over the holidays, where might be a good place to go and what you might be able to do. Rafa texted me shortly after I left the agency, so I decided to wait around for him, but first lunch.

Uh-oh, I have become a little boring. I loved that Pad Thai so much last time I had it; I was craving it and ordered it again. It’s so good with fresh seafood, fresh vegetables and the crushed peanut and limejuice, oh so good. Lately I have been wanted to have Laksa again. I also compiled a list of the foods I would like to try while here. Thank you Wikipedia, I will create a separate post specifically for this.

The genius I am forgot my umbrella in Mel’s car last week so I was umbrella-less for the day. And I stayed inside the hawker centre for close to an hour and a half waiting out the rain.  Ready to give up I ducked from one awning to the next darting my way through Chinatown on my adventure to Evolve.

With Barbara in hand (trustee google maps) I made it to Evolve. Evolve MMA is a local MMA gym here that is a pretty big deal. They have BJJ, Muay Thai and Boxing all taught there and it is considered the premiere MMA centre in Asia. Who wouldn’t check it out with the resume they have online. The facility was amazing; with over 20 coaches there, this place is designed to pump out athletes. The class schedule looked amazing as well. Now if it is a reasonable price why not train there right? Well for $500 a month, I think I could spend my money on better things for me right now. As much as I would truly love to train here and I know I would see big benefit $500 is outrageous for me as a model, I wouldn’t have considered paying that much in Calgary either.  I hummed and hawed and furrowed my brow, then paced a little bit. I just can’t pay that much. Maybe if I were making 10 000 a month.

After my one on one internal conversation I met up with Rafa. He was getting hungry so we stopped by the Chinatown Hawker. I have not been as good with water lately and was feeling a little dehydrated, so I took the advice that the nice Indian woman gave me a few weeks ago and I ordered myself up a coconut. All $2 well spent to have a man takes a machete, chop the top off and hand me a spoon and a straw.  

Shortly after, Rafa and I parted ways. I feel like I got up to more that day, I think I hit the gym and went for a run. Even at 9 pm you still sweat like its going out of style. 

I am also just having a conversation with a my future sister. Now I technically a day late because I am in Singapore, but its still her birthday in Canada, so Happy Birthday Christina!

Shoulders back, chest out, stand tall and googly eyes

Yesterday turned out to be an interesting day. I didn't have much for expectations but I met a few new friends, networked a little and had fun all the while.

Thursday was as usual, gym. No pool though it started raining as I finished. At 2, the plan was to meet up with Mel and a few friends. Mel has been an incredible friend for me here so far and I can't stop saying thank you. A bit of a guardian angel for me, a big sister watching over me. After we chatted with my new friends now too, her and I grabbed a coffee (well you know me and my tea). We talked a lot about the industry, so much insight from her experiences. One of the things I learned is that is probably a good idea to style my hair more often. Keep my presentation top notch all the time. I don't walk around looking like a slob that's for sure, but I don't style my hair very often. Part of it could be that I never know how it should really look. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to meet maybe stylist around here.

We parted ways and I headed home. I spent some time reading and then prepared myself for the evening. I was invited to a fashion display so I needed to look casual smart, this actually meant ironing a shirt and throwing on more than just flip flops. Thankfully my feet have recovered from that nasty swelling when I first got here. Deb and I met up and headed to the event.

I had no idea what to expect, but we met up the rest of the crew and joined it. There were about 30 people there. Servers were walking around with glasses of prosecco and little treats. I was certainly hungry at this point, I actually wanted to eat beforehand but traffic made my bus ride and extra 20 minutes longer than it should have. Bruschetta on crackers (nope), how about cream cheese things ( i will pass) and then BAM! It felt like a bolt of lightning, raw oysters with a garlic hot sauce to put in. They were amazing, exactly what I needed. I love oysters if you didn't know that. I have had food poisoning once from them a few years ago, but my stomach is long recovered. I probably had 8 maybe 10 of these throughout the evening.

This one I thought was the coolest

As the show started it was 2 models showing off the new Renee L collection. Sexy, and conservative at the same time, the perfect wear for a woman in Singapore. Or at least I think thats what they said. Naturally I took a few pictures, to commemorate the event of course. One of the models I think was trying to hard to look tall, I feel like she was leaning to far back, arching her back, it looked incredibly awkward. Have I become a cynic to how other models walk now? I am by far no expert, but I hope I don't look awkward like this.

After this was done Deb and I grabbed a bite to eat, the food wasn't memorable for one of the first times. Then I hopped on the bus for my ride home. I became disappointed, as this was the first time I actually had a seat on the bus. I learned that they don't make buses for tall people here. I couldn't physically fit my legs into the seat. I had to leave them in the aisle.

It always looks so cool on Orchard