Valentines Day Anniversary.

Shed a tear with me friends as the holiday season of Christmas, followed by New Years, followed by Chinese New Years and the accompanying general work malaise, a mixture of biting cold with the ever looming “block of time off” on the horizon, fades into the distance. Yes, it’s officially time to get back to work.

But before that, some nostalgia; this last Valentines Day was my first year wedding anniversary, which is excellent on its own, but moreso when considering this exact time last year and the difficulties of building a small business in Shanghai, dealing with unethical partners, finding/renovating/decorating a new office to rid ourselves of said unethical partners, servicing ever larger clients, and in the midst of it all planning a wedding with expenses high, a future uncertain, and without the support of our fair weather friends.. a story mixed with equal parts enlightenment and stupidity.

So looking back, while it all seemed to grow slow, when taken all at once things moved extremely fast.. such is Shanghai, the forward stumbling chaos that makes lives out of mulch if you’ve the skill or the luck. So instead of brooding over the past, or getting back to work by writing another semi-useful article, I’m going to focus this post on remembering my recently passed first anniversary, seeing as this year, I have the time to enjoy and to further reminisce sans the dark bordered clouds from year previous.

So get ready for some pictures of Thailand, Koh Phangan Island, Haad Rin Beach (of Full Moon Party fame), where over three years I was engaged, married, and spent the first of many anniversaries. We’ve got something of a tradition forming, so here’s some pics of what it looks like, from the semi-intelligent eyes of a semi-lucky entrepreneur as he takes a few weeks off, and for a brief window in time forgets the world for the sand stuck between his toes.

So a quick tour; through the beaches, looking at stupid t-shirts, taking random pictures of the ocean, to jumping a rope made of fire, and critiquing Thailand’s unique advertising copy containing much used keywords “fuck” and its derivatives (fucking, fucked, fuck off, fuck all, fuck me, fuck you, etc), and the classic “me love you long time”. This will either be fun, or it will be stupid.. and if we’re lucky, it’ll be a little bit of both.

Stupid Tourist Stuff.

Getting to Haad Rin Beach requires some time; first routing from Shanghai to Bangkok, and then to Koh Samui, an airport blessed island; and from there taking a boat to Koh Phangan to Haad Rin pier, altogether it takes about 12+ hours depending on how you catch each leg.

So I was thinking to show you pictures like the one below:

A small slice of commercialized paradise.

But seeing as how I would find that contextually interesting and everyone else would find it categorically boring, I’m going to instead show you a bunch of funny tourist shirts I snapped a picture of before I was shamed away by dirty looks from the shirt vendor whose tired eyes slurred “one day I will kill all these damn tourists”.

In retrospect I wish I bought the above panda wielding two hand guns. Damn.

From Koh Samui to Koh Phangan

For those of you “out of the loop”, Koh Samui is the larger of three islands on the east side of Thailand, the next are Koh Phangan (partying), and Koh Tao (diving).

The below pics were taken during the 40 min ferry ride between Samui and Phangan. They were shot using Hipstamatic, which is what I use when I’m bored.. either riding a boat between two islands (rare) or waiting for my wife while she goes shopping (common).

It’s always nice to turn a short uneventful ride across two islands into something I can waste your time with. You can thank me later.

Playing with Fire.

So instead of looking at water, lets look at fire.. people breathing fire, jumping through fire, trying not to light their asses on fire, you know the drill. I can make a rather melodramatic connection between being an entrepreneur in a fast growing city to jumping through hoops of fire, but I won’t.. you know.. cause I’m above that sort of sophomoric metaphorical self-indulgent ok here are the pics.

Yes a few of the above pics didn’t have fire in them, but they looked cool so I snuck them in anyway cause that’s how I roll, yo.

Sign Language

The Haad Rin beach is full of “bucket” vendors, specializing in selling a child’s sand bucket full of alcohol, which paired with a few straws becomes a beach side frat boy’s best friend. Below is shot of the action in full swing at night, and below that is a few pics of the signage during the day while the vendors slept away.

Notice a theme? Me too; generally: get drunk, have fun, sign my sign. A timeless message really.

And there you have it.

So that was my first year anniversary on an island that has over time come to define my life.. not a personal pic collection mind you, but hopefully a semi-interesting one that pushed a smile out from your face. My guess is we’ll end up there again next year and the year after, celebrating with friends around the world we meet while enjoying an increasingly commercialized, though steadfastly young beach where people go to drop concerns, drink some substance (sometimes alcohol) and let the world go, sand sift, waves crash and forget for a while what it was that brought them there.

But alas, the time for forgetting is done, now is the time to remember; now is the time to wake up and kick this rabbit year in the ass. Let’s do this dear reader; make this year our year, so what we have to forget come next year will only be memories of success raped and pillaged in the year previous. Let’s make the memories forgotten better than the vacation celebration, and let’s make this life one worth living, or having led, one worth remembering as we stare into the blue-green horizon, music thumping through the air, warm wind blowing through our hair and across our sunburned bodies, wrapping us in an unending blanket of crisp, sea flavored sweetness.

Get back to work.. I’m ready.. let’s do this thing.