Hello All,

I have arrived safely in Hong Kong and I have been keeping busy since I got here.
I arrived in the afternoon on the 18th and it was Genevieve's last night singing, she has been here for 6 months. I did some unpacking and went down to see her show. Gigi introduced me to her musician friends and the hotel staff. After her gig we went to Gecko, a jazz bar in Central Hong Kong (I am living in Kowloon). I sang with the band there and had a fabulous night.

I started singing the next day. The musicians came to my hotel room and we had a rehearsal, then we went down for a sound check and although I was super jet-lagged, I made it through the first gig.

Yesterday I went exploring near the hotel. There is a big mall attached to the hotel and I went there and joined a Yoga club, then I headed out on the streets and checked out the Ladies Market which is similar to the market's in Thailand. There are vendors everywhere and you can barter for souvenirs, clothing, knockoff purses, shoes, etc.

This morning I woke up and did my first Hot Yoga class. My muscles will definitely be aching tomorrow, but I have lots of time to build up my skill over the next few months!

My hotel room is beautiful. There is a huge window so I get lots of sunlight. I arrived to a bottle of wine, some fine chocolates and a fresh fruit bowl waiting for me in my room....how lovely! There is an LCD TV screen on the wall so I can lie in bed and watch tv or dvds. I've taken some pictures so I will post them soon.

Tomorrow is my last day of singing at The Oriental Hotel. I can't believe how fast it has gone by. I've had an amazing time here and hope that I get the chance to return to Thailand some day.

I just finished packing (I had to wrestle with my luggage to get it closed....so much stuff!) and tomorrow I will sing the gig and then head to the airport at 4am for my 6am flight to Ko Samui. Some island and beach time are definitely in order!

I posted some new pics on my photobucket site for everyone to check out.

http://s118.photobucket.com/albums/o116/divamcgov/

There are a few of Lee and I playing the gig.

The next batch are from Chinese New Year at The Oriental. There were drums banging for about 3 hours non-stop as they celebrated. Check out the costumes!

One pic from a hotel staff party and a picture of me with Cynthia...the fantastic jazz singer at The Bamboo Bar.

After that you will see pics from my whirlwind trip to Hong Kong. I flew out on my day off for some auditions. I met up with Genevieve (a singer who also went to Humber College), as she is working out there. I had a crazy day. I got off the plane and headed straight to the salon where I got my hair done and then had to apply my makeup in a taxi on the way to the audition. I sang at the first hotel and then Genevieve and I headed to another hotel to audition, and then another hotel to meet with the General Manager. In the evening I relaxed for a bit and then went to watch Genevieve's gig. We went out on the town afterwards and had a great night.

Wow...the last day is finally here. I am so grateful that I was given this opportunity to sing and see the world. It has been truly wonderful and Thailand is a great place full of friendly people.

I feel the sudden urgency to sight see as my time is running out here in Bangkok.

Lee and I went to the Snake Farm last week. It was fascinating. We saw a slide show about the different types of snakes in Thailand. The farm is run by the Red Cross and it is the second oldest snake farm in the world. They extract the snake's venom and use it to make anti-venom. After the slide show they brought out all the different snakes for us to see and at the end of the presentation we were able to hold a python and get a picture with it. Great fun!

Yesterday we checked out Wat Arun, a beautiful temple with crazy steep stairs, you can only walk about a third of the way up because it is too dangerous. After the temple we tried to get to the National Barge Museum. The directions in the guide book were not very clear and we ended up walking all over the place. We finally arrived just after it closed!

In the evening we went to see a traditional thai puppet show. It takes 3 people to control each puppet and they have to be trained in the traditional thai dance. At the end of the show, they bring 2 of the puppets into the audience and they greet each person one by one.

In the evening we went to The Bamboo Bar (the jazz bar here at The Oriental) and we were able to sit in with the band a play a few tunes. It feels so great to play with a full band!

I've started packing a few things each day so that I won't be overwhelmed in my final week.

This is it! 3 weeks left of the gig and I’m off to Ko Samui…..I CANT WAIT!

I haven’t done anything exciting lately. I went to the dentist yesterday. No cavities. Yaay!

I also had my first oil massage. It was great! Very relaxing. When you walk down the streets in Bangkok you see three types of stores everywhere…tailors, jewelry shops and thai massage parlours. It is hard to know which one you should go into!

I went to the Night Market and did some souvenir shopping and I am officially all shopped out. It is very overwhelming to go to these markets. There are vendors everywhere and they all sell similar things….it gets exhausting!

Tomorrow Lee and I are going to check out the snake farm. Should be interesting.

Hey All,


I have been neglecting my journal writing duties so here’s a quick update of what I’ve been up to.

I took a tourist boat up the river. It stops at all different sight-seeing places.
I visited the flower market and Wat Pho, the temple with the reclining Buddha.
The flower market is unbelievable with vendors everywhere selling all sorts of beautiful flowers for very cheap. I saw lilies, orchids, lotus flowers, roses, everything! The Reclining Buddha is so huge I don’t think the pictures can even translate. You must go see it for yourselves!

I also went to Khao San Road. This is an area where all the backpackers stay because of the affordable guesthouses and hostels. The road is always full of tourists walking around, some playing hackey sack, or getting their hair braided or dred-locked. A very cool place.

Most exciting of all is that I’ve booked my plane ticket to travel south once my contract is over. I will fly to Ko Samui on March 1! I can’t wait to get out of the city and spend some time on the beach.

I’ve got about 5 weeks left of my contract, a few weeks of travel and then I will return home to see my family and friends. I can’t wait for the month of March to arrive.

Okay so he was at the front and I was at the back and we never spoke but still we danced in the same conga line! See if you can spot him in my New Year’s photos.

http://s118.photobucket.com/albums/o116/divamcgov/

New Years at The Oriental

It was a fabulous celebration here at the hotel. The hotel hired hair and makeup artists for the special night so I was pleased that they made me look very glamorous to go with my new tailor made gold New Year’s dress!

I enjoyed some fine champagne at midnight and was singing at Lord Jim’s until about 12:30. Afterwards I headed to the riverside terrace where a 10-piece band was entertaining the crowd. The band was from Toronto as well and a lot of them were Humber alumni. I was thrilled to be invited on stage to sing a few party tunes with them. It was so much fun to sing with a fantastic high-energy band. It was also nice to hear such fabulous professional musicians…. definitely the highlight of my night. Once the live show was over I headed into the lobby where they had removed all the couches and tables and turned it into a huge dance floor with a DJ cranking out the tunes. I danced the night away to welcome the year 2007.

Happy New Year Everyone!

After the gig last night I had quite a surprise. I returned to my room and was doing a little cleaning, I went to grab my laundry basket and a little lizard jumped into the air and scurried across the room to hide under my violin case. EEK! Those little guys move fast! Anyhow, I wasn't really all that scared of it but I'm not in the market for a roommate so I called housekeeping and they came to catch him for me! I figure they probably deal with this stuff all the time.

In other news.....

ALI G is staying at The Oriental! Laura was speaking with him for a few minutes on the hotel boat and she didn't recognize him until he introduced himself as Sascha. She did the Borat dance for him and he gave her a lesson on how to do it! He is here with his fiance for vacation. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for a photo op!

The hotel is all decked out in Christmas decorations and I bought a Santa hat to wear on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I wanted to get a nice plush one that would look classy but I could only find the cheap felt ones. Ah well, at least it has light up stars on it....plus it cost me less than a dollar so I can't complain!

I am definitely feeling the first signs of homesickness at this time of year, but I'm good and busy preparing for the New Year's Eve pop show that I'll be doing. I have to sing along with sequencer tracks (ugh!) so I'm limited to what they have on sequencer which means I have to learn a bunch of song lyrics in only two weeks time.

The one thing I'm super excited about is that I found a sequencer track for the song The Final Countdown. Any Arrested Development fans will know how funny this is. I'm going to dance like Gob when I sing it on New Years!
HA HA HA!

Lee's girlfriend Laura will be arriving tomorrow. This will be exciting as we have been holding out on visiting The Grand Palace until she gets here.

I will keep you all posted!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS
MERRY CHRISTMAS
HAPPY NEW YEAR

There is a private room in the restaurant that people can book for parties. Near the end of the gig tonight one of the restaurant staff member's came up to me and said the Princess is in there. Later I was given the cue to sing Happy Birthday. My first time singing for royalty! Awesome!

When we finished up there were a ton of military officer's standing around so Lee and I hung around in the lobby and watched as she exited the building. We were asked to stand up as she walked out and everyone bowed their heads as she came down the stairs.

So there’s a big jazz festival happening in Thailand in honour of the Kings birthday and one of the headliners is Kenny G. When I went to the gym today one of the staff members was acting very flustered and she told me that Kenny G had just been there. I went about my workout as usual and when I went to catch the shuttle boat I sat down to wait beside a man with curly hair and I thought….this must be Kenny G! ha ha

So yeah, Kenny G is here at The Oriental, which makes me wonder if the other headliners are also staying here. Tower of Power, Nancy Wilson, McCoy Tyner…I’m gonna check out the jazz bar here tonight to see if they stop in.

I’m beginning to prepare for Tropical Christmas! Everywhere you go there are fake Christmas trees with nice Christmas lights. I thought Christmas wasn’t a big thing here but apparently it is. I got the go ahead to sing some holiday tunes at the gig….so Christmas jazz here I come!