My English date in Newcastle

The "Millenium bridge" in Newcastle

Last week, I have travelled to Newcastle, England for a couple of days. I met my English date and spent some days with him there. It was hot and sunny there, about 30 C degrees, little hotter than at home in Sweden. It rained one day, the other days was sunny.
How did Newcastle got its name? A long time ago, someone built a castle for himself there, and then he told people about his new castle upon Tyne. That's how Newcastle got its name.

The village Whitby and the old ruins

I visited some villages outside of Newcastle: Whitby, York, Stockton, Darlington.
Whitby is a special little village, the tv-series "Emmerdale" and "Heart beat" have been filmed on location there. Whitby Abbey, the ruins have inspired Bram Stoker to the movie Dracula.
There is some kind of a Dracula-festival going on there once every year, people dress as Dracula, witches, magician etc and do some partying there.
Whitby is also known for an another thing - Captain James Cook have lived there (you know the captain who sailed to New Zeeland and Australia).

The village York and the Roman Wall

York is an old town from the Roman Empire and you can go on a ghost trail there, as the tourist broschures says. According to the tourist broschures, ghost are walking around in York, especially on the Roman Wall. The Romans built a wall to prevent York from beeing attacked by the Scots.
It seems that some Roman soldiers have been left there and still patrol on the wall, but now as ghosts. Notice the picture, that there is no fence to avoid people to fall off, and it was a steep hill down there. It was little nervous to walk there, and I had to walk carefully not to fall down.

Dog statues in Stockton

There are some cute dog statues in Stockton. Other than that, there isn't much to see there.

The date went fine and he was an nice man. I must think about this for a while.

More pics from Laos

I saw this calendar hanging on the wall in many laotian homes, in restaurants and many other places. The calendar is from Thailand. This one I photographed in a restaurant. Notice the year 2548, it is the Thai year.

The Thai people count their years from when Buddha was born, which is year 0 for them. Buddha was born on 543 BC. So, when we say year 2005, the Thai people say year 2548.

Why was it year 2005 on the calendar when I was there in 2006? Old calendar? No, that’s because they celebrate their New Year in April month. So they didn't changed year yet when I was there in February month.

Bridge between Laos and Thailand

We visited this bridge near Savannakhet (a city in south of Laos), they are building a bridge between Laos and Thailand.
You can see Thailand on the other side of the river. When I took this pic, it was evening about 5 am (11 pm in Sweden).
This bridge was delayed due to an accident. A construction worker on the Thai side of the bridge fell and died. So the work on the bridge stopped for a couple of months. Maybe they have started working on the bridge again, I think.

Holy basil - Laos

I eat this food in Laos. It was called "Holy basil". Found it in the menu at a restaurant in Vientiane, and I was curious at it. What is so holy about this food? Choosed it only because of its funny name.

"Holy basil" is the one in the middle of the menu.

It was actually good, but very spicy. Now I understand why it calls Holy basil. It is so spicy that you become almost holy. I drank a lot of water. But it was good food!

Some pics from Laos

Tuk tuk in Laos, a taxi. The cost was 7 000 kip/person from our hotel to city. 3 years ago it was 5 000 kip. We often went to city, because there was no mobile coverage at our hotel. In city, near the river was/is good coverage, so I could send and receive text messages to my family and friends back home.

Food in Laos - they fry grasshoppers and eat it. It taste like chicken.

A toilet in Laos - there is no toilet paper and no soap... so I had to bring my own toilet paper (taken from my hotel room) and wet tissues to wash my hands. You do not sit on this toilet seat, but you stand with your feet on the seat and squat.

My Laos travel

I have been to Laos, and have come home safely. I was planning to write about my travel in this blog when I was there, but I didn't. Busy with meetings and other things (other things=night life).

It was a good trip. Nice people and warm weather. Great to get away from our winter for a while, I travelled for two weeks in February. I know, been lazy to update this blog...
I tried to get a tan. When we were outside and waited for the meetings to start, I turned my face towards the sun to get some tan in my face.

Surprisingly, the weather in Laos was really pleasant, in spite of Laos beeing a tropical place. It was about 25-30 C, almost like a really hot Swedish summer day. For them in Laos it was cold and winter, but for me as a Swede, it was really hot.

Before I travelled to Laos, I was worried that it would be too hot and humid there, but it wasn't. I have been there once before, in September 3 years ago, it was toooo hot (about 40 C), humid and muddy roads. My feet and shoes got all dirty from the muddy roads, and the cars had a hard time to drive on the roads.
This time in February it was better weather, dry and the cars could drive on the roads without problems. And I could keep my shoes and feet clean.

I got the chance to ride a moped and that was great! I didn’t drive myself, I sat on the back seat or whatever you call it when you sit behind the driver on the moped. There was a group of nice deaf girls who offered us to ride on their mopeds.

I saw one thing which made me a little upset. There was a guy, a deaf man from Thailand who visited Laos for a couple of days as a tourist, and he joined us for dinner in the evenings.
He walked straight to one of the girls, told her to get off her moped and let him drive. He didn’t ask nicely, but told her in a rude way. She tried to protest, but too weakly. He didn’t listen to her and whisked to her to get off the moped. Finally she got off her moped and he drove it.
There really is a need for fight for equality here!

Anyway, I hope to return to Laos again. Depends if my deaf association send us there again for volontary work.

Text telephones in England

I will write a little more about my visit to England.

Text telephones in England are different from Swedish text phones. Most things are same, but some things are different. When we write "come" or *, they write GA instead. When we finish the phone call we write "kl sl", they write SK instead. "Kl sl" means "over and out".
They have special keys for GA and SK, which we don't have. On Swedish text phones we must write c-o-m-e or "kl sl" with the ordinary keys.

And they have another special key, which don't exist in Sweden. That is the emergency key. If something happen, like burglary, fire or abuse, you use this key to give alarm to the police. Wow, we should have something like that for deaf in Sweden!

But sometimes mistakes happen. My friend told me, one day he was dusting off his phone. He touched the emergency key by mistake, but he didn't notice it. After a little while, when he sat in the sofa and read a newspaper, the police came into his apartment!

The police had a copy of his apartment key, so when they got the alarm, they went to his house and opened his door and walked in to his living room. My friend was very surprised to suddenly see two police men standing in the living room!

The police asked my friend if something have happened. No, he said. But then he remembered that he had dusted off his textphone. The police understood it and said to him, next time he clean the phone, he must pull out the plug cord to not start the alarm again by mistake.

Interesting with English text telephones!

One day in London

I have been to London between Boxing Day and New Year 2005 to visit my friend there for a couple of days. One day I wanted to go shopping, but my friend couldn't follow me, he had to work.

So, next morning, we took a bus from his home to the nearest Tube station. He explained to me which bus to take, how many bus stops there are and where to get off the bus.

Ok, so far everything was clear to me.

At the Tube station, my friend showed me where to take the bus home to his house. This bus stop is not at same place as the one we recently got off from the bus. One bus stop is on one side of the Tube station and the other bus stop is on the other side of the station. Very confusing.
Anyway, my friend dropped me off at the tube station, and I went shopping at the Christmas sales.

Later that afternoon, I went back to the tube station with full loaded shopping bags. I walked to this bus stop my friend had showed me earlier. I even hopped on the right bus, I checked the bus number very carefully.

It was dark out now, and it was hard to see the bus stops. I counted the bus stops, there would be 6 of them, as my friend told me earlier this morning. At the 6th bus stop, I hopped off the bus. But it didn't seemed right. Where is that small shop where I bought my one-day bus card? And where is that hairdresser salon next to the small shop?

I quickly walked back into the bus, walked to the bus driver and asked him: "Excuse me, but I think I have missed my bus stop." I told him where my bus stop is and asked him if he know where it is. He said something I didn't hear, but I think he said that I should have told him before, so he could show me my bus stop. I told him "I'm sorry" and asked him if I should take another bus back?

Now he got very angry and shouted at me, and said lot of things I didn't hear. I was surprised. I don't know why he became so angry. He shouted a long time. Another passenger, a woman, pointed to a bus stop across the street and told me to go there. I thanked her and got off the bus. This was embarrassing. Everybody in the bus was looking at me and I felt ashamed.

I waited at the bus stop for about 10 minutes until the next bus came. This time I asked the bus driver (not same bus driver, this was another one, phew!) to tell me where to get off at the tube station. I planned to go all the way back to the tube station and ask my friend to come and pick me up there.

After 4 bus stops, I suddenly saw "my" shop and the hairdresser salon. I quickly got off the bus. Finally something I recognize! Phew! The rest was easy, walk past the shop, turn right and then to my friend's house.

I texted on the mobile to my sister about what had happened today. She answered back on the mobile: "Don't get lost! You should always follow your friend! Don't mess it up!"

Some facts about Laos

Laos is a country in Asia, between Thailand and Vietnam.

Laos' neighboroughs are: Thailand, China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma.

Capital: Vientiane.

Number of inhabitans: 6,2 millions

National Day: Dec 2nd

Laos have been French before. That's why there are still many signs in French language. For a short time during the 2nd World War, Laos was occupied by Japan, but France took Laos back again.
Laos became free from France 1953.

Currency: Kip
I can't exchange to kip here in Sweden, so I must exhange to kip in Laos, i.e at our hotel or at a bank in Laos.