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I was there to see the sights, not business. I had originally planned to "meet the locals" but once I arrived in SEA for some reason my sex drive went to near zero so I didn't have the interest

I was just there recently. I stayed at the Sedona Suites Grand Tower. Had a gorgeous apartment on the 40th floor with amazing views. A bit pricey but great location for various tourist spots and I found the mall and market downstairs useful. I didn't bring anyone home so I don't know if that's an issue. You do have to take 2 elevators to get to your apartment - the ground floor entrance has the concierge desk and then the main lobby you change to a different elevator. I also didn't visit any gay venues so I can't help you there. Crossing the streets takes a little courage but once you get the hang of it, it's not so bad. I also spent several days up the mountains at Dalat which I really enjoyed. Flowers everywhere. Much cooler weather. Beautiful waterfalls.

Good news. The diver has been saved. Story linked has been updated

one of the British rescue divers is missing in a Tennessee cave. They're not saying who it is at this point https://abc7news.com/diver-who-helped-free-thai-soccer-team-now-missing-in-tenn-cave/5256366/

even with a translation app it's not a totally natural conversation. In my experience Google translate is worthless beyond a couple of words. I did buy the latest version of the Travis translator on Indiegogo https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/travis-touch-i-speak-105-languages-so-can-you--2/x/7247010#/ But I didn't ever actually use it. In my brief testing at home though it was able to translate even my poor Thai into English correctly. So it might work. It claims to use several different translation engines depending on the language so that it probably why it would work better than Google alone.

because BKK doesn't already have enough luxury malls and luxury condos?

I think it would be neat to be there during the coronation. I'd be more concerned that it will be a billion degrees

Saw the news this morning on Douglas Thompson's blog that Purple Dragon travel agency has been forced out of business. Very sad. I've taken many, many trips with them over the past dozen years or so, including my recent trip to Vietnam. It's a shame for the folks working in their office as well as their excellent guides and drivers everywhere around the region. I traveled with them to Thailand a few times (especially my first few visits when I didn't know how to get around on my own or when I was going to some out of the way places), Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Hong Kong... Most of the trips were great experiences and I definitely got to see a number of places I never would have been able to get to on my own or that would have required me to do a lot of planning and legwork.

there were a handful of guys on the apps. I don't know if that qualifies. For some reason on this trip my sex drive was zero (very sadly) so I didn't find out for sure.

I enjoyed my visit to Dalat even though it was much noisier and bustling than I expected it to be. Much cooler up there in the mountains. Pretty flowers all over. One awesome waterfall complex.

where are you all staying that it's taking an hour to get from the airport? Takes 30 mins to Silom in my experience

Just did this flight last week (expect to be late...all of my VN flights were late). Yes, VN gives you access to the fast track immigration line. I believe they gave me the fast track pass when I checked in at SGN.

I love Copenhagen and Stockholm. Gorgeous cities with great architecture, public transport and lots of typical Euro sightseeing. And plenty of gorgeous men. It's been a while since I've been to either. I do vaguely recall visiting a sauna in Copenhagen like 15 years ago. Planetromeo is usually where I check for escorts when I'm headed to Europe.

I agree with the above re: checked baggage. With TG business class you will get a fast track immigration pass. You can always arrange a car service pickup (or use AOT limo service) if you don't want to deal with the taxi queue. I've used S&P Limousine many times so I get a repeat customer discount. You meet the rep by exit door 4 and she walks you out to the driver. Their Camry's are getting a little advanced in age but still a perfectly reliable service. When I departed Tuesday night I could not believe how crowded the airport was. At 10:30 on a random Tuesday night it was a total madhouse.

So it sounds like an appointment wasn't necessary?

given the sheer number of massage places I don't think anyone could possibly review them all.

I couldn't figure out where to post this, but this thread seems like the best place. I stopped by Nakarat for a massage yesterday. It was one of the worst massages I have had. I didn't get the masseur's name, but he was probably late 20s, fairly muscular, handsome guy. His massage technique was really terrible. He started out straddling my back but was sitting basically in the middle of my back and since he was a fairly heavy guy he basically made it hard for me to breathe. It also didn't help that the table had no face well. Once I flipped to my back and he started massaging my front he did this weird thing I've never encountered before where he was basically choking me. I don't understand how he could possibly have thought that was in any way relaxing. Obviously any massage place you go to it's somewhat a luck of the draw. But they should at least provide some basic training to these guys.

fwiw, when I added value to my old rabbit card yesterday I was not asked for my passport. It could be that the line was so long that the cashier didn't want to deal with it

I stopped in there today. It isn't quite the same as every other mall. As the name implies it is more like a market with small stalls - sort of like that one section at Terminal 21 or certain parts of MBK. I will admit that I have never understood how retail works here. How do all of these stores and shops stay open when no one ever buys anything there? I like wandering around the malls because they are air conditioned and it's something to do. But I almost never see any customers actually buying anything. Most shops seem to mostly be empty when I am there. And so it is with this new mall. Lots of little vendors selling various clothing items and lots of different food vendors including the usual places like KFC, Pizza Company, etc. There are two stalls in close proximity selling the exact same wallets, passport covers, etc that can be personalized with your name or these little metal plates that can be attached. I saw one food counter business that had 5 or 6 employees and no customers. I get that it's brand new, but it was Sunday lunchtime which you would expect to be busy. Central World was quite busy, for example.

I think they have been making plans to move everything to Europe. I like the A380 a lot. It's so quiet inside and just seems to float along. But obviously there aren't a huge number of them out there. I think I've only flown them on Singapore Airlines, THAI, and Emirates. My current favorite is the A350. I prefer it over the 787.

tunnels under swamp land, what could possibly go wrong? The plan for the wooden terminal seemed very odd to me as it had so few gates and looked like it was going to be very expensive with all of that detailed woodwork. A mirror image terminal seems somewhat sensible as long as there is a way for vehicle traffic to get to it.

sadly this never happened at my engineering school

very nice. I think we've all experienced the discomfort of being the only patron in a bar with all of the boys staring at us hoping that we'll choose them.

Depends what you want to do. I use my Chromebook most of the time since I spend time mainly surfing the web. Can use (most) Android apps too. My big desktop rig I switched over to Linux Mint with Windows 10 dual boot only for a couple of big photo editing applications that don't run on Linux. If I didn't use them I would be Linux full time. I got tired of all the problems I had with Windows and their broken updates. Linux Mint is quite easy to use for the most part. If you run into problems the user community is very helpful walking you through how to fix things. The user interface is very Windows-like so it's easy to adjust to. There are also Linux versions available that have desktops which mimic MacOS if you're more comfortable with that.

look at all of the privacy we all give away for free every day for the sake of convenience. Google knows more about me than I do. I like the convenience of the Rabbit card. I am not likely to balk at linking it to my passport for my relatively infrequent visits.