PeterRS

How very funny that @Olddaddy has downvoted a post which is 100% factual. Maybe facts mean so little to him and he prefers a fantasy land of his own creation. According to flight manager data, all 46 flights between China and Japan have been cancelled in the next two weeks. As of December 22, 2025, the number of cancelled flights from mainland China to Japan in January 2026 reached 2195, with a flight cancellation rate of 40.4%. https://www.webull.com.my/news-detail/14068465430971392

Isn't is called something like dynamic pricing - and it extends from hotels, airfares, theatre tickets and a whole host of other items where there is a fixed supply and a fluctuating market? Not sure if they are still on the go, but there used to be websites for both hotels and air fares where "last minute" offers were available. I had a friend in London who always purchased from these shops - and almost always got tickets/rooms. In the old days in Britain, for air tickets they were called "bucket shops". Rather than offer discounts themselves, airlines would give them a bunch of tickets which they would not expect to sell for a particular route on a particular day. I remember a return flight to Milan on consecutive days for about a third of the usual price.

Until I read the clip, I assumed the GoFundMe was a result of his being driven out of the Celebrity Big Brother House! Reading it, the man is clearly in the present situation as a result of walking away from his career at what has been called the height of his fame. Clearly he was earning a considerable amount of cash. Many of us change careers or jobs and we do not end up about to lose our home. How his considerable success as an actor could translate into similar success as a boxer, I toitally fail to understand - but then I abhor boxing. If everyone whose own choices have resulted in the possibilty of losing their homes opened a GoFundMe page, I wonder what the world is coming to. Sure, many need and deserve assistance. From what I read on that page, I do not believe Rourke does. Mickey’s life never followed a safe or protected path. At the height of his success, he stepped away from Hollywood in search of truth and authenticity, choosing risk over comfort. Boxing—real and punishing—left lasting physical and emotional scars, and the industry that once celebrated him moved on quickly. What followed were years of struggle not defined by spectacle, but by survival: health challenges, financial strain, and the quiet toll of being left behind. Today, Mickey is facing a very real and urgent situation: the threat of eviction from his home.

As noted earlier by @Pete1111, even when friends/family know where you are exploring, it can take months to find the body. On Everest think decades. The explorer George Mallory was lost in 1924. The body was discovered in 1999, remarkably preserved by the freezing conditions.

Well, I guess @Olddaddy might just need to adjust his plans somewhat. In mid-June 2022 at the start of his posting career, in a thread on this Board he described himself as 59 and in a followng one as about to hit the big 6-0. The posts' dates were June 4 and 5 2022 and he stated later that his birthday is June 29. He must therefore now be 63. But - there's always a "but" - in a post when he was in The Philippines made just a few days later on that brthday on June 29 2022, he wrote "I'm 62yo". Something wrong somewhere surely when you cannot remember your age! To suggest that he will be 65 in 2035 implies that either this or the earlier post are/were a fantasy - or he is in some dreamland. To further suggest that he will be posting/"trolling" in 25 years time may be fractionally more accurate - with a very strong emphasis on "may" given his weight and the illnesses he has occasionally complained about. Indeed two days before his 2022 birthday he posted about the ailments that exhaust him. @Olddaddy wrote in July 2022, "At 62yo I just it seems, don't have the stamina anymore to keep " fucking" ,to keep taking guys back to the room whether they are paid or free , in fact last night I ordered pizza in my hotel room and watched a movie ,all alone ! I envy you guy on here who can..." And it is surely a very particular foresight given his comment made just three days ago in the Patpong Comings And Goings thread which was - @Olddaddy: "We don't know when we are going to go 😇😇" I trust he makes it through the Kakadu Trail!

Earlier in the thread I just noticed a few posts starting with one asking: why take the risk of visiting certain countries where homosexuality is illegal, especially Muslim countries? Those of a certain generation had no qualms about finding gay sex in many countries in Asia, just as they had in North Africa for many decades. Yet a good number of them had anti-gay legislation on their books - Singapore (repealed only in the last few years), Malaysia (still in existence), Hong Kong (repealed in 1990), Taiwan (only after martial law ended in 1987 did gay sex eventually become legal), South Korea (where martial law continued till 1992), China (decriminalised in 1997 and removed from the list of psychiatric illnesses in 2001), and Japan where there were major social sanctions rather than legal ones. Virtually all of those countries annually jailed some citizens for engaging in gay sex until their laws were repealed. Yet that did not stop a large number of citizens and visitors from engaging in gay sex - for which I remain extremely grateful. I had a ball during those years. Gay sex all but thrived in Hong Kong and to a considerable extent around the region during my early years there from 1979, despite in Hong Kong the possibility of a jail sentence of between 2 and 3 years. The watchword was relative discretion. Yet as eventually revealed in a major Report, a Chief Justice, senior police officers (all British) and other senior government officials were all bascially gay and had Chinese boyfriends/lovers. I have no eperience of North Africa other than one trip to Marrakesch and Agadir in 1972. But the Muslim world in particular has changed much since then, the more so after the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Iran in 1979. I have to leave others to comment on that as some have done above.

Many, especially in Asia, may not know the reference to cadinot. Jean Daniel Cadinot was almost an icon of full-length gay sex movies shot in 16mm in France from the mid-1970s to roughy early 1990s. Of the more than 50 he produced, I recall at least two - if not more - were made in north Africa. While including some very handsome young guys, his videos placed an emphasis on story-line. Pics of some of his material can be found here - https://www.cadinot.fr/en

It means that the boys have been featured as models in porn magaines and/or porn videos. It is definitely not permission for patrons to take photos/videos of the boys.

I thought the bills had changed well over a year ago.

So instead of one night at Capella in BKK you could have had around 30 boys in Jomtien!

Apologies especially to @Gaybutton for the incorrect information.

Defintely do not offer any tip and I certainly would not request any photo if the rules say no photos! Japan is Japan, not Thailand. You then put the boy into a very embarrassing situation. Since he works for the agency, he will obey the agency rules before he agrees to anything. The best you can probably do is cut out his pic in the agency's main site.

I have lost count of the number of hotels around the world with doors to all rooms that audibly click shut. It can be so annoying if others in the corridor are leaving very early or arriving very late. All the more so when the answer is so simple. A strip of felt around the interior of the door frame makes closing almost silent.

Surfcrest owned Sawatdee. There is/was an owner of Gay Thailand named Michael for many years, but I think it is for him to say whether or not he remains iinvolved in Gay Guides. I think you must mean about 15 years. Beforehand he had been very actively engaged as a moderator in Gay Thailand. His site is clearly useful as it has quite a number of readers, but most seem to be lurkers. The posting membership is very small and very Pattaya-centric.

The number of these rather childish groups on Stripchat is increasing. As @Foolish points out, they do precious little other than silly little games, but I note there is now more nudity. Not that that means much as few bother with erections! Yesterday I was astonished that one viewer tipped one group of 5 boys 9999 tokens. That one tip earned them just a dollar or so short of US$500! In total that group amassed over US$750 during the day. There do sometimes seem to be some handsome guys on that site but most seem to struggle to reach US$25 in tokens. I wonder what they think of the new groups of Chinese getting all that cash?

This seems yet again to open the door about homosexuality in sports and the tiny number of athletes who have actually come out as gay. Women's tennis appeared to have opened that door decades ago with the likes of two of their top international players of Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova. And there are others in most other sports, but they seem to be very few and very far between. I read a comment by a figure skater recently that many of the men are in the closet. We know that Britain's Olympic Gold medallist John Curry who died of AIDS and Canada's double Olympic Silver Medallist Brian Orser was/is openly gay. And we know that Brian Orser trained one of the all-time skating greats, double Olympic Gold medallist Japan's Yuzuru Hanyu. Many assume that Hanyu-san must be gay, not because of his stunning skating but for his appearances away from the rink. As he is a near-iconic figure in Japan, it is doubtful if he ever would come out - certainly in the near future. In general, though, in the rough and tumble of most sports, there have to be many who are gay but will not come out, at least during their playing careers.

Soon after she took office, Japan's new Prime Minister publicly stated that Japan might have to act militarily if China took Taiwan by force. This infuriated President Xi whose stated goal (which may not be enforceable for a whole bunch of reasons) is to reunite Taiwan with the mainland. He repeated this is his New Year speech. I suspect the Japanese PM had no real idea of the muddy waters she had suddenly stepped into (which all her predecessors had wisely avoided), but China has made its fury felt. Thousands of flights have been cancelled and hotel bookings cancelled. in January it is estimated that 2,195 - 40.4% - flights from China have already been cancelled The continuing loss of tourism revenues is really hurting the Japanese tourism industry now, with the consequent effect for the rest of us of lower hotel prices.

I'll bet you would have loved to join them! Parking used towels outside a room - and a suite in particular - is gross. I cannot understand why they just did not ring housekeeping and request more. That afterall is housekeeping's job. On various travels I have occasionally requested an extra pair of towels which have always arrived quickly. There was one utterly memorable day/evening in Taipei when, quite unplanned, I had more visitors than expected. The request for extra towels started with just two, and then increased considerably. The housekeeping staff seemed quite happy to keep bringing them and taking away the used ones. Had they been cute Taiwanese guys, I would have invited them to join us 😀

I decided when I reached 60 that this was far enough! So from then on my age would go into reverse. Sometimes it's good mentally for thinking I am younger. At other times I can't keep this up as the time will come when I will need plastic surgery and a great deal more energy to maintain the fiction in the eyes of others. Before lots of hotels had been constructed on the river, it was easy to see the fireworks close to the riverside. Then the host of new hotels were constructed along with Icon Siam and each tends to have its own little display. Some years ago, about ten friends and I hired a small boat so we could be closer to the fireworks. But police boats kept us quite far back from Saphan Thaksin. With so many other boats on the water we actually did not see nearly as much as we expected.

Very true. Originally it was Gay Thailand which then got merged into the larger more western-based Gay Guides (I assume that was its name - and it surely really doesn't matter which merged into which. It is as it is, although perhaps longer-term posters like me tend to regard it still as more of a Thai site). I think some will not know or remember that there was a three-week period some 12-15 years or so ago when it was announced that Gay Thailand would close. @Gaybutton had been a moderator since the early days and he decided he would then start up his own Board. All we knew was that Gay Thailand was to be purchased by an American couple who would be moving to retire to Chiang Mai. In the fullness of time we realised this was a posting member @firecat69. However, he and his partner finally decided not to retire to Chiang Mai. I believe it was then that @TotallyOz reversed his decision and decided to keep Gay Thailand running. Some will recall another site based in Thailand which tended to cover more general international political subjects - BahtStop which eventually merged into BahtStop 2. No idea why it folded. We should remember, too, that before the chat rooms in Asia came internet dating sites - or at least sites where you provided your personal details and hoped to find someone who would respond. I read one site a lot for my visits to Thailand and did meet quite a few very willing partners. If I again recall correctly, that site was purely for individuals who were looking for sex and not cash. Eventually I discovered gaydar. While not good at providing information for companions in Thailand, it was really great for hook ups in Taipei and Tokyo.

. . . and to start on that stamp collection all over again! What joy!

I know I have been somewhat adventurous during my career and taken a good few risks, but I have never understood why some people find extreme and danegerous outdoor activities so attractive to them. Sure, I'd love to see the world from the top of Everest, but I have seen it from a tourist plane flying a little higher and that was good enough for me. There was a documentary some years ago about two or more groups trying to climb up the horribly narrow Hillary Steps near the summit with many stuck because of the queues. When you depend on oxygen and tanks don't last too long, that would horrify me! I have watched through binoculars rock climbers in Switzerland suspended a few thousand meters up and almost horizontal. Same with extreme skiing where more than once I have also watched it start avalanches. Overcoming the fear of danger must surely have something to do with it.

I hope this is correct but I think there were something like six chat rooms at one time - and that does not include several bitchboards which suddenly appeared and then thankfully just as suddenly disappeared. As far as an owner dying of covid, was this not the owner of another site who died en route back to North America after becoming very ill in Pattaya? That I think was pre-covid.

In Japan during December and to celebrate the upcoming year, virtually every orchestra gives performances of Beethoven’s famous Ninth Symphony with its “Ode to Joy.” So on this first day of 2026 it is appropriate to play just a small part of it. But this is a special performance that was created by one of Europe’s most influential choreographers Maurice Bejart who happened to have been born exactly 99 years ago today. Bejart decided the Symphony is so universal with its themes of brotherhood and unity it should include dance as an essential visual element to add to the symphony orchestra, four soloists and large chorus. So he created a version to be performed in the round having added 90 dancers that was first performed in Belgium in 1964. Bejart called his “a Ninth Symphony for the 20th century.” The packed audience gave it 16 minutes of applause. Since a performance requires around 300 artists in total and a very large stage, Bejart’s version has only rarely been performed. In 2014 to mark the 50th anniversary of its creation, it was given a unique performance in Tokyo. It was unique in the sense that it involved not just Bejart’s company which is now based in Lausanne. Never before had it co-operated with another dance company. For this performance which took almost three years of preparation, consultation and finally rehearsals, the Tokyo Ballet company (with its fabulous looking male dancers!!) was integrated fully into the performance. That company also just happened to be celebrating its 50th anniversary that year. This is just a short three-minute excerpt from the start of the second movement with dancers from the Bejart Ballet – yes, the gorgeous Japanese male soloist is part of that company, not the Tokyo Ballet. To me, it is extraordinary not only that Beethoven was deaf when he composed the symphony but how in his dramatic interpretation Bejart has captured the humanity of Beethoven’s masterpiece. You can just make out Zubin Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra raised behind the dance floor. For those interested, the full performance with a prologue can be seen here. The Symphony proper starts at 8’00” and the boys and girls of the Tokyo Ballet are featured in the first and last movements. Just click on the youtube link.

I believe the one-way way ticket on the luxury Eastern Orient Express train even with its gourmet meals and stunning cabins is cheaper than the Ayutthaya converted rice barges. Maybe something else for @Olddaddy after his next stay at the Capella