Here is part two of todays blog..

I went to Phuket to shoot on Tuesday and Wednesday! I left at 840am on Tuesday, arrived at 10am. I was picked up to the airport and we went to eat lunch, it was about 1230 by the time they picked me up and we got somewhere close to the shooting site to eat. After eating we went to the shooting site and I got my hair and makeup done, we then waited for Justin to finish shooting his part (which was in a different location). Once he got there we started to shoot, which was about 430 or 5 and we finished at about 7 because the last shot had to be at sunset, and there is only a 5-10 minute span where the sun is setting! The last shot was me and Justin driving off on the motorbike in the sunset. They shut down the road and everything! People lined the roads to see what was going on and they were shouting things and taking pictures. The director then told me that they thought I was some thai celebrity, and thats why they were yelling things at me and taking photos! It was kind of cool pretending to be this thai famous person for a little bit! After we wrapped for the day, we went to the hotel and ate, then went to bed. I had to be up at 345am the next morning!! Makeup was done at 4 and then we left the hotel around 530 to go to the next location. We arrived at Chalong Pier, where we ate breakfast...which to thai people is regular food, and that days was rice with chicken wings... I refrained from this breakfast and just had coffee and a sandwich instead.. We then all got on a boat to go to where we were shooting. There was a cargo ship type boat out in the water near a different beach where all the camera equipment and camera crew were set up. We climbed onto it and got ready to shoot. I was taught how to steer the speed boat, I didn't have to shift up or down to make it go faster or slower, the professional did that. All I had to do was steer, which is really easy! We shot until about 2 in the afternoon then packed up and headed back to Chalong pier. We ate lunch and then hung out for a bit (our flight didn't leave until 930pm). Most of the crew had to drive back in the vans they had brought, but me, the lady that did the casting, the stylist and then the director and clients were flying back. The stylist, lady who did the casting and myself went and got massages after we ate! After that we caught a taxi to the airport, ate dinner and flew back to Bangkok! The beach we shot at the second day was so nice, the water was so blue! It was extremely hot though, so my black pants and top didn't fair so nicely... I could basically feel the onset of heat stroke as the minutes passed in the day.. but I still enjoyed my time!

The breakfast I didn't eat..

     

                                                                                                                                                                       

Sunrise!

                                       

Chalong Beach

Myself and the makeup artist

Myself and the hair stylist

The scarf I didn't actually wear to shoot..was just to keep my hair from getting wrecked!

Getting the camera ready!

                                                       

The whole crew!

View from the restaurant where we ate lunch

Day 1 onset!

                                        

I have a lot to blog about today, since I haven't written in a bit, so I'm going to split it into two separate entries! This one is about the sightseeing day I had last weekend.

Me and another model from my agency went out sightseeing with a makeup artist from here. She took us all around and explained what everything was so it was really good! We started at the temple of the Golden Mountain. When we first got there, we bought these little packages that had a sheet of gold paper, a red piece of cloth with thai designs on it, holy water and 2 white string bracelets. With the gold paper, you write your name, birthday and time of birth (if you know that) and you take it with you to the top of the "mountain". Once you get up to the top you go on your knees and pray to the buddha for what you wish for, holding the paper, then you put it in this large pot. Once they have enough of these sheets collected they melt them together and make a gold buddha out of them! With the red cloth that came in the package, you are supposed to put it in your wallet and take it with you everywhere, it it supposed to bring good luck, good fortune and keep you safe. The white string bracelets you are supposed to wear one, and give one to someone else. They are meant for protection from accidents of any sort. The holy water you keep to use on yourself any time. Walking up to the top of the temple, there are 300 or so steps, but small ones, so it wasn't to energy consuming! As you go up, there was a spot where it was just flat, with about 10 large bells in a row and then a huge gong at the end. You are supposed to ring every bell in a row, then hit the gong 3 times. This is so everyone knows your name (this is what I understood from the lady that took us..).  Once we got to the top we stayed up there for a bit and looked over Bangkok from above! Near the top, right before you get to the very top, there is an indoor area with buddha laying down and a flame in the front, with a box with sand in it. You take a lotus flower and a bundle with two sticks and a small sheet of gold. You put the flower in the vase next to the sand, then you take the gold sheet out, hold the two sticks in your hand, light them in the flame and then go on your knees and pray to the buddha, then put the sticks in the sand. After, you take the gold sheet and put it wherever you want on the buddha. Around the corner from this, there is a row with 7 buddhas, one for every day of the week. Next to it is a smaller buddha, with a cup and a bunch of sticks inside that are numbered. You sit infront of the buddha and shake the cup until one of the sticks fall out, whichever stick falls out first, you take the number and you go look on the wall where the fortunes are. You read the fortune with the number of the stick that fell out. My fortune was not so awesome.. I'll put a picture of it below! If you get a bad fortune, you go to the 7 buddhas and you put the number of coins in the slot corresponding to the day of the week that you were born. This is supposed to bring you good luck and then you try the fortune sticks again!

After the Golden Mount, we went to Wat In, which is a temple with a very large standing gold buddha. We went inside a prayer room here, where there is a wax figure of a famous buddha, and everyone sits around him and prays. There is a thai prayer that is recorded and played over and over in the room, and all the thai people recite it, then leave. We didn't stay there very long, then we moved on to our next location.

From Wat In, we walked to the Rama 8 bridge, which is a suspension bridge crossing the Chao Phraya River. We walked across it, to the other side and sat in this area to rest for a little bit. In this area there was a skateboard park, which I have never seen in Bangkok! I don't even think I have seen anyone skateboard before in Bangkok! There was also dance classes going on! They blasted the music really loud and anyone that wanted to join could, so we joined in for a bit! It was quite a large fail, but it was so funny! The old thai ladies were showing us up for sure.. After resting for a bit we took a taxi to Khao San Road.

At Khao San Road, we walked around for a bit, then sat down and ate. I had green curry with chicken and it was sooo good. This is one of my favorite thai dishes, but it is so spicy! My face was so hot with the curry and then the heat from outside, I was dying, but couldn't stop eating it because it was so good!! After eating we all went our separate ways and went home, we were all pretty wiped out from walking all day in the heat!

My unfortunate fortune...

The past couple of weeks have not been very busy at all with castings, pretty much just been hanging out, not doing a whole lot! I had 3 fittings for the Honda job I booked, 1 to many really. Then today I did the shoot for the print part of the job. It was easy, didn't have to do a whole lot, and it was a really easy, relaxed shoot which was good. Now for the fun entertaining part,


Lets start with the few casting/job stories I have..

1) When you are at a casting and the person running it tells you "one moment ka", that doesn't actually mean one moment as it should.. it means atleast an hour, but probably longer. In this particular case it meant 4 hours... not my forte

2) Thai people pronounce my name one of two ways usually. Either "caught-kneeee", with little emphasis on the "t" and much much emphasis on the "eeee". The second way is "connie"..and these are only when they get it just a little bit correct.. otherwise there is no way they can pronounce it!

3) At shoots they always tell you, "one more", "one more". Does that ever mean actually one more? Noooo way, not at all. One more usually means atleast 20, but they just tell you one more, so you put in all the effort as if its the last shot.. this is what I assume anyway.

Now on to the driving/taxi stories..


1) I was in a taxi, going to a casting and just my luck he had to stop for gas. So I was in the taxi, while we wait for a pump to be free. There are attendants at each pump, that pump the gas for you. The odd thing is, they lift the hood and pump the gas in there somewhere! The taxi's don't have gas tanks on the side like the vehicles in Canada do! So so odd.

2) Most taxi drivers SUCK at driving. Like unreal, if you are going to drive a flippin standard probably learn to drive it properly!! Most taxi's here are standard, and its not so awesome because there is usually a whole lot of traffic, so there is a lot of shifting etc. NOT AWESOME. I have definitely developed some car sick issues, which is not cool. Even when there isn't traffic, the shifting issue is still a problem, it is so jerky and makes you feel ill for sure. Moral of the story, if you get car sick, I do not advise you to get in a taxi during busy traffic hours!

3) Regarding #2...sometimes taxi drivers that have automatic vehicles still SUCK. Driving here goes like this: Speed up as much as you can, to get as far ahead as you can, then when you need to come to a stop, don't ease in to it, hit your breaks right before you hit the bumper of the car infront of you. As you can tell, this is a slight issue. This type of driving would not fly in Canada! They just weave in and out and even when there is lots of traffic, they still try to go fast and get as far ahead as they can before they have to hit the breaks hard and come to a stop.. another way to make you car sick..

3) Traffic doesn't move for ambulances or anything. I believe I mentioned this in previous blogs from previous years. But when an ambulance has its lights flashing and everything, no one really moves, they just keep going as if its not there.. lesson to be learned: refrain from needing to be in an ambulance in Bangkok...

4) When it rains, it is an automatic signal for drivers to slow down a large amount. It's as if the rain is pure ice that as soon as it hits the pavement it turns into icy madness. Even if it is sprinkling, all traffic slows down to 0km/h I swear. It's so weird and slightly annoying..

So the past few days haven't been that busy for me. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday I had no castings so just relaxed and hung out at the house. Sunday we went for brunch at a place called Crepes & Co. which I'm sure I talked about in my blog from last year! It is a breakfast/lunch place that is packed 24/7 and is in a little hidden street in downtown Bangkok. They have quite a large menu, but both times going there we have ordered "The Brunch". It's a sheet that you fill out, choosing a hot drink, a cold drink, one breakfast treat (yogurt, muesli, corn flakes with banana, french toast or cheese toast), a fruit plate or fruit salad, a bakery basket (choose three from toast, english muffin, baguette and croissant), 2 eggs any style you want with sides of bacon, ham, tomatoes, mushrooms, salmon or cheese (only if you want), a pancake (many flavors to choose) and then ending with another hot drink! Talk about food for days right? All of this for under 15 dollars canadian may I mention! It was so good, but was so full after! Good that I had the day off...wouldn't want to be going to castings after a huge meal like that! Monday I basically did nothing, hung out, worked out, nothing exciting really. Tuesday I decided to go venture downtown and take pictures, not fully successful, but I did get some photos out of it! I went to the mall terminal 21 so I could get pictures of all of the "destinations"on each floor. I walked down Sukhumvit road and then went to another mall called Central World. By the time I got back I was so tired, it was extremely hot/humid that day, so definitely tired me out. Yesterday I got some really exciting news.. The job I booked for a Honda motorbike is shooting in Phuket!!! I've never been to any of the islands so I am obviously super excited to go. I think I am there for about 3 days, and I will make sure to take plenty of pictures!

A couple of things I have witnessed/noticed since the last time I blogged.. One day I was leaving the cousins house and I saw someone driving a car with a baby in their lap... I feel like this is a tad on the unsafe side and probably illegal? I was shocked when I saw this! I also noticed that there are different speed limits for different types of vehicles. So cars can go a certain speed limit, trucks another and motorbikes another, weird right?

Thats all for now, I feel interesting things are coming my way soon... so hopefully I will be blogging more often!

Alright so I'm a tad behind on this whole blogging keeping people up to date situation.. but I have lots of stories now!

First off, castings have been keeping me quite busy the last week, which is a good thing, but hopefully some of them will turn into bookings real soon! I finished fairly early all week which was nice, making me home for dinner time. I also got clean makeup brushes two days in a row....this is almost unheard of in Bangkok I swear! I casted for everything, clothing companies, shampoo, detergent, cereal drinks, property jobs, etc etc etc. Lucky me I have apparently come to the age where I look like I could be a mother.... I probably went and auditioned for atleast 3-4 mother roles this week, what the heck right? My thought "uhhhmmm hi, I'm 19.... this 6 year old child you are putting me with makes me pregnant at the age of...." you get the point. Anyway, the mother role has come upon me and apparently I'm good at it, according to the thai people running the castings..good for me I suppose. I booked my first job, which is for some kind of motorbike not really sure what brand or anything yet. In the casting I had to pretend to drive a boat, so not quite sure how this will all fit together.. I definitely did not think I would book this job, but it always happens that the ones you don't think you'll get, BAM it's yours!

Okay enough about that side... now more about the bangkok taxi experiences I have been so lucky to be in.
Lets start off with this one, la dee da dee daaa, courtney is in a taxi, going from one casting to another. All of a sudden something (such as a mosquito) bites her leg, so she swats at it (classic move when a mosquito bites you). She then looks down to realize it was a cockroach.. WTF RIGHT! I basically threw up multiple times consecutively in my mind after realizing it was a roach not a mosquito. WHY THE (insert bad word) IS THERE A COCKROACH IN THIS TAXI?! I don't have the answer to that, but that's what you are probably thinking and it is definitely what I was thinking.. gross. Now that the gross story is out of the way.. I spotted a lovely A&W while driving in this same taxi, curious I googled bangkok A&W just to see what the menu was like. They have waffle sandwiches!! Weird right? So basically it's a chicken sandwich, but instead of bun, you get waffle! Seriously check out the bangkok A&W website if you're bored..it's interesting. Ahhhh yes, now onto the music. Most times taxi drivers play thai radio stations, which is completely understandable as they are thai. Sometimes if you are lucky they realize you yourself are not thai, so they change it to the english or american radio station. The only issue is that the music is not completely up to date sometimes.. example 1: Venga Boys and Mariah Carey Christmas music? Both issues, as I'm pretty sure the Venga Boys were "cool" in my elementary years and it's January, so Christmas won't be coming for another 11.5 months (making it much to early to play the music). Example 2: thai acoustic versions of every popular upbeat song Canada/America has to offer. Enough said. Last but definitely not least of the good ol' thai taxi stories. The radio is on, I'm just chillin, waiting to get to my destination and on comes an ad for scented shoe laces... interesting on it's own even before the scents are announced. Here comes the good part, bubble gum (classic), cotton candy (not bad), bacon and eggs (wtf....), pickles (well thats gross). Yep, I'm not even lying, and they even said "it even comes in pickle!!" all excited and everything.... I might have to find these gems and see how they turn out.....

So this entry is coming to an end, but not before I tell you about my Terminal 21 experience! Terminal 21 is a new mall here in BKK, opened a couple months ago. Me and my cousins took a gander there on Saturday and it was AWESOME! Each floor (terminal) is a different destination, tokyo, istanbul, rome, hollywood, san fran, etc. Very very neat, I will definitely take some photos next time I go! That's really all I have to say about that, but I'm sure I can conjure up some more awesome stories from it by round 2 of the Terminal shopping experience.

Ta ta for now, it's been a slice!

20 hours in plane rides, a 2 hour layover and I finally arrived in Bangkok! I was picked up at the airport by Brandie and Mekayla (cousins) and they had a greeter meet me, so I didn't have to wait in customs lines or anything, I got to go to a priority line and went straight through! We got back to their house and I stayed awake until around 2am, tried to go to sleep, which was very unsuccessful and finally got out of bed at 6:40am.. not my forte. Probably for the first time ever, I had a taxi driver that actually had the full seatbelt situation in his car, meaning the belt and the buckle part too, that never happens! While in this taxi I witnessed a guy driving next to us while also reading a paper...safe driving for sure. Sunday I had a full day of castings, left the house at 11:30 and got back sometime after 8 at night. My second casting, I played a cavewoman for a toothpaste commercial..weird right? So they did my hair in a really enjoyable, take forever to brush out, back comb situation. My entire head of hair was back combed..I was not super impressed obviously, as I would have to brush it out after, but what can you do! After this I continued on to 3 other castings, which brought me to 7:30 and finally home time. That day tired me out completely, thank god, so I ate and then went straight to bed. I had a solid 6 hour sleep, which brought me to a way to early 4am. I can't wait for the day where I'm used to the 14 hour time difference, it will be really great let me tell you. Today I have another 5 castings, JIM is really keeping me busy this time! 6am is about to roll around, which means everyone will be getting up soon, since school started again and they go at 7 or something ridiculously early like that. I'll blog again when something wildly exciting occurs, ciao for now!

Travelling time has come around once again!

I arrived in Toronto last night from Grande Prairie, staying here until tomorrow. Just to basically unpack some things and re-pack again (yay...). I also discovered I would be in/at an airport 6 times from yesterday until Saturday, soooo much fun (nat). On my way from GP to TO my carry on bags weighed equivalent to my body weight I'm sure, so I decided I needed to change this situation.. meaning I went and bought a rolly bag, wooohooooo. No more sore shoulders and back, win! Anyway, so I'm in the midst of re-packing my things, trying to downsize as much as possible..
Tomorrow I leave TO at 12 in the afternoon and will arrive in Bangkok at 10 something pm on Saturday (joy). I go here to Tokyo which is a whopping 13 hour flight and then 2 hour wait in Tokyo, then off to BKK I go with a good ol' 7 hour flight. Basically the time of my life (KIDDING). I can honestly say I am not looking forward to this flight, but who would really?
I must get back to packing though, those suitcases won't finish themselves!