Awk

Edit: Thavisa screwup - double post.

"Extra" classes in the middle of the normal school day? Sounds very much like a rip-off to me too. What is a child who does not attend the "extra" class supposed to do in that time? Sit alone for an hour and wait for the "non-extra" classes to start again? Any decent school will stay far away from such nonsense.

Or, a 'decent' school will provide extra teachers to tutor the student or students in need, giving personal attention on a one-to-one level so as not to disturb the more advanced students from paying attention to their own studies. THIS is what is done in EVERY public school in Japan. It works. It's done right on the classroom, so the 'group' is never broken up, and students can remain with their classmates without the stigma of being singled out. By the end of the school term, 90% of the students in the room will have received extra help in one subject or another. Often there are two or three 'extra' teachers working at the same time in the same room.

That sounds great and I have only read good things about such a system, but surely that is something different from what the OP describes?

The OP, if I understand correctly, describes a scenario where in the middle of the day, there is no regular class schedule from 13:00 to 14:00. Instead, those who wish can pay for the "extra" class, which is taught at this time, while those who do not wish/cannot pay, do what? Twiddle their thumb for an hour, waiting for the regular class to start again at 14:00?

Saw a poster at my daughters school for a children's party at this place ("NIC's"?):

http://www.facebook.com/Nics.Restaurant.Playground/photos/gm.702504689836226/564438023684497/?type=1&theater

Yes generally there is some other nasty crap added to make it sweeter. Most if not all sugar free jams that I've tried are horrible. It's a bit like the butter vs margarine debate. I prefer butter and sugar but in moderation.

This one (many different flavours) tastes fine IMO. Not sure if it's available here however. Think I've seen glasses that look like it when walking through the isles at Rimping, but have not paid enough attention to say for sure if it's this or not.

Nobody wants to do it because if they find problems they are tossed into the middle of a shit storm. Same if they do not find problems and some come up later. It is a no win situation for them. It is also incredibly difficult to do all the things you are asking.

You should have hired a "consultant" engineer or engineers to monitor the construction so they could see it repeatedly during the building process and blow the whistle if it was not right. That is the Thai way with construction but maybe it was all done before you bought it in which case you should have had it inspected before you bought it.

And speaking of that, does anyone have anybody to recommend, for an inspection prior to buying?

Dunno if it is still the case, though I would be interested in knowing. Around 7-8 years ago I discovered that the Shoei X11 helmet I ordered here (possibly from the Paddock shop mentioned in this thread) cost as much as it would have cost me to travel round-trip to Singapore, buy the helmet there (half price compared to Thailand), and spend a night at a budget hotel. And Singapore is a nice place to spend a day or two. First thing I did after getting the helmet, btw, was to remove all the stickers, so only an expert would see the difference between it, and any other random 1,000B medium-quality Thai helmet. Still have that helmet, though well overdue for a replacement of course.

I see tips for some cafes to try here, but myself I'd like to mention the Dhara Dhevi bakery. I have not eaten there myself, but they seem to have some sort of shop at the Central Festival Foodmarket, and I've started to eat there now and the. The shop is right by the entrance to the supermarket. Small pieces and quite expensive, but also quite good.

I suspect the difference in steak quality might be due to how long they've had the beef.

Once I was warned that they had just killed the cow (if I understood things correctly, though now I'm not sure if they do that or just order the beef pieces), so the beef was not recommended that day. The next few times the beef was fine, then once it was significantly more hard than usual. After finishing my meal, I enquired as to why the beef today was not so good, and was told they had just got the beef in that day; they normally need 3-4 days to make it good, but today was the first day.

Not my business to tell them how to run their business, of course, but had that day with the mediocre beef been my first visit, I would not have bothered to visit again. I guess one is supposed to ask if the beef is

"good today" before ordering ;-), and if not, opt for something else.

You may be right. I might have read here that he was Korean, but don't think I asked him myself.

I btw usually went there for dinner, around 6-7 pm. Perhaps I was just lucky.

Pure speculation on my part, but last time I was there, in June, the Korean guy was still there, but not in the kitchen. The burger was sloppy made (but tasted fine), and the menu was also considerably reduced. He mentioned somebody else was cooking and that was why the menu was reduced to the simpler things.

I think this was not long after some lowlife here posted on whether there was any reason why he should not rat out the Korean to immigration for supposedly working without a work permit or something like that. Not that I ever saw him working there myself, of course.

And a mystery it will have to remain as you didn't hang around to find out.

One has to wonder why this forum attracts so many, for lack of a more polite word, idiots. The op saw something he thought was strange, described it in

detail, and asked if anyone else had seen it and knew what it was. Normal people would suggest some reasonable ideas as to what it might have been. Perhaps some had even seen the boy in action, feigning an injury outside a bar, in front of a car, or whatever. But not the CM forum.

asked if anyone else had seen it and knew what it was

Never asked either of those questions in OP. Might help if you read the OP before making, for lack of a more polite word, idiotic comments.

You mean even the title, "12 year-old scammer or just a clown?", was not enough for you to understand the op was asking for some feedback?

@Chiengmaijoe

You got as far as following him to where he stopped and then you have to guess what happened next. Why did you not stay and then be able to tell the rest of the story.

My guess is it's all BS.

Great guess. You're quite right, my real name is Walter Mitty. Where can we meet so you can collect your prize? While we are playing games, my guess is that you are a retired detective, right?

I didn't ask him what he was up to because I was intrigued to see what he was going to do next. He could see me watching but he still proceeded with his smearing the juice and giving an injured look. I was expecting him to try and scam customers coming out of 7-11 but as it was, he got on his bicycle and pedalled off. I got in my car to go home, and of course I could see him ahead of me, then he stopped on the pavement near Inter Bar and was obscured by a parked car. It was about 1am and hardly anyone about.

My guess is that he was up to no good so the point of my post is to see if anyone else has seen this kid or heard of something similar going on. I've never heard of anything like this in Chiang Mai. Another odd detail is that he had a cyclists fluorescent jacket on, and a spare one in his hand? The cordial juice was 42 baht and I'm not sure, but I don't think he took the rest of the bottle with him, but there was a fair amount spilt on the side of the road. So far, it's a mystery, that's all.

And a mystery it will have to remain as you didn't hang around to find out.

One has to wonder why this forum attracts so many, for lack of a more polite word, idiots. The op saw something he thought was strange, described it in

detail, and asked if anyone else had seen it and knew what it was. Normal people would suggest some reasonable ideas as to what it might have been. Perhaps some had even seen the boy in action, feigning an injury outside a bar, in front of a car, or whatever. But not the CM forum.

Happened to be at a place with an escalator today and found myself looking aound - saw one guy that seemed to be hanging around just watching - we were there 2 hours - saw him before and after.....kind of caught his eye and he moved.....

Can't say as I blame him for moving. If I had seen you watching me, having been there for two hours, and then you 'kind of caught my eye,' I would have figured you were some kind of hustler, that, or trying to pick me up! Either of which would have caused me to move out of your area PDQ! He probably thought that if you were hanging around the mall for two hours you were up to no good!

Wife and I were walking along hand in hand with our shopping carrying bags....not really looking like on patrol.....

Something just doesn't compute...

You managed to keep him in sight for two hours? He was standing still, and you were walking... What? Circles around him, or more of a back and forth pattern?

Yep... I'd feel pretty weirded out myself.

Especially if he has "that look".

Sounds great. Thanks for the tip.

2 or 3 patsies found then , no doubt hand picked by the owners etc

All this been rushed up due to 1 person spilling the beans, Sean McAnne, who in my opinion is telling the truth and is found out to be lying as at least got the casemoving

"who in my opinion is telling the truth and is found out to be lying"

???

Let me try to help. Replace the last "is" with "if". A one-letter typo. "if found out to be lying ...".

Currently at Rimping (at least the one at jj-market), 2for1, Swiss Frey 78% coco chocolate. Expires in two months though.

Looks like they have put up a large electric billboard on the North-East corner of the moat, showing pollution-related data (PM10 and others). Not sure where they get the data. It was showing 31 for PM10 as I passed by this morning, which does not seem to match "http://aqmthai.com/".

Sorry Worgeordie, but what are 'Tail end cuts'--are they just the tails, which I doubt anyone would want, or are they hard to sell cuts? Are they fillet pieces--again, I don't suppose so, at 33 Baht a hit.

P.S. RobertMueller--where is Chiang Mai Bakery Market, please?

Robert , the salmon tails in Makro are just that, salmon tails. Pensioners and poor people boil them up and make a stew out of them and freeze the leftovers for another day, and plenty of people buy them as a treat for the cat. They also sell packs of five or six good sized salmon steaks for about 500 baht, which is a fair bit cheaper than most stores and may well fall into your category of imported food bargains.

No the Salmon tail cuts are NOT tails,Joe, obviously has not seen them

they are big pieces of salmon from the tail end,all meat ,no waste.

regards Worgeordie

The cheap cuts have sometimes been in my periphery vision, but I don't pay too much attention to them because the prime cuts are such a bargain, more or less 100 baht a steak from the largest section of the fish.

Small Review

Touch Shape and Fitness Center info, prices, photos check it out

Nice review. Tells me enough to know it's not for me, but the opening hours do look nice.

Thanks for the suggestions. I've suggested he might have a look at Mountain Front, Convention Condo, Baan suan greenery hill, as well as Riverside.

If anyone has other places to suggest, please let me know. Thanks.

Not saying it doesn't exist, but I have never heard about any courses focusing on swimming and floating in deep water (except diving courses of course). I suspect the reason is that there is no difference between swimming and floating in a 2m deep pool or a 20m deep pool. Apart from the mental difference, which is real enough of course.

I had a brief stint at teaching swimming in my younger days, and in my experience what helps overcome that kind of fear is to simply learn how to swim better. If you have just recently learned basic swimming, it is only natural, and perhaps also wise, to be scared of depths. This fear will normally go away as you become more confident in swimming, and I am not sure there's much else one do to achieve that than to simply swim more. If you stay in a area with a swimming pool, it should be fairly easy to go swim every day. Once you've worked up to swimming e.g. a 1000m non-stop, I suspect the fear will have mostly gone away. If you've found a decent swimming instructor, have a session with him once a week so he can correct technique, and swim the other six days by yourself.

There are also various suplemental activities you can do. Like diving down to the bottom of the pool and touch the ground, sinking down to the bottom and just sitting there, diving down to the bottom and then swimming, nose just above the bottom, to the other side. Swimming, nose just above the bottom, to the other side, turning while still at the bottom, and swimming back (works better in a shorter pool. ;-)), still nose just above the bottom, etc.

A good friend of mine who does not use Internet so much is looking to buy a larger studio room (around 50 sqm or bigger), or possibly a one-bedroom apartment, and wants there to be a swimming pool and garden/green area on the premises.

He has his own transportation so is not so concerned with the location, and would actually prefer it to not be in the immediate vicinity of any big/heavily trafficed roads, which he also hopes might make the apartment less expensive, or of better quality than a similarly priced apartment on e.g. Nimman. road (make sense to me, but don't know if this is true or not).

If anybody knows of decent buildings that fit the above, I would greatly appreciate hearing about it.

Thanks.