when I left Los Angeles, I thought my days of work were behind me. i was wrong...
after midterm exams, I realized that I hadn't been keeping in touch with anyone from American Express Publishing. so I decided to send out an email to my bosses filling them in on my experiences from the past three months. then I heard back from one of my bosses Marion, who is the West Coast & Asia Pacific Advertising Director for DEPARTURES and Black Ink Magazine. Being the Asia Pacific Advertising Director, she makes annual trips to Asia to meet with advertisers in our magazines. Her trip includes Hong Kong; Shanghai, China; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Singapore and Bangkok. So she emailed me telling me that she was coming to Bangkok for three days as part of her Asia trip. She also gave me the opportunity to shadow her on her business meetings while in Bangkok. Part of my "shadowing" included staying at the Four Seasons with her - ya know, cuz that commute across town is sooooo brutal. I instantly jumped on the opportunity and started packing my bags.
DEPARTURES Magazine(Black Ink is too exclusive to be online - so I don't have a picture of it)
She filled me in before she came to Bangkok that a car was going to pick me up at my apartment and take me to our first meeting with Thailand Tourism. Now, the only car I've seen since I've been in Thailand has been a Toyota Corolla so I wasn't expecting much. But up rolled Luxury #1 to my apartment - a Mercedes Benz S-Class AMG. It was not only the nicest car I'd seen in Thailand, it was probably the nicest car I've ever been in. The driver took my bag and opened the door to the life of luxury. There was water and white wine waiting in the backseat for me and off I went to the first meeting. Our meetings with the Thai companies were very interesting. The Thai people were very nice, spoke excellent English and were very interested to learn about the magazine from an American perspective. On Friday, we met with Thailand Tourism and Thai Airways. After that, we returned to the Four Seasons and I checked into Luxury #2 for the weekend. I had a bit of rest in my room then I changed and went downstairs with Marion. We then sat and had wine and some specialties from the kitchen with the General Manager of the Four Seasons and his wife. They were very nice and very hospitable. They then treated Marion and I to dinner at Madison, the seafood restaurant at the Four Seasons. I had a delicious meal of Sea Bass. At dinner, Marion surprised me saying that she had planned a day of sightseeing for Saturday. I had thought that we had more business meetings, but no! She had organized a driver, tour guide, massages at the Peninsula Hotel then dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok. So I was really excited for Saturday. But after dinner, I started feeling sick - ended up getting a fever, headache and stomach pains. I didn't end up sleeping any that night and when I woke up in the morning, I was feeling worse.
The Mercedes S Class that picked me up
Four Seasons Bangkok
I checked out of the Four Seasons in the morning and ended up having the driver take me home and I spent the rest of the weekend in bed with the stomach flu. It sucked but I've had my go with the Thai illness now...
This past weekend I went to the jungle in Laos and it was three days from hell... that post is coming up...
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