Yesterday 6:00pm I attended to the launch party for my customer here in Bangkok. The first phase of my project has come to a successful end and we were all celebrating. There was an inauguration ceremony with guests from all over the world and I was very happy to be part of it. Some sort of pride for knowing I had my share of contribution to this success. Despite problems we had (not too many, if compared to other projects) we managed to finish on time.

After the formal celebration with the customer and its board of directors and top level employees, my team and I went for a celebration of our own. Nothing fancy. We went for dinner in a restaurant not too far from my hotel, an interesting place that I had visited before. I do not know the name of the restaurant and refer to it as “the flower place”. Whenever I mention it, my colleagues know what I men. It’s patronized mostly by locals (Thai customers) and they have a band playing live. The food is good and not expensive (since it’s not quite a place foreigners go). As the band plays, some girls, working for the restaurant, go up the stage and sing. If you like them, you can ask the waiters to give them flowers and if they like you, they might come and sit with you for a chat. Do not get me wrong, it’s quite a decent place and people go with their families and kids alike. The girls do not “go out” with customers and the place doesn’t condone with any hanky panky. Of course, as in any other place or restaurant, if you are nice and polite talking to the employees and if you manage to get the girl’s attention, they might give you their phone number. But you have to exercise your charms for that to happen because they are not really “working girls”.

So, I was there having dinner and sort of hoping I would see Ann, this beautiful girl I met there before. One of the waiters told me she would not be coming early that night, unfortunately. I was a bit disappointed because Ann is not only very pretty, she’s also fun to be with and good to talk to, even with her limited vocabulary in English. She is cute when trying to explain things, looking for the right words. Too bad she wasn’t there; there was nothing I could do. But then, as we were about to finish our meal, someone called my attention to this gorgeous girl on the stage. I do not remember seeing her there before, but I am hardly a Habitué. She was drop dead gorgeous. And I really though Ann was the prettiest girl working there. I wasn’t really interested but the guys kept making comments about her looks so I told the waiter to give her some flowers. I thought, since the guys were making such enthusiastic comments, they would probably like to exchange a few words with her, but when she came to sit with us, everyone was silent and she probably began to feel a bit awkward, poor thing. I tried to put the guys into ‘talking mode’ but they got shy all of the sudden.

Well, before the situation became too embarrassing I changed places with a friend and started to chat with her; Basic stuff like name, age and other small things, as her English wasn’t really very good. In the end, I guess she was happy someone was trying to have a conversation with her and I got really lucky! I mentioned I was trying to learn Thai (and she started to test my vocabulary pointing things for me to name – too funny) and offered to teach her English in exchange for Thai lessons. With that, I got a date!!! We are going to meet later today. I am not really sure what we are going to do but we’ll be at the shopping mall so we’ll probably just walk around, window shopping, then sit down somewhere and talk. I am really excited about it because she is very - but VERY - beautiful. Let’s see how it goes.