G.I.E.N 2005 - Siam City Hotel, Bangkok

It was 4 days of encouragement, knowledge, insight and fun for me from wednesday evening till today. I took a trip down to Bangkok to meet up with Sean, Faith, Jeffrey and Johnny for the G.I.E.N. meetings.

So, in a nutshell, what's G.I.E.N.? Okay... i'm a little lazy now... from now on, it'll be simply "GIEN" without all the periods. GIEN is basically a "Global Internet Evangelism" forum where adventist administrators from all over the world meet to discuss about how we can use the internet as a medium to reach out to others.

The whole series of meetings were pod-casted and i must say... im thinking of getting me an iPOD to bring those tunes i want to hear around with me in a smaller package (im using an mp3 discman at the moment).



One thing i noticed was that the administrators who were giving their 'lectures' didn't know how to put techie terms into layman's terms for the non-techie people in the crowd. I also learnt that Germans are all the same... (ok, im not being racist or making this a stereotype) Im gonna use this analogy as I'm a theology student - German theologians speak and teach and write and no one understands a thing they are saying. At the forums, we had two German guys presenting... and I didn't understand a thing they were saying (well... not really, but I know there were heaps who didnt!) Everything was so 'cheeem' (an expression of being really 'deep' or 'over the head') with words, diagrams and other weird stuff no one with a PHD would be able to really understand and appreciate! *should i work on my PHD or issit just the Germans? Hmmmm

I thoroughly enjoyed the bed that i slept on - got to thank pastor Johnny for giving up his single room to a double room so that i could attend the forum - and also for pulling me into the singapore contingent too :) The hotel, Siam City Hotel is a 5 Star hotel - it's the first time i've stayed at a hotel like this... 5 full stars. WAH! Very very nice! heehee~ The spread for breakfast and lunch was excellent each day and i don't mind having that kinda food every morning! Woohoo! Talk about scrumptous! Lets see... i had 2 bowls of cereal, wholemeal bread, french-toast, pineapple, egg ommelette, great friends around to chat and discuss stuff with. Man... if this was good, i can't wait for heaven. Okay, back to the topic - So, the food was great, the bed was great... so was the swimming pool! OMG!! So nice! I'll try get a picture of the pool up soon, or find Faith's flickr site and point you guys there.



When we checked into the Siam City Hotel, we met Mark Finley and whee! We took a picture - he's tall...

Retail therapy was the highlight of the trip i think... on wednesday evening when i reached BKK to meet up with the three peepz (johnny arrived on thursday afternoon), we went to MBK and shopped till we dropped... well, i was already tired so i dropped. haha~ man... i think im so confused... my mind is going in one big circle! I shall post again sometime. I'm so tired now too...

My bao bei back home in Singapore's thinking of me and I'm thinking of her too :) i'll see u soon k? I've got some stuff for u!

signing out~