As promised, here are photos of The Place, a nine-story building that houses a gym on the eighth, seventh and sixth floors. In addition to a cool gym, The Place also boasts one of the best views of the Independence Monument on Sihanouk Blvd. — the tall monument that you see in the background of photos two and three — that I’ve seen in Phnom Penh. If you work out during the day, you can see the tuktuks, SUVs, motos and bike riders negotiating traffic below. At night, you can see the monument lit up in lights and hear the honking of horns.

If gorgeous views aren’t your thing, you can hang out in the Internet cafe on the sixth floor, check your email on some nice desktop Macs, and order a juice or coffee drink, or hang out in the lobby on the eighth floor and watch Cartoon Network on the flatscreen televisions nested in the ceiling.

Apparently, the building is somewhat exclusive, as the gym is the one of choice for some of the wealthier folks here. A two-month membership was fairly affordable, but check out the warnings posted next to the elevator. You can’t bring your gun, your bodyguard, boxer briefs or your Doberman. Fancy.

I also noticed that you can’t bring a camera. Whoops.

Photo: Julie Anne Ines / Flickr

After a three-hour Contracts final, I am officially done with my first year of law school! Wooohooo! Feeling good does not even begin to describe it!

I hope this isn’t the beginning of a trend, but for finals last semester and for finals this semester Undergrad Neighbor has done something unintentionally, yet incredibly annoying. Last semester, the day before my Torts final, it was inviting his douchey, possibly hipster friends to talk about Picasso, smoke douchey herbal cigarettes, and scream like Howard Dean while running into walls.

What could possibly be worse than that?

One word, nerds: Drums. And not just any drum kit, mind you. From what I gather, Undergrad Neighbor has either borrowed or has recently purchased a digital drum kit, which means that there is one drum set with a million preset kits on it. And he’s going through every single one of them.

Every. Single. One.

Frak.

Now, I wouldn’t mind if he had drum skills so crazy mad that he could play the dress and undies off a feminist groupie, but that is not the case, my friends. All I’ve been hearing for the past hour or so is “bass, bass, bass, bass-snare … high hat!” tried with all the different kits that came with the drums.

To grasp my level of annoyed, think Rock Band on the easy setting played by a rhythmically challenged kitty cat, minus any potential cute factor. “But kitty cats have no hands, much less the manual dexterity afforded by thumbs!” you say.

Uh-huh.

Puppies, kittens, unicorns and rainbows.

I’ve just returned from learning about and being immunized against all the nasties that could possibly hitch a ride on my insides during my trip to Cambodia, and, to be honest, for some reason it made me feel a bit like a super finicky, overly squeamish, ugly American.

I mean, as a child, when I visited the Philippine provinces – the place where my folks grew up and where I was born – my parents threw caution to the wind, didn’t get shots, and allowed me and my brothers to chase after chickens, pet the local wildlife, brush our teeth with the water from a water pump, wear shorts, tank tops and chinelas (flip-flops), and order food from the street vendors. The most we returned home with were several mosquito bites, super dark tans, and fairy stories about the little, brown, bearded men who lived in the hill in front of my uncle’s old house.

No puking. No chills. No sweats. No crazy runs. Definitely none of the horrors described in the literature given to me by the vaccination company, which specializes in travel immunizations.

Got Hepatitis A? Get ready to have flu-like symptoms, jaundice and the runs. Got typhoid? Get ready for high fever, stomach pains, and, you guessed it, the runs. Got polio? Get ready for nothing, cause you ain’t moving after you get that ish. For good measure, whatever god you believe in will probably also throw in the runs and a bite from a rabid, ankle-biting raccoon or monkey because you were dumb enough to forgo immunizations before traveling abroad,

Yeah. Sounds unpleasant. But, to quote Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”, how could a world that makes such wonderful things be bad? Just look at that glorious photo!

But, as they say, better safe than sorry.

Photo: tylerdurden1 / Flickr