The Pattaya City Expats Club (PCEC) had two presenters at their Sunday, September 3, meeting. First, the guests had their gastric juices flowing with a mouthwatering presentation by Chef Ewan MacGlashan, owner of “BBQ Prime Time, Soi 9”. He spoke about his career as a chef and “Sanook Park” where his business is located. Then PCEC’s own Dr. Ren Lexander talked about “The End of the Age of Books and the rise of online learning”.
Chef Ewan MacGlashan opened the meeting by introducing a 120-seat, alfresco-style dining facility called “BBQ Prime Time on 9”. The restaurant is located in an entertainment complex being renamed “Sanook Park”. The complex is located on Thepprasit Road Soi 9, south from Thepprasit Road, between Sukhumvit and Thappraya Road junctions. While traveling down Thepprasit, look for the big blue “Go Kart – Pattaya Kart Speedway” sign and pass under the blue, “Pattaya Kart” sign that stretches over the Soi 9 entrance. The restaurant is about 200 meters past the sign.
Ewan, born in Australia to Scottish parents, returned to Scotland in 1978 where he grew up on a farm in the north highlands. He attended Inverness College and trained as a chef, then went on to work in many high-end restaurants. When he was just 19, he traveled the world, working in various locations, including a stint on Hamilton Island, Queensland, Australia. He expanded his adventures by skiing for nine seasons in all corners of the world and by spending the summer months making sailing boat deliveries after race weeks.
He then worked as a chef on private super-yachts. Ewan talked about getting off a yacht in the USA, making his way to Central America and starting a restaurant on the small island of Bastimentos located in the Panamanian Bocas del Toro District Archipelago; taking it to the number one restaurant in Panama, according to Trip Adviser.
He says he quickly got bored, sold everything and went back to traveling on the yachts, which took him to 91 countries. He showed many slides of his travels around the world, starting in Antibes, one of the four hubs for super yachts. Antibes is a Mediterranean resort in the southeastern Alps of France. It is known for its old town, enclosed by 16th-century ramparts, overlooking luxury yachts moored at the Port Vauban marina.
Other favorite destinations include: Port de Plaisance de Bonifacio, Corsica, a mountainous Mediterranean island; Stromboli, a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the north coast of Sicily, which contains one of the three active volcanoes in Italy; Montenegro, in Southeastern Europe; Cavtat, the most southern town in Croatia, and is part of the Dubrovnik Riviera.
Ewan talked about Corinth, Greece and the Corinth Canal, which separates the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. The builders dug the canal through the Isthmus at sea level, therefore no locks are employed. Ewan made it to Galapagos, located in the eastern Pacific Ocean, 973 km (605 mi) off the west coast of South America and a part of Ecuador. One of his final adventures included a voyage through the Northwest Passage, a sea route to the Pacific Ocean, through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America, via waterways, through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Throughout his worldwide adventures, he did visit Thailand several times.
He met a Thai lady and has a son named Tobian (named after a small island in Paleo in the South Pacific islands north of Papua New Guinea). He now lives here full time and worked as a chef at the “Oscar Restaurant” in Jomtien. Then he opened “Bite Me Bistro” on Third Road, then moved to the “Blue Olive”. He raised enough funds to start “BBQ Prime Time on 9” and celebrated with an opening party on 12 February 2017.
The venue is based on the Australian open BBQ system and has gone through a multitude of improvements and alterations since opening. There is a separate bar, a newly built kitchen with a barbecue range and smoker. “Sanook Park” sits on 37 rai of land which features the restaurant, a pond surrounded by colourful flowers and plants, play area for children, a 6-meter square projection screen, and a garden area for those who want some seclusion. This is in addition to the Bungee Jump, Human Sling Shot, and Air Soft (similar to paintball) that currently makes up the rest of the park. He invites everyone to stop by and enjoy some good food and entertainment.
Next up was club member Dr. Ren Lexander talking about “The End of the Age of Books and the Rise of Online Learning,” which was about the opportunities for non-print learning and for online teaching. Ren notes that for a brief blip of time, most learning was done via printed books. But now, with the rise of the world wide web, digital video and audio, humanity is returning to a more traditional way of learning: watching and listening.
Ren, as he prefers to be called, is an internationally published author, now putting together his first suite of Udemy courses on “Trust”. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy of science and is experienced in experiential psychology. The target audience for his courses are everyone who want to have better ongoing relationships, personal and business. The first course is free and teaches the central aims of communicating in a way which builds great ongoing relationships. He talks about steps for dealing with upset people, asking for what you want, ways to spot a con-artist, ways to charm/engage someone at a first meeting and how to turn around a toxic relationship.
After the presentation, MC Roy Albiston brought everyone up to date on upcoming events. This was followed by the “Open Forum” portion of the meeting, where questions are asked and answered and comments made about expat living in Thailand. For more information on the Club and their activities, visit www.pcec.club.
