They are put together beautifully! I was enjoying myself with the music with smiles and closed to tears while listening to the music. Now I wish they'll compile a CD of Jeremy Monteiro and Trio with T'ang Quartet. A mix of classical and jazz is an excellent combination! ;)
Time pass faster when you are enjoying yourself doing nothing except work. Woke up, had lunch, did housework and viola~! It's 5plus. Then next will be Matty's sms to say he's back from Australia. WELCOME BACK MATTY!!!!!!!!!!! Hopefully you'll get your 1 week rest! :D
I'm still addicted to Sporcle.. It was through this game that I realised how rusty my brain is and no matter how much I tried to add oil to it, it just do not wish to move. Sigh.
Okies, about my Bangkok Trip. I was quite hesitant about posting my pics for this trip coz I looked really damn fat lor. Time to slim down le.. E-X-E-R-C-I-S-E!! But I'll just post them anyways. Maybe people like chubby girls? heh. It was ALOT (and I really mean it) of shopping! Imagine this, out of my 4D3N trip to BKK, 3 days were spent on day AND night shopping, 1 for visual tour only.. OMG. I mean, I do not even shop that much for my CNY clothes!!! Told Matty about it, he said .. hmm, something like, that's BKK. I wanna see traditional Thai dance, I wanna visit the temples, I wanna visit the palaces! Maybe not enough time? Sigh.
We took the really early morning flight (7.45am?) from Changi Airport Terminal 1. Saw a bunch of really energetic teenagers who were really quiet (nope, its the opposite actually). Board the plane and I got the karma for laughing at CW and Eileen (was laughing at them, that skalli the kids were sitting behind/beside/surrounding them) and I was sitting 2nd row behind the kiddos. The only time they were ever quiet was after the plane took off. Sigh. Somehow, the airport, runway, everything! reminded me of my Japan trip. I really missed the place so much that I did some research on taking Japanese course there - will touch on that later.
Plane touched down at BKK's airport, energizer rabbits (those kids) were up, moving about from 1 row to another, from their seats to another too, chattering non-stop, etc. I wonder how they get that much energy man. Oh, maybe it's just me, I'm a grouchy person during morning time. The weather that greeted us were.. HOT HOT and HOT!
For start, we took a subway instead of cab, to experience how their railway system is like. It's very similar to what we have over here in Sin - MRT, only it's not that technologically advanced yet I supposed. They have two types of railway system. One was called BTS aka Skytrain, the other was underground. Not too sure what was it called, so I'm gonna name it as subway.
The card that BTS uses reminded me of the transitlink card we used to use when I was still in primary school? As for the subway, they uses a black coin where you just tap it like our current ezlink card. Very unique indeed. Train station is pretty easy to understand and straightforward, without much exit points or different lines that you gotta take note of when taking the train from point A to point B.
BTS' card - Front
Back
Went to Chatuchak (the weekend market) to see look. It was very crowded, VERY VERY big. Quite an eye-opener for me, but I guess the heat just made me lost the mood to shop. Headed over to Platinum Mall for shopping. 5 storeys of fashion stores, shop till you drop! We'd only managed to finish 5th & 4th level of the mall before meeting Yang Lifang and her husband, her twin sister & boyfriend. Oh well, I'm not going into too much details now eh? I can't help stiffing a yawn while typing the itinery out even if you do not mind reading it!
Fast forwarding to.... Evening time!! Oh wait! Did I mention that we booked an Apart~Hotel? It's Citadines Sol 23, one of Ascott properties = owned by our fellow SINGAPOREAN!! It's dirt cheap ($83 per night inclusive of tax) and is BIGGER than hotels! I did not take any pictures of my room, coz.. I'm lazy? heh. However, you can take a look at the floor plan from their website. I love that place alot! Only thing you'll have to take note is the breakfast. Unlike normal hotels where they serve quite a variety of food, there only has like, 2 choices of cereals, 2 juices, coffee / tea, some cakes and bread. Pretty simple BUT in BKK, where there's LOTSA food, who'll eat that much in the hotel? That's only just to fill your stomach by that little bit if you are going on an hour long journey, otherwise, wherever you go, you'll see food, food and MORE FOODs!!!!
Right, back to fast forward.. Clifton and I went to meet up with his friend & her partner where they brought us to this Japanese restaurant. It looked so.. authentic that you'll feel like you are in Japan if you do not remind yourself constantly that you are in BKK.
The counter contain some vintage toys, candies, cigarettes.
After the brief meeting, we rushed down to Chinatown (where little boy was really excited coz he visited BKK more times than me but never enter Chinatown before) to meet up with the rest.
Apparently, this place was very well-knowned for its Shark's Fin soup as well as Bird's Nest soup. I ordered Bird's Nest only (200Baht. It ranged from 100BT~400BT) and just see how thick it was.
Dinner at a Chinese restaurant. It was really funny with Kelly being the butt of the joke and there's no point putting it in detail as it'll not be funny. Poor ah leow, he's gonna get an earful from Eileen for recommending such lousy restaurant to us.
My 1st night market.
We decided to have an early night as CW had booked a day tour on our 2nd day. List of event on that day:
- 1hr 30mins ride to outskirts of BKK. We decided to enroute to an Elephant Village before going for the floating market, have to pay extra 200B? to ride on the elephant. All for experience. :D
It was fun and scary at times. AND now I know how rough the elephant skin feels!
I bought an elephant from him costing me only 200~300B, mainly is because he's very friendly. He impressed me alot, by how faithful and cute his real elephant was (his elephant actually went after him as the 'driver' climbed down just to help us take pictures), how he tried to strike a conversation with us and he was excited that Clifton can converse a little in Thai and also how comfortable he was while sitting on his elephant.
- Headed for the floating market where we took a so-called speed boat to tour the water area first.
- Changed to the paddle boat in order to visit the floating market (to go slow) by paying additional 150B. There, the vendors were selling all kinds of stuffs from fruits to coconut drinks, cooked food, salted fish, "fresh" meat, souvenirs, straw hats, etc.
- Went over to Elephant Ground & Zoo. Eileen and CW took pictures with the tigers (very big lor! They were almost their height if standing up). Clifton don't dare to take the risk and so we didn't take any.
While walking over for the crocodile show first, the walkway reminded me of Nara, Japan. If you'd been there, you'll know what I mean. Stepping on shits, which are unavoidable!!
We watched the magic show too. At first, I thought the magic show was gonna be some lame bluff-kids type of show. However, my whole impression changed when they'd finished performing. They were good! I guess stage prescence, presentation. dresswear as well as locaton plays a part eh?
- The tour guide brought us to a gem as well as to a handicraft factory to take a look. I ended up buying a pair of earrings (which is still sleeping in my bag, not taken out yet). Partly was because the salesperson who attended to us was really patient (she may know we have no intention of buying however she stayed on and explain everything to us and had smiles all the way, perserverence plays a part eh?) and I quite like the blue colour gem. :)
The driver dropped us at CentralWorld where we had steamboat @ MK Gold. Clifton didn't realise that his discount card had expired. Food was good, soup was nice. :)
My first Thai traditional massage! It lasted for 1hr 45min, the masseuse liked me alot, because I was smiling all the way and laughs alot too. Haha. I was very excited because it was my 1st massage in BKK and also I was having massage with so many people = FUN! hahaha. So when we were leaving, my masseuse gave me a hug. xD
However I caught fever that night itself. First thought was.. well, the flu issue as there was a couple of 'oreo cookie without the sugar in between' cough without covering their mouth in the van while we were on the way back to the city. Then I realised that it was because of the heat pattern. Sun/Heat, AC/Cold, heat, cold, heat, cold. Had panadol and rested till the 3rd day noon, viola~! Am well again however the panadol may be too strong (bought in BKK), I was feeling pretty heavy for the whole day. Met up with CW and Eileen at .... hur hur, you don't find this restaurant in SIN anymore.. A&W!!
See the meal so cute, especially the rice. It's for little kids to eat de.
Met up with Clifton's other group of friends - Nalini and her husband, her brother and sister, K. Sian was because I was still feeling the effects of the medication as well as my stomach wasn't feeling too well from that steamboat meal. SHIOK was because we gotten FREE dinner meal, FREE thai dessert (ate the famous mango with glutinuous rice for the first time. It's nice though a tad too sweet for my liking except for the mango, heh), FREE skytrain ride top-up and FREE ride home in a luxury car (imagine lah, luxury car comparable to benz but more expensive in BKK!). How SHIOK is that?!?!?!?!!! They are very friendly and have alot of stories to listen to. hahah. Went home and had an early rest again to prepare for the last day.
On the last day, we tour around Siam area and MBK. With nothing much to do on hand, we went for an hour massage. I tried the aromatherapy body massage. Almost had a shock and kinda regretted taking that up. Should stick to traditional thai massage or just facial as it's a naked afffair. Ha. So paiseh lor.
Took a cab over to the airport, heavy jam, made me damn pissed off. Think my whole face were superly black. Starting was because that cab driver was a mosquito breeder! The moment we entered the cab, a whole lot of mosquitoes flew around! How horrifying was that? Ya, we lowered the windows using the reason of wanting some 'fresh' air.
So.... things that I realised were totally wrong of what friends told me about BKK.
1. Air was so dirty that you'll need to wipe yourself with wet tissue and it'll be black. (So far, I felt the air was ok, similar with the bz streets you can find anywhere. Didn't use the baby wipes at all. Waste money buying. But you may want to get a pack just to wipe the sweat away and to keep your skin feeling refresh for a while.)
2. Weather was extremely hot. EXTREMELY. (I felt it was the same as with SIN's weather lor. No diff and it wasn't as hot as they made it out to be.)
3. Plenty of pickpockets! (Well, ya, everywhere sure have pickpockets what but so far, havent encounter one yet.)
4. They are so polite to one another that they WILL NOT honk at one another, hence the reason why there's always traffic jam. (WRONG! They DO honk!)
Things I like about BKK?
- The superly nice sales staffs. (they are like the ones in Japan, all smiles, with greetings, very nice.)
- Nice clothes.
- CHEAP!
- Lotsa pretty girls and good looking guys!
Things that I HATE about BKK.
- Why have so little carriage when the demand is more?
- As usual, they don't really Q (some do though but its common to have some black sheeps eh?).
- HATE the traffic! Its always JAMMING 24/7! Car cut Q, Drive into the other lane where it's meant for the opposite traffic, alot of cars coming out from all junctions. Red light lasts for at least 3 minutes, green light slightly more than 1min only. Best mean of transport is by train.
Sorry to BKK lovers, I still prefer Japan. :P
Will I ever visit BKK again? Yes, however, I'll not dedicate so much time on shopping. 1~2 days of shopping is fine with me, I wanna do some sightseeing too!!! And it's quite sad to see those children on the street, begging for money instead of going to school. They will sit out on the pavements (and worse if it's heavy traffic, all the smoke around the air that they are breathing) with cans, sleeping on the floor when tired. I mean, they are so small and skinny, if people do not watch their steps, they'll accidentally step on them. Very pitiful. Very ming ku. Very sad, for them.
Okay, it's 4:53am now, time for bed.
Oh right, about the Japanese studies. I'd checked out the web and found a summer course that lasted for 11weeks. Total course plus accomodation = 20k SGD. Time to sell my butt le. Lol.
