bangkok in a nutshell

Bangkok from up above

After my three-day trip ended in Chiang Mai, we took another flight to Bangkok.

I'm currently staying at  a beautiful golf resort just 10 minutes away from the airport itself, which is extremely convenient.

My family friends happen to live two minutes away from this resort, so visiting each other and going places together is proving extremely convenient.

I am struggling to think of a way to summarize my adventures in Bangkok so far. I remember being ere when I was younger and thinking that the buildings were too tall for me to even see where it stopped.

It almost looked like it reached the heavens.

Having gotten some height in me, I can officially confirm that the buildings do not reach the sky, but in fact are very close. 

the view from my bedroom

The golf resort we're staying at is actually brand new, so our families are the only guests there.

I'm staying in a room with all the cousins, so of course housekeeping also cannot control the mess we create every day. The staff at the resort can't speak English all too well, and unfortunately the only Thai I know is "fat elephant", and casual greetings like Hello, Thank You, What's your number, Call me, Buy me a drink… Stuff like that ;)

pool <3

Going for midnight swims, and drives around the golf course has been a relaxing way to pass the time.

I'm avoiding sleep as much as possible because I want to lengthen my days here. So sleeping at 3AM, and getting up at 8AM was initially challenging, but after the first day, I started to forget about being tired because of this city's endless things to see and do. 

JJ Market is one of the most complicated markets I've ever been to. I don't think I visited before, so coming here was an entirely new experience for me.

For those of you that have watched Inception, I can assure you that this market has layers of mini markets within themselves too.

Unfortunately I didn't take too many photos in this market because many of the stores had a "NO CAMERA/NO PHOTO/YOU TAKE PHOTO YOU DIE" signs all over the place.

The photos that I did manage to take resulted from a stern telling off from the store keeper straight after. Which then prevented any bargaining that could get

I didn't want to face my death quite yet, so I refrained from doing so.

Also, I thought taking a photo of the "YOU TAKE PHOTO YOU DIE" sign would be really asking for it.

Thailand is a hot, hot HOT country, and being outside for longer than five minutes, you'd start to sweat.

I was in JJ Market for a total of five hours, and without sitting down for that long a time, my clothes were fully soaked.

It was quite disgusting, but hey, I got a free detox without the expensive sauna session. ^_^

You all should applaud my self control, because I hardly bought anything for myself other than a couple of T shirts and a CD.

Most people were shopping so much that they brought makeshift plastic luggage bags to store their purchased items in.  Back then, I'd not only have one  makeshift plastic luggage bag, I'd have three.

Going back to Sonboon, a seafood restaurant that is a family favourite ever since my dad started traveling for IBM, I'm glad to report the food has not changed at all.

The curry crab and mango sticky rice is still just as delicious and sinful, ladled with coconut creamy goodness.

I'm eating lesser in Thailand, because it is too hot and the heat decreases your appetite.

I prefer it this way, because feeling bloated is a horrible feeling.

It rates a 9 on my pain threshold scale. Nothing is as painful as numb legs or pins and needles though. I rather get a painful traditional Thai massage than have my blood circulation cut off in a limb.

On the day of Tuffee's birthday, we all went to a traditional Thai cultural show which happened to take place on the world's largest stage as declared by trusty Guinness World Book of Records.

This stage even had a pool that you could dive in. YOU COULD DIVE INTO THE STAGE! Not to mention that it even rained fire and ice- I'm not exaggerating, I promise.

The show was complete with goats, chickens, and elephants. I'm glad the animals only made a brief appearance and weren't made to do odd tricks for our entertainment.

As usual, I wasn't allowed to bring cameras into the show, but I managed to take a couple of shots with the performers after the show. 

We celebrated Tuffee's birthday after at the resort, complete with white chocolate macadamia cake and wine.

I wanted to take a romantic bubble bath post celebration, but there weren't any rose petals conveniently lying around the place.

Being the efficient Asian that I am, I decided to use the center-pieces in the living room instead.

Housekeeping must not have been too happy with the unwanted discovery of the misplaced deco the next morning. Kor  Thod Ka.

Apart from all the shopping and exploring of Bangkok city, I met up with a Thai friend I got to know from my exchange in Japan.

I haven't seen her in six months, and I'm so happy we kept in contact all this time.

Do not laugh at me, but of course we went to go take purikura.

How can you not? We met in Japan, it seemed only appropriate.

Inviting her to dinner so that I could do the official introductions was a bit awkward at first, especially because she spoke to me in Japanese most of the time. But after some really good sukiyaki and ice cream, everyone got to know each other better.

She's seeing me off at the airport when I return to Malaysia tomorrow night.

We've already planned when we're going to see each other next, when I come back here for another holiday ^_^

chang si chom poo un! (my pink elephant is fat)

I'm actually blogging from a car right now, as we're driving to a beautiful town called Rayong, located 250km out of Bangkok.
I can already see the beach, the chairs, the palm trees, and the typical southeast asian tropical huts.

I've taken a total of 500 photos from Bangkok alone- I wonder how many I can take from our little day-trip here.

All my love always,

April