2 Kids 1 City

Krungtep. That's Thai for "Bangkok." Did you know that Bangkok won the Guinness record for having the world's longest name for a capital? "Krungtep" is actually the shortened version of the very long name given to it - which takes a song for every Thai student to memorize. The beginning of the name, translated into English from Thai, means: "City of Angels."

Anyway, this Thai City of Angels sure was fun to visit alongside a true Bangkok resident, former exchange student and friend, Got. He lives in a condo/apartment thing barely 150 metes from the Thong Lo station for the BTS [Sky train], which takes you everywhere you want to go... in the more modern parts of Bangkok.

I arrived to Suvarnabhumi [pronounced Soo-wahn-uh-boom-ee] Airport on the 12th with a minor delay and a phone call from Got asking if I landed yet. After collecting my bags [which took 20 or 30 minutes to get from the airplane to the baggage claim], we piled into the car, I met his father, and we drove a little ways to the downtown-side of Bangkok [more modern areas, a little more populated]. I dropped my bags off in his house, re-situated my purse and was ready to go see my first sights of Bangkok. We hit the night market that wasn't far from his house at all. It was pretty spacious, really cool. It reminded me of the night markets in Chiang Mai, but minus few shops. By the time we were done there, we were both tired and we planned on getting up early the next day, so we decided to "hit the hay."

Woke about 7:30 AM the next day, worked out plans with Got about what we were going to do.

We hopped onto a sky train and rode over to the stop we would get off to go to Japan Town, or "J Avenue."
But we couldn't find J Avenue. We walked a few hundred meters, stopped at a Starbucks [dying of thirst and needed air conditioning oh-so-badly], and started walking again. We passed the Playground, then found out we already passed J Avenue. We went to the Playground [which was supposed to be a huge building filled with all sorts of vendors], only to find out all of the vendors moved to the mall. We walked a wee bit further and found the sign for J Avenue, but we didn't know which way to go. We obviously went the wrong way and got lost for about half an hour. On the bright side, though, we found out where the Residence of the Ambassador of Argentina is!

We finally found J Avenue, but it wasn't as lived up as I believed it to be. They didn't even have ramune [a special Japanese drink that's really yummy], but we got exercise!
We took a taxi to the sky train and took that to a stop where we found a restaurant with an odd name. We took pictures and looked around, then hopped back onto the sky train and went home.

After a quick clean-up, we headed over to the Siam Center, a huge, 8-story mall with a miniature Sea World [actually called Ocean World or something] in the basement. We ate there and went over to Hard Rock Cafe, which wasn't far from the mall at all. We had some delicious, fresh-baked apple cobbler there [along with me getting a Schwepp's Ginger Ale for me and Sprite for Got], and took several pictures. They have the same glass windows with Elvis on them as the other Hard Rock Cafes I've been too. Thought that was pretty cool - I wonder if they all do? I got a pin for my blazer, and we went back home for that day. We were pooped.

We woke earlier again the next day, and Got showed me his huge high school, which I think looked more like a college. They even had a church, separate from the school, but on the campus.
Then I had my first ever REAL tuk tuk ride, on the way to the docks to go to Wat Phra Kaeo, or better known by foreigners as "The Temple with the Emerald Buddha." It costs nothing for Thai people, but 350 Baht for foreigners. Had I worn my school uniform, however, I would have gotten in for free as well. Too bad no one told me this earlier. Oh well. It was still pretty. :)

After checking out the Emerald Buddha, we headed over to the Giant Swing, or in Thai: "Sao Shing Shaa." Headed over to the docks, went back to Got's school and visited the church there. Went back home, cleaned up, and got ready to go watch a movie at MBK!
I've never seen a movie in a movie theater [in Thailand]. I've always heard they're really cool looking, really nice. I finally got to experience it, and it came with magnets when you purchase a movie ticket! We saw Step Up II, which wasn't so horrible [save for the lame ending], but I got a cool Sweeney Todd and Enchanted magnet.
Right when we were about to buy sky train tickets and go back home to eat mama and sleep, we walked past a little "pocket" in a sidewalk, where a few Thai Hip-Hop fans showed off their break dancing and other moves for anyone who would stop and watch. They weren't all that bad, and the cops seemed to enjoy it, too.

The next day we woke up around 5 AM for a family trip outside of Bangkok, to the Floating Market.
Its name under describes it. We hopped into a boat in one of the canals. It apparently led to the Mekong River, too, if we wanted to go there, but we headed to the center of attention, the markets. This place wasn't just a floating market. No, this place was a floating city. It had the same structures as a little countryside in Udon would have, including a walkway that goes up and over the traffic [boats, in this case].
After sight-shopping a little, we headed over to a Thai-Noodles "restaurant," where they prepared our meals in a boat and handed it over to us in our boat. After putting our fixings [such as chili powder, sugar, peanuts, etc.] in our bowls, we returned the fixings to the owner and headed off to the temple while eating our noodles. They were really tasty. Too bad the driver wasn't going slow so I didn't spill! I used my awesome balancing skills and managed not to drop anything, amazingly, gulped it all down when it finally clicked with the boat driver that we were eating [he slowed down], and he sped up.
We fed the fish after checking out the wat, then headed back the way we came, got out, and drove over to a restaurant. We picked out a table and ordered some food, then got treats and walked barely 50 meters o a little spot, where the waiter/helper guy whistled for the monkeys to come, so we could feed them. They happily scampered over for food, and when we were done, we ate and drove home.

After eating lunch, Got and I walked over to the subway and took that over to JJ Market, which turned out to be extremely humid [made you sweat within 10 minutes of being there, even though you may not feel all that hot], and super-crowded with shops and a bajillion people. We looked around and did some miniature shopping, then went back home, showered and went to eat supper with Got's Grandparents. They were really cool people, and his grandfather talked me into eating 2 small green chilies. Not those 3 inch ones, but the centimeter-long ones. You'd think because they're littler that they'd be more mild, but no. The little ones are actually worse than the big ones, and I just consumed two of them. Now my tongue hurts and the sop is out of fruit [helps tame the spicy], so I had to wait it out. Whoops.

The next day was the last full day, in which Got had to take care of a few school things, so I took this time to sleep in; I felt I needed it. I proceeded to do a quick check on E-Mail, and watched a little anime [cartoons] online. Got returned home, and we headed over to MBK to do some eating at Pizza Hut, - yes, we ordered REAL PIZZA HUT PAN PIZZA! Woo! Played some arcade games including a couple racing ones, Guitar Hero, and a shooting-up-zombies game. We checked out what little shops were left open, then grabbed some ice cream from KFC then went home to watch a couple DVDs.
First in the player was Big Momma's House 2, then after that - Sky High. I don't care what people think about the second movie; it wasn't that horrible... it was just a little weird.
When I was turning off the TV and everything [every one's gone to bed already], I found a "secret channel" on the TV... it turned out to be a security cam to the lobby of the apartment complex. Weird.
Shower, bed.

Woke around 8:30 the next morning, went over to A&W at a mall nearby with Got, then shopped around. Found a cute little book store, but didn't get anything. I found a DVD stand, and managed to snatch up "The Fifth Element" in the bin marked for clearance. Almost got the Live in Bucharest Michael Jackson DVD, too, but decided against it [for now!].

Got's mom drove us over to the airport and we got stuck in a traffic jam... Check in was supposed to be from 2:00 to 3:30, but I finally was able to speak with the people [after waiting in line, too] and checked in at 3:32. I guess because there were a lot of people still in line, it was okay. My bags were one kilogram over the allowed [free] 15 kilos, which I believed to be a rip-off compared to when I came to Thailand in the first place [more weight allowance], but I took out my shoes [2 pairs] and stuffed them in my carry-on bag. Good thing I made a back-up plan ahead of time. I weighed the suitcase before leaving, but I guess the scale was off. No big deal.

I would have hugged my friend good-bye, but hugging someone of the opposite sex when you're straight is a big Thai no-no, anywhere you are, so we said our good-bye's and had wished me good luck.

Hopefully he'll be able to come visit me in Udon sometime.

If not, I know we'll see each other back in America.

Signing off.

Moni

P.S. - In 2 days I leave for Korat to hop on [yet] a[nother] double-decker charter bus to spend the night tripping over towards the South of Thailand. Don't expect many updates until next month, even. I won't have access to computer until then, anyway. :)

P.S.S. - Bangkok pictures link!
http://picasaweb.google.com/gecko.on.the.wall/Krungtep

Nakhon Phanom

As I am writing this [draft], I am sitting between a person who's trying to sleep and a host mother who's pointing out that a piece of food somehow managed to lodge itself under my nose. How it got there, no one knows...

We're on our way back home from Nakhon Phanom, where we had a Rotary Conference for all inbounds and outbounds. We already stopped at a small market for all of 5 minutes and "Underwater World," which was actually closed, but we got to visit the place for free and alone anyway, mainly because "we knew a guy."

The conference was unfortunately not as insane as the Grand Rapids trip [which I will be returning to!], but it had its perks. I thought it was going to be a long weekend when I walked into the home-room with my friend Michelle, aka "Nam Fone," only to be silenced by weird signs with badly drawn lips and fingers with a line crossed through the entire picture. Double negative sign that's supposed to mean "Shush up," but rather picture-translated into "No fingers allowed between your lip outlines and your lips themselves."

The conference wasn't actually interactive at all, and even the Thai outbounders weren't enjoying the hour upon hour upon hour-long lectures [mainly in Thai] to the entire visiting Rotarians from other countries, outbounders and inbounders. Every now and then my friends and I snuck out of the lecture hall and just went roaming around the huge hotel, found a 7-11 and went to my hotel [about a Monmouth-block's walk away].

Oh, the evil little hotel I stayed at... Power went out when my friend and I went to my room to collect some more pins for trading. We thought it was just my room, but when we went to the elevator, the lights were off and we had to walk down the stairs. Thankfully we were on dark-and-creepy floor 5 instead of mass-mudering floor 13, or even floor 21 [as we were in Chiang Mai]. Yes, it was dark and creepy. The halls were dimly lit, even at night, and when you walked down them, there seemed to be a strange dark abyss at the end of the hall. Thankfully my room wasn't that far down the hall.

My "creepy" hotel also had a karaoke place, but that was full up, so Nam Fone and I went to do karaoke in the bar room, which was part of the hotel. We ordered some french fries [had to order something to do karaoke] and I got a Watermelon shake, she got some Sprite. We did this with older Rotarians until 1 AM. ...good times.

On the second day [after the first night spent], at about 1 or 2, I followed the Ubon kids [with Nam Fone] to a van. They all piled in and I decided to go along with, because I didn't want to sit and listen to lectures all alone. We all rode over to "Miracle Hair," a salon for them to get their hair and make-up done for the dances they were to perform that night. I watched them all get ready, then one of the hairdresses [who doesn't do make-up] was getting bored, so she offered to style my hair for free. I quickly pulled everything out of my hair, as my hair was looking off-kilter by now. She put it into a braid that started from behind my left ear and ended near my right ear, then straightened the back. It looked pretty fun. We took pictures, they gave us some cool shell keychains [I gave them some buttons I made] and left back to the hotel.

While we were waiting for them to get their hair and make-up done, though, we were rather bored, so Nam Fone and I went to look around Ubon. I found a 5-ft wide "crack" in the big metal door of a building, and saw some military uniforms hung up. I decided I wanted to go in and look. There were no windows to this store, just imagine a giant garage door on it's side, and only open part way. We walked in and looked at the cool uniforms, then turned around to find a glass case with official pins and patches, shoulder things and such for military/army uniforms. Guess what else? They were super cheap, especially compared to the patches that the Rotary shops were selling [and tieds and pins and stuff]. I got a nice little patch that represents the parachute army men, 3 mini-patches of the Thai numeral for 5 [inside Thai joke there], and a Korean flag. Sadly enough, they didn't have any Thai flags [weird] or American ones. That's alright, though.

Back at the hotel, some different groups of exchange students did some Thai dancing and we all ate. After eating, I met up with Nam Fone on a balcony type thing where we could still see the stage. It was a good view. We hung out with some Thai outbounders and talked a little bit, took pictures. After that was when we started looking for the Karaoke room, only to find out it was closed for renovation in that particular hotel.

Before heading over to my hotel, though, we decided to give ourselves a grand tour of the Rotary hotel. We tried getting to the roof, as usual with any Rotary function, but someone found a previous student wandering around up there earlier and locked the door soon after they left; now we couldn't access the roof. Instead, we found a service elevator, and decided to press the up button, to see if we could access the 8th floor from there (because the regular elevator has the 8th floor button, but it wasn't able to light up/be activated). That was our new mission.

We got in but couldn't access it from this elevator, either, so I hit "G" to go to the ground floor. We saw the kitchen, then closed the ele-doors and went back up. We switched to the regular elevator on the 7th floor, then proceeded to hit all of the buttons below the 7th floor to go to. Then after one would unlight, we would hit it again to make it light up.

Someone joined in on the 6th floor, realized this, shook his head and laughed. He got off on the 5th floor [where he was headed anyway]. We got off on the third, and went to Nam Fone's room, then headed over to my hotel [about a block down the road] to play karaoke.

That about sums everything up, sorry if it was a little boring of a story - it was kind of a boring trip. We definately made our own fun, though.

I'm going to Bangkok tomorrow [the 12th], woo!!! Meeting up with a friend who is a former exchange student to America. I'll be staying with his family and come home on the 17th. The 19th is my host mother's birthday, then I'm off again on the 21st. This time I'm going with the other exchange students on the Southern Thailand Tour, going to Phuket and such. We're taking the overnight bus. This should be interesting.

Also - at the conference, a little girl came up to me and gave me her squirrel pin. Her mom urged for me to accept it, too, so I gave her the choice of whatever pin she wanted from my blazer - and put the squirrel right under my nametag. They both seemed really happy, as the mom helped her put the pin on her shirt. I took a couple pictures with her - she really was an adorable girl. :)

Moni

Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/gecko.on.the.wall/NakhonPhanom