my family went on a short holiday to bangkok the past week. we went shopping and visiting friends and the 四面佛. i stayed at the city centre Siam Square, which is something like our downtown area? and there were loads and loads of high-end shopping malls juxtaposed against street vendors and rundown cheaper malls.
seriously, the high-end shopping malls are just like ion orchard, paragon, orchard central etc. the names are even freakishly similar! there was one shopping mall called Siam Paragon, which was hugeeeee (around ngee ann city size but with more levels) and another one called Central World (apparently it's a departmental store that owns 3 shopping malls at different places, all called Central something). it was huge too, like ion orchard and bigger.
i found that there are a lot of japanese restaurants and food in these shopping malls. in fact, the ratio was like 8 japanese restaurants out of 10 restaurants! there wasn't even much thai food around (only one restaurant?) and there would be the occasional chinese food (ding tai fung) and western food (manhattan fish market, uh mcdonald's). oh i saw singaporean restaurant selling hainanese chicken rice! but the mcdonald's there is big and nice and comfier than those in singapore, like with sofas as seats, not chairs! cool right!
uh ya the high end malls sold loads of branded goods at prices that even after discount, rival those in sg or are even more ex! well i guess branded is still branded after all, need to import and tax and blah. oh but we get VAT refund, something like gst refund ^^ 7% back, but only if you spend more than 6000 baht in total and at least 2000 baht in each store you are collecting refund for. oh well we spent like 8000+ just in this departmental store called Zen xD my dad bought 3 pairs of trousers there (that was the whole purpose of the trip for him hahaha) and my mum bought a pair of super ex shoes xD 3500 baht ie. around S$147! but the stores in thailand are much bigger than those in sg, with lots of brand names i haven't seen or heard of before in addition to the usual ones. interesting.
i must say i experienced a lot of things for the first time on this trip, so here's the list:
1. first time on tv! we were walking along the street shopping and stuff when we saw a camera with the channel news asia logo on it. my dad is an avid fan of cna, (at our hotel he would always switch to cna, at home when there's nothing to watch he switches to cna) and being
the busybody curious, he went up to ask the woman what she was filming for and stuff. apparently it was for Southeast Asia Tonight (the news for southeast asia) which would air that night, about how tourism is up in thailand despite the political situation. since we 送上门, she requested to interview us, so my dad said some crappy stuff, like how we feel thais are very polite and that we do not feel any danger, etc. generally promoting thailand and how tourists will still want to come despite political conflict.
actually we only stayed in the city area, so we didn't experience or see any of the conflict or protests at all. everyone doesn't care and they just do their own things haha. though you see pics of the king and sometimes his wife around. my dad says it's against the law to insult the king. if you throw an egg at his picture, you get thrown into jail. it's not just the police who will catch you, everyone on the street will turn against you! (makes me think of the matrix haha) it's just how important the king is to them lah.
eh ya so my dad became even more obsessed with cna after that, when we went back to the hotel, he was like stuck to the tv awaiting our appearance (of what, only 2 seconds?) they cut out most of the interview, only left one suitable line that fits the entire news video haha. my dad took a picture of us on tv, but it was kinda blurry. so after we came back from dinner, he went back to cna and said there may be repeats! yeah we appeared on the asia news too haha, so he took another pic. the next morning, like 7am, we turned on the tv and there we were again, probably another repeat haha. i checked the cna programme guide, i think we actually appeared on tv like 6 or 7 times! xD aiya it's nothing compared to Abdulmutallab, whose picture must have been on tv a million times (consider every single channel in the world, plus repeats, plus he appears on the news every other day for the past two weeks or something)
2. first time seeing transvestites. i met two, maybe more but i didn't know (ie. they succeeded so well i thought they were women? haha) i was really shocked at first but i didn't realise thailand had so many of them! the first one i met was at the hairsalon, he was a hairstylist, cross-dressed as a female. wearing a miniskirt and pretty shoes, nice makeup and everything. actually i thought he was female until he spoke, and his voice was obviously a guy's voice >.> imagine how shocked you'll feel when someone u thought was a woman actually was a guy all along!!! a woman with a man's voice T.T
the second one i met was the owner of a small boutique, when we were shopping for clothes. this one looked even more feminine, with skinny legs!! (yeah i mean guys shouldn't have skinny legs right!) but he had a male voice. i think they lack the money to go for a full sex-change operation, maybe working to get there. it's pretty unnerving at first, but once you got over it, it's no big deal. they are normal like everyone else, except for the sexual orientation, and they do a good job at whatever work they do anyway. so yep.
i'm just wondering though, why isit thailand has so many males with a female orientation, whereas other countries have less comparatively. yeah i know thailand perhaps promotes the culture and more guys are willing to come out of the closet, so it seems like there are more, but i think the percentage is still a lot higher than other countries! could it be in the genes? or just the open mindset about transvestites can somehow create more transvestites? hmm...
3. at breakfast, we had international buffet that's very nice and delicious! a lot of people took this particular fruit though:
i've never seen this fruit before, and people were just scooping the flesh and seeds. i tried it, and it tasted sour and slightly sweet, something like soursop, except that the seeds here are edible! not bitter or anything, just tasteless and crunchy! not bad lah. later on we went to the supermarkets at the high-end malls, and i searched for this fruit...and did you guess it right? it's a passionfruit!
first time eating/seeing a passionfruit ^^
4. first time eating a rice-pudding! it's just soggy rice in some milky mixture and sugar. not very nice lah. the muesli is nicer (first time eating it too!)
Rice Pudding (:
5. first time doing foot massage, in thailand too! it's quite nice after a whole day of shopping and walking, and i got to sleep/rest ^^" it's also pretty cheap compared to singapore. hmm the masseuses were all super young! like the one serving me was only 23 (my bro's age haha) and she's been working since 15!! 童工!!! it's a tough job, because you really have to exert a lot of strength and after a while it gets boring to do the same thing over and over again. how to survive the monotony?
6. first time walking into a walk-in closet. my dad's thai friend is pretty rich, and we had dinner with his family. we visited his house too, which is quite far out from the city on singapore's terms, maybe 15km? but it's apparently super near for thais haha xD still, even after reaching the set of villas, yes villas, you have to drive another 5 minutes around the maze of villas before reaching his villa! it's got a garden, maid's room, garage, two-storey house la. pretty big, but what amazed me the most was the master bedroom's bathroom. it's hugeeee, with the shower and bathtub separate (ie. two people can bathe at the same time!) and a walk-in closet!! cool. there's even space for a makeup table and for trying on your clothes and doing the catwalk around the bathroom ahaha! but this villa is super cheap, only around 600 thousand singapore dollars. i mean, buying a new 5-room hdb flat costs nearly that much?
7. first time in a nissan teana.
when we first arrived in bangkok, we paid more money (only about S$42 haha) to take the limousine service which is safer than being cheated by taxi drivers, and it's also more comfy. but no we didn't take a limousine (duh), we chose the cheapest nissan teana haha. my mum wanted to try it instead of the toyota camry. anw taxis here are scary. they weave in and out of traffic, travel at 120km/h on highways and don't bother using signals. totally over the speed limit of 80km/h! so we completed a journey in 10min that would usually take 30min in sg haha. however, once you got to the city, wow the traffic congestion is UNBELIEVABLE. at peak hours, traffic in bangkok is horrible and seriously, it's 水泄不通 and the traffic lights take forever to change (like 2 minutes?) and we got stuck in the traffic for another 15 min for a journey of like a few km?? maybe walking would be faster.
that's why if you're in the city, i suggest you walk/drive a motorcycle/take the mrt. not worth it to get a taxi for it's too slow and money-draining. speaking of which...
8. first time taking the BTS Skytrain ie. Bangkok Transit Service which is something like our MRT, except it's only in the city and has only two MRT lines. there are two different MRT companies i think, and this service is provided by one of them for the city only. it's above ground and the train only has 3 carriages! super short. that day it was raining, so the traffic congestion worsened.
taken from the bridge.
you know at peak hours, the other side of the road has some lanes with their directions reversed so that there are more lanes with traffic flowing in one direction, just to ease the congestion!
oh did i mention the bridges in the city. generally they are linked by a skywalk, linking the MRT station Siam and the next one called Chidlom. they also link to most of the shopping centres along the roads, so you can walk in the shade above the traffic to wherever you want, quite cool eh? the horrible thing is that there are NO escalators and the steps are steeper than those in singapore. the bridges are higher than those in singapore, and everytime you want to cross the road, you have to climb the stairs. they're pretty narrow at some places, and i mean, the elderly and disabled won't be able to climb the stairs! does that mean they can't take the mrt, they can't go shopping?
why don't they build escalators? it would speed up the movement of people, especially when it rains! that night we took the BTS, it was raining and yeah the pavements flooded. T.T i mean the rain stopped when we went out, but it was flooded so badly at the bridge that people coming down from the bridge had to queue in one line to step on one measly little brick (the oasis in the middle of the murky waters) and inch their way to drier ground. yeah we obviously wouldn't be able to get on the bridge at this rate so we walked further down to take another bridge.
the BTS system is really inefficient in that to buy a ticket, you have to pay in coins. yes all in coins. no notes. if you don't have enough coins, you must go queue at the ticket service counter to exchange for coins. and are you asking why is it you can't buy tickets at the ticket service counter? i was asking the exact same thing!!!! you queue there and all just to exchange for coins?? then you must queue for the machine again just to buy the ticket?? why not just upgrade the machines to accept notes and allow buying of tickets at the counter too? that would save a lot of people so much time!
and the train was packed. we had to squeeze our way in, and since there were only 3 carriages and hundreds and hundreds of people, yeah you can imagine. it's something like hongkong, except much rowdier and scarier. i wouldn't want to be at the front T.T i may be pushed onto the tracks by all the people behind! generally it was an unpleasant experience haha. don't take the BTS during peak hour AND when it's rains. bleh. though it's the best choice of any transport in bangkok haha.
9. first time using a seat belt which doesn't have a buckle. haha yeah what's the use of a seat belt when it doesn't have a buckle? we took a taxi and back seats only had the belt. i was wondering where to stuff the tongue of the belt into, so i just stuffed it into the back of the seat. but seriously, if the car stops suddenly, the belt most probably will fly out and uh, serve no purpose. maybe it will even whack me in the face and cause me more injury! i was pretty amused by the seat belt.
10. first time seeing students happily shopping and walking around on a weekday at the city, even in the morning! apparently there's a well-known and very prestigious university nearby, called Chulalongkorn University. something like harvard in the us or cambridge in uk? only the smartest or richest kids can go to the school haha. no wonder they can shop at high-end shopping malls haha. even though they are uni students, they still have to wear school uniforms, though there seems to be no rules about how they wear their uniforms, or shoes/socks, or hair. most of them wear makeup and uh are going out with their boyfriends.
we saw not just uni students, but also high school students. it's really weird actually. it's like seeing students on a Wednesday morning shopping at Ion Orchard, Paragon, Ngee Ann City, Plaza Singapura, walking around Orchard Road everyday like they don't need to study or do homework??? you see more of them in the afternoons and at night. sigh they so slack one ah, or too smart alrd, no need to study? but i saw quite a few tuition centres too. maybe they were just killing time until it's time for tuition?
oh yeah most of the thais know a little chinese. i'm quite amazed, because i always ask my parents stuff in chinese, then suddenly the thais would answer my question in broken chinese xD oh and i saw a lot of caged birds at the temple, for people to 放生.
poor birds. they probably will get caught and returned to the cages for the vendor to gain more profits.
the food there 口味很重，我吃了真的不是很习惯, like the food is often too sweet, too salty, too sour. i guess they spam seasoning and condiments. we avoided most of the spicy food and chilli though xD hmm i ate a lot more than i usually do, but i exercised a lot more than i usually do too (from walking and walking and walking each day shopping, carrying all the shopping bags and climbing a lot of stairs), so it all cancels out? hahaha my arms are still aching and my legs still sore from all the walking.
my favourite pink christmas tree in the distance <3
ok that was super long. it may be a short trip, but seems like i saw a lot of new things i didn't observe before. there may have been more firsts, but im too lazy to think of more haha. i guess i still like travelling even though it's tiring and all. as we used to write in primary school essays, we went home tired but happy.
home sweet home (:
