Friday, July 25, 2014

#28 Bangkok IV & V


So Sunday morning was spent at the Grand Palace. Took a cab from hotel again and always feel it's so worth it. Lucky us managed to get this cab which the cabbie spoke English and became our temporary tour guide hehe. 500 THB, not exactly a very fun and interactive place. Though I gotta admit that the place was indeed very majestic, but I can skip it especially with the scorching sun. Admission fee included this Thai Coins Museum which was much more enjoyable than the palace hahaha, guess cause there was aircon and explanations of items on display.


Decided to take the boat down the river since it was recommended by cabbie. Direction zai C figured out the way of course and we had our best coconut juice along the way 。◕‿◕。 basically when you exit the grand palace, cross the traffic light to this street with lots of shop houses. Facing the shop houses, turn left and follow the street down. You will pass by subway along the way. The street will be filled with street market vendors, and you'll be reaching when you reach a market, with loads of blue umbrellas. Walk into the market and at the end will be the boat terminal. Look for Chao Phraya Express Boat and get the ticket which will get you to Sathorn Pier (Central) where you can board the BTS or ferry to Asiatique. The ride was rather fast and sea breeze was enjoyable. I think I enjoyed it more than Grand Palace hahaha, but definitely a worthy experience!


BTS back to Siam to have lunch at Grey Hound. Relatively empty so service was rather fast and staff were attentive. Won't say the food is superb but it is good. Wings were good but not fabulous, I hope you understand what I'm getting at (´・_・`) Won't mind going back again because food is good and definitely much cheaper than cafes in Singapore. Arrghhhhh why sg whyyyyyyy ( ≧Д≦)

Went for a round of shopping at Big C. OHMYGOD everything is so cheap here. Well food is well-known so I shall not rave about it. BUT BUT BUT I managed to get Liese Bubble Hair Dye at SDG$12 and my Matt Magique refill at SGD$8 and a new package at SGD$12. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE SG SELLS 1 AT $30. WHY YOU DO THIS TO ME I'M SO SAD I FEEL SO BETRAYED *CRIES BUCKET* SIGHHHH ): Should have went Big C earlier so I could have more time to shop and get more hauls ): 
Back to hotel to rest after Big C before we cabbed to Chinatown for T&K Seafood.


Get a queue number and wait for the guy to call out your number. Don't fret if you don't know numbers in thai, because that guy in charge of calling out numbers is trilingual, he's gonna call out the numbers in Thai, English and Chinese. Got seated within 20 minutes, not a very long wait for a Sunday night.


Missed our chance to sit in the aircon, placed right beside the prawns and fishies. So here's our selfie with them while waiting for food. Thank you for serving our tummies well!


Food wasn't exceptionally good. The taste wasn't infused into them so at least the seafood was good. But for the price, I still felt the trip was worth it but C wouldn't mind giving it a miss hahaha.

So with navigator C we managed to find our way to the BTS successfully! Went back to Sathorn to take the ferry to Asiatique. If you think it's gonna be as fun as Chao Phraya Express Boat, then you're terribly wrong! It was so boring and so slow, C and I were dying from the boredom. But at least we managed to reach in one piece.


Nothing much there. Much pubs and restaurants, seems like another Clarke Quay. Nothing to buy either was everything was jacked up. So it was just about 30 minutes of walk before we decided to head back. Not coming back again, I will rather spend my time at Healthland! But you should come here at least once.

Such an eventful day I was so tired I crashed that night.

Last day in bkk, last brekkie in bkk with waffles and pancakes. Missing those pancakes now, can someone serve me pancakes flooded with honey? ):


Last minute shopping at Platinum. Last proper meal at Platinum Foodcourt. Claypot Beef Noodle was good that I forgot to take a photo of it. Only had a photo of the mango sticky rice which C raved and had 2 servings of itand got himself so bloated hahahhhaa



 Back to hotel to pack and it was a mad rushhhhhhhhhh to get everything into the luggage and to check how to increase baggage weight. But the wesbite was shit was there was no option to do it even though they said there was. Someone enlighten me please. Managed to squeeze compress it till 17kg but we were so terribly late. Can't decide to cab to airport straight or to take the BTS cause we were unsure of the traffic condition and we had no time to spare on that. Luckily we thought of the express train at Makkasan which we managed to get to the airport just right on time. So much rush omg, can't imagine how it would have been if we had been stuck in a jam should we had cabbed or took the train from Phaya Thai. 

Express Train was very comfy and spacious. Especially liked that it travels at high speed ((:

HOME BOUND!

Thursday, July 24, 2014

#27 Bangkok III

Saturday was spent uneventfully (∩︵∩) went to Chachutak for half a day before it started pouring and feeling unwell. Only managed a top (TOO PATHETIC) before we cabbed back to the hotel and I vomitted right before we entered the room. Thank goodness for plastic bags from the shopping.


Thai Ice Milk Tea and Coconut Ice Cream at Chachutak (^~^) It's damn goodddddddd! Milk tea was probably too sweet but the tea was good! Same for coconut ice cream so smooth and chilling! Okay I think I like every ice cream, none is bad to me (⌒_⌒;)

Had a rest in the hotel before we headed out for dinner at MK Restaurant at Terminal 21. Truthfully, I don't get the hype about it hahaha. The roasted duck and crispy pork was good but not one of the best I had, still prefer the one in JB that I ate since I was a kid hehe. Soup base was rather bland too. They have this MK sauce which we thought tasted like the sauce for chee cheong fun LMAO, tried to ask for chili sauce but failed. So C basically was eating clean for the night and I just vomitted everything out within 5 minutes of exiting the restaurant ( /)u(\ )


Surprisingly, I recover after every session. Food makes me sick. Walked around T21 because everything is too expensive there. Oh, bought some Tao Kae Noi seaweed for brother before we left for foot reflexology session at Healthland Spa!


Healthland is damn huge! It has a building of its own. They do not accept reservations for foot reflexology, which is kind of unnecessary either as they have this huge room just for customers for doing foot reflexology. Head to the receptionist and informed them of the massage that you would like to have. We did foot reflexology for 280THB and we felt it was worth every single penny (^v^)Waited for less than 10 minutes at the lobby and they will announce your name whereby you will move to another holding area where you change out of your shoes into their slippers before you are led into this dark room and given a seat on comfy sofa. Surpringsly, foot reflexology extends beyond the feet, they will massage your shoulders and temples too! So comfortable half the time I just closed my eyes and lay on the sofa and it felt like paradiseeeeeeee especially for the sick ~(˘▾˘)~ They even serve tea after the session! So pleased with the service! Was hoping we could squeeze some time to go back for another session but sadly we failed to.





Wednesday, July 23, 2014

#26 Bangkok II

Woke up early the next morning because I wanted to have a look at the Pratunam Morning Market. Initial plan was to wake up at 5 but I think we woke up at 630 instead (⌒_⌒;) Had buffet breakfast at the hotel and I love the table by the glass wall best. Sunlight is always the best filter hehe, I look so youthful here (ノ´ヮ´)ノ*:・゚✧




Cabbed down to Baiyoke (say "Baiyok") Sky where the morning market is. Bangkok has such bad traffic that this is the most decent photo we achieved on the cab. The rest was simply just too blur cause it's hard to hold the phone firmly when the cab breaks every now and then.


Was kinda lost at how to shop even though I've read other's encounters online hahaha, kinda got chased out by a shopkeeper who said she was too busy to entertain me ): So we continued walking around and there's not much things that caught my eye, but saw some shops selling blogshop items. But we gave up pretty quickly and went to Macs to have some air con while waiting for Platinum to open at 10am. Walked the whole mall and bought some accessories and 2 dresses before we left for lunch. Felt Platinum was more suitable if you're shopping for your personal wardrobe but blogshops owners will definitely prefer Pratunum Market as I feel it has newer designs and but wholesale price only applies to 3 pieces and up and they have to be of similar designs. 


Walked over to where Sab X2 was, it's right next to Shibuya 19 after you have made it opposite Platinum Mall using the overhead bridge. Both of us had the dry Wanton Mee. Miserable serving but tastes reasonable with pork lard and dried chili which you can add yourself. Never really a fan of wanton mee but considering there were no other sauce added to it, it's worth a try but not a must-have for me.


Went back to Platinum which was having a street food festival and bought street food to munch on cause we aren't satisfied enough with our lunch. I only have photos of the quail eggs because they were my favorite hahah, tastes like half boil eggs yumzzzzz (=^-ω-^=) 30 THB and they are drenched in soya sauce and pepper.

Crossed over to Palladium Mall because we reckoned we were done with Platinum for the day. Worst decision of the trip because there was practically nothing there. Think we only spent 10 minutes there, should have went to Big C instead. Could have discovered cheap stuffs earlier sigh. So we cabbed back to the hotel to have our afternoon nap before we proceeded to Som Tam Nua at Siam Square for dinner! 


Ordered sticky rice, fried fish, fried chicken wings and some spicy pork soup which  the waitress told us was tomyum. We suspect we aren't given the full menu because C said they used to serve padthai and when we left the restaurant we saw someone holding on to a different menu from us. ( ̄へ ̄)Ordered a second serving of the chicken wings because C felt it's standard wasn't on par with itself 2 years ago and that it was served lukewarm so we decided to give it another chance. The new batch was better, more crisp and juicy and we left satisfied!

Roamed the Siam Night Market while waiting for our food to digest. Went into 7-11 to buy water and made some genius choice to get C to try 90 THB Thai yakult with me. Omg it was good! Missing it in sg too )':


Headed for After You after that. After you is located at the basement of Siam Paragon near to the supermarket area. And if you're wondering, yeap there was a queue. So we took a queue number and waited for like 10 mins I think. Expected a longer waiting time because there were so much people waiting outside the shop. 


Baby Sized Mille Crepe, 115 THB
I have no idea what a nice mille crepe tastes like cause this is my first one. But I'm definitely not a cake-lover because I always find them to heavy and dry for my liking. However it's a different story for this, it's definitely something I wouldn't mind eating again!


Shibuya Honey Toast, 175 THB
Oh my gosh I was so excited for the shibuya honey toast and it indeed did not fail me!♡〜٩(^▿^)۶〜♡ The warm toast was coated with melted butter. When you eat it with the ice cream and honey, there's so many layers of taste unraveling in your mouth at the same time! It's a combination of salty, sweet and cold omgosh best invention ever!

So good that we need to have a selfie with it. Yummy in my tummy~ (。♥‿♥。)


So full after that we decided to walk down the Siam Night Market and all the way to MBK. Bought some stuffs at the night market but we were too late by the time we reached MBK, everything was closed. But from the looked of it there was nothing much too. Took the BTS from National Stadium back to the hotel and conclude day 2 in bangkok.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

#25 Bangkok I

So the trip I've been anticipating since January came and went in a flash! It was my first time in Thailand and I guess I haven't been overseas for so long I kind of lost the mentality to prepare myself for it. I went there with zero knowledge of the language and their culture but oh well it's bangkok anyway they should be used to tourist not knowing them anyway hahah

C drove down to my house to pick me, then to his house to pick up his stuffs. Made a wrong turn along the way so we ended up having a mini adventure at Clementi area hahaha. But no worries, we got it under control and made to his house safely where papachow drove us to the airport next!

Reached fairly early so we checked in our luggage and went to have some food over at Macs. Sudden realization that it has been more than a month since I ate macs! Side track: There's KFC in NTU now too!!! Yay to bandito pocket in school (/^▽^)/


Flight at 1735 and we reached bangkok in about 2 hours. C highly recommends Scoot due to it's leg space. Trust him because he's 1.8m and have super looooong legs that makes our selfie moments incredibly difficult most of the times (︶︹︺) 

If you're intending to purchase a SIM card with unlimited Internet access you can do so once at the arrival hall. You could choose between AIS 3G or DTAC who are just side by side each other. Both have it at 299THB so I don't think there's gonna be much difference who you purchase it from. We bought ours from AIS simply because they advertised themselves as the most trusted operator in Thailand HAHAHAHA #marketingwins Not sure about DTAC, but personally felt AIS 3G was rather slow.

Proceeded to take the airport link towards Phayathai at 45THB if I remembered correctly hahaha. 8 stops in total and about 30 mins and we were in Phayathai where we had to change to the Sukhumvit Line to get to Phloen Chit.


If there's one thing about Bangkok's BTS it's the lack of downriding escalator hahah, C had to carry our luggage which weighed 15kg down the stairs. Walked to Hotel Solo Sukhumvit 2 which is pretty conveniently located near Phloen Chit. Upon reaching Phloen Chit, take exit 4 and keep walking straight until you see a Macs on your right and that building is Phloen Chit Centre. Follow the pavement and turn right into an alley when you see JW Marriot Hotel. From there on, continue walking straight and you'll reach Hotel Solo. It's quite a long walk because it's almost at the end of the stretch. Checked in and kind of settled and familiarized ourselves with the room before we went out for our first meal in bangkok!!! ~(˘▾˘)~

There was free Tuktuk service by hotel to Phloen Chit Centre and then we took the BTS to Asoke. Was quite lost trying to find the restaurant "Love Scene" that C found online. But no worries when you're overseas with google maps and a guy who has been through army, they will lead you to the place eventually 〜(^∇^〜)When we reached, we had the whole restaurant to ourselves until this group of 7 guy tiongs came and wrecked our peace (*`へ´*)  


Fresh Oysters at 65THB each!!! (ノ≧∀≦)ノ  Doesn't look very appealing but it was very fresh! Even C who doesn't eat oysters had 2 hehe me brings new experiences to his life (~‾⌣‾)~


Tomyum, Pad Thai and some pork dish. Simple but fulfilling enough. We actually ordered papaya salad too but C had a taste and condemned it due to the uncooked greens so I did not even touch it at all.


40 THB Magnum for dessert! That's like $1.60SGD. Sigh, why is everything so exensive in Sg (╯︵╰,)