Bangkok

'Triumph in the skies' has given me greater confidence in the pilots and have put me at ease while onboard the plane. I was able to identify and differentiate between the Captain and the cond officers from their stripes. All thanks to the show. Reached Bangkok (BKK) in the late afternoon. I experienced a major culture shock there. It was really humid and hot in Bangkok. The air was rather polluted from the traffic, resulting in dirt accumulating in my nose frequently. BKK is one hour behind us. However, they have longer nights than ours. At only 6pm, the sky starts to darken and by 7pm, its really dark. Comparable to 8pm of SGP time.

The food there didn't sit well with my stomach initially for the first two days. But the KFC there exceeded expectations. I missed Singapore food but had my fair share of sampling Thai food from the roadside stalls that I will not find here. We walked a lot until I felt like my legs could break. Spotted some exotic stuffs from the roadside stalls like fried maggots and cockroaches. Their OJ is not the conventional type which you usually find in supermarkets in Singapore. It wasn't sour but was refreshing. It didn't really taste like OJ. The egg omelette was superb. Very crispy and not very oily. There is beansprouts in the egg omelette. The chilli is not sour but kinda sweet and thick. Like the chilli that goes for your huge triangular curry puff, except thet it is thicker. We had wantan mee and egg omelette almost every night from the road side stall. I learned a different way of eating wantan mee at BKK. The chilli used for the dry wantan noodles was very much the same as you would use as the chilli for pasta at pizza hut or pasta mania. Its the dried kind. Crushed peanuts in powder form is also added inside. You can choose to add soy sauce in. And I have to say this about the wantan soup. The wantan soup was HEAVENLY. I've never tasted anything better than that. Our whole family could not stop drinking the wantan soup (which explains why we went back to the same stall every night) and the lady was really kind to give us extra bowls of soup. Eating at that roadside stall was a different experience and it dawned onto me that their service there is way much better than the hawkers in Singapore. We got a free cup of water for every bowl that we odered. And it wasn't only us, others were entitled also. The Thais are friendly. While walking to a supermarket, a Thai just started talking to us and asked us where we were going. I was freaked out at first because I wasn't used to this.
There's a Chester's grill at MBK (a humongous shopping centre) and the food there was fantastic and cheap. The grilled black pepper chicken was worth waiting for (took 30 mins). Hopefully I can find one in Singapore too. Tom Yum soup there is very spicy and finally, I'm proud to say that it exceeds Myojo's Tom Yum soup.

As mentioned earlier, the shopping malls there are huge. There are many shops selling the same things side by side somemore with varying prices. There are easily more than 10 electronic shops in the whole shopping centre. One shop can sell a pair of shoes at 390 baht and you can find the exact same pair a few levels down at 290 baht. See the huge difference? I wasn't big on bargaining/haggling as I held a firm belief that they needed to earn a living. After that, my perception changed. I was surprised when my father was able to bargain for 400 baht for some item when the original price was 850 baht. There was a lot to see at the shopping mall but not a lot to buy. Oh ya, I must mention that I saw Clarence at the discovery centre (another shopping mall) ! Such a small world huh? I was looking at the magician performing his tricks and when I turned, he was just standing behind me.

StarMovie rocks. Watched a lot of shows such as Mr and mrs Smith, some winn dixie show, the lord of war, Home Alone etc etc to pass time in the hotel. At this time, I would be watching the tv in the hotel. Time to shed the extra pounds from all the eating (esp the 6 days breakfast buffet) and to look for a job.

Kob-Kun Ka