Bangkok Trip 2007: Day 4

Final day of the trip liao, and feeling a bit sian at this point... Wished can spent more time here... Took a bus to Pratunam Market for more shopping, then went to Platinum Fashion Mall to continue the shops that we didn't go the previous day.

Only finish exploring the building by around lunch time, and we went to the food court here for lunch. The Pad Thai was pretty nice, but not the Tom Yum Gung.

Ordered a papaya salad also (does it look appetizing?!).

And this is a "cashless" food court, i.e. all the food are paid using a stored value card instead of cash.

As we were feeling full after lunch, decided to walk to MBK from here. Along the way, stopped by the Naraya retail outlet @ Central World Plaza (ladies should be familiar with this brand I suppose). Spent quite some time here and gotten quite a lot of stuff.

Continue walking to MBK after that, passing by Siam Paragon, Siam Center and Siam Discovery Center along the way. Bought some more local food product from Sing Thang Yeng, a place where we patronize everytime we came BKK.

Stopped for another tea break at the above... (that shouldn't be too difficult to guess).

Finally its about time to go to the airport and it took us some 1.5 hours and ฿280 to get to the airport (this is only the meter fare, no surcharge or toll).

As usual need to queue quite long to check in.

And this was our flight back from BKK. Finally this marks the end of our BKK trip.

Bangkok Trip 2007: Day 3

Day 3 was not much different from the Day 2, i.e. more shopping and walking... :P. First stop of the day was Central World Plaza. They had just completed some renovation and think there are more shop spaces now. There are 2 bigger department store in the building, and this is one of them.

Walked down to Central Chit Lom Department Store afterwards and stayed for around an hour. The department store here is the same as the one in Central World Plaza. Then took the BTS to Thong Lor station, and made our way to Playground on foot. This is not an actual playground but a shopping complex, or an "inspiration" store as they called it.

The stretch of road contains quite a number of Japanese restaurants. And along the way saw another shopping complex but didn't go in.

But we did break for lunch at a coffeeshop just opposite of Playground. The food was cheap here but wasn't that fantastic.

The playground was just a 3-storey complex, so didn't take long to finish exploring the place (less than half an hour). Took a taxi to Platinum Fashion Mall but got stucked in a traffic jam for about 45 minutes.

Spent about 2 hours shopping at the mall but still couldn't complete exploring the whole building. Went for another massage afterwards at the same parlour, this time a traditional Thai massage. By the end of the session, it was almost time for dinner already...

Went to the Stella Palace Restaurant on the 79th floor of the Baiyoke Sky Hotel. The dinner was a buffet with Chinese, Western and Japanese food.

The variety was quite limited but the taste was not so bad, especially the desserts which was some kuehs.

Went up to the revolving roof deck and the observation gallery after the dinner. Enjoyed the view of Bangkok city at night. Wonder how it would look like during the day though...

Bangkok Trip 2007: Day 2

The second day was whole day shop, shop and shop as we went to the Chatuchak Weekend market. And no we didn't take the bus to Chatuchak, but took the BTS to Mo Chit station instead.

After 3.5 hours of non-stop shopping (although most of the time, I'm not the one buying things), finally settled down for a rest. Grabbed a small portion fried noodles and some pork ribs as snacks.

Then had lunch at a local restaurant within the weekend market, where we ordered a Tom Yum Gung with kuay teow, and a fried catfish with spicy mango salad

Continued Shopping for another hour or so after lunch. As we were about to leave, saw someone performing ball juggling. There was quite a substantial crowd watching.

Went back to the hotel after that to put down the stuffs that we bought and had a quick shower and break. Then made our way to Pantip Plaza (BKK's equivalent of Sim Lim Square). This was the first time I came to the building in all my visits to BKK. And it looks very much like SLS as well.

And saw these soft toys at the A & W outlet. But they were not for sale.

Wanted to go Platinum Fahsion Mall after that but the building was closed for the day. Then went to Baiyoke Sky Hotel area, where there was a little street night market.

And after a long day full of walking, whats better than to have a nice little foot massage session. This was where we had a massage. The parlour is in Pratunum opposite of Indra Hotel and a little down the road.

Finally went for dinner at an outdoor local food stall just outside of Pratunum Complex. The auntie who took our orders recommended us some dishes and told us not to order so much food when we had wanted to. I was glad she did, cos in the end the food was just about enough.

Bangkok Trip 2007: Day 1

Going to Bangkok again, the fourth time in the last two years, although the last time was for company retreat. Took a shuttle bus from Terminal 2 to the Budget Terminal, and waited at the queue for about 30 minutes before I was checked in, by which it was almost time for boarding liao...

The plane I'm taking to Bangkok. At the Budget Terminal, the passengers had to walk outdoor and board the plane.

Arrived at the new Suvarnabhumi Airport (which opened around September last year) after a 2 hours 20 minutes flight. The last time I came, Don Mueang International Airport was still in used.

Cleared the Immigration and collected my luggage within 20 minutes of arrival. But noticed anything wrong about the photo above... :)

Took a taxi from the airport to our hotel. The fare was about ฿250 including the airport surcharge and toll. The journey took about half an hour (in normal road condition). This time round, I stayed at Ibis Siam Hotel. The hotel was not located near any BTS station, the nearest being Phaya Thai or Victory Monument Station some 15 ~ 20 minutes walk away. However it was not as bad as there is a bus stop directly outside of the hotel, with buses going to Pratunum, MBK and Chinatown.

The room key looks like there was morse code on it.

Checked in to our room and wasted no time in going out.

Public bus ticket in BKK

First stop, we took a public bus to MBK to change our money as there is one money changer opposite of MBK which offers a good rate. There is a bus conductor on the bus who issued the bus tickets (฿14 per person). This reminds me of the old days when there was still bus conductor for the buses here in Singapore.

A small 5-storey shopping plaza in Chinatown

Then we took a taxi down to Yaowarat Road (Chinatown). Spent about 2 hours shopping at the street markets here. Then stopped for a break for some bird nest and sharks fin at one of the shops in the area. Finally went to (老铺)林真香 to get some local food before heading back to MBK.

It was more shopping at MBK, where I bought 2 pairs of 3/4 pants. Basically explored the whole building once again. If I remembered correctly, I didn't explore the top 2 levels of MBK before. There is a Marche-like restaurant on level 6 and there was a live performance by a local band ongoing when I passed by the place.

Level 7 is the cineplex, an arcade, a KTV and some restaurants.

The karaoke box was literally a "karaoke box"... :P

An odd couple.

Finally settled down for dinner after a long day at a Korean-Jap restaurant called Sukishi. Nothing special about the food here, although the spicy fried noodle was not bad.

It was time to go back after dinner and unluckily, it was raining very heavily at this time. This meant that no taxi would go on meter, and all the drivers would raise the fare to pick you up (some as high as ฿400!). In the end, paid ฿150 to get back to the hotel.

B & J Free Cone Day 2007

Ben and Jerry's is having a free cone day today. So like last year, I went for the free ice cream again. However, this time, there is an outlet at Raffles City which is nearer my office. So PS, Queenie, Rolli, XY and I went there for the event. D, ET and HT went together with us as well, but they opted to have lunch, while we went for the ice cream first... :)

No surprises that the queue was long, although initially I didn't think so as the queue was broken up in different segments. And already some people were going for their second round while I was still queuing.

And for once, the queue is longer than the one for Donut Factory, hehe...

After queuing for 15 minutes, I finally got my ice cream, which was sweet cream and cookie flavor. Went for lunch at the food court after that. This year, however, there was no second round for me.... :P

Guess what am I?

I am yummy. Some loves me very much but others hate me a lot too!

No prizes for the right answer though...:P

PC Rebooted

Saw this at the MRT station and took it down. Now I know they are using a AMD K6 processor with 16MB RAM, a bit bo liao right... :P

Free Ice Cream Again

Similar to last year, Ben and Jerry's is offering free ice cream next tuesday. Click here for more details. Grab it while you can! This time, its stated on the website as one cone per person... :D

Kelong Ah

It was Stupid Genius' birthday last friday and he organized a kelong trip at Sibu Island, Malaysia. We were supposed to meet at JE at 630am to board the transport, which will then pick up the rest of the people from Kranji MRT at 645am (hmm... 15 minutes from JE to Kranji, not quite possible IMO...).

S and I arrived at JE at around 630 but no one was there. So we sms SG, and it turned out that he has just woke up and will instead meet us at Kranji. Then Alex arrived, luckily he came in and ask, else we wouldn't have known him (this is the first time we met). The bus departed from JE at around 655am. The driver was unsure of how to go to Kranji from here, and worse, his english wasn't that good. Lucikly Alex knows malay and was able to direct him to our destination.

It was already 720am when we reached Kranji. One by one the people came, Wanda, Bel, =.= & FT (who arrived at 630am at Kranji), SG and DT (who thought that the trip was on the next day). But we were still unable to set off even when all the people had arrived as SG forgot to bring his passport. He then asked his father to deliver it to him.

SG's dad delivers his pp

After an hour wait at the custom, a 2-hour plus journey and another half an hour of ferry ride, we finally reached our destination, Hot Boys Kelong.

Had our lunch when we reached and every meal we had like 3 dish 1 soup (三菜一汤). Settled down at our bed after lunch. The bunk beds were lined up in rows to save space.

Started playing mahjong for 1/4 round in which I break even. After that was island hopping. We were brought to Sibu Island Twin Beach Resort. It was quite a long walk before we can reach the shore.

The place looked quite deserted leh, doesn't looked like a resort at all. And the beach was dirtied with little... :s...

S and I stayed on shore while the rest gone into the waters. I thought there would be some shops here at the resort, but there were none. Had to asked from a local before we were able to get some drinks and tidbits, which was being transported from a nearby kampong.

Back to the kelong and it was more mahjong session before dinner. This time I won about $22. While 4 of us played, =.= and FT tried their hands at fishing.

Soon it was dinner time, again there were like 3 dishes and 1 soup. After dinner was mahjong again. Bel and Wanda sang at the KTV while we were playing. Had wanted to go sing also, but someone had booked the timeslot from 10pm ~ 12MN. No choice then, just laze around after taking a shower.

There is a BBQ later in the night for supper, thanks to SG who footed the bill... :D. I was almost about to doze off (or maybe already), before SG came to tell me it was ready. There were quite a lot of food, i.e. crabs, prawn, sotong, chicken wing etc... The prawn and chicken wing were quite nice, while the crab was a bit difficult to eat.

SG brought some wine here and so we drank. And one of the kelong operators also joined us. Apparently, he remembered SG and his friends who was here about a year ago. That time they were also on a "drinking spree"... :P. It was good that he joined in, cos we got some cans of free coke to mix with the wine. And he even dared Wanda to finish up the (water) bottle of Chivas that SG brought, which she did eventually and got herself a free lifetime "membership" to the kelong.

After drinking a few cup of the wine, I fell asleep soon after the BBQ session ended. But I was awaken at about 5am+. Apparently the guy sleeping behind me was snoring VERY loudly. But heck, I continue to sleep nonetheless as I was too tired.

The next morning, after having breakfast, which was chicken porridge, I watched SG, DT and Wanda fishing. It was quite bored as nothing was caught. When everyone woke up, we played mahjong once again. But this time, it was =.= who suggested playing. My luck was pretty good during this trip, and I won $13 this time round... :D. After the mahjong session, it was lunch, then managed to sing a couple of songs at the KTV before we were hauled off the kelong back to Tanjong Leman Jetty, and this marks the end of our kelong trip.

And finally, forgot to say on the day:"Happy Birthday, SG"... :P