Thailand

Going Home

We departed Bangkok Thailand early in the morning and have arrived in Singapore for our journey home. The past 10 days have been a blast...with lots of shopping and lots of eating. Wished this vacation lasted a little longer.

Okay...gotta get ready to board the plane.

C-ya.
World Travelers

Sick, Relaxed, and Scared

Later on Saturday afternoon, after eating a full Indian lunch from Mehmaan, we headed over to Ahman's apartment to take a short rest and drop our bag O' junk.

Chhimi and Namdrul decided to play NBA Playoffs on the PS2 station...of course, Chhimi played the Sacramento King's and Namdrul played the Dallas Mavericks. After about 15 minutes of playing, phrases of "Who's your Daddy?", "How you like that move?"...we all decided to heat out to the GV theaters to catch "Day After Tomorrow" since the boyz wanted to see it.

SICK
On the way to the theater, Tabitha and Chhimi got extremely sick. At one point, Tabitha had to stop at the skytrain stop and threw up. Yup! Not a very pleasant site. Thank goodness Chhimi had a little towel or else it would have been a big mess. We think it was all the combination of Bangkok "bottled" water, Oily - Fatty Indian Food, and stale smoke from Ahman's apartment that totally threw our bodies into shock. Namdrul and Ahman were quite gentlemen though. Ahman kept holding a seat for Tabitha on the Skytrain so she can rest. Namdrul went and got proper bottled water to make Tabitha feel better.

As for Chhimi, he had to throw up too at the GV Theater's VIP lounge. Poor Thing. He had to force himself twice. After a while, Chhimi felt a little better and had a sip of Sprite to calm his stomach. We think it's his body telling Chhimi physically to STOP EATING!

RELAXED
We met Ahman's girl-friend, Chuni, and her friend, Sonam at the GV Theaters. Of course, per Chhimi, we must watch one last movie in Bangkok VIP / Gold Class style. So we bought 6 tickets Gold Class to see "Day After Tomorrow". We all relaxed in the VIP lounge and received our "complimentary" drinks. However, we had to move because the Princess of Thailand was at the same theater and was coming out... :-P Sheesh! Royalty. Tabitha wanted to take a picture of the Princess so badly but the staff wouldn't allow us to go near that area!!

Anyways, as we said, we met Ahman's girl-friend, Chuni. She was quite nice but both she and her friend though Chhimi and I were brother & sister. Eewww! Bad Bad! Of couse, Tabitha did her usual 20+ questions on strangers to help them feel "at ease". Chuni and Sonam were quite good sports though. The 6 of us relaxed in the lounge for over 1.5 hours since Namdrul, Chhimi, and Tabitha didn't feel so good after lunch. Yikes! We take back on the recommendation of Mehmaan. Do not go there if you cannot handle 'very-rich' food.

SCARED
The scared part is while watching the movie. There were some scenes that made us jump our seats. Tabitha and Chhimi were holding hands ["awwwww!"] and during one of the scary scenes, Tabitha accidentally squeezed Chhimi's fingers so hard that we heard a loud "SNAP!". Poor thing...Chhimi jumped like at least 1 feet from the very comfortable chairs....there may have been tears in his eyes. Oops!

Jatujak - Haggling Away

Well, today, we woke up bright and early at 8:00am but found out that we didn't have enough cash on us to go to Jatujak (the largest weekend market in Bangkok - 4x Denios at home). So we had to take a taxi to the nearest currency exchange counter. ...early morning traffic...wonderful! :-)

So after 10:30am, we finally got out of the exchange line and hopped onto the "skytrain" on our way to Mo Chit. Within Jatujak, omg...there were so many handicrafts on sale and so much baby clothings that we just went crazy. We spent nearly 3+ hours there and met Chhimi's cousin, Ahman - Sonam there. Thank goodness he came by so he helped us carry some stuff back. :-D hehehehe

We ate lunch at one of the best Indian places in Bangkok, at least for us. Mehmaan restaurant in Nana Soi 3. It was sooo good. The owner is Indian but speaks fluent Cantonese with a Hong Kong style. It was wonderful!! Chhimi's other cousin, Namdrul met us at the restaurant so the four us had a pretty good time chowing away at Paneer Nan, Ghobi Paratha...Mmmm.

Now, we're just hanging out at Ahman's apartment before heading out to Siam's GV movie theater to watch "A Day After Tomorrow". We're going to meet Ahman's girlfriend, Chuni.

Alright peeps, that's it for now.

Chhimi: Tabitha's new girlfriend

Today we checked-out of the Merchant Court hotel and headed back to Chhimi's family condominum in Pinklao Bangkok. It was great to step into the condo and find a sense of familiarity, like coming home. The only thing was we both felt quite nostalgic...it was just like yesterday that we were here visiting with Chhimi's grandparents and Aunt along with his 2 cousins. We're missing family. WAH!

Dining on the 6th Floor
The next thing, we head down to our favorite place to eat in Bangkok, 6th floor of the Condo. It's owned by a Thai couple that knows Chhimi so well that he knows exactly what Chhimi wants to eat. It was soooo yummy, as always!! Tom Yum Koong was 'Da Bomb!'

Shopping With Chhimi

Alright people, for you those who does not know Chhimi well enough.....he's totally a shop-a-holic. Tabitha found a new girlfriend to hang out with. We went to the PATA department store around the Pinklao area...and OMG...Chhimi moved so fast, Tabitha thought he was in stealth mode. Chhimi bought like 2 pairs of shoes and lots of other stuff, while Tabitha was being her undecisive self, as usual. He had so much energy when it comes to shopping that he trekked up and down all 6 floors of the department store. So we spent like 3 hours there!! Afterwards...Chhimi still had the energy to visit another department / mall.... Tabitha couldn't even keep up with him.

Ate A Grasshopper On The Road (YUK!)

It is our 3rd day in Bangkok Thailand....Chhimi and I decided to take the day easy by getting up at 9:30am ....now that's more like a relaxing vacation. hahaha. Breakfast buffet at the hotel was wonderful....it had a range of food that we can eat from American to Thai to Chinese. We totally gorged ourselves with food hoping that the humidity will keep our weight the same....but darn...the weather has been way too good!! We really may become chubby when we get back. Alright, we mean CHUBBIER! :-P

PANTHIP IT MALL

We visited the biggest IT Mall in Bangkok, called Panthip. OMG! It had 4-5 floors of IT shops all around. It was more lik 4 to 5x of Fry's...not kidding here. It ranged from hardware including motherboards, CPUs, RAMs, etc (BTW, Intel is promoted here a lot...Yay!) to software (both legal and illegal). It was really really kewl! We only printed our digital pictures there....more than 350 pictures we've taken so far ....

The next thing was NOT so cool.

CHHIMI ATE A GRASSHOPPER!


Man, Tabitha has no idea why Chhimi decided to walk out of the IT Mall and head over to a "insect 'food'" stall to purchase some FRIED Grasshoppers! Ewwww! Very Disgusting! The stall was selling grasshoppers, fire ants, cockaroaches, and some others that we didn't even recognize. Chhimi paid....yep...paid for 20 Baht (equivalent to $0.50 cents) to eat a freaking grasshopper. HELLO! The people on Fear Factor gets paid $50,000 USD to eat yucky stuff but here's Chhimi paying another person to eat it. ....see the pics...it is true, Chhimi ate a grasshopper.

Rejected On Size

Afterwards, we decided to head out to the National Stadium to do some light weight shopping. We saw really cute little t-shirts for kids so we got some of those for all the little kiddies at home. Then Chhimi went into some department stores and got REJECTED with "Mai Dai"s (that means "NO" in Thai) on the size he wants....lots of "No Size" responses. Darn!! We are like huge monsters over here WAH!

50/50

Anyways, afterwards....omg, we saw a 50/50 person. A 50/50 in Thailand means the person was a boy but changed into a girl either by just wearing girlie clothes and/or surgery too. It was totally weird. H/She is quite pretty...but dang...when H/She spoke, you can totally tell that there was something extra ...like an Adam's Apple!! But darn...H/She is way prettier than a lot of other girls....Tabitha is so jealous!

That's all for now...we're going to trek on.

Bangkok: "Wat" So Special?!

Today, we woke up bright and early at 5:30am. Yes, 5:30am. It was like "H*LL"...worse than a working schedule...what kind of vacation is that?!

The reason for us waking up so darn early is because we decided to take a guided tour outside of Bangkok to the Summer Palace of the King of Thailand and to the temple ruins in "Arayarutt" - spelling?!. BTW "Wat" is the phonetic way of spelling in Thai, meaning Temple.

We started out on a long journey coach bus ride outside of Bangkok. Took us like about 2 hours to get to the Summer Palace. Since Tabitha was wearing a no-sleeve shirt, the guide made her put on a "Thai" shirt as it is the policy in the Summer Palace that arms must be covered (Eewww....don't know if that shirt was even clean or not...YUCK!)

Anyways, it was pretty awesome to see how royalty of Thailand live and hosts parties. Their place was quite grand....wished our house was like that!!! They had topiary bushes all around in the garden shaped like Elephants (one of the special animals for Thais for some reason....they love Elephants). We also saw the Chinese Mansion in the palace...man! It was really amazing to see the details of work in everything raning from the staircase to the small 4" x 4" tiles on the floor to the Camel Bone Carving of a dragon.

The latter half of our journey is really "Wat" so special because we saw lots of temples. Thailand is filled with temples all around. We lost count of how many temples we've seen. I guess it's really "Wat" you want is "Wat" you get over here....hahahahhaha!

Alright, gotta go....we're shopping at the infamous Emporium shopping center!! WhooHoo!

Cheerios,
The Looove Birds (aka the Chhimis)

Shrek 2 in Gold Class Seats

One word: AWESOME! We went to see Shrek 2 (because Tab's been dying to see that movie since we've left the States) with Chhimi's 2 cousins: Sonam and Namdrul at the GV theatre. We bought something called "Gold Class" seats...and it was equivalent to extra-special VIP!!

There was a RED carpet for us to walk into an exclusive VIP lounge! They served us "welcome drinks'. Can you believe it?! This is for a MOVIE, people. VIP treatment for the ultimate movie experience. And the theater only hosts no more than 32 seats!!

These seats were freaking AWESOME! It was way better than any Lay-Z-Boyz you've sat on cuz it has automatic recline seating. They were very plush and comfy. The theater gave all the "VIP"s pillows, socks, and blankets so they can enjoy the movie properly.

Of course, there is also full-service for food. You can order popcorn, sodas, alcohol, dinner, etc and they will bring it to your seat! It is wonderful to get that VIP treatment people!!!

It was so comfy that Chhimi fell asleep ...TWICE .... during the movie for like 5 minutes. BTW, there is one extra-special row in the VIP theater where they are massaging chairs similar to the ones you see in Brookstones but much plusher!!!

Awesome experience for the same movie price in the States....can't beat that!!