'One night in Bankok and the world's your oyster...' - Feb 5th/2006
Ah Bangkok.....in a city of 10 million people, there's bound to be something going on around town. This weekend, the final weekend for Dan and I (we leave for Tokyo at 3am tonight...ugh), we've been doing a tonne of wandering around, shopping, and seeing what schennanegans we can get up to.
When we got to Bangkok, the funniest thing happened; we ran into Mark and Kendra from Bottle Beach...HHEEEeeeeeeyyyy...what's up?? What are you guys doing here... Just walking along, on our way to Koh San Road, and there they are. We all caught up on our adventures to date and hung out....had a wicked dinner last night too, right across from a guesthouse called New Siam I (we're a block away in a newer guesthouse called New Siam II - really ritzy for $30 a night..pool, tv, internet nearby, etc..). This restaurant was really good; in fact, it was great food. I was glad to have finished my meal when I saw two huge rats (the size of cats) running back and forth along the wall towards the kitchen...ick!! When I think about food preparation all around the world, even in Canada, there's always going to be something that will make people go queasy but I think I'm getting used to things out here.
Point of fact, I'm sure there are places back home that have food/health issues. In my late teens, I used to work at Dominos Pizza. This place was gross. Every night, at least 3 or 4 times a night, the owner making the pizza would pull out one of the stainless steel cabinets (the ones for rolling out the dough) and would start stomping away on an army of these transparent looking bugs that would swarm all around the floor. Though I'm sure all pizza places today probably have the same issue, for the life of me I'm just no longer a fan of ordering from Dominos. Ah well, it is what it is (direct quote from Todd Bertuzzi..according to Dan and Arn....I can't stop saying this phrase).
That said, the boys and are are going to meet up with Kimiko and Sebastian (folks we met on our Chaing Mai trek) at the same restaurant as last night. The rats don't change the fact that the food is still good....as long as they aren't getting into it...
Yesterday, we hit the weekend market in Chatta Chak - easily, 8000+ stalls of clothes, furniture (including rock furniture for gardens...like who is going to carry a 2 tonne boulder home...), CD's (pirated), DVD's (also pirated), swords, knives, ninja stars (who buys this stuff??), food (wet market), live tropical fish, little baby bunny rabbits, mice, live maggots (yup...and BBQed ones too), little puppies, bags, hats, fur pelts, you name it. It was a lot to take in.
I felt a little bad about the animals, especially after seeing the conditions in which some of these animals were kept, but I kept moving on; PETA would have a field day out here.
The hockers all cried out their wares..trying to entice people walking by into their shops. The kept the alley ways between shops very tight and I think it was for pure strategy:
1. Maximize the shop space and
2. Force people to walk single file, making them slow down so that as a vendor, you could try pulling people into your shop.
This works.
Though after hours of walking around in the heat (it was like 35+ degrees with humidity), I was shattered and never did buy a thing. I think Arnie and Dan may have walked away with a bunch of stuff. It was a crazy market.
We did some more shopping today and I was able to find a duffle bag big enough to fit all the suits and jackets that I had bought. There are lockers at the Tokyo airport so I'm hoping to leave them at the airport and not have to lug them all over Japan. Not a bad deal though for the bag...$15CDN.
Last night was funny too (Arnie will mention it in his BLOG) as when we hit Koh San Road, we walked by a Shell gas station. We've all seen them, some of them are closed at night. Well, the pumps were closed but an open air night club popped up in their place. It was weird...I've never seen people milling around fuel stations with drinks on one hand, lit cigarettes in another, and all of it listening to techno....umm, you guys may want to put out that cigarette...just an idea....what do you think??
Starting tomorrow, Dan and I are in Tokyo. The plan is to get settled and get as much of the city in as we can (we only really have 5 full days of looking around). Agenda planned so far:
1. Go to Sega Joyopolis and game it up
2. Check out a virtual brewerie where we can sample a beverage or two after a tour.
3. Hit Ropongo (I spelt this wrong...don't have my book with me) for night life.
4. Hit Akiabra for the tech stuff (I spelt Akiabra wrong too I'm sure)
5. Hit Kyoto for a day...I'll probably do this on my own as Dan is a little 'templed' out.
6. Tokyo Disneyland...ahh...why not....
Most of the planning done is to keep us as warm and dry as possible...the weather is almost identical to Vancouver from all the weather reports we've seen. Beyond that, if there are any suggestions from the Hostel we're staying at, we'll give it a shot.
Harvey
When we got to Bangkok, the funniest thing happened; we ran into Mark and Kendra from Bottle Beach...HHEEEeeeeeeyyyy...what's up?? What are you guys doing here... Just walking along, on our way to Koh San Road, and there they are. We all caught up on our adventures to date and hung out....had a wicked dinner last night too, right across from a guesthouse called New Siam I (we're a block away in a newer guesthouse called New Siam II - really ritzy for $30 a night..pool, tv, internet nearby, etc..). This restaurant was really good; in fact, it was great food. I was glad to have finished my meal when I saw two huge rats (the size of cats) running back and forth along the wall towards the kitchen...ick!! When I think about food preparation all around the world, even in Canada, there's always going to be something that will make people go queasy but I think I'm getting used to things out here.
Point of fact, I'm sure there are places back home that have food/health issues. In my late teens, I used to work at Dominos Pizza. This place was gross. Every night, at least 3 or 4 times a night, the owner making the pizza would pull out one of the stainless steel cabinets (the ones for rolling out the dough) and would start stomping away on an army of these transparent looking bugs that would swarm all around the floor. Though I'm sure all pizza places today probably have the same issue, for the life of me I'm just no longer a fan of ordering from Dominos. Ah well, it is what it is (direct quote from Todd Bertuzzi..according to Dan and Arn....I can't stop saying this phrase).
That said, the boys and are are going to meet up with Kimiko and Sebastian (folks we met on our Chaing Mai trek) at the same restaurant as last night. The rats don't change the fact that the food is still good....as long as they aren't getting into it...
Yesterday, we hit the weekend market in Chatta Chak - easily, 8000+ stalls of clothes, furniture (including rock furniture for gardens...like who is going to carry a 2 tonne boulder home...), CD's (pirated), DVD's (also pirated), swords, knives, ninja stars (who buys this stuff??), food (wet market), live tropical fish, little baby bunny rabbits, mice, live maggots (yup...and BBQed ones too), little puppies, bags, hats, fur pelts, you name it. It was a lot to take in.
I felt a little bad about the animals, especially after seeing the conditions in which some of these animals were kept, but I kept moving on; PETA would have a field day out here.
The hockers all cried out their wares..trying to entice people walking by into their shops. The kept the alley ways between shops very tight and I think it was for pure strategy:
1. Maximize the shop space and
2. Force people to walk single file, making them slow down so that as a vendor, you could try pulling people into your shop.
This works.
Though after hours of walking around in the heat (it was like 35+ degrees with humidity), I was shattered and never did buy a thing. I think Arnie and Dan may have walked away with a bunch of stuff. It was a crazy market.
We did some more shopping today and I was able to find a duffle bag big enough to fit all the suits and jackets that I had bought. There are lockers at the Tokyo airport so I'm hoping to leave them at the airport and not have to lug them all over Japan. Not a bad deal though for the bag...$15CDN.
Last night was funny too (Arnie will mention it in his BLOG) as when we hit Koh San Road, we walked by a Shell gas station. We've all seen them, some of them are closed at night. Well, the pumps were closed but an open air night club popped up in their place. It was weird...I've never seen people milling around fuel stations with drinks on one hand, lit cigarettes in another, and all of it listening to techno....umm, you guys may want to put out that cigarette...just an idea....what do you think??
Starting tomorrow, Dan and I are in Tokyo. The plan is to get settled and get as much of the city in as we can (we only really have 5 full days of looking around). Agenda planned so far:
1. Go to Sega Joyopolis and game it up
2. Check out a virtual brewerie where we can sample a beverage or two after a tour.
3. Hit Ropongo (I spelt this wrong...don't have my book with me) for night life.
4. Hit Akiabra for the tech stuff (I spelt Akiabra wrong too I'm sure)
5. Hit Kyoto for a day...I'll probably do this on my own as Dan is a little 'templed' out.
6. Tokyo Disneyland...ahh...why not....
Most of the planning done is to keep us as warm and dry as possible...the weather is almost identical to Vancouver from all the weather reports we've seen. Beyond that, if there are any suggestions from the Hostel we're staying at, we'll give it a shot.
Harvey
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12:41 AM
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