Thailand 2012: Day 5

The Italian boys have arrived!
One of the purpose of this trip was to take care of Diego and his colleagues who were coming from Italy. Today, I woke up to go pick up Diego at the airport. I was so excited. Unfortunately, his plane landed super early so we missed each others. I was very sad that we missed each others :(. We met up at his hotel which was the Renaissance. The hotel is adjacent to my old school when I was in Thailand too. It was called Mater Dei, a catholic school (I'm a buddhist though).

About to make a wish at Erawan Shrine
We decided to first go to Jatujak, but on the way we stopped by the Erawan Shrine. It is a famous shrine that is known to grant many people's wishes. You are supposed to make a promise when you ask for your wish. When your wish comes true, you need to fulfill your promise or bad things will happen to you. Let's say that your wish is to be accepted in this company, and if your wish comes true, you will donate $5000 to the orphanage for example. Then, if you really do get accepted into that company, then you better donate to the orphanage as you said. It's like an exchange.

Then we went to Jatujak, a famous outdoor market, for the day. It was so hot, but we had a lot of fun. They have everything at there: fresh fruits, crafts, gifts, plants, animals, etc. His friends are so nice. They were so open to everything. I love traveling with people that are open to other cultures and are excited to see and try new things with an open mind. That's what a good and fresh mangosteen should look like!
Mangosteen & Rambutan, "Mmm! Mangoes are so delicious!" face, 70cents per bag

They even tried bugs! I think Gianpaolo and Diego were the most brave when it comes to insect tasting. They tried the most variety and tried the biggest ones. Truthfully, I haven't even tried any bugs myself and I'm Thai lol. The Insect cart! Tasty :d

I also saw one of the cutest puppy ever in Jatujak today. Let us look at cute puppies so we can forget about all those bugs >_< This puppy is so cute!

I came back to the hotel around 2-3 pm, showered because I was super sticky from sweat, rested, called mom and dad in the US, and I’m now typing this. It’s around 4:30 now, so I have to leave to the Renaissance again. We’re meeting Pailin at 5pm to go to a Championship thai kickboxing match.

*Back and the boxing match was quite amazing. Pailin's husband was presenting 1 million baht to the troops in Thailand, so we all got VIP seatings for the event. I've never been to a Kickboxing event before. Unlike traditional Thai boxing fights, These were called "Thai Fights" and there are 3 rounds per match rather than 5 rounds. It was very festive and fun :). All the fighters exit right by me, so I got to saw all of them up close.
One of the fighter taking pictures with his fans after the match. My sister's husband presenting the donation for Thai troops.

Dinner today was at "Kua Kling" which is restaurant that serves a southern thai cuisine. We were super hungry, so I forgot to take the pictures of the food lol. Cristian and Cristian eating Southern Thai food :)

Thailand 2012: Day 4

I got an Arale hat!
My brother, Tone, came early to drag me to buffet breakfast downstair. We ate our breakfast and then he took me to Loft and Daiso in another mall. I was looking for a vaccume storage bags so I can stick some of my merchandise in to take back home. I bought a lot of cute things from both stores. Daiso had these very cute collapsible storage fabric baskets. I bought 6 of them >_<.
Then we went to the largest mall in thailand which was called "Mega Bangna". It has an Ikea in it. We had lunch there at a chinese restaurant that was known for their fish maul soup. Then we went to walk around some more. My brother said they sell moose meat! He must be kidding. lol.
Around 4 pm, we went to Tone's house which is outside of Bangkok. I took a nap for an hour, and then his wife came home. We head out to Asiantique which is an outdoor night market near the river. The ambiance was very nice and lively. We had dinner at a seafood place which was super great and I bought some jewelries from a cute little shop. I also got a Arale hat! OMG, I felt so cool! lol. There was also a shop that sold very pretty jewelries. I bought some too. It was a fun night ^^ Asiantique





and of course we had amazing Thai seafood inside Asiantique as well.

Thailand 2012: Day 3

Today's highlight is Gateway Mall
Went to see a friend, Bomm, for Lunch at Cuppa today. I didn’t know but there are two different branches. One is the original branch called Cuppa, and the other is Cuppa Deli. Bomm went to the wrong place. He drove his motorcycle and actually came to meet us super fast though. Amazing speed @_@. Truffle Pizza and the Brownie was super good!


Then after that I went to explore Gateway mall by myself in Ekamai. It’s a new japanese mall that opened up. There are Daiso and Loft there. They happened to have a “Taste of Japan” event. It was quite fun. There was a sushi chef that was slicing a 60 kg tuna and gave out samples to the people watching. They also had a sushi tasting contest where the contestants were blindfolded and had to guess what fish they are eating.


the Evening, I went to Pailin’s new shop/bar which is called the Book shop. It was opened only a few weeks ago. They are still testing out their menu so one of her friend was there to try some of the drinks. Poor Chris drank a cocktail with Kiwi in it and he’s highly allergic to Kiwi, so we had to rush him to the hospital after he started to throw up. He threw up a few more times at the hospital and the doctor gave him some medicine. We ended up being there for about 2 hours. Then we came back to my hotel room and Pailin and I had a nice girl chat slumber party type of thing haha. We ended up talking all night and went to sleep around 5:30 am. Chris dying in the hospital
Lastly, I saw something very strange at the grocery store in the mall today. They have a body wash with gold leaves in it. It's actually not even that expensive, but the ingredient other than gold that kinda scared me is... placenta?? what???!! Seriously??