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).
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.
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.
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 >_<
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.
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.
