Early in the morning, we set off for the flight to Thailand with Kelvin, Royston, Yihe and Huiqing.
Royston bought bought something even b4 we board the flight, haha. He got a bottle of Estee Lauder Paradise for his mum, coz there was no Estee Lauder Pleasure. His mum very fashionable leh, i dun even noe what brand has wat types of perfume, except a few tt their advertisements caught my attn, like Dolly and Secret Wish from Anna Sui. Their bottles were really cute, esp secret wish bottle...
The flight was about 3hrs... hmm... this is equivalent to the transportation time i took to and fro NTU!!!! Wahaha! We took Jetstar Asia flight but it was operated by ValueAir coz they 2 combine now. The seats were spacious and really comfortable, not a bit like budget airline plane!
There was a tour guide from our travel agency to pick us up to the hotel, Asia Hotel. Everything was fine with Asia Hotel, but there's a few things which i think they should provide. Like toothbrush and toothpaste, and also kettle to boil water... They only provide cool water. If they dun provide a kettle, i felt tt at least there should be a shared hot water outlet at the corridor juz like first world hotel.
1st destination of the day gotta be Mahboonkong (MBK) since our hotel is so near there. I had been there once b4, it still look the same now. It is still as nice to shop there, too.
Found the cushion tt my mama wanted me to buy for her. It was so bulky, i wondered how should i bring it back to Sgp after i had bought them. I bought 2 and i slashed the price, hahaha! It was 390b, and i bargained to 240b. Not a bad bargain huh. But i wanna slash to 200b, but didn't succeed... coz 240b is the same price in Sgp actually. However, I couldn't find it in Sgp liao, so i have to buy it there... haiz carry all the way back at the same price...
At night, we went to the Seafood restaurant which Huiqing's friend introduced. They said it was cheap and good ;p
But who knows... we went to the wrong Somboon seafood restaurant (this one is very near to MBK) which charged us really really high price. We suspected tt the Hotel staff aliance with them coz when we ask the hotel staff how to go to somboon restaurant, they were so happy and willing to help us. They helped us arranged a cab to go there at only 50b! And you know how much we pay for the meal for 6 of us??? 6073b!!!!!!!! S$40 each person! We were very angry...
We got out of the restaurant to go to our next destination Lumphini night market, now known as Suam Lum Night Bazaar. There were a few taxis waiting outside and they were charging very high price at 200b, when we ask them if can go by meter, they rejected. If u meet this kind of drivers, either u slash the price or u ask them to go by meter... After feeling a bit cheated, we are more cautious about the price now.
We board a taxi whose driver is willing to on the meter and willing to drive the 6 of us. He was a very nice guy, he can speak some english, well enuff for a proper conversation. He is our saviour, we wish tt we can meet this taxi driver everywhere we go... but of course tt is not gonna happen.
When we told him about the Somboon Restaurant incident, he was shocked. 6000b!!!! He said he had been to Somboon restaurant and his family ate a dinner which is less than 1000b! then he told us we went to the wrong Somboon... the cheap and good somboon is Somboon Surawang (Muz walk from Sala Daeng Stn). Oh my god! tt's why... we were being brought to the most expensive somboon restaurant... We were so thankful to this uncle, who was really kind and helpful. The taxi fare was about 50b plus 60b but we decided to pay him a little more to show him our gratitude, even thou it was not much.
Suam Lum was a very nice place to bargain and shop. We realise tt we had only managed to shop one of the zones at the end of the day, so we will be back some other day ;p
We managed to get a cab driver who is willing to drive 6 of us back to the hotel. I think we were too heavy, with 5 ppl at the back seats, the back of the car hit the ground when the cab went over a hump, poor lady driver. We felt sorry for her...
>> 13th July 2006, Thursday
After our breakfast at the hotel, we went to MBK to book movie tix to watch "Pirates of the Caribbean 2" first before we went to the Siam Street to shop. Kev and I felt tt the shopping centre was boring as it was too singapore... So kev and I didn't go to the shopping centre, the 2 of us stayed at the smaller shops which is more like heeren and the edge those kind. We couldn''t find the things we wanted so we bought Cha-yen and some snacks and left for siam square and we saw the rest of them there.
I found a heels there and wanted to buy it so much coz it was rather comfortable even thou the it was quite high. But i find the price a bit high, so i didn't buy it 1st. I tot I saw the same design at the previous place so Kev had to accompany back there to get tt pair of heels, and the rest went to MBK swensen's 1st. I tried finding the heels tt i wanted but could not find the same design there.
Anyway after tt, we met up with them for some ice cream at swensen's 1st. After the swensen's, Kev accompany me all the way back to siam square juz to get tt pair of heels. So sorry... Then we bought the banana prata and chocolate prata at the place where we bought the cha-yen. We also found a Jap Restaurant tt sell cheap jap food. It is juz opp MBK! but we nv went back there to eat...
So the 2 of us went back to McDonald near the cinema and met up with the rest juz b4 the movie started. It was a funny show, but the story was a bit weird. Perhaps muz watch the 1st episode then will be make more sense ba...
After the show, the rest went to the MBK Food court for dinner. I accompanied kev to go and buy the polo tee tt he wanted to get juz now before meeting up with them again.
While on our way back to the hotel, we bought some steam corn back to the room to eat. It was a very interesting way to sell the corn! The vendor steamed the whole corn, then when u order, he dipped the whole corn into cool water. Then he sliced the edible part of the corn of its core easily. COOL!
We were supposed to club tonight. But i was feeling exhausted i felt asleep once i reached the hotel room. I didn't even bath tt day.. *smelly me* The rest went out to have supper and chit chat.>> 14th July 2006, Friday
Again, breakfast at hotel. Actually, i quite like their breakfast ;p
Then we split ways. Huiqing and Yihe went to shop. Me, Kev, Roy and Kel took the BTS Skytrain to Chit Lom and went to the temple and pray. It's the 4-Faced Buddha. We are supposed to kneel down and pray 4 times, one time towards one face of the Buddha. And after praying, we were suppose to offer 3 joss sticks and one flower ring for each side of the Buddha Face.
After praying, we were supposed to walk to Pratunum Mkt to meet up with Yihe and Huiqing. But we saw the big shopping centre which also had a very big supermkt - The Big C. So we went in and found out tt Levis was on 40% to 60% sales for some model!!! I wanted to buy one pair of jeans too, but the design tt i like was not a zipper jeans, but buttoned which i find really troublesome. Imagine going to the toilet when u are urgent and u have to unbutton about 4-5 buttons 1st???
Roy and kel bought the jeans and they were really happy ;p We informed Yihe and Huiqing about the good bargain and they rushed their way here. But they din get anything in the end i think as the designs on discount were not wat they wanted.
So the 6 of us moved on to the Pratunum Mkt. The things there were quite common, but kev and I enjoyed ourselves there. The rest of them find it so boring there, they went back to MBK even b4 the time we should meet. So after kev and I got wat we wanted, we went back to the hotel and all of them were back there liao.
Tonight, we are gg to go to the real Somboon. 6 of us took the BTS Skytrain to Sala Daeng (a plc for the japanese) and walked our way to Surawang Road. We were so surprised tt ppl at Thailand are even more orderly than Singaporeans!!! They really line up when gg into the train. As in straight lines those kind! Impressed.
It was a long walk to Surawang. We were so happy when we reached there! The whole restaurant was filled with mostly japanese. This time we only ordered the famous curry crab which is on promotion now. I din order the other crabs coz i see tt the price was still kinda high. It's about S$40 per kg of crab, although it's a bit cheaper than the other Somboon! However, the prices of other dishes were really cheap. We only spent about S$10 each!!! when the waitress told us the total bill was 1670b, we were shocked as we were prepared to pay about 2000b to 3000b. I think the waitress muz be thinking tt we had not enuff money to pay or the meal was too expensive when we gave her our unbelievable look.
After tt we wanted to take cab to Suam Lum Night Market but we could not find. We found the Tuk-tuks and wanted to take it. But they wanted to charge us at 200b for each tuk-tuk, and we had to take 2 tuk tuk. So we decided to bargain with them, 50b each. They were only willing to lower to 100b for each tuk-tuk, so we walked again. One of their friends came and offer us the last price, 80b each. OK ;p
Me, Kev and Roy were split from Huiqing, Yihe and Kel at Suam Lum as we could not find their tuk-tuk. After shopping till quite late, we bought quite alot of things there as we felt this is our last stop b4 tml's Chatuchak. We shopped till we were tired b4 we left. And coincidentally, we met yihe, huiqing and kel at the central fountain. So we went to took cab tgt. We managed to find a young driver who is willing to on his meter and drive all the 6 of us.
But when his friend saw, he was a bit afraid and asked 3 of us to take his friend's cab who would on his meter too. We agreed so as not to make things difficult for him. Who knows... as they started to drive off a bit, they realised tt they dunno how to go to our hotel!!! OMG... so we had to get down the taxis.
We walked out of Suam Lum to search for cabs again. Finally, we managed to get a uncle who is willing to drive the 6 of us back to the hotel. We went to 7-eleven nearby to buy some stuff 1st b4 gg back to the hotel.
We then went to Roy and kel's room to chit chat. We din even noe it was gg to 4am when we finished chatting! We had to wake up early next morning to go chatuchak! So we went back our room and rest quickly
>> 15th July 2006, Saturday
We deposited our belongings and checked out the room before gg for breakfast.
Then we took the train to Mo Chit where the Chatuchak Mkt is located. Yihe and huiqing went off to shop on their own again. We met alot of Kev's friend over there ;p
Chatuchak was so warm and crowded there, yet the price was about the same as pratunum mkt, MBK and Suam Lum mkt. More things were available there though, but not wat we wanted. We din get much things there and we decided to go back to MBK b4 we went back to the hotel to get our stuff and ready to go to the airport. We had our lunch there at a jap restaurant at MBK. We went to Tops in MBK to buy some drinks back to the hotel and Kev bought one tub of ice cream back, he even kapo the metal spoon from the MBK food court. Naughty boy.
When we were back to the hotel, Huiqing and yihe were already waiting at the hotel lobby. So we sat at the sofa there waiting for our tour agency to send someone to pick us up. While waiting, we chit chat with a Singaporean lady who brought her parents to Thailand for holidays.
When we reached the airport, the driver helped us to unload the baggages and luggage. Everyone gave tips although he din ask for it, so we also give him some, coz he was quite nice. We had to wait for about 45min b4 we can check in since we were early. they went to check out the BK there, it was so expensive, even more expensive than singapore! So we ended up empty stomach. They tried eating the melted ice cream tt kev bought juz now... but i think it's a bit yucky after it had melt so no one wanted after a few mouth of it. We ended up throwing it away.
We shopped a bit in the airport but we felt the things were too expensive there. so we all boarded the plane empty handed. It was a sleepy ride home... I was so tired... Yihe met his sec sch junior who was juz sitting in front of him on the plane ;p
Finally back home, my parents came to fetch kev and I. Others' families came too. And i realised Yihe's dad look so much like kev's dad. hahaha!!! Juz like yixian also feel tt our daddies looked alike ;p