Random thoughts, rants and reflections

I'm back!! I've just woken up from a 6-hr nap since getting home from the airport. the past 5 days was really tiring physically.... far from what i thought would be a 'relaxing trip'. heh.... zonked out on my bed not long after unpacking my stuff.

blow by blow account of my trip will follow, but let me first talk about today, which is the final day of my 5-day trip. some unexpected surprises this morning... bumped into singapore idol judge Dick Lee at the bangkok airport, managed to take a picture with him. hmm, i think he does look different in real person. next surprise was a superbly pleasant one... when we received our tickets for our return flight, some of us were wondering why our tickets had the word 'Business Class' on it, but thought it was just some advert on the ticket. not really - turned out that we were actually upgraded to the better class of seats cos the economy section was full. it was definitely a first for me... suddenly i wasn't used to the extended space and better service on the business deck. cool....

Day One
Reached Bangkok some time around 5pm. there was still daylight when we stepped out of the airport, but due to the infamous Bangkok traffic conditions, it was dark by the time we reached Asia Hotel, our temporary place of residence. paid almost S$50 for two equally infamous bangkok highlights - the 'A Kua'(Transexuals) Cabaret and the 'Tiger' show. Man........haiizz... some stuff happened to me at the first show, but i won't go into details here apart from that i was accosted by few of the 'performers', and certainly i also think that i won't want to describe the 2nd show on this blog... they were a complete waste of money in my opinion... went away at the end of the day feeling rather cheesed off...

we stopped over at Suan Lum Night Market after the 2 shows for some dinner and light shopping. oh my... had my first taste of German Pork Knuckles, introduced by tong choon ... heavenly! they certainly went well with my Erdinger. went shopping after the meal.... bought some stuff, and on hindsight, we realised that suan lum is indeed more of a tourist spot with inflated prices, much like clarke quay.


Day Two
the day before Christmas. started the day with a 'City cum River Market Tour'. the river market was CRAP in my opinion. it wasn't even the real stuff where hawkers peddle their wares along a passage of water in their boats. yeah there were boats alright, but you call THREE hawker boats a 'market'??? rip-off! but anyway, not too bothered by it cos it ain't the 'main course' of our trip. this was the beginning of our shopping campaign (or rather Flora's shopping campaign). we made our way to the famous Chaituchak Weekend market, and goodness, it was SOOOOOOOOOO crowded!! space was definitely a luxury as we jostled our way through the near-impassable human traffic. anyway, we realised in another couple of days that chaituchak doesn't really sell cheap stuff as well. more about it later.

no shopping trip can be complete without a soothing message to cap it off. the traditional Thai body massage was next on the cards. we proceeded to a massage parlour somewhere near our hotel for a 2-hr massage. wah... i don't know how my masseuse did it.... but i think she activated some pressure point in my body that caused me to feel extremely drowsy after the whole session. also, there was a greater tendency for 'gas' (if you know what i mean....if you don't, read Fart) build-up in the body. oh one more thing to add.... for men, do be wary of a certain extra 'special' service. almost kena....

the day was marred in a way by some extremely poor service at a japanese restaurant. it seemed that the service staff were all practically clueless to the needs of the customers, not to mention also that the food delivery was atrocious - only 2 of us were having our meals at any one time, and in the end flora had to cancel her order cos it was taking way too long... and the rest of us had already finished our meals by that time. pissed off....

Day Three
Christmas day! my first ever spent overseas. on this day we went to Platunum market. Like Chaituchak, it was as crowded.... think we spent nearly an hour walking thru juz 100m of the street. didn't spend much time shopping here cos it was simply impossible to get anything with the large volume of ppl crowding the street and shops.

must make a mention of this place called Indra Square here. as with popular belief, we thought that stuff sold in shopping centers would invariably be more expensive than those in street markets. how wrong we were. while shopping at indra square (in a bid to get away from the crowded madness), we found that the Birkenstock sandals that we bought in Chaituchak Market was nearly 40-50% cheaper at the shopping center. our jaws dropped when we saw the price cos we thought we had a great bargain at chaituchak. haha and to even our our 'losses', we made a few more purchases there. concluded at the end of the day that shopping malls (less the upmarket ones like Paragon) in bangkok really ARE the places to get a bargain.

Had lunch a The Platinum. Expensive sounding place, but actually it is a great place for bargain-hunters. bought 2 pairs of shirt for less than S$10 each. way cool....
anyway, the lunch cost way less than 300Baht for the 5 of us. had a severe indigestion problem after having some really spicy fried noodles.... was in real agony towards the evening.... for the first time in my life i thought i could die from the pain alone... but thankfully for some pills and the bird's nest we had after dinner, the pain subsided, but it was to nag me for the rest of my trip.


Day Four
Boxing Day. went to the shopping belt equivalent to Orchard Rd. it was certainly an eye-opener... move aside Ngee Ann City, Siam Center and Paragon Bangkok were about the largest shopping malls i've seen so far. it was nearly impossible to finish walking thru ALL the shops in a day alone. and i suspect in Siam Center alone, the distance we covered was the same as a 10-15km march. Paragon is massively big and futuristic. it makes the paragon in singapore look a like a mini-me version of it. just the food mall alone covers an area of 2 football pitches. everything was just so spacious at the paragon.

we split into 2 teams after lunch. robin, flora and myself opted to go back to Platunum and Indra square for some more shopping, while tong choon and yingchin decided to explore the suburbs of bangkok in the skytrain. like what i observed and mentioned somewhere in this blog, girls have limitless energy when it comes to shopping. and flora was certainly no exception, i think she's about on par with Dotz, the only other shopperholic i know. even robin the poor bf was worn out after the extended shopping spree.

headed back to the hotel after 2-3 hrs to meet up with TC and yingchin, before proceeding to Suan-Lum for our last dinner in thailand. robin and tc went for a haircut at a salon, and guess what, it cost just S$8! steady sial... of course, we did shop again, but this time round armed with better knowledge of the general prices of goods. this certainly gave us more bargaining power as we were now able to discern the true great buy.

rounded off the evening playing cards back at the hotel. we had wanted to do this all along, but i'm usually asleep by the time everyone's ready. so this time round my frens weren't gonna let me off. hehz...


Thoughts and Thanksgiving

The weather....
compared to june when i last visited thailand, the weather conditions were much better this time round. it was cool the first 2 days, then started to become warmer from the 3rd day onwards. it was as though someone was tweaking the weather to ease us into the climate here. didn't perspire much even on the warmer days. also thankfully, it only started raining today... wah...thank God. =)

The group...
sometimes, it really surprises me how GOd is able to preserve our friendship thru time and distance. apart from flora who's our junior, the rest of us have known one another for at least 11 years. and this is our first trip together as a group. really enjoyed the company of these ppl, the hilarious quips by robin, my buddy-buddy banters with TC, yingchin the constant target for us to disturb and make fun of, and flora the Shopping Queen with her boundless energy and sharp eye for bargains. love them all... may there be more trips like this to come!

The morning QTs...
thank God for TC, who initiated the morning QTs for our trip. really, i wouldn't have had the discipline to do it myself. apart from the first day, TC, yingchin and I would wake up early for our time with God. i'm really encouraged by how we've come thru in our personal journeys. to think of it, we weren't really christians in our time as classmates in GM, and now we are coming together to pray.... simply surreal. hope to engage them more often for times like these.

The Thais...
with still less than 5% of them claiming to be christians, wat does the future hold for these ppl? having experienced the seedier side of thailand, it is clear that many are still living in the dark, oblivious to (or perhaps unbothered with) the gospel message. who's gonna reach out to the Trans (A Kuas), the bargirls, the taxi-drivers, students or even the beggar on the street??

Now...
still feel i need more sleep... will do so as soon as i settle some personal admin...

will pop by at the meta conference tmw evening... also, i look forward to an extended day of personal retreat this coming friday. would be a good time to reflect on the past year...


ok that's all for my bangkok report! signing off.