Saturday, April 7, 2012

Travel Blog: Bangkok Trip Souvenirs 曼谷之旅纪念品 4-7 Apr 12

Can't count, but what you see here is everything we bought from Bangkok. Yeah yeah Dear says other people grab this much within a day. Ours is nothing compared to theirs. Faints...

I especially like the white singlets with the colourful prints, but I wonder whether we got a bargain or got scammed. THB 900 for these 8 singlets. We found a stall right outside our hotel which sells at THB for 100 if I remember correctly. And these singlets feel quite rough. Hmm... Let's go back to Bangkok again! =D

We must be crazeeee.


All the T-shirts and singlets on a closer view.

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Bangkok via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Budacco, The Living Place, click here.

Links to my Bangkok Trip 2012
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4

Travel Blog: Bangkok Trip Day 4, 曼谷之旅第四天, 7 Apr 12

曼谷之旅第四天:4月7日2012年, 星期六

Last day of our tour of Bangkok.... We explored a building right across the road from the alley which leads to where our hotel is. It's a building hardly anyone will notice cos it's so run-down and old and dirty. But once we entered, it's again rows of shops and more shops. Didn't really see anything nice to grab though. Therefore we went back to our hotel to rest and get ready to say goodbye. But we haven't really tried the roadside stalls in Bangkok, so I decided to grab some chicken rice, which is all wrapped up nicely. Quite good, I'd say. Much better than some chicken rice stalls in Singapore lol. Grabbed some sweetcorn and coconut as well to mark the end of our tour of Bangkok.

Roadside stall chicken rice. Better than some stalls in Singapore!

Roadside stall corn!

At the airport. Time to leave BKK sobz...

Interesting display of some Thai myth, I think, in the airport.

The almighty Thai God.

They playing tug-of-war. Look at the 3-headed snake they're pulling.

They also playing tug-of-war.

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Bangkok via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Budacco, The Living Place, click here.

Links to my Bangkok Trip 2012
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Souvenirs

Friday, April 6, 2012

Travel Blog: Bangkok Trip Day 3, 曼谷之旅第三天, 6 Apr 12

Bangkok Trip Day 3: 6th April 2012, Friday
曼谷之旅第三天:4月6日2012年, 星期五

Third day already. We woke up for the hotel buffet breakfast as usual. Then we ventured around the maze of shops all around the area of our hotel. Every little nook and corner you can squeeze into is nothing but shops selling all kinds of clothes, accessories, you name it. We eventually wandered off into an area next to Shibuya19, another shopping mall. We'll get to that later.

Somehow we managed to stumble upon this noodle restaurant. They sell chicken or char siew rice too, if I remember correctly. The wanton noodles were recommended by some website introducing things about Bangkok. Since we were already there by luck, we decided to go in and try out the noodles. Nothing fantastic really. A bowl costs THB 50, which is roughly $2, so it's not too bad lol.

Not bad, but not really something you can't miss.

SabX2 (Wonton Noodle)

Opening Hours: 10:00 – 18:00
Location: Soi Petchaburi 19 (right beside SHIBUYA19)
Cuisine: Chinese Noodles

This rather new fashion mall called SHIBUYA19 is just right beside the wanton restaurant. Every single floor contains shops all selling the usual clothing, accessories etc. The ground floor has McDonald's and Starbucks and the top floor contains their food court. Not very big though, and there weren't (m)any customers, probably cos it's still new. We visited every floor and browsed through almost every shop and finally ended up at the food court. Time to eat again! Decided to try the basil pork with rice. Not too bad at all. Also ordered the egg pad thai. Looks yummy though but tastes quite normal. Only cost us THB 80 for this meal.

Food court stuff such as these are actually much better than those from roadside stalls.

Looks good! But tastes rather normal lol.

This building's floors are named after Japanese places.

The 7th floor seems to be the reception to the hotel called GLOW Pratunam by Zinc. The rooms look pretty well-furnished and it's situated at the main road and surrounded by all the shopping malls. I'll probably try this hotel next time if I go back to Bangkok.

It's the Thai Songkran Festival soon. Everywhere and everyone starting to prepare for it.

Lotsa interesting food along the roadside.

No idea what these are.

We walked along and ended up at Central World yet again. Went to the food court for the awesome fried kway teow again lol. Also ordered some chicken chop rice. Then it's another round of shopping at Platinum Mall.

Some Korean music festival holding a mini concert here I think.

This is really awesome! The mouth-watering taste still lingers in my mouth as I see this pic.

This is great too!

Then we spent some time walking around Central World (it's just too huge!) and by the time we were out, the sky had already turned dark. There were plenty of roadside stalls outside CW and Big C and we scanned through them for bargains. Then we also explored Big C, another shopping mall opposite CW. Wanted to look for a Citibank ATM but couldn't find one anywhere. End up it's hidden in some part of CW. Finally we managed to find the Citibank branch and hence got some additional cash cos we were running out of THB lol.

City lights in Bangkok. (took on the bridge linking Central World to Big C)

Finally found a Citibank branch!

And what do you do when you have more money? Spend more of course! We went to the supermarket at CW and got some food for ourselves as well as bringing back to Singapore.

This is one HUGE mall.

Momo Dear opens a restaurant in BKK.

It's already 11pm or so when we finished our shopping and we haven't had dinner! Well we had a late lunch so it's not so bad. We walked past several restaurants and finally agreed on this Thai-Asian restaurant: Mango Tree Bistro. They were playing all the popular Thai, Korean, English hits when we were there. There was also a huge projection screen above where we sat, where MTVs were being displayed. Atmosphere was great, with the high-energy sound system, cool decor and mouth-watering dishes to pacify our hungry tummies. It was a great way to chill, as well as to rest our tired feet from all the walking.

We ordered a few dishes for this dinner/supper. Sweet and sour pork, Tom Yum soup, some chicken satay with interesting sauce and some white rice, plus some fruit juice. What a finale for the day! Yumzzz...

Thirst-quenching fruit juice.

Sweet and sour pork! Simply marvellous!

What's a Thai meal without Tom Yum Soup? Slurp!

Thai satay! The gravy and cucumber and pineapple mixture is damn good!

Wonderful ambience and decor.

The other side is an outdoor area where you can see the Bangkok citylights.

The entrance area also has several tables.

Mango Tree Bistro
Unit A706, 7th Fl.,
CentralWorld Zone Atrium,
Rajdamri Rd., Pattumwan,
Bangkok 10330
Tel. 0 2252 0972
e-mail : mgb@coca.com
Open Daily : 11.00 am. - 11.00

After we had our fill, we slowly made our way back, through the then almost empty streets, to our hotel. Well...not before I finish off the wonderful third day of our trip with a nice cold bottle of Chang Beer from the trusty old 7-11 muahaha!

What's a night in Bangkok without some Chang beer?

What's a night in Bangkok without some...Japanese MV? No porn though lol.

So many channels to choose from. How to sleep? LOL

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Bangkok via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Budacco, The Living Place, click here.

Links to my Bangkok Trip 2012
Day 1
Day 2
Day 4
Souvenirs

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Travel Blog: Bangkok Trip Day 2, 曼谷之旅第二天, 5 Apr 12

Bangkok Trip Day 2: 5th April 2012, Thursday
曼谷之旅第二天:4月5日2012年, 星期四

It's early morning 5am or so. Reluctantly I had to drag myself out of bed to accompany the two ladies downstairs to the morning market, which had already been bustling with energy by the time we went down. You'll never see that in Singapore lol. All the makeshift stall owners were scrambling to get their goods hanging on the partitions between each stall. And it was raining at that time too! Had to hide in the stalls while the two of them started their bargain-hunting. I'll gladly go back to sleep in my comfy bed and forgo such bargains if I were them lol. After rounds of haggling (in which the prices were already damn low), they emerged victorious with bags of trophies. OMGness. Once they were done, we headed back to our hotel.

Pretty simple fare but good enough for our tastebuds.

It's always a luxury to wake up to a wonderful spread of breakfast, especially when you're travelling. Well...not when you woke up at 5am and walked for 2 hours or so before you get to munch on these goodies. Then again it's also a good thing to explore around the area for cheap and mouth-watering local food. Too bad our stay includes buffet breakfast for all mornings lol.

Dear and Vivian enjoying the breakfast.

After breakfast, I think we went back to bed for a while before a long and daunting bargain-hunting trip again. We visited the Platinum Fashion Mall. It contains 8 storeys of clothings, accessories, etc. We spent 3 hours browsing through most of the shops and bought plenty of clothes for ourselves, Nut and Dear's Mummy, some ties for myself, accessories for Cindy and Mummy. It's 3+pm already! Getting really hungry, and therefore we decided to settle for the food court upstairs on the top floor.

No photography allowed lol.

8 floors of shopping. Can you handle it?

The Platinum Food Centre

Opening Hours: 10:30 – 20:00
Location: 6th floor, Platinum Fashion Mall
Cuisine: Asian and Vegetarian

The fried kway teow was AWESOME! MUST TRY!

Beefball noodles. Not bad too.

Shark's fin soup anyone?

Drinks to quench our thirst after hours of shopping.

Jimmy mentioned he was staying at this hotel. Bottom floors are part of a shopping mall.

Made our way back to Budacco, packed our spoils of victory, before setting off on a hired van shared by all 7 of us to bring us around BKK.

I think we can open a stall of our own.

And off we go! Can see our tired eyes lacking of sleep.

Grand Palace

Seems like all temples in BKK have pointed tops like this. This is an entrance to the palace.

Next stop is Wat Pho, or the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. Already wanted to take a look at this interesting monument before we left for BKK, as I researched on the places to visit in BKK. Sure lived up to its name. Gigantic statue of a reclining buddha housed within a building.

Face-view

Full-view

Full back-view

Durian-head view

Dear and I exchanged 40 BHT worth of coins to drop into these bowls along the wall behind the Buddha.

Welcome to Wat Po.

Intricately decorated structures within the temple grounds.

Spot something weird here?

Inside one of the shrines.

One final pic before we left for dinner.

Next, Melvin and friend went to get some stuff while we waited in the van, and managed to catch a wink or two. Then the driver uncle brought us to this restaurant which is supposed quite popular - Poonsin Restaurant. We ordered many dishes and had a feast for dinner.

Don't think we'll ever visit this restaurant if we were on our own.

Kanpai!

Shark's fin soup again lol.

Tom Yum soup never disappoints.

We then hopped onto the van again and breezed through the streets of bangkok and the uncle introduced this very popular place with the locals, a place which sells bread as desserts. It is called Mont Nom Sod. Sounds interesting, so we all bought some back to try.

I supposed the name of the restaurant is called "Mont Nom Sod".

Here's the address in Thai, if you know how to read.

It's really fully-packed, with a neverending queue.
Some auntie peddler made use of the popularity to sell her foodstuff outside the restaurant lol.

Quite simple-looking but really quite tasty. Have tonnes of flavours as well.

Of course, had to buy some beer from 7-11. The Cornetto ice-cream cones were damn cheap.

What's a stay in BKK without having Singha beer?

Spoils for the day.

For a list of the hotels available for booking in Bangkok via Agoda.com, click here.
To make a hotel booking at Budacco, The Living Place, click here.

Links to my Bangkok Trip 2012
Day 1
Day 3
Day 4
Souvenirs