Revelry.

Woah, where did October go to? I am losing track of time in a good way with the start of Fall '10 Semester. Besides surviving the last semester and pulling it off with decent parental approved results, everything has slowed down as we look forward to the end of the year. It's weird coz i had so much work and projects then all of the sudden, it's halted to a minimal. In a way it is great because October has been one amazing month. It has been a mix of really good news, holidays, drinking sessions, airports, freeflows, concerts, beaches and friends. La vita x

You gotta love a beerfest in the city.

Our love for beer brought us to the other side of the city, nestled deep in rich land namely Bukit Tunku was a small makeshift garden transformed by the lovely people at Sid's Pub into a beer garden on a hot and sunny Sunday afternoon. It was a pretty good mix of crowd - families, expatriates, young working adults, underage teens!, & us. Lots of chatter going on, mingling around, dancing, beer cheering, conga line, meeting of acquaintances, photo taking among the beer loving bunch all decked out in sunnies/shades, hats (including a certain someone with a beer mug hat!) , flip-flops and of course The Oompah Band.


It was a happy, happy day full of beer revelry in an almost but not quite there yet Bavarian style, Oktoberfest. There were plenty of beer everywhere you turned. Prices ranged from roughly RM5 for the likes of Tiger, Guiness & Heineken, RM 10 for Paulaner, Kilkenny & Strongbow and other imported beers like Leffe, Löwenbräu, Stella Artois, Savanna, Konig Ludwig, Asahi, Pure Blond were going for RM 15. Well, it was cheap but not that cheap enough but it was so hawt anyway so all you wanted in your hands was a cold beer or make that two, three or more!

So there we were chilling out, drinking cold beer after another for five hours straight till it was almost dark. Awesomeness. And thanks for the free beer Sid's which everyone was enjoying at the end till the taps ran dry! Free Paulaner never tasted so sweet. It was a truly a bloody fantastic Sunday afternoon x

Last Night.

We have evolved to being quiet drunks who drives responsibly but spends a bit more expensively at decent upmarket establishments and ritzy suites or we might just fly 405 km's to obtain low-priced duty free alcohol when we feel the alcohol taxes are too high in the mainlands or just maybe, we might hang around waiting for events of sorts coz we just love a good free flow. We do it tastefully and sit on proper chairs, not by the pavement curb. and there will be no more parks or benches or convenience stores.

We drink, we toast ,we clinked our glasses and we have nice conversations. There might still be a little dancing or a loud banters of chatters but we will leave at the end remembering the night even when it's long over.

It's still the same good times and same great company.

Prologue to the future.

Bangkok : Day 3 & 4, Pampered pleasures.

Sunday was jam packed so much so we had to have a schedule for the day to keep track of time. We were having breakfast in the hotel when my sis was typing diligently into her Blackberry saying things like "Ok, we have to leave at 2.30pm so that gives us 4 hours of shopping over at JJ!" I was nodding while having the most scrumptious breakfast of bacon, eggs, sausages, potatoes, baked beans and toast. The simpler the better and the idea of having pork served in a hotel makes it simply oh so good.

If you have been or planning to visit Bangkok, of course you can't complete your weekend without heading over to Chatuchak Weekend Market or aslo known as JJ home to the world's largest market with 15 000 stores and counting. Although located further north of BKK, it is so worth it if you wanna shop, people watch or just enjoy baking under the sun on a lazy weekend. It was considered late when we got there at around 11am as it was already crazy packed and blazing super hot .Essentials include very minimal light clothing, backpack to stuff all your shopping (saves tons of plastic bags!), sunblock, water, lots of energy and a stop for the infamous coconut ice cream served in lil coconut shells. In the end of 4-ish hours, we were exhausted, sweaty, sunburned but still happy even if it wasn't enough of time coz you just can't covered the entire damn market.

So next year, we are definitely gonna do two days here because firstly you can get some amazing finds here if you look really carefully which you need plenty of time and secondly, the golden rule of JJ is that you never utter the words "oh, i'll come back to this store and buy it later". This is because if you do that, you will kick yourself so hard because you will never find that store again if you are thinking of doubling back. It is so large to the point that every store and lane will look the same by a certain time to the point they have 27 sections with store addresses on it just in case you desperately want to look for that particular store. So remember the golden rule people, adhere!

And after all that power shopping, you cannot NOT leave without having a massage, a manicure, spa treatment, reflexology or anything pleasurable ok, i am gonna stop your train of thoughts for a sec before you think of something else than what i am trying to say.........and we are back because it's silly not to for it is so super cheap and the service is excellent. The sis and i dedicated the rest of our afternoon having massages and manicures. More like a full 60 min massage, a body spa treatment massage, a manicure and pedicure and a french manicure all for around $1200 Baht. The massage i had made me sleep like a baby that night and cured my back shoulder pain problem all thanks to this dude, yes a guy who had me twisted in body places i didn't know i could bend into and tossed around like a rag doll in the form of the brutally painful but killer good Thai massage.

One unconventionally thing we did was to visit the local supermarket chain which was Tops Supermarket to kinda just browse through their shelves and jealously discover items that we do not have in Malaysia. We did pick up a few items including Thai rice, condensed milk, tea, Glico brand "Pocky Sticks" in different flavours incl. ham & cheese, Milo (there is a difference to it being manufactured under Nestle Thailand. i swear it is milkier that the ones we get here. good stuff!), coffee, shampoo and a host of other things.

We did go to Boots Pharmacy which is the equivalent to our Guardian/Watson's Pharmacies to get some Boots products but pharmacy things are really expensive here. Wanted to get some prescribed medicines that you can't get here like sleeping pills and what not but didn't feel like getting stop at the immigration counters if so whatever i intend to bring back is like super illegal. I love Bangkok and i intend to return as many times possible without a record. But in the end we got stop at the immgration counter anyway because the sister so cleverly concealed a small Swiss army knife in her carry-on luggage whilst forgetting to take it out causing us to be brought one side and manually searched. In the end they found it and tossed it into this huge bin. Oh well so much for that.

So with that said, it was truly love at first city sight and there is just something about it that makes you want to come back and discover more. So till the next time x

Bangkok : Day 1 & 2, Love at first city sight.

It was an early flight, i was freezing at the terminal building half relying on Starbucks to keep me awake and our flight got delayed by two hours. Even with the subdue early morning half-awaken state and the fact that i am losing time because of the delay making me all fidgety in the terminal, trust me, i was in between being really excited & "omfg, i can't believe we pulled this trip off" because of the love of two things - It's a city i always wanted to visit & of course, you gotta love the shopping over there.

When we arrived and was lining up at the immigration counters, i turned around and noticed that tourism is still doing really good as there was still throngs of touristy white people, Asians and us. It was more than good, the arrivals were bustling. The concern was brought upon the fact that a week before we were to fly over, there were rumours of protest in motion in conjunction with their impending announcement of the country's election but no travel warning was announced and the fact that out flight was full, it was pretty safe.

Back to our arrival in BKK, I have heard numerous times about how friendly Thai people can be and that statement was made true the moment we got into a taxi at SVB airport after we arrived. The taxi driver with what little English he could speak had a conversation with us, almost bordering giving us a tour as we drove to Sukhumvit where our hotel was located. So much so, we booked him in advance to come pick us up on our last day to the airport.

We were staying at Silq Hotel located at district of Sukhumvit which was amazing. Being more of a boutique hotel than the usual fanfare of a large hotel, it was beautiful and warm. It is very personalized with the staff being very attentive to your needs. Being only 8 floors and a maximum of 7 rooms per floor only, the rooms were uber comfy and modern equipped with plasma TV's and free unlimited Wireless access. On top of that, they upgraded us to deluxe rooms for free, threw in breakfast and then gave us F&B discounts. The beds were incredible i swear. Even with just five hours sleep on the first night, i woke up felling super refresh and surprise that it was just 7.28 am BKK time! You can't even get me to wake up by 12pm on my holidays back in KL. No wonder they are listed as #6 of Bangkok Hotels recommended by travelers in Trip Advisor beating some incredible hotels out.

Besides that, the first few things we did was to visit three major shopping places - MBK Center, Platinum Mall and Suan Lum Night Market all in within two days with major shopping damage done. It was like a shopping haven if you know what you are looking for or if you aren't that fussy with quality. I made a list and got almost 99% of everything on it and more. By the end of Day 2, i had filled up an entire luggage with almost 30 pieces of clothing excluding accessories, hats and etc. I had also learned that being nice when bargaining and smiling lots makes a huge difference to getting what you want for so much cheaper.

Other highlights of day 1 & 2 was that everything is relatively cheaper (not currency wise) with the same basic things costing much more in M'sia for example cigarettes, alcohol, taxi fare and food. Oh, i love how efficient their Skytrain's and MRT's are. Cheap, fast, clean and importantly on time plus i wanna hand them an award for having the fastest escalators in the world at their train stations. It was so super fast that it's a sin to be slow! Also, an encounter at the train station was quite a sight. It was nearly around 7pm when we were exiting the train ticket machines when suddenly the hustle and bustle of the people at the busy station came to a standstill. It was dead silent, no walking, everyone stood up and the only people who weren't sure what was going on were us and a bunch of white tourist in front of us. Apparently, the Thai national anthem was playing overhead in the speakers and everyone was just respecting the song. Oh yeah, another thing at the train platforms that i thought was crazy were the presence of soldiers. Yes, real soldiers in full army camouflage gear, hard helmet and gun guarding the station. Talk about security!

Food wise - omg, i love Thai food. Surprisingly, it's not that spicy as how we have it here in M'sia. It basically works like this. You order a dish and in any food place on the table is a little condiment tray which has different things like chilli, sugar, fish sauce, sweet sauce and soy sauce. That's how you gauge how spicy you want your dish to be. I did found two things i craved till now- Pad Thai and mango/papaya/rambutan thai salad. Plus we had this awesome chicken noddles by the side of the road and the amazingly sour tom yum that was out of this world. And pork is available EVERYWHERE but not mango sticky rice which i had to hunt it down only to get it at the airport and carry it pass immigration only to be sitting in the terminal hurriedly eating it before we boarded.

Amazingly, everything went as planned with no problems at all. Besides the usual forgetting to bring a universal adapter, one chatty but dodgy taxi driver who wanted to bring us for a "good time" for cheap, the sudden downpour of rain that made us hail for the dodgy taxi guy in the first place and that SL night market was a tad disappointing, everything else was fuss free. And when the city turns to night, it comes alive and no, we skipped that whole red light district if you were wondering :p

Day Three/Four next....

For the love of travelling.

Home. I knew we were on home ground as soon as i was woken up by the beeping of the fasten seat belt lights overhead and the crackling of the captain announcing "....as for those who are Malaysians, Selamat pulang ke Tanah air" over the intercom. I got back to KL quite late on Monday night and was suffering major air sickness from the cabin pressure.

So here i am now - jet lag, flat broke & suffering from a major case of holiday blues.

Two days, going on three at home and i have unwashed bed hair from all the catching up on sleep. Sometimes i wake up confusing myself with the time difference while other times, i wake up with fading holiday feelings.

But it's all good now as i am typing here. It lasted about 48 hours but I'll be staying in tomorrow as i have super lots of unpacking to do! How much? Lets have a mathematical equation for it. So there was 4 adults which we proceeded to leave Bangkok with 1 bag pack, 1 laptop bag, 5 hand luggage's and 6 check-in luggage. The check-in itself weighed a total of 85 kg's! Thank goodness for MAS, no extra ridiculous baggage charges. But the things that came out from my luggage, oh.my.goodness. Clothes, bags, hats, accessories and even shampoo (a brand which i found & loved but not yet available in M'sia), Boots products plus grocery items like condensed milk coz it's no longer imported into our country. Oh and ciggies too, thai brands like Khrong Thrip and City Gold 90 coz it's still cheap there around 42 - 58 baht.

Bangkok was amazing & i fell in love with it. So peaceful, so beautiful. The city is not like how everyone depicted it especially after the whole riot/protest/demonstrations a few months back. I will blogged more about BKK in another post. Not much pictures thou' for the first time and instead, i stop looking at a place through the lense of a camera but slowly and amazingly absorbing my newfound surroundings with my own variation.