A Journey to Thailand and Japan: Day Three
May 18th, 2008My friends Siam and Meow went off to Bangkok to get married. A group of us decided to go to the ceremony and get a chance to see a part of the world we’d never been before. So, we bought the plane tickets and set off on our grand adventure!
SHOPPING IN BANGKOK
Today is Saturday. Siam and Meow are busy all day preparing for their wedding, so they have given us a tour guide for the day: Note. We’re going to meet up with her in a bit to go to the JJ Market, but first it’s time for dim-sum. Tang, who is out of a wheelchair and is able to hobble a bit, meets up with us and takes us to meet her family at a Chinese restaurant. We arrive there, and the hostess ushers us into a private room labeled ‘V.I.P’. Tang’s family is there, and we make our introductions.
The VIP concept seems to be common theme throughout Thailand. Many restaurants have VIP rooms and movie theaters have VIP sections. You pay some money and boom, you’re a VIP. Anyway, at this restaurant, we have a private room with a TV (showing a Muay Thai match, naturally), a couch, a large round table, and two dedicated servers. Your drink is never empty. The food comes out immediately. It’s nice, I have to admit.
The food, as to be expected, was awesome. Plate after plate of food arrives. It never stops, actually. I’m full about halfway through the courses, but I’m determined to try it all. My favorite is the Peking Duck: it’s basically duck skin that you put on a small pancake and eat with sauce. Oh man, is it good!
During the meal, we get a call from Siam. He’s concerned that it’s too hot for the JJ Market (it’s an outdoor bazaar), and that our feeble American constitutions wouldn’t be able to handle it. We inform Siam that we are, in fact, Texans, we know heat, and we’re going to the market, dammit.
After about an hour of non-stop eating, we’re done. Tang’s family is very nice, and they don’t allow us to pay for the meal. It turns out, paying for a meal in Thailand is the hardest thing to do. Everyone is so hospitable!
We meet up with Note and her friend, Plearn. They take us to the JJ Market. This is a gigantic outdoor shopping area that’s only open on weekends. It’s packed with people, it’s packed with vendors. Parts of it smell bad. But overall, it’s pretty awesome. You can wander around for hours and find tons of deals. Thailand is inexpensive in general, and JJ Market is the pinnacle of inexpensive shopping. Oh, and Note bargains for us whenever we say we want something. I do a little souvenir shopping, but I basically wander around and soak it all in.
After the market, we take the Skytrain to Siam Square: Bangkok’s shopping mall Mecca. The malls are big: one is seven stories tall — it’s easy to get lost. At the mall, we decide it’s time for Thai tacos. They’re not really called Thai tacos, but that what we call them. Meow introduced them to us the day before. We were driving in the van around Bangkok and she makes us stop by a streetside food cart. She buys us these things that are little pancakes filled with orange… something, and cream. It’s folded together, and it looks like a dessert taco. They are tasty, and they have them at the mall we’re at right now.
Siam Square is full of malls, and Note and Plearn seem determined to take us to them all. They also seem to get a kick out of playing tricks on us. Like hiding in a crowd to make us think that they abandoned us. Or trying to sneak by us when they go on a bathroom break. Oh, how they laughed.
We end up eating dinner at one of the malls. It’s a hot pot place. Basically, you order raw meat and vegetables, and you cook it in a boiling pot of water that’s in the middle of your table. It’s not only tasty, it’s fun.
After dinner, we rest up for a bit, take a much needed shower, and then get ready for the Bangkok nightlife. Note and Plearn take us to a place called Y50 to meet with their friends. It’s a cool place — they have a live band, and it has an Austin feel to it. Except that all the songs are in Thai. This is also where we are introduced to the national drink of Thailand: Scotch. Everyone drinks it. Not only that, everywhere you go, it’s bottle service. You buy a bottle of Scotch, and a waiter prepares your drinks for you. I drink Scotch and Soda. Jon drinks Scotch and Shark, which is like Red Bull on steroids. He goes through three bottles of Shark. Jon doesn’t get a lot of sleep tonight.