An American in Bangkok

Last week I was greeted by the most delightful sight. 

After an hour of anxiously waiting at the arrival terminal in the late evening, a familiar and comforting sight of a woman in sweat pants emerged from a crowd of traveling asians. 

It was one of the best hugs I received in a while. 

I took a minute to get adjusted to having Cortni back in my immediate life again, but the days that followed were just like how we used to be: peas and carrots.

Cortni at a Thai hair salon

The first day, I figured that I would take her to get pampered by the best since she's had little sleep and been through a very long flight. 

We got ourselves Thai massage, the best shampoo in the world (if you visit me, you'll get one as well), pedicure, and an introductory lesson to Thai street food. 

I took Cortni to a little tour of my house and company. She saw what is currently (soon to be the old) warehouse.  I think she was overwhelmed a bit by how many lights we had.

Donut-eyed red heads-
found only in certain parts of Asia

After having a simple dinner of fish with my mom, we went to bed, me half expecting her to sleep in until 1pm.

It wasn't so. By 9:30, we were already aboard one of the city buses on the way to the Weekend Market. My philosophy in traveling also includes trying to travel in as many modes of transportation as possible during a trip. 

And for waking up early and taking a bus with me, Cortni deserved to have donuts on a stick. She seemed to love the ideas of food on sticks, which is good, since Thai people tend to poke anything edible on a stick and sell it. 

We walked past a cute little shop and sure enough paid tribute to our late hedgehog Bepo.

After our adventures at the JJ Weekend Market, I waved us a Tuk Tuk and took a ride to have lunch at Thailand's tallest building. My mom got us some gift vouchers (as my mom would..) and we got to go to an amazing Chinese buffet with a 360º view of the entire Bangkok minus the haze and pollution.

We ate a lot of things, or tried a lot of things, I should say. It was really difficult to understand what Cortni was saying as she had a lot of food in her mouth....

I'm sure she was very impressed.

Notice the kangaroo pocket.

After lunch we moved to another shopping center and Cortni got herself a lot of cute stuff, but unfortunately, she didn't get this awesome shirt...

I guess it's a little hard to match this with whatever else you're wearing.

After the long day being around a lot of tourists and hard bargaining (also, I threw in a few fits in there to make sure she knows I'm still the same Pete),we took the Skytrain and got in a taxi to go meet up my family for a nice dinner. My sister mentioned how "Kow+ Kow..." Cortni was.  It means her skin is so white— but that's a good thing in this part of the world. 

This is us prior to being splashed with canal liquid.

 Day 3— We needed to go to the biggest tourist spot possible before I show her the real Thailand. To compensate for how touristy it was going to be, I took her on a boat ride. 

No, not the ones with nice views of the river, or with slow music playing on board. We took the dirty gritty boat. This is a form of transportation for Thai people, especially when they need to go to the center of the city fast (while there are traffic). It's very cheap and as you can see, there are people in the back in the standing room. Nasty water was splashing on board, but it was part of the experience.

I took her to Wat Phra Kaew or the Emerald Buddha Temple inside the Grand Palace.  If you have looked into traveling to Thailand, you will have heard of this place. I will reserve the space for awesome pictures as well as funny ones. 

The heat was getting to us.

Covering our faces with a cold wet
 towel seemed like a good idea at the time.

The side of the temple walls—  everything is intricate here.

My cliche lotus shot.

One of my favorite photos from the trip —no photoshop.

I hope Cortni never ever get this angry.

No wonder this corner is the most visited exhibit.

Sweet corn popsicles— only in Thailand.

Exhibit B—Cortni again liking sticky food.
She will either whine or kill me for the unflattering pictures.
However, it's part of the relationship sunk costs
(for the economic-educated readers)

It's a wonder why this never
caught on in the U.S.

It  After the temple we were just looking for a way to get back home. We walked through Thammasat University (one of the top colleges in Thailand). 

Cortni got to experience an outdoor changing room, seen here to the left. After flashing multiple people, the vendor was kind to show her the correct way to get naked buying clothes in public areas. 

Again we took the Tuk Tuk back to the pier and got on another boat home. This time Cortni picked the seats in the back, and after a few minutes we find out why people don't sit there. Multiple splashes and the impossibility of enjoying our pineapple we bought prior to the boat ride. 

Vegetables+Meat+Hotpot= Yum!

My mother enjoying eating.

We met my family again and had Suki Yaki. It was delicious, I am glad she got to experience one of our family's favorites. Thais eat out a lot— part of it being the abundance of food stands and the variety— it also is very convenient and tasty.

Corn-faced Suki Monkey.

I wouldn't put it past us that we both would want to play with our leftover food. After minutes of trial, and my mom staring curiously, we came up with a pretty sweet monkey shape thing. 

Aww....

We topped it off with an 8-ice cream concoction at Swensen's. 

Cortni has been enamored by the ice cream+popsicle here in Thailand (called "I-Tim") and I 'm sure we at least have one I-tim each everyday she was visiting.

We sampled a variety of mangos as well here. It was neato.





I will conclude the first part of this trip here, as we move out of Bangkok— but mostly because I'm done talking about myself for now. It was really awesome to have Cortni around after not seeing her for more than nine months. I will document our shenanigans in Surat Thani and Phuket later so leave a comment or two and come back later to see where in the world have I been.


Cheers,
Pete

I've been listening to Le le's "Breakfast" —not a song for feminists.  and it's a little degrading to women– but the song's reference to all the breakfasts is funny enough that I choose to look past that.