My Blog

just smiling a bit

i have a reason to. i was having a little chat with joey ( the smart, pretty, adorable person that she is,  not joey my housemate-nephew-friend ) when all of a sudden she asked, " are you seeing anyone? ". i said i wasn't and the blabber that i am continued by saying it'll be awhile before i'd probably attempt at seeing anyone. i'm still sort of emotionally unavailable. besides i don't fall that easy i told her. reassuringly, she said "someone's out there for you". she's sweet i think.i smiled at her. at the back of my mind i said " i still need to forget about someone before entertaining another someone ". then it hit me, he's no longer the person i think in the mornings when i wake up or in the evenings before i go to sleep. the realization is making me smile more these days. i'm doing well in the "forgetting" department. it's a good thing because being bitter is the last thing i want to be. don't hang on for too long, it breeds bitterness. remember the good things not the bad.keep happy memories not sad ones. i'm just glad.i'm making progress. it's important.it'll help keep the promise of friendship.

african plum

i don't know what's gotten into me yesterday when i woke up. instead of fixing breakfast ( more like brunch though ) i started painting my fingernails and what color? dude, african plum. my little, short fingernails don't look nice in this color, not one bit but for some odd reason i wanna keep it at least for a day more. then this morning after having breakfast with joey and joey ( they're a couple. the boy joey's my nephew-friend and the girl joey is a beautiful, smart, adorable person i really, really like even without giving  us a ration of turones de casoy and fresh sweet basil ), guess what? i painted with the same color my toenails. i mean what the hell is not right with me? is this another regression mode? last time i checked girls in high school ( and boys too ) are the ones who choose this very dark color because in their quest for an identity or some kind of a fashion or so statement they think being dark and gothic is cool. to a certain extent i kind of envy them because at least they know why they paint their nails with such color even if older people and well some people, plain as that, say in chabacano " ay hoon, ebo ya gayot,  amo gat se cosa bo ta ase ". in my case, i can't figure exactly why i'm wearing this color on my both my finger and toe nails.geez! i have a friend staying with me for a couple of days before she leaves the country ( why is everybody leaving? gawd!) and if she sees these nails she'd probably say " gawd! what did you do to yourself?" or maybe i'm just so self-absorbed to think she'd notice. oh well, i can be so " feeling" like that, crazy like that.

notoriously lazy

i'm not liking myself very much these days. it's been four days since i got back and all i did so far'seat and sleep ( and attempt to polish my RRL which i never got to doing ). if i am not sleeping i'm just lying there daydreaming, imagining and hoping if i make those few steps to my balcony i'd see hot pink cabs in the street instead of the boring white ones.damn, i'm notoriously lazy like this!

if anyone knows a pill i can take to just get out of this current state please give me a ring a'ight?

one of the thoughts i'm stuck with at the moment, actually it keeps playing every now and then in my little watery brain is this stranger's( a dutch who sat beside me on my flight back here ) words. he told me, i look like a person who should be travelling given my interest in the world. i thought he's right. i'm interested in and about the world. he asked which places i like to visit. i obliged by enumerating first the ones in asia namely vietnam, myanmar, indonesia and malaysia.in europe i said i wanted to go to greece, turkey, georgia, russia. i saw a slight surprise in his expression when i mentioned the eastern european countries. he suggested i consider amsterdam. i said it's also one of my favorites. then it occured to me while i'm talking to this person, i'm actually trapped once again in that daydreaming mode. i quipped before i turned my attention to the distant view of the philippine territory " this lifetime is not enough for me to be able to go to places i want to go to". he retorted " then you might want to consider converting to buddhism ". we laughed.

i really need the pill.

day 9...beaching in pattaya

the pattaya day's technically my last day. we've committed to waking up really early because we have to travel for more than two hours to get to pattaya city. beaching was  my safer and cheaper alternative to bungee jumping . the initial plan was to go bungee jumping in pattaya but then my back acted on my and started aching and swelling. i was still bent on jumping despite that but i got scared when chu told me the jump's painful. he let me watch the full video of his jump last december and seeing how straining it is for the back i just can't get myself settled with the idea that i could die or get paralyzed. i've been adviced by the doctor about not engaging in activities that would stress my back. i guess i'm choosing  the good patient track over the risk taking ( kuno ), try all fun things little ms curious that i am.

anyway we arrived in pattaya city almost midday. we asked to be dropped off the beach road. before we hit the beach we decided to have lunch. we surveyed the area for a seafood resto. we found one bit it's closed. how odd. after passing through a series of scandinavian, russian, mexican and heaven knows what other foreign bars, we found this food place called pink lady. i don't know why it's called that. i saw nothing pink in there. anyway i decided to be a little more exotic in my food choice so i ordered the spicy shark in herbs and veggies. it was nice. i liked it a lot. this resto sure know how to prepare shark dish. chu ordered this lobster dish. we didn't enjoy the lobsters as much as the shark but it was still a good lunch in my opinion.

we hit the beach after. it's just across the street. the beach was crowded with all nationalities of the world. it's like the united nation assembling in pattaya beach. the beach wasn't as wow as the beaches in the philippines but i enjoyed it nonetheless. being there seemed like being in miami or something with the tall buildings and busy streets right behind the beach. not far from the beach area you'd see boats taking tourists parasailing. the japs and chinese are making them rich in this industry. those parachutes looked like jellyfish floating on air.

for 30 baht each we got us nice loungers. it was cool watching people from there. we were perusing for beautiful and handsome people. we weren't successful. we looked for a public bath at around 4 or 5 pm. we had to get ready before dusk. my flight back to manila is at 1 a.m. and i wanted to have my last thai dinner, finish packing and all that without much rush. we arrived in bangkok at around 7:30 p.m. we dilly-dallied at dinner but was cool. we we're still right on schedule.

i still wasn't psyched about going home.

day 8...chatuchak and emporium twice over

there's not much today except bag hunting at chatuchak, the shopping haven in bkk. i still didn't find the bags i've been looking for since day one. lotsa laughter made me forget how frustrating the bag hunting's been.

on our way home we dropped by the emporium for dinner. i had curried scallops. i'm not big on curry but this one tasted really great and so thai so i'm not complaining one bit. i also tried another traditional thai dessert made of sticky rice and coconut milk. it's so like our ginataan minus the langka, gabi, saging, and sago. the coconut milk was so creamy and a little salty. the sesame seeds gave that little bowl the wow factor. it's yummy but i like the sesame dumpling we sampled better.

the nice thing about dining with chu ( or jeff, pinoy,pat etc a.k.a my friends ) is that i get to pick on their food =D. i scooped generously from chu's sweet bowl. his was yummier i think than what i got for myself. i just couldn't figure what those green sticky things that looked like baby caterpillars were. they were swimming in evap milk and covered with shaved ice. this one also resembled our halo-halo minus the monggo, langka, saging, leche flan etc. etc.

i'm really loving thai food more and more.

day 7....invading the elusive wat phra keao

today we woke up without a clear gameplan but turned out to be one of my favorite days in my entire bkk escapade. chu asked me where i wanna go and i had no idea. i browsed the net and checked out his bangkok bible. i was drawn only to one place, wat phra keao. the first 2 attempts remained just that, attempts. this time i was so bent on visiting that we defied strong rain and thunder. while in the cab i told chu that maybe the universe is telling me to not visit at all. as soon as we got to the place though i completely forgot about what the universe might've been telling me.i was astounded at the beauty of the place. not even the sea of stranded tourists from the entrance to the first hall and tents set up probably for those who signed up for a group tour or something discouraged me. i saw just the temple roofs glimmering and i icouldn't wait to start touring. i needed to be a liitle patient and wait for the rain to at least stop raining so hard. luckily it stopped so yay! when we finally got in the temple complex, i was super awestruck. this place is like the most magnificent of all the magnificent structures i've seen. i must've said " oh my gosh it's so beautiful here " every after 30 seconds. anyone can get lost at the beauty of millions of colorful reflective tiles so artistically put together. each of the buildings looked to me like a piece of jewelry elaborately encrusted with precious emeralds, rubies, zirconsand diamonds. being there is like being in a glowing golden city ( think camelot's asian or eastern version ). inside the main temple ( pity pictures are not allowed to be taken ) that housed the emerald buddha was a solid golden altar so huge it occupied more than half of the entire floor space. the walls and ceiling was like one huge painting of the ancient thai people that depicted mostly their way of life and the royal battles. for awhile i thought they might be the thai version of the painting in the sistine chapel.

a few walks from the temple of the temple of the emerald buddha was the grand palace and yes it's really grand. the architecture is very thai but the ground/garden was accutely western. they totally work together though. the two huge elephant statues which i suspect were made of marbles drew a lot of attention. the lamp posts i thought added a lot of romance to the place ( or maybe because i generally think of lamp posts as romantic ). i couldn't help but think how our malacanang palace would look rather ordinary compared to this. i couldn't get enough of the whole sight.

after the tour we got hungry so we went to this food place just outside the palace complex. this is where i got a taste of one of traditional thai dessert called black sesame dumplings in ginger syrup. it's sooo good. that nutty, not so sweet and tangy taste of it i will not forget unless i become amnesiac. there was still some time before we pick up chu's laptop to we strolled at the nearby park. for 20 baht worth of corn we got to feed the pigeons. they were friendly creatures.it was such joy ( and well pain ) feeding them on my palm. i felt like being in st peter square.

it was a lovely day indeed!

day 6...meeting jim thompson

the night before we've decided to give the jim thompson house museum another try. i wiki-ed jim thompson and in a capsule it said that he owns the thai silk company. he, a delaware native who was an architecht before he enlisted to the US army during the world war II,  was basically the one responsible for  reviving the cottage industry in thailand. what seems fascinating for visitors, even the locals is his mysterious death or disappearance after an afternoon walk in cameron highlinds in pahang, malaysia. our tour guide mentioned that what made jim thompson was when he started supplying rolls and rolls of thai silk to vogue. also, his thai silk was used for the elaborate costumes for the film "the king and i".

the house museum is a three teak traditional thai houses joined together. it's got the rich red color also accordingly traditionally thai. inside jim thompson's house were his collection of rare traditional thai paintings on cotton which is difficult to preserve according to the guide. also in his collection were china porcelain from the 18th century.the china ranged from the simplest bowl to the ones with lid, to the wine pots without lid and which hole can be seen at the bottom, to our version of 'orinola'. the house is also decorated with antique crystal chandelier from belgium.the antique furnitures were like no other. even the fabric used in the same are very unique. the shapes of his pillows and cushions are very unique. the wood carvings are also intersting. he had pieces hung on the wall but what's noting is the carvings right at the bottom of the windows. in traditional thai houses, these carvings are seen from the outside. he inverted it because accordingly he wanted to admire it's beauty while he's dining, or when he's basically in the house. he also has collection of buddha statues displayed all over the house and the garden. he has one made from wood which is very rare as thai buddhas are mostly made of bronze. the eyes of the wooden buddha is slightly more slanted and the reason perhaps is that the artist commissioned to do this one's a chinese. the most precious of his buddha collection is one made of sandstone and is headless. it dates back to as early as the 11th century.

his garden, according to the guide jim thompson calls his jungle is a lush of tropical plants from bird of paradise to bonsaid trees and orchids. big bowls are also around the area. in each of these bowls are lotus leaves and flowers floating and look a little closer one can see fish raging from the biggest goldfish to guppies and some not so fancy fish unknown to me. aside from this bowl there's a turtle pond in the middle of his jungle. near the entrance to the main house was a very tranquil koi pond.

at the left side of the garden and the reception area is a display of the jim thompson silk and other jim thompson products. they're so pricey i didn't even wanna touch them but i did and they're certainly the best quality ( not that i know silks and all ).the colors are beautiful and vibrant and the designs are so varied.

above this display/shopping room is the hall called tomyam pladib which is an art exhibition of traditional and contemporary japanese and thai art. i found the children's program very interesting. it's called " everyone likes someone as you like someone" by tsuyoshi ozawa. the idea is one draws or paints a postcard picture of the person/s they like or love. then this postcard picture will be swapped with the ones made by children in australia. i made one. it was fun.i got one too from a little girl named chelsea. she's 7. her paicture was of a lady with a dress full of heart. i can almost see her in her picture. the crooked lines in her picture can tell how a tot she still is at her age.

i got to wear thos big sumo-like costume and watch cartoons reflected or projected on it. it's cool too. the mini theater was kind of like an avant garde to me. nice concept only i didn't understand the dialogue nut the visual's awesome.

from the jim thompson house meseum we proceeded to bayouk  sky hotel. it's the tallest building in bangkok at 997 ft. we went as far as the revolving roofdeck but for some odd reason it wasn't revolving. the view of the entire bangkok from up there was breathtaking. it's so beautiful being there.lovely, lovely view. on top of this wonderful view and the idea of being above everything else, i got my favorite shirly temple which comes free with the observation fee which was a little too much at 200 baht.

for dinner we ended up at the lebanese restaurant in the red light district of bangkok and boy, was the area a real shocker to me. i'm like holy crap, people offer this bar and that for live shows and god knows what else like the manongs in quiapo sell their dvds to passers by and shoppers. anyway, this lebanese restaurant's had this typical mediterranian feel with all the white washed walls. the menu was lebanese and mediterranian food. i had lamb kebabs with onion salad, fries and pita. it was very nice but very heavy too. their appetizer/salad which was a compliment of the house was i think the perfect to the predominantly meat  dishes. i loved their dips. there's the traditional thai dipping sauce, the coconut milk and yougurt dip and garlic and i suspect some gelatine if not beaten eggwhite and tartar thingy. it was a very filling meal. i was so stuffed i wanted nothing more than just go home and sleep.

day 4...where have all the bkk bags gone?

it's a pretty lazy day. we woke up past 12 noon,watched a little tv then set out to the grocery/food bar nearby. the day before, i saw their make-your-own-salad station.the huge yellow,green and red capsicums made my eyes big and told my boys "hey, guys i'm not eating out tomorrow.i'm making me salad!"

jeff would've loved sharing the nameless salad i made. i just could'nt get over the fact that at 20 baht i got me a generous serving of arugula, sprouts, capsicums, celery sticks, onion rings, carrots and cherry tomatoes.in manila, that wouldn't go down 100p.

after brunch, it was museum and park time. since we left home just a little bit late, we didn't catch the museum open so we just walked around national stadium ( well not inside,i don't think we'd be allowed but the vicinity.you see, national stadium's also the station we got off so the entire area seem to be referred to as national stadium).

since i didn't find the bags last time we went to jj mall, we decided to hunt for some at mbk mall. mbk mall is the thai version of our greenhills shopping center only bigger and more product choices and food places. this is the kind of mall you go to and are able to haggle but still no bags but i found thai silk scarf/shawl which is cool. i was told the best thing about bangkok is shopping and bags are like the cheapest and of good quality BUT WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY??? the ones i see are basically the same things i see in my beloved phils.what's the point in buying here?

anyway, it was getting dark so we desided to head off to this dinner place chu's been raving about, the Brown Sugar.he likes this place alot and why not, it seemed really,really cozy. the problem is, it's closed for the songkhran festival. nice! we travelled all the way from the NS to the lumphini area excited and it's closed. we were in utterly jovial mood because of the silly things we talked about so what the hell, we picked another restaurant. this time it's japanese. it's called tokyo joe. from our bkk guide it seemed like a really good place. so from luphini park, we hailed a cab to sukhumvit. it took us awhile to find the place and when we did, guess what? it's also closed. the gods must be kidding us a bit. we know sukhumvit area ( technically, chu does not me ).this is where we ( i mean chu ) live (s). we decided to go to the English pub. we scanned the menu and the food are incredibly pricey by bangkok standard.besides i couldn't find anything i feel lke eating. on the same street were other restaurants so we walked some bit and decided on this japanese one by Mr. Nakashimi ( that's the only english writing i saw by the door ). it was a neat, intimate jap resto. and when the food he arrived, i knew why all the other food places we went to didn't work out. this was the perfect dinner for day 4. we had this incredibly soft maguro sashimi, the seaweed and soft tofu soup was cleansing and the familiarity of miso and the delicateness of tofu was perfectly complimented by the succulent seaweed.the  salmon steak was grilled to perfection that i ate even the skin.it tasted to good. even the simple baked inokitake mushroom was amazing. the ebi tempura was plated beautifully and the prawns were really large. i loved this meal. it's a great break from the thai food marathon.

this was a perfectly imperfect day.

day 3...elephant-ful day and other happenings

we woke up early today and before coffee we headed for a carefully timed swim at the pool. i told the boys we'd swim for not more than 30 minutes.it's jeff's last day so we're trying to go to as much place as we could possibly squeeze in before we see him to the airport. the pool was huge and the water's nice and lukewarm but the breeze was a bit chilly i got out of the pool even before my alarm sounded.

we headed back up at the apartment 30 minutes after. i made coffee and breakfast ( well sort of ) while still in my bikini top and shorts. for awhile i felt like kc in the kitchen cooking the crabs she caught in some beach in normandy ( stupid, feeling ruth ). the pancit canton coffee and peach float's probably the oddest breakfast yet but it was really yummy.

after getting ourselves ready, we took a cab to the samphrang elephant show and crocodile farm in nakhonpathom. after almost two hours we finally got there. the first thing that greeted us was the beautiful erawan ballroom.my boys decided to have lunch so we got in. i didn't eat except a slice of fruit and one tiny bit of thai tradtional sweet. i was still very stuffed and i wasn't quite willing to pay 220 baht for an appetite and tummy capacity of not more than 10 baht.

we headed directly to the crocodile show after lunch. i was prepared to see morbidity but to no avail. in the show, 3 men wrestle and flirt with the supposedly disastrous creatures. the biggest of the 3 or 4 crocs was made to open it's mouth and a man would put his arm, then head in the creature's mouth. a voice over would shout to either panic the creature or the audience i can't quite decide what, and the man whose arm or hand head tried to escape the crocs mouth before the latter closes the same. no arm or head was severed from any body so it wasn't that fun.it appears, the man's quicker than the croc could clinch its jaws. i was hoping to see blood really  because i feel that it's part of the hefty entrance fee i paid for ( i'm totally kidding!!! ). right after the crocodile show, we headed to the elephant ground for the special show which was to be a magic show. i'm not big on magic shows.i hardly get entertained especially when a magician has an expressionless, uninterested and uninteresting gay assistant ( i do not wanna sound bigot ok? ). anyway i decided to just enjoy the show. if i were the magician and people wouldn't clap or show appreciation for my tricks i study so hard to make.i'd be heart broken and probably commit suicide ( seriously ). so i clapped every after trick. as the show progressed, i became attentive. turns out he had some of the coolest tricks.my favorite was when he filled this huge acquarium with water, did some sort of abracadabra thing, then covered the acquarium with some silk cloth and when he removed the same, the acquarium was filled with fish. amazing! some of the other awesome tricks were the usual things they'd show on tv or in the movies where a woman ( the uninterested, expressionless in this case ) would be placed in some sort of a cabinet and some huge blade is inserted in the middle of the cabinet, huge cilindrical things also inserted at the upper and lower tier of the cabinet so that the audience sees the cabinet through and through the object being that no body could possibly stay there uninjured to say the least with those blade and barrels inserted.but of course after blade and barrels were removed, viola! woman's ( in this instance, the gay ) there waving. the other trick was the same woman ( ditto ) was placed inside a silk sack , the same was tied and was locked inside a huge black box. both of the woman's ( ditto )hands were handcuffed. after locking the black box, a rope was tied around it.afterwhich, the musician stood then danced on top of it.he then pulled a silk cloth to cover himself and the box and after a few counts, a thundering sound and the silk cloth falling to the floor, we saw the woman ( ditto ) instead. woman (ditto) opens the locked box, untied the silk sack and viola! inside was the magician that's handcuffed. when the magician and the assistant bowed i was giddier than ever. those bows signalled the start of the show i've been super excited for the whole day, the mighty elephant show.

the show started with the narration of how elephants are very much part of the thai culture and the animals close relation with the people. also part of the narration was the species of elephant endemic in thailand and i suppose how different they are from the african variant. the coolest part of the show i think was watching the elephants played soccer. it totally blew me.they sure could kick balls well. they were adorable in their soccer uniforms. equating the awesomeness of them playing soccer was that part in the show when the adorable dumbos made pyramids like they're a pep squad in UAAP, the breakdancing and the trunk rotating tricks you'd think those trunks if they were cars running were going way over speed limit. i can't fathom how these lovely creatures can turn from the athletic soccer athletes to the hip breakdancers standing with just their trunks or front legs.they're a total entertainers these fun animals. they beat the crap out of the people in the entertainment and sports world. aside from dancing and playing soccer, they can act too ( ye siree! ).there was this segment in the show where they were showing how these animals were hunted down for their ivory tusks. they can so convey the right emotion showing fear and horror at their hunters.i suspected that if they were asked to cry they'd be able to do it. they also did a pretty good job at the finale in the show were the war of kingdoms in the ancient siam ( or so i think ) was being portrayed. the mock battle resembled the fight scene between alexander's forces and the indians in the movie alexander that collin farell starred in. after the show was of course the photo op and boy these lovely creatures can pose. they appear to be smiling when they see a camera.they're the friendliest thing ever. for 70 baht i decided to ride an elephant. i had one nice round on the elephant ground. i was the happiest at that moment i think. the show and photo op with my current favorite animal's over but i still can't get enough of 'em.

from the elephant show we proceeded to the tiger show ( well sort of ). they weren't as tame as the elephant.not by any stretch of the imagination but i got to hold them and had several pics with them so it was still awesome.

we toured the croc farm afterwards. i was told there were some 6000 of them in the farm. i must've seen only about 500 of them and got to feed some of the bigger ones at the far end of the farm. the sight to too many of them was both scary and fascination. i shrieked at one point when i was feeding them when this one croc voraciously caught the chicken piece i threw him. damn, the meat disappeared even before it touched ground. in a split second it was gone just like that. the idea of me dangling my feet from the walkway into their pool drained my brain of oxygen.scary thing.

we hang out in the park for awhile, watched people feed the overgrown fish that resembled a catfish. they were really big and it was a sight when they'd scramble for the feeds being thrown into the water. these fishes are believed to be holy or something. i think someone told me before they are revered because they're either gods or reincarnations of the same. i'm not sure now. watching the fish in the ponds on a lush green park was just about the right way of ending the day's tour. it was relaxing considering i shrieked and shouted to the top of my lungs in several occasions during the earlier shows. it was an awesome day.

we got home and ate ice cream while prepping for dinner. i got introduced to a new flavor of ice cream on my second lunch in bangkok and it instantly became my current favorite ice cream flavor. it's swensen's rum raisin falored ice cream. it's got the best tasting raisins i've ever had in my life, the touch of rum gives that nice balance to the creamy vanilla butter aftertaste. i go mmmmmm at every spoon i place in my mouth. it's just so good it makes my soul happy. the other best thing about it is that it's cheap.

we headed to the world trade center for dinner. chu brought us to his favorite mr. lee. i wanted to eat tom yum khung so he said we go there. chu ordered this fried sea bass with lemon juice dressing and i'd be damned if i'd say it's not the best fish dish i've tasted in my life so far. the fish was lightly crisped on the outside but so soft and succulent in the inside. the lime juice with minced wansoy, lemon grass, garlic and god knows what else made the perfect accompaniment for the fish. i swear i went " oh my god this is so good!" several times inviting jests from jeff and chu. i so love the dinner i became oblivious of the very nice and cozy setting. mr. lee was a neat resto. the world trade center was magnificent. and the songkhran festivities the wto way was still really happening noisily outside the building. all these escaped my senses for awhile the moment that fish dish was served.

jeff was determined to take a peek at bangkok's red light district so we took the train to get there. we didn't see the place. what we saw was a sea of people with claked faces and arms in the highway with their waterguns, pails, dippers greeting each other happy new year.the entire four lane or so highway was closed. the volume of people is crazy that one false move can potentially cause someone's death for being stomped upon.

at exactly 10 pm we were home again to pick up jeff's luggage and to suvarnabhumi we headed. his flight back to manila was at 1 am and we had to make sure he's in the airport at exactly 11 pm. mission accomplished.

after a long day my body ached for the bed.

day 2...wet,chalked and tired

the second day's supposed to be devoted to shopping after park hopping. we didn't go as planned because we woke up really late. we skipped the parks and headed directly to chatuchak after brunch. chatuchak's the weekend market known for really cheap buys. i've been warned about how busy and crowded it is but i didn't expect that in a weekend market the songkhran fever's going to be so felt. songkran festival is the thai new year celebrated from the 11th of april until the 16th. people in the streets splash water at everyone mostly using water guns of all sizes imaginable.some use hoses, coconut shells, pails,dippers and water bottles. naturallyi got got me so wet from head to toe. we were walking and walking for hours from one stall to another, from one section to another under the scourging heat of the sun and cool water, bad combination. we got lost too but it's not such a bad thing as it is normal .everyone does. the place, according to most people and even this one thai travel guide say it is hard to navigate. yes indeed.i didn't find the bags i went there for. i didn't enjoy being bathed either but it was such a treat bathing the buddhas in different sizes and poses. the water was fragrant because of the petals from some yellow and fuscia flowers. the lotus flowers floating in the gold basin the held the scented water was such a pretty sight. the thai street food from one strip was a delight too. the moo barbeque was yummy and so did the skewered squid.there was this deep fried thing that tasted like siomai or queking only with the distinctive thai spicy sauce.the sweetened and salted kamias,santol and very young green mango were not impressive but interesting nonetheless.

happy with some of our buys ( mine were really not the priority in my list ),we left chatuchak at past 7 in the evening already. we had to get home at around 8 pm to make it to dinner in Khao San, the famous backpackers' area.

while waiting for a cab, an elephant popped out of nowhere ( in sukhumvit, one of the busiest area in downtown bangkok ). it's unfathomable to me that an elephant would just be in the entertainment district of bangkok. i thought they're found outside bangkok. i was so happy to see one in the area that we practically chased it around. i was like a kindergarten in awe i was literally clapping and jumping when we finally caught up with this dumbo. for 20 baht i got to feed him. it's incredible!!! i couldn't stop smiling and talking about how wonderful the creature was.even inside the cab to khao san i was still really giddy.

we got to khao san as planned but we're utterly shocked at the volume of people in the area partying in celebration of songkran. we were a little hesitant to get out of the cab but finally decided to just be cool and celebrate songkran with the game crowd.by now we were ready to be chalked and to be bathed ( yet again ).aside from water splashing all over the place, people also used this kind of chalk dissolved in water to paint people's faces ( and even the body ). i had been chalked on the face, head, back and chest. there was just no way of evading it. what's with the crowd that resembled the volume of people in edsa 1 or 2 in the philippines, or the volume of people celebrating the feast of the black nazarene. the foreigners ( as in caucasians, latinos/nas, africans etc, etc,) looked like they're having the time of their life. it seemed like they were in this huge playground and were enjoying what seemed like a water war game. everyone was sport though. wet and chalked all in the spirit of fun, of new year. it's quite unbelievable that there was almost no trouble even when almost everyone have had some beer or have drunk spirited drinks.

after making our way out of the sea of merry making people we finally got to this Pad thai place. the food's cheap and yes, as expected, very satisfying. we ordered Pad thai of course, and steamed prawns in soy sauce, and this other thing i don't know the name.  crazy crowd can never ruin my appetite for good food. jeff, who's determined to find the restobar chu's been bragging about, was more than willing and happy to keep walking the numbered streets to get to it. he really just wanted his tequilla, his favorite drink. we found the place finally.it's called the sunset bar. it's a cozy little place.it's alfresco and boy did i love the mahogany looking tables and chair. everything's great with the place except the band. they played awfully old songs and they're not those old songs i enjoyed and the male singer for a good number of times missed the right notes so we had fun making fun of them while singing and half dancing. we didn't get drunk.it's not us. we just behaved like the good ol' pinoys that we are, laughing our a***s off at every opportunity. i noticed we did behave differently. i'm saying this in a positive way, not proud but not sorry either.

at the end of it all we told ourselves we were glad we went to khao san. wet, dirty, tired as we might've been but we had fun.lots and lots of it. i had good doses of laughter and screaming. it's liberating.

day 1 in the land of smiles

i thought it's best to keep an everyday record of my holiday in thailand as each day promises jammed activities. i don't wanna leave out anything i've done around the area unrecorded.i don't quite trust my memory to keep every detail of this cool trip.

we ( yes, i thought i was gonna take this trip alone. jeff who said he was just gonna see me to the airport actually was joining me.surprise,surprise! his arm must've really hurt from my beating.)we left manila at around 11 pm. on top, manila is dazzling with lights from red,orange, yellow and bits of white color. the complex geometric lines created by the lights along the highways and every street are stunning. As the aircraft went higher and farther the territory, manila looked like a blurry golden city.  some 3 hours after i could see bangkok from the top. it wasn't at par with the manila lights and in my opinion it is because of the white lights that dominated the place.

the suvarnabhumi airport wowed me. it's huge and very thai with the gigantic colorful thai monument that resemble the figures in most of the thai temples. after cueing ( a helluva line ) at the immigration booth, we found ourselves looking at the banner that read " welcome ruth and jeffrey!!! missionaries of the holy order of phoenix". i thought chu was kidding when he said he'd make a welcome banner. the freak actually did and was holding it up in the airport. we were laughing to death.

i had my first meal at the airport. i liked it.it's a rice soup with prawns, wansoy, lemon grass and a bit of chilis that gave the entire thing a bit of a kick. i can't remember what it's called but it was light and refreshing.just the right food to take after a flight.

the ride home was smooth. the highways are wide. the cab drivers are honest. finally we got to chu's neat apartment. it's like being housed in a hotel.  we slepped for a little more than three hours and off to the first mall we went. it's called The Emporium. it gives that power plant feel. stuff are expensive given that stores are mostly designer boutiques i normally see only in greenbelt.  it's pretty quiet there as there are not too many people, mostly are caucasians. we headed up to the floor with restaurant rows. it's like our foodcourt only the place was posh. it's got this nice view of a well maintained park and most of the sukhumvit area. my second meal was sumptuous. i couldn't get enough of the soft fillet of fish in my spicy soup.

from the Emporium we took the train to another mall called the Paragon. It's a huge mall and also very posh.kids are all over the place because the underground level is the ocean park. we made a good round of the mall before we headed up to our first real tour, the bangkok temples. we took a ferry in the chao prya river to get to port 8, then another ferry to get across. alas our first temple called wat arun or the temple of dawn. it was magnificent. this collosal, colorful temple embellished with some sort of tiles, gold glass that shines when the sun hits it and statues from ground up is surrounded by beautiful thai palace-looking structures in white walls and gold roofs. the main temple allows for climbers to reach the second to the topmost tier. the stairs are very steep but one has got to get to the top because the view of the chao praya river is priceless.

to get to our next temple known as wat po, the temple of the reclining buddha, we had to take another ferry to cross the river. when we got to wat po, the entrance booth was already closed. we were allowed in nonetheless. the temple guard ( well sort of ) said we were lucky because we got to get in for free. more than that, we were lucky to see the splendid bronze buddha of an exeptionally huge size. from head to toe, the buddha covered the entire length and width of the temple. we took pictures near the chest area of the buddha and we looked like ants beside it. we were supposed to go the yet another temple but we had a dinner reservation at one of the floating restaurants. we didn't wanna miss the boat that would ferry us to the bigger boat that was to be our dinner place. we had a feast of both the food and the view. cruising the river while having dinner's just the most romantic thing. i recommend couples to do it.it's amazing. there were those moments during the cruise i'd just go silent and absorb the moment. the lights from the refulgent buildings and other boats, the nice breeze, it's terrifically soothing.

the view, the food, the laughters, the entire experience exceeded expectation.

turning meanie

i nearly fell off the chair when i read those three words. one was brutally mispelled and the last one, oh boy i don't even want to say it. suffice it to say that all three are unambiguously telling of some form of egotism( i seriously have no problem with people who love themselves or are confident of themselves. i'm a self-confessed self-loving creature myself ), the bit of the problem comes in when these pompous descriptions of one's self becomes an overassessment tilting toward arrogance. the meaning of the word and that characteristic of the person that word is used for purposes of description obviously contradict each other.i was amused. it's mean.i just gotta quit wandering around friendster really. i'm turning into a meanie. or maybe i'm just bitter and i wanna feel better. either way, i gotta quit this crap.

aaarggghhhhhh!!!

i should be happy i'm flying in less than 48 hours. i should be ecstatic in fact. i've been waiting for this to happen. chu has all the tours planned out he even sent me a primer he made which was lovely and pretty hilarious. the thing is there are stuff i haven't accomplished yet that's been dampening the supposedly bouncy, oh-yay-oh-yay mood.

i have this calendar i keep marked with the stuff i need to accomplish by the day. special dates are especially marked. it's killing me right now that i haven't done, haven't accomplished what i have set me to do.

for almost two weeks now i'm just sitting in front of a pile of papers, photocopies trying so hard to get me started with the revision to the paper i'm writing. my breain cells are whacked or what? i just can't put things together. i try very hard to sleep at night and the thought of the paper would not leave me. every night i'd tell myself i gotta hit the ground running the next day but i just couldn't do more that reading my literature. i go to the library and all but i couldn't move forward.it's upsetting. this is my future ( well kind of ) and i feel like i'm really screwing it.

i know that whatever happens i'm ready to take the consequences. i'm mature in that department.but, the big but is that what and where i am at right now is totally immature. i just couldn't get this thing done. i'm feeling like i need a hard kick in the butt to just get these brain cells going.

sometimes i'm thinking i may just be worn out or something, depressed or something that's why this is not going great for me but dang it it's just no excuse. i'm beginning to think that i might not have know myself really, or that i thought i was this but really i'm the opposite. for the longest time i think i believe i'm driven but i just don't see that right now.some people think i'm a go getter and all but really, now that i think about it, i'm just not. i'm mediocre. what's with law school, my performance in my job, the only job i know how to do. i'm starting to believe i'm really laidback to put it euphemistically. it's a freaky . i wanna be the driven, go getter type. i'm not sure if i can. the thought that i can't is kind of freaking me out.

i need some good sense knocked into my hard head.