First Day Adventures

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Day 1 in Bangkok was relatively quiet. I went to bed around 4:30AM after I got to the apartment this morning and then somehow managed to wake up at 8:30AM this morning without an alarm clock. There's lots of construction on nearby buildings and I couldn't fall back asleep so I figured I'd get an early start to my day. I tried the breakfast that the restaurant here at the apartment has and it was actually pretty nice. It was a small buffet breakfast with some American items and some Thai items. Unfortunately I still don't have much of an appetite so I didn't eat much, but what I had was still good. I then wrote this mornings blog and then figured I would walk around the city to see what was in the area. So I walked down the main road that the apartment is on and just kept on walking. Since my watch was broken I have no clue how long I walked for, but the block number my apartment is on is 42 and I walked all the way to the end of the road and then some. After a while it didn't look like there was much else ahead of me on the road so I did a u turn and headed back the way I came but I walked on the opposite side of the street to catch everything I missed.

On the way back I started to get hungry and I passed by a place that looked like they had a few small restaurants inside, so I went in and to my surprise it was a full shopping mall, but the place was enormous. There were 5 floors and it was connected by an elevated walkway to the other side of the street and on the other side there were 3 other floors of shopping. The place was huge and now I know if I ever need anything while I'm here, the place isn't too far away. Since my watch battery decided to die during the flight yesterday I figured I'd shop around for a new one and I found a nice watch for 550 baht, which is a little under $20. I then grabbed some lunch at a place in the mall and had a delicious dish that was sort of like an omelette filled with rice. With my new watch in hand I then started walking back to the apartment and it took me close to an hour so I'm guessing that I walked for a solid 90 minutes down the road when I first started out so I actually went quite a bit further than I thought I did. So now I'm back in my room and I got internet service put into my room so I don't have to go downstairs to the lobby everytime I want to use it and I think I'm going to sit around and relax for the rest of the day and call it an early night because I am absolutely exhausted. Tomorrow I'm either going to try walking to a different part of town or I might try walking to the US Embassy, but that's over a 14 mile round trip walk and I don't know if I'm up for that. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

I realize that these are probably incredibly boring for most of you to read (if anyone besides my parents is reading this) but I promise they will get better once I actually start doing stuff. As for my first impressions of the city, it isn't as smelly or dirty as people made it out to be. It certainly does smell in areas, particularly anywhere there is water and parts of it are pretty dirty but it's fairly comparable to a questionable area of NYC. So I was pleased by that. It's hot, but not as disgustingly hot as I expected it to be either. The temperature now is about 91 but it doesn't feel that bad at all. It was actually pretty nice and I think I'm going to enjoy the weather. It seems like what I've heard about everyone being extremely kind has proven to be true so far. Anyone I encountered in the mall when I was buying my watch or eating lunch always had a smile on their face and was extremely polite and helpful. While walking around the city I've definitely noticed that some people are staring, but I guess that's to be expected. Right now that has been the weirest thing adjusting to, is knowing that I am the minority and that I am the one who sticks out from everyone else. I only saw 3 other white people all day today so it made sense to me that some people would stare at me as I walked by, but it hasn't bothered me. I just thought it was interesting to note. That's all for now. I'm going to post a few photos I took today, some of my apartment and the others of a couple things I saw out in the city.

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Photos

My kitchen
This is my kitchen in the apartment

Living room
My living room

Bedroom
My bedroom

Michelin Man
The Michelin Man.. Thai style

Ronald McDonald
Ronald McDonald's Thai cousin. Also, McDonalds deliver here.

Comments

[dreamy]

your apt looks sweeeet

[kristin]

you didn't mention ANYthing about how much you're going to miss me =]

[cassie]

gotta agree with dave on this one...