One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster...

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The song "One Night in Bangkok" runs through my head constantly when I am in Bangkok. It makes me laugh since I really only know about one line from the song.

I landed in Bangkok via a layover in Hong Kong during the afternoon. It is my first time arriving in Bangkok during daylight! What a change. I was able to settle into my hostel, chill out of a bit, meet some people, and then head out for a night with my new friends. The destination was Khao San Road. This isn't really a neighborhood I enjoy going to, and usually end up there as a result of someones first trip to Thailand and wanting to see this famous backpacker area. This area represents all that is wrong and right with Thailand. Drunk backpackers, bad music, aggressive Thai salesman, and a multitude of scams. It was an interesting night which resulted in some new friends and a bad hangover. Michelle arrived the next day. Her flight from Seattle was re-routed causing her a missed connection in Hong Kong an expensive new plane ticket to Bangkok. I met her at the airport and brought her back to the hostel and we spent the day walking around and exploring the neighborhood. It was seeing Bangkok through new eyes. Michelle has never been to Asia before and there were a lot of new experiences, smells, sights, and cultural differences I don't tend to notice as much anymore.

We spent our 3 days in Bangkok with constant rain. We weren't able to explore a lot of the outside activities so we headed for the gigantic mall downtown. We rode escalators around, found an ocean on the ground floor, and ate. The funniest part was coming across a coffee tasting class. Being from Seattle, of course we had to watch. A Thai lady walked up to us and tells us how much this company insures his tongue for. He may have one of the most expensive tongues I have yet to speak with. Watching him test the coffee with his captive audience was actually quite hilarious, especially since we were drinking cheap instant coffee shakes with tapioca balls in the bottom. He came over to talk to us and when he found out we were from Seattle he says, "my biggest competitor!" We assume he meant Starbucks. Being unimpressed with his tongue, and his taste in coffee, we walked away laughing. We headed back to the hostel and spent the night hanging out on the porch with new friends.

The rest of our trip in Bangkok was about as uninteresting as the previous paragraphs. So I will stop before you lose interest in my blog in it's entirety. More exciting things to come!!!

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Photos

The bathroom at McDonald's
No, we didn't eat there. Just enjoyed their facilities.

Ocean world!
I met a penguin!

Oceanworld!
In Siam paragon. A massive mall.