New addition to my cubicle

Isn't it just sooo adorable...

Thot I'd put somethings to make the table look more...personalised :D But these few days when I came to work, kinda realised that someone moved my stuff! Not sure who, so in the meantime..this adorable little fella will be kept in the drawer everyday before I leave. My colleague's water tumbler also can get lost, it's still a mystery~!

Rainy day today but yesterday was kinda nice. Watched the fireworks thingy...found a spot to watch without paying.. :P I know, kiamsiap, but then RM38.50 for entrance wor. Something that I'll only pay once. :P It was great!Team Australia. I think it was more impressive compared to the Malaysian team. Another reason is I was very far when viewing Team Malaysia. No pics, coz I don't have a high end camera to capture it. Hmm...quiet day at work. Getting quite boring... sighh..

Bangkok Pt 2

So I stopped at the part that we were left at the temple by our good ol' tuk-tuk driver. Being the optimistic me, I told PJ, let's just walk a bit and see whether he's there waiting in front. So we walked..and walked...approached by a tuk-tuk driver who refuse to send us to our destination with that same 30 Baht, he demanded 40 Baht,saying it's peak hour traffic and stuff. I said no...so we walked...and then came a junction. We took out our ever-so-reliable map but we still have no idea which part we were at. Then came a really kind-hearted local. She approached us.

Stranger#3:Can I help you?
PJ:Yes (trust me, I was skeptical and I was still thinking should we trust her...been in malaysia too long, not used to such a hospitable environment)
Stranger#3:Where you want to go?
PJ:Grand Palace
Stranger#3:Oh, you can take bus number 45. Only 7 Baht.Fast, the bus coming.
(At that time we're making our way there..suddenly.... I heard the lady shouting, so I turn around)
Stranger#3: Faster, bus coming, take this one~!! (She was running after the bus with us!!)

Thanks to such a helpful stranger, we got on the bus. An off we go. This was our bus ride...

And then I saw a very familiar Malaysia landmark there...


Finally, we've arrived our destination...after some temple hopping. Cost us 250Baht to enter the place. And you need to decently dressed for it, no sleeveless, or u have to borrow clothes to cover yourself. A few pics of the place.









We spent the whole afternoon there and by the time we left the place, it was already close to evening. Wanted to head to Wat Pho for a massage session but too bad already closed. Really not our day. We waited for the boat to get us back to where we came from. Took the skytrain back. Dead tired from the walking, we rested in our hotel room till it was time for dinner. Didn't really have a place in mind to go, so we headed to Hard Rock Cafe. Had dinner and enjoyed ourselves there till late night.
There was a live band performing that night. Was kinda cool...Coz we're the only girls-only pair, think we kinda caught their attention..both from the band and the waiters and waitresses that night. It was quite fun...


The lead singers...the one on the right, her name is Sharon..don't know the guy's name though.


A nice group pic...with the Irish girl who was so drunk that night that she started to talk and talk and talk.....

When they were done singing, they had too much of free beer/shots left. Remember Sharon?The 2 shots in her hand in the pic up there, she gave me one. Not sure what liquour is that also. I just took it. Then one of them pass us beer also. We sat and talk for a while. The band was really good, but then they felt that their music is not really appreciated considering they are told to perform older songs. They will be traveling around the world performing. And they are from the Phillipines.After finishing the beer, we were on our way back to the hotel.

Day 3

Woke up with a terrible headache. Seriously, I wasn't sure it's coz of the liquour I took the night before or just not enough sleep. Went down for breakfast and after that was suppose to head to Pratunam market. Since I thought it would be nice to see the life of the Thai ppl, we walked the back lane and whaddaya know? LOST lor. So in the end, we just got on the skytrain and went to CentralWorld area.We were at Starbucks just relaxing... And after that my headache got worse, so we went back to the hotel and started packing our stuff.We got the cab to the airport. We checked in REALLY early, and went for super expensive lunch at the airport. Our flight was at 455pm Bangkok time.Bumpy ride back to KL, cloudy and lots of turbulence and OLD plane with REALLY noisy passengers sharing their experience at Patpong(Red light district). Thank goodness most of the time was spent sleeping, but those time when I was awake, I overheard the guys at the back talking bout the "cultural" shows that they were watching there.Seriously, it wasn't anything I was interested to know. Touched down at LCCT at about 8pm.

So that kinda sums up my short trip to Bangkok. It was overall an interesting getaway. Although I didn't really get to do what I wanted, or buy more stuff or eaten more food, it's still an eye-opener. Different culture, the people that we met, interaction with locals, exposure to the polluted air...it's unforgettable. The even more unforgettable was the chicken pox thing right after :P Anyway, if I have the time to go there again, I'll probably be more prepared...and I want to visit other places, like the floating market and ancient city and also the beaches there! :)

BANGKOK!

Date: 15- 17 July 2007
Weather: Clear, Rain occasionally
No of participant: 2
Accomodation: Asia Hotel Bangkok

Day 1

Arrived at 1130am BANGKOK TIME. Took a taxi from the airport that cost us 400 baht. I'm still thinking whether we were cheated or not. Nevermind, it was an Avanza, so we had a comfortable ride to the hotel. Checked in. Think Pei Jet made the booking too long, even the reception guy couldn't find her booking information at first. So after all the hooha, we got our Deluxe room which was at RM200 pernite. Quite pricey for an old place like that. But the most convenient would be the direct access to the skytrain station. We grabbbed some maps and got our lonely planet to plan for the rest of the days that we're there. Kinda planned our itenary for the next day. After waiting for PJ's colleagues from Thailand,we got to lunch...in a Chinese restaurant. We had dim sum which was only 19 baht perbasket, which is like really cheap and they have it in a set - 10 baskets. They ordered a noodle too, too bad no pictures on food..coz I thot it would be rude to ask them to wait for me to take pic since everyone was hungry. PJ's friends were kind enough to buy us lunch~! Next, we were off to Catuchak market,I think that should be the way to spell that place. It was Sunday and time was limited to go over the whole place. This place have anything you can think of..REALLY. Don't think 2 days is enough also for the weekend market. Look at the crowd~!!





This is one of the few stalls I captured with my camera. Fresh juice. Intersting...behind this stall is where I found an interesting snack.


Can you guess what is it? It's sweet coz the filing is green bean paste. Something like the Chinese "ang ku kueh" filing, but the outer layer is like konyaku jelly.
We were just walking around and I only bought 2 tops from the market. Wished I had more time there. One of PJ's colleague came with her bf, so when it was close to 5pm, we were on our way back in his car. Saw a lot of the new Vios on the road. Looks kinda nice.

When we got back to the hotel, we waited for PJ's another colleague to meet up with us for dinner. He came and brought his family, what an adorable family. He and his wife were wearing the same clothes and their daughter is just toooooo cute~!! Can't help it, had to take a pic!


This is Hua. So cute, I think she's only about 3 years old. With limited English,can't really communicate with her. Just ask her the basics. "hi","how are you?" ...you know..those "kids" language. Again I did not take pictures of our dinner, I seriously felt impolite and weird, so I kept my camera. But we had some authentic Thai cuisine. The "tomyam kung" was excellent.They kept on feeding us with whatever that's on the table. They ordered stuff that we don't know. To be polite, we just much down whatever that's in front of us. :p The best was the durian ice-cream~!! Heavenly~~!!

After dinner, we thought of visiting Chinatown. PJ's colleague was nice enough to give us a ride around chinatown. It was raining and there's really nothing much we can do. Then we went to Riverpoint thinking that we would get to hunt for the Adidas jacket that PJ eyed on here, but kena tipu la. So we walked for a while and took the taxi back to the hotel.

Day 2

Woke up to an early day, breakfast at the hotel. Bacons~ and Siew Yuk~!!(Roasted pork). Been sometime since I saw pork served in a hotel breakfast spread. :P So we got to the train station and purchased the one-day pass. 120 Baht. Got to the end,and took the Chao Phraya Boatride. Bought another one-day pass. 100 Baht. And off we go to the Grand Palace...


This is like one of the tourist boats that was taking all the tourist.


Temple of Dawn, we didn't visit this place. Just thought it looked nice and took a pic of it when we're on our boat ride.

On the boat, we met a couple from California and another older couple from UK. Quite friendly people. So we got to the palace after about 20 minutes of boat ride? One thing we didn't expect was....it was Monday and it's prayers day~! So no entry to the palace till after lunch. We're like...huh?? And since we're also lost in translation in this place, not knowing what to do, there was this guy at the guard post that told us, we could go to the surrounding temples to sight-see first before returning to the Grand Palace.

Stranger#1: Oh, you can go to see temples over here and here(Pointing at a few temples up north from where we are in our map)Take the tuk-tuk and maybe you can go to the Thai Centre. Shopping, now got sales. Only 30 Baht.

Oh, whaddaya know, there was a tuk-tuk driver on the right and waving his hands at us. Considering that we can't go anywhere dy, mind as well we kill time that way la...further more, only 30 Baht to that few places. Sounded okay to us, and I was so looking forward to a tuk-tuk ride...so we took it and had our share of the polluted air of Bangkok. First off was one of the temples..sigh, don't ask me the names..I only know it's Wat something.. :P Boring..nothing much there. When we got out, our tuk-tuk driver wanted to take a leak. So we were there and waited for him and another stranger was talking to us. Thais are friendly people I guess.

Stranger#2: Oh, you two are not from here.
PJ: Yes.
Stranger#2: Where are you from?
Me: Malaysia
Stranger#2: Oh, Kuala Lumpur? Nice place. I am reporter with Bangkok Times. Today is prayers day, I bring my mother here for prayers. Where are you going after this?
PJ: To the Thai Centre
Stranger#2: Ohh, good. Now they have sales. It's good. You go there and buy. It's for your mother. Very good investment. You buy now and give your mother and after she passed on, you get it back. So good investment.
(PJ and I were looking at each other after he said that and started laughing...not sure what kind of message he was trying to convey though...)

Okay, after that short conversation, we got to the Thai centre. It was a jewelry place. This guy was promoting their red ruby and yellow sapphire to us. With lifetime gurantee and cost much lesser compared to back home. True enough, but then our main purpose was not to get any jewellery, so we just walked a round and got out.
Our tuk-tuk driver was curious whether we got anything, we said no. Then he brought us to another place. Although we didn't want to go, he was close to begging coz he said he just wanted a coupon. SO since we're such good hearted people(:P), we agreed. He brought us to another jewellery place. And came out with nothing either. Next was supposedly our last temple before we return to the Grand Palace. Ok, this temple I remember coz it was translated to English :P The Golden Mount. It's a temple on top of a hill and you get a view of that part of Bangkok from the top.



Something to see on our way up.


This is our tuk-tuk driver...There's a lot to remember about this guy...why?? Because he left us there at that Golden Mount temple~!!! Can you believe it. We're quite some distance from the Grand Palace and we haven't even pay him. Maybe the 30 Baht he can do without. I'm thinking he was pissed off with us for not purchasing anything from the places he brought us to.

So let's stop for here now... will continue blogging with bangkok part 2. :)

Took too long of a break..

Whoa..nice to be back and blogging. So it's almost a month..wow. So what happened? Chicken Pox Attack~!! (If anyone out there knows the medical term to this particular condition, do share with me)


Well, finally it happened. Unexpected, unwanted. And it happened a day after I got back from Bangkok. So until today, I still have no idea where I contracted it from. Maybe from someone new I met? No idea...still unexplainable to me. But anyhow, it's been such a boring 2 weeks cooked up at home. I'm back and jumping around in office~! Kinda sad considering the main thing I wanted to do was to get back to work. SERIOUSLY, it gets really boring at home coz you can't possibly go out.No internet also...no shows to watch, no mood to do anything. So I ended up napping during the afternoons. I want to thank everyone who has been REALLY REALLY nice to send your get well greetings. My colleagues, thanks for the fruit+flower basket. Really came as a surprise to me...and I was very touched.Pic as attached....

So moodless since I got back to work. Maybe it's the new office(or it's the 2 weeks break). Yea, I've finally shifted to Shah Alam. Nearer to home...but takes about the same amount of time to get there and the old office...no difference, the only one is the rush hour jam. But 2 years in Sunway...kinda miss it there. The new place, everyone has their own partition but if u wanna talk, u can sit up straight, then you could see eye level, if not, then just stand up la. But since it's a big place, the echoes are really loud if we were to make noise :P But these 2 days is just getting used to la. Next week la..my working mood should be back, I'm still at the stage where I'm exploring on what time I should leave home to get to office in time and get a good parking space. I think the best spot should be in front of the guard house. It's quite scary to walk far...especially by myself. Bangkok highlights in my next blog post. :)