Backdated post. Actual event took place on 18 August 2006.
Yawn… I am still too tired to wake up. I want to sleep.. but I can’t breakfast on the house is waiting for me. I… NEED…. TO…..W..A..K..E… U…zzzZzzzzz zz *after 30 mins* ..P.
After getting ready, tucking in the map, money and most importantly hotel’s card… we are all set to go have breakfast.
It wasn’t much variety but I think it was good enough to get me going in the morning. They have the western style breakfast section, some thai food, chinese style food and beverages.
I ate like loads of stuff, toast, sausages, scrambled eggs and more bread. I then go for some thai food like stir fry kailan and some curry brinjal with meat.
It was like amazing. The thai style stuffs were amazing. By far, everything I have eaten in Thailand taste extremely good. It’s like I can’t believe hotel breakfast taste this good as well.
Just amazing. I can go around KL and tell you food here wasn’t that great. Not tasty… la la la… but here.. haha.. seems so difficult to find bad food (not that I want to find one).
I must note… the coffee they serve for breakfast… my god… taste 20x better than Coffee Bean’s breakfast coffee. They should really look in to the problem man. I mean S.E.R.I.O.U.S.L.Y look in to it!
Right after the heavy breakfast.. we started our journey. As planned… we took a cab to Siam Square.
Siam Square is a shopping and entertainment paradise in Bangkok. To all Malaysians, Siam Square is similar to our Sg.Wang shopping mall. A place where you get lots of cheap and youthful stuff. The only difference is, Siam Square takes u a few street, while Sg. Wang is just a shopping mall.
Here, you can find lots and lots of weird theme cafe and local designer label clothings. The best part, it links to many other big shopping mall such as Siam Paragon.
My shopping spree in Bangkok has officially started. I manage to get some stuff here. But then… I was more amazed with the signages… with lots of funny and funky names.
There were lots of stickers and grafitti at almost every corner of the streets at Siam Square. I try to act funny and took some pictures there. But everyone around me was looking at me in a weird way. Sigh…
Â
We then continue our quest to Siam Paragon. It is an upscale shopping center, similar to Starhill Gallery. It has been listed as one of the biggest shopping centre in Asia.
The interior designs for the restaurants was simply amazing. Not to even mention the small ponds in side the mall. It’s very spacious and without a doubt, very classy and elegant like.
We walk around since Jimbo is looking for a nice and decent bag. Me… I am just walking around for souvenirs. There are lots of high classy stalls around but you surely can find lots of cute and fun stuffs inside as well. I manage to get some local designer stuff here as souvenirs. While Jimbo… sad for him. He didn’t get to find anything he likes.
When our stomach start making noise, we know it’s time to look for food. We went to the lower ground level and search for food. There were lots of stalls and restaurant there. Very big food court, lots of options… and best of all… nice deco.
Ging Kalpapruek was pick of the day! It was quite a busy place. Quite a pack place where people just come and go, come and go. Er.. then again, probably it’s lunch time.
Here… let’s see, we have Fresh Spring Rolls (85 Baht) as appertizers then move on with Fried Mixed Vegetables with Oyster Sauce (85 Baht) and Fried Chicken with Chili and Cashewnuts (110 Baht). I also ordered Passion Fruit Juice (45 Baht).
Â
Okay… the fresh spring rolls was served with some special sauce, a stalk of spring onion, more chili and a dash of mustard. The sauced poured on to the spring rolls were rather sticky and it’s not the sweet and spicy type we used to have over here in Malaysia. This one is rather salty.
What was wrapped inside the spring roll is pretty much the usual stuff. The combination between the sauce and the spring roll.. hemmm.. it’s just refreshing. I never know how much sauce can influence the taste of something until now. Just opens up so much more possibility.
The fried mixed vege was pretty much standard. To me nothing can go wrong with fried vegetables except the fact that you over cook it or throw in super duper lots of salt in it. Otherwise… everything is pretty much standard!
The Fried Chicken with Chili and Cashewnuts was hot! I was totally deceived by the looks of it. It looks like if I could just seperate the chili away.. everything would be fine.. but nope, they sorta pounded the chili to small pieces as well and cook it together with the sauce and chicken. So yeah, it’s flaming hot!
We then walk out and take some pics around. We then walked to the nearest train station and try to just go around town. Similar to the MRT in Singapore, the BTS surely does cut down lots of traffic jams in Bangkok. From the Siam station, we hop to Nana. We took the train that direct us to On Nut which I think was a rather funny name.
Ah… one must wonder, why Nana, why not any place else. Okay… Nana was an inside joke… which I guess only a few people know… in fact very few. But well.. besides that, it’s just a station away from Sukhumvit so yes, sight seeing a bit.. then stop at Shukumvit and just shop again!
Â
I wasn’t sure if Nana is a hit place among tourist or not, but it sure have lots too see. The buildings was rather different than the ones you see at the big places like Sukhumvit or Siam. It’s not that modern. They have lots of cute an funny signage.
Jimbo the decided he wants to call friends he get to knoe from a workshop and go out and hangout. While he hangs on the phone, I went on snapping pictures around. There were so many things to snap. I just can’t help it.
Â
After a tiring walk, we stop at Green House Terrace at The Landmark. It was quite a place for coffee where we both just sit down, lepak a bit, drink some coffee, enjoy some small town sights and just rest our legs.
I had the Iced Cappuccino (90 Baht) while Jimbo have their Iced Coffee (90 Baht). I must say, it was just a nice feeling.. doing nothing while everyone is working, sitting down by the roadside drinking ice cool cappuccino. Just amazing! Surely do feel time just stop and I could just do this sorta stuff on a daily basis.
Â
After a tiring walk, we stop at Green House Terrace at The Landmark. It was quite a place for coffee where we both just sit down, lepak a bit, drink some coffee, enjoy some small town sights and just rest our legs.
I had the Iced Cappuccino (90 Baht) while Jimbo have their Iced Coffee (90 Baht). I must say, it was just a nice feeling.. doing nothing while everyone is working, sitting down by the roadside drinking ice cool cappuccino. Just amazing! Surely do feel time just stop and I could just do this sorta stuff on a daily basis.
We lepak for an hour or so before continue walking.
Address: Green House Terrace at The Landmark
138 Sukhumvit Rd.,
Bangkok 10110 Thailand Telephone Number:
(660) 2254 0404, (660) 2254 0424 Fax:(660) 2253 4259 URL:http://www.landmarkbangkok.com/
Along the way I took pictures of their thin and sleek ATM machine (I think it would be a goner in a days time over here). Being a “bully” I just gotta snap a picture in front of the Bully’s cafe! And not to mention, while we were busy complaining our petrol prices are expensive, take a look at other country’s price.
Â
We carry on walking and walking… thinking we were heading to Sukhumvit, we were actually heading otherwise and ended up at Phleon Chit. Being a little tired of walking, we took the train from there and stop at Shukumvit where Jimbo will meet up with his friend at the Emporium.
The mall there was not as luxurious as Siam Paragon but still have everything a mall need. Branded stuff, household stuff, food section. Everything was just there.
After walking for like a while, Jimbo’s friend arrive and we sat down for coffee at Starbucks. The place was just next to the Emporium. It looks rather classy, sorta dim with some down lights and from there… the sunset scene was just so amazing. Oopss.. I was to in to it till I forget to snap some pics.
While drinking coffee, Jimbo’s friend tells us more about Thailand and places we should visit and go see. I like how he gives us options on like sight seeing, you should go this, this and this place while if you want to go shopping, you should just hit on this, this and this places.
He even recommend us to come visit thai during the ermm “Water Festival”. Ah… he said it would be a fun time, but we must make early arrangements as Bangkok would be packed with tourist from around the world.
After a long chat, we all decided to make a move and head to the place Jimbo’s friends picked for dinner and a meet up. It is said to be one of a very famous restaurant in town.
It was actually quite near to where we are. We just sort of like walk for 10 minutes and we arrive at this small little house like place. Very cozy and comfortable place called Sonie’s.
Apparently this place is a very famous place and used to be packed. Yes, it is said that it’s quite difficult to find good fusion food in Thailand. But well, I guess it was quite my day. 🙂 Sonie’s is one of the famous fusion food outlet in Bangkok. While marketing itself as a Thai-Japanese restaurant, Sonie’s ends up delivering almost every culinary influence ever to touch upon Thai shores.
When Jimbo other friends arrive, we started ordering so much food… so much that we all have a hard time finishing.
We ordered lot’s which includes sushi, pizza, salad. It is said that their very own pizza, Sonie’s Pizza is not to be missed. Unlike other pizzas that uses this thick bread as base, Sonie’s Pizza had shrimp, crab, and flying fish roe crumbled on top of rice and seaweed.
The secret to its success is an added element of what I think is crumbled rice in tempura batter, fried again to resemble in taste and texture crushed junk food, like a bad-for-you deep-fried rice cake. Supposedly an appetizer, forget about sharing and order one for yourself.
We even have fresh sashimi, which was a typical Japanese dish. The Fresh Salmon Pizza was amazing also. I think it was nicely blended fusion food. A little Japanese with Italian. Just a perfect combo. You can see the pizza was baked and topped with fresh salmon. It just added a new texture to eating pizza. The cold and hot blends in just so well.
There were many more weird and different type of rolls and this big soft shell crab salad that came later on. But as usual, when I was too in to eating, I forgot all about the snapping.
Dinner was on Jimbo.. so I have no idea how much it cost 🙂 Anyway… thanks bo! Lovely dinner, lovely friends you have.
We chit chat a little and they were telling how they get to know each other in the workshop and all the fun they have… oh… it just makes me jealous.
After dinner, everyone was sorta busy with their own agenda. One of Jimbo’s friend was kind enough to drop us down at Silom where have a short walk around again. This time we focus more on looking at the stalls than walking around looking for food. Jimbo manage to pick up some deco lightings for her mum while I just look around.
We manage to even walk in to Patpong Road. Wow.. I was totally shocked to know that actually the stalls at Silom pass by Patpong Road. I always think Patpong is a street where you could just walk in the middle of the road… looking left and right, with not much people except poll dancing girls, guys… loads of guys asing you to go in and take a look thing.
But nope, there were stalls selling Thai stuff from the start till the end of Patpong street. But well, I wasn’t comfortable shopping there as people will come approach you with this funky books with funky names.
Oh yes, never know one can do so much stunts! Now yes, if you would just a life size bottle opener, perhaps this is a place to get one.
We then just head back to hotel and doze off. It was really a tiring day considering the amount fo walking, and shopping done. Total damage… hemmm let’s not get to that part yet!
