Had a heavy breakfast at Ariston Hotel before departing off for a packed schedule with a free and easy city tour. First stop of the city tour would be at the Erawan Shrine (four-face buddha) It's the first time I went back to the temple since it was vandalised and then restored, however the appearance and the atmosphere seems unchanged. Made 2 wishes over there, unfortunately they did not realised when I returned to Singapore. Better luck and more sincerity next time.
Four-face Buddha
Next stopped over at Chatucha weekend bazaar. It's really a place filled with creativity and opportunities especially in terms of their handicraft. Beads jewellery seems to be the 'in' thing there and the price is attractive that it will be fairly profitable to import. Take the beads I purchased at mybeadpoints.com for $3+/string for example, it's only 15-20 baht each. Manage to buy a couple of shirts that but as the weather got hot, we proceeded to somewhere air-conditioned.
Thai MRT Platform
Took the MRT to fortune centre. Their MRT system is rather similar in terms of design, but the difference is that we will not packed like sardine in their train cabin. Had a short walk at fortune centre (equivalent to Singapore's Sim Lim Square) before heading down to Siam Paragon. It's one of the high end and largest shopping centre. The first level is a food paradise where u can find food from all countries and with a giant size supermarket as well. The higher level will be selling branded apparels which is not cheap at all. Took a few hours to finish walking the mall and towards the evening, a drama occurred. Mum got lost. She had a phone with auto-roaming, but she do not know how to call us and her phone is in silent mode, so she does not know that we are calling her. She had the name card of the hotel but without any Thai baht with her. Therefore me and my dad combed the whole level 2 for almost half an hour but to no avail. Finally I heard an announcement paging for my dad but the volume was so low that I could not hear any details other than the name. Even with that, finding the correct information counter within such a big shopping center is a nightmare. Finally we managed to find my mum at the level 1 information counter. The 'reunion' was not a touching event, on the other hand my parents were cursing each other before my mum cried. Love is really hard to understand, I've seen how worried my dad was before that but why did they start scolding each other once they met up?
Me @ Siam Paragon
After a bad experience it's time for good food. Went back to Yaowarat for dinner again and sorry to animal lovers, it's shark fin time! Ordered a 500Baht portion of shark fin soup to share and on top of that ordered fish maw (again), kangkong (again) and chicken.
Shark Fin Soup. Nice!
The end of the dinner did not mark the end of the day. After the sumptous dinner we proceeded on to Suan Lum Night Bazaar to take a ride round the ferris wheel to view the Bangkok night scenery. 150baht for 3 rounds ride is quite affordable but the scenery from the top is not too fantastic though. Nothing interesting at the bazaar too therefore after a short walk we took a cab back to the hotel and it marks the end of an exciting day in Bangkok.
