alright, friends, you ready for one helluvan entry? i debated for a long time about how i wanted to write this: either give just a couple stories but with intense detail, or give a brief overview of everything that happened. the former would surely be shorter and every sentence would be filled with wit, insight, and brilliance (or something like that), but the latter, though it might have some parts that might be boring, would be super thorough.
instead i apparently decided to talk about what i want to do instead of actually do it. *sigh* how nicki of me. i think i’m gonna just go through the whole entire trip day by day, so you should probably grab a beer or a coffee or a tea or a glass of wine or whatever helps you focus for a long time cuz i have a feeling this is gonna be long.
okay, actually, this is what i’m gonna do. i’m gonna divide the stories into four entires: bangkok, thailands, china w/parents, china w/out parents. you should be reading this one first (if you already are, you are super attractive and smart).
(also, apologies for the awk apostrophes/formatting--i'm posting this from an internet cafe and everything got all weird in the copy/pasting between my flash drive and blogger.)
START!
so mom and dad were due into bkk at 11:45 pm on sunday, march 21. i checked into our hotel around 2 pm and worked out in the gloriously air conditioned gym for like two hours, just cuz i could. i headed to the airport around 9 pm—way too early, but i was getting tired and bored. plus i like airports a lot.
just before midnight, i headed down to the arrivals part. as soon as i saw mom and dad, i started jumping up and down and waving my arms cuz HOLY CRAP, MOM AND DAD ARE HERE!!!!! we were all too excited to see each other and kept talking and not sleeping, despite the fact that it was like 2 am by the time we got back to the hotel and we had a full day ahead of us.
we forced ourselves to go to sleep and woke up the next morning ready to take on bangkok. the red shirt protesters were in the city, but luckily they weren’t really causing much of a ruckus when we were there, so i wasn’t too concerned about wandering the city. OHH we had the best buffet breakfast at our fancy hotel. mmmm buffet breakfast.
mostly, we wanted to see the grand palace, so we asked a taxi guy to take us there. he didn’t wanna take us all the way there—the protesters were making the traffic horrendous, i guess—so he took us to a dock on the river canal. after we got lost then re-found ourselves, we put ourselves on a river boat and it was AWESOME. i’ve never done it before, but it lets you get from sukumvit to the grand palace area on public transportation the whole time and i was thrilled.
anyway, people kept telling us the grand palace wasn’t open until the afternoon so we should wait. first a guy told us it wasn’t open until 1 pm, so we should go see wat pho (which we were right outside at the time). yeah yeah yeah, ok, whatever. for some reason, we believed the guy, so after finding a bathroom for mom (dad spends 80 percent of his life waiting outside bathrooms for mom, btw. dad, we should’ve played that “waiting on a woman” song while we were standing there), we hopped back on the river boat and went to khao san road so i could show mom and dad the real backpacker haven of bkk. there some more people told us the grand palace wouldn’t be open until 3 pm, so for only 20 baht and only for today we could go to X, Y, and Z places right now. hmmm...that’s weird. we eventually decided just to go to the grand palace and if it was closed, we’d figure something out when we were there. we grabbed a tuk tuk and when i asked him how much, he said 100 baht.
“but those guys said 20 baht.”
“only if you go to the government market.”
“ohhhhhhhhh!!!! cow jai, friend.”
it was a scam. rookie mistake, nicki. anyway, we went to the grand palace, and it was grand and sparkly and awesome. i got to point out the spot where i took the picture for the xmas card and we made special memories.
then it was the mid-afternoon and we were tired, so we went back to the hotel. after a hot minute in the room, mom and i decided we’d go shopping. mom and i are the expert shoppers of the family—sorry, dad and kate, for dragging you out on a million zillion shopping trips that lasted too long—and we’d been planning this shopping day for a long time. we went to a little street market first, then hit the mother of all bangkok malls: mbk. six floors of insanity. we only went on one of them, but that was plenty. we got gifts for all sorts of friends and family members and i eyed my northface jacket that i’d need for china, where it was about 20 degrees celsius colder than i’m used to.
we got back and went to have drinks at charlie’s bar along sukhimvit soi 11. great, cheap outdoor bar. we talked with a british (right?) guy for a while before we decided to go have dinner. when we came back, we of course went in the rooftop pool, just cuz we could.
btw, us arnolds don’t normally travel like this. we love our camping trips—we splurged on a pop-up trailer 10 years ago and ever since then, every summer we’ve gone on at least one big camping trip and usually a handful of others. so when mom and dad said they were coming to asia, i wanted at least the first place we stayed to be a fancy type hotel, since it was gonna be a special trip. and it was (true of the hotel and the trip).
annnnyway, the next day, we went to wat pho (cuz dad read about it and it actually sounded kinda cool) and saw a GIGANTIC buddha. ummm i kinda forget what else we did, but then in the early afternoon we caught a cab to suphan. two hours-ish later, we were in my temporary hometown. i think mom and dad were surprised how outside the city the town is. lol...and i think suphan’s a pretty big city, compared to other places i have friends. we had a great time walking around and that night i think we had the best dinner of the trip, down the street at king’s place. (parents, don’t let me forget to take a picture of this!)
the next day, we went to baan ya’s coffee place so parents could meet her (she’s one of the top 3 most awesome people in suphan), then after some shenanigans with flight times and getting to the airport, we were back again in bkk, waiting for our flight to phuket. islands, baby.
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