October 26, 2006 Bangkok Day 2... (just posted video of Lisa jumping on Anth's bed below)

We woke up way too early today. I got a wakeup call from the automated machine at the hotel at 7AM. Gosh.. it was tough to wake up. Well, first things first right? Straight to breakfast downstairs (included with the hotel of course). I think I'm getting used to eating 3 meals a day now, hopefully my metabolism is kick starting itself earlier because of the first meal of the day! (I doubt it though) Breakfast at Sofitel Bangkok isn't as good as the breaky at Boracay or Ko Samui, but it's still pretty good. Fresh fruits, lots of selection, and fresh fruit shakes blended for you by request. Here's the spread:

After breakfast, we were on our way to the Grand Palace (where the King used to live). It's huge, and very Grand indeed. The freaking cab drivers here are a bunch of thieves. When we left our hotel, the bell hop told us the ride would be about 100 baht. Darren, Becky, Lisa and myself took a cab, and he got us to the destination. When we were about to pay, he said “300 baht”… “what the hell!?? The bell hop told us 100 baht!”. So he says “okay, 150 baht”… and Darren’s replies “okay okay, fine”. Right when he’s about to pay, the cabbie says “200 baht”… and Darren’s says “fine whatever”. Right when we’re about to exit the cab (Dar’s riding shotgun), the cab driver grabs Darren’s thigh, and says “I love you.” Hahahahaha, I was freaking howling… and then I told all the other guys and they were cracking up too. Darren was like “what the f?” hahahahahaha

Meanwhile, Terry, Tammy, Ron and Tania’s cab driver wanted to bring them to the ship port, and then from there, you have to take a ferry over to the palace for 1100 baht! Yeah right! So they just got out of the cab (without paying of course), and took a different one. Since the previous driver had driven them halfway already, their other cab was only 50 baht to the Palace.

The palace itself was nice… you know, a tourist destination that you have to see. Grand buildings with gold, and hand constructed everything. Everything is very detailed. There’s a hand painted mural that surrounds the Palace, and it basically describes a story. It’s quite impressive.

After the palace, we walked over to the Relaxing Buddha. It’s a huge Buddha (about a block long in size), basically laying on its side. Here’s are a couple of pics:

After doing the touristy stuff in the scorching heat (35 degrees Celsius), we proceed to take a cab to Central Chit Lom (an upscale mall) for lunch. Again, the cab drivers were all trying to rip us off. Man, it’s so frustrating…. Anyhow, we managed to get a metered cab, and instead of paying 300 baht, it was 80 baht. The mall itself was really just an upscale department store. You know, designer clothing, designer bags, etc. The only reason we went here was because of the food fair on the top floor. It’s quite the food fair. There was comfortable, contemporary seating with excellent food. There’s an international flair to the food fair, because you can get Indian, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, and Italian. Here’s a photo (I would of taken more, but we weren’t allowed to!)

After lunch, we split up and headed back to the hotel. Lisa and I ventured off on our own and took the Sky Train back to our hotel. It would have been more worth it to take a cab, for it would have dropped us off in front of our hotel, but at least we can say we took public transit.

There was happy hour at our hotel on the private lounge on the 27th floor from 5pm-7pm, so we had to take advantage of it. There was free alcohol, beers, wine, mixed drinks, etc. Being the Chinese people that we are… we ordered tones of beer and drinks…and ate what we could hehe. Yuri and Anne also arrived today, so they're hanging out with us now too!

After the lounge, we went to an outdoor rooftop lounge. It was breathtaking. It was located on the 64th floor, high up above the city, with a view of the Bangkok skyline (which isn’t that impressive by the way). I took a couple of photos:

The place was called Sirocco (the Dome) on top of the State Tower. It was really cool. Our friends ordered drinks (about 10 bucks cdn per drink) and well… I managed to avoid the waiters and not order.. hehe (my Chinese cheapness kick in again). We hung out on the roof top and there was a magnificent view of the city. And there was a live band too! About an hour after we headed back down. It was so cool because there's a view of the whole city.

Anyhow, after coming back downstairs... we were hungry again, so we were off to eat yet again. We went to a joint called Somboon Seafood Restaurant. The food was excellent. Crab, grilled squid, tom yum goong (which Anth and Jimmy T hate by the way), deep fried prawns, a fish dish, etc. It came to a paltry 12 dollars Canadian each. We were all stuffed and very satisfied. Somboon wasn’t anything to write home about in terms of ambience (it resembled a Hon’s back home), but the food definitely spoke for itself.

We headed back to the hotel after, and I blogged. Lisa was exhausted for we woke up pretty early today. Time for bed, nite nite, it’s 2AM.