King Rama 9 Park

Yesterday we went to the King Rama 9 Park. The park was beautiful and had a wonderful cactus garden. What we didn't expect to find were larger than live sized white canvas rabbits wearing scarves.

They also had a large collection of bromeliads and orchids which Jim went crazy over.

The park is in back of a big mall. The bus dropped us off in front of the mall and as we went in the first thing we saw was an A&W Root Beer restaurant. So, we had to stop so that Jim could get his root beer float, in a real glass mug, unlike in the U.S. where they only give you paper cups. Laura had an iced coffee float.

The mall had an ice skating rink inside of it, where we watched people skating. They also had larger than life sized penguins on the ice to help the little kids learn ice skating. Below is a photo of the center part of the mall. The ice rink was off one wing of the mall.

To get to the park we took a local non-air-conditioned bus for about 50 minutes. What fascinated Laura about the buses were their wooden floors.

What fascinated Jim was going past the local Lamborghini/Lotus dealership and then past the Tesla dealership. When we went past the Lamborghini dealership on the way back they were unloading a Lamborghini from a flat bed tow truck. Jim's only thought was "How much is that repair going to cost?" But, it was a beautiful black Lamborghini.

Arom Chanyan

Thursday we visited Arom Chanyan and her daughter Sitarom in Bangkok. She is a friend of Consti Garay who I worked with at Allen Community College. We had lunch at an excellent restaurant and then she took us to her home for coffee. She has been a professor at the Ramkhamhaeng University for forty years and is retired, although she still teaches. She was a delightful woman with a delightful daughter.

Chilling in Bangkok

We are still in Bangkok and still in the same hotel. Before we left Topeka we talked about staying in Bangkok for a while since we had never done that. Typically for us, Bangkok was a stop on the way to somewhere else. Sometimes we never even stopped in Bangkok, we would go from one bus station to another, or from the train to a bus or plane. This time we are staying here and enjoying it. Mostly doing nothing. Although we did catch another movie yesterday. This time it was "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" which we really enjoyed.

Since we have arrived Laura has gone from one ache and pain to another. Now she has a cold. When we first arrived her shoulder was bad, then she had plantar fasciitis pain in her heel, then her knee, then her ear, and now a cold. Jim is doing fine. Just chilling, and quite content just being here.

We skyped with Jim's daughter Crista yesterday. She is doing well after her surgery. We are really glad the surgery went well. We still find it really amazing to be in our hotel room in Bangkok, seeing and talking with someone in the U.S. Yesterday we bought Thai Sim cards for our cell phones so we can find each other. Figured it was worth the $3 for both sim cards. Now, you can call us in Thailand, Jim's number from the US is 66 853586059, while Laura's is 66 853586712.

We are enjoying the wonderful food here, including the toast that Jim always has at breakfast, which is funny because Jim never eats toast at home. What's even weirder is that the jelly that Jim puts on it is Strawberry, a flavor that Jim will not even touch at home. But, here, it's part of the hotel's breakfast buffet and Jim loves it. The toast and jelly, and the Danishes see to be his favorite foods. Neither of which he eats at home. We also are enjoying the Coke Zero, which we do drink at home.

Chip and Dale

The granddaughter of the hotel's owner is always carrying a doll of Dale which is larger than she is. Now we find out that there is a difference between Chip and Dale. And,the granddaughter, Eve, only likes Dale. Poor Chip is rejected. One day she let go of Dale and Jim grabbed him and held him to his chest and Eve just glared at him, not knowing whether to cry or not because the Farang had her beloved Dale. For those of you, like us, who did not realize there is a difference between Chip and Dale, here is a Disney image.

We have decided to stay at this hotel in Bangkok until until we leave for Penang on New Year's Eve. It is nice just being here. Yesterday we went to see the movie "Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol". Was very good. There is an IMAX version of the movie downtown, but we chose to walk three blocks to a local movie house. Next up is the new Sherlock Holmes movie. We see more movies in Asia than we do in Topeka. Maybe it's the price. The movie was under $3 for each ticket. Think since the last time we were in Asia, in Topeka, we went to one movie in a theater, and that was only because Jim found passes we had won years ago in a drawing.

We are still in Bangkok. Yesterday we booked the overnight sleeper train from here to Penang on New Years Eve. We were finally able to get a lower berth so Laura doesn't have to climb the ladder to get into her berth. Now, only Jim will break his neck.
This morning we are sitting in the hotel's restaurant and Jim is trying to figure out how to use Picasa on his netbook. We think he has finally downloaded all the photos to his computer and maybe he has the figured out how to upload them to the web. After this paragraph there should be a picture of our hotel, the JL Bangkok. This morning as we were in the hotel's restaurant, drinking free coffee and trying to figure out how to use this blog site, when the owner of the hotel sat down with us. This is a Chinese owned hotel which is managed by the owner's son, with the owner living on site. We also have met the manager's wife and their approximately three year old daughter, who also live here. Quite a family business. The owner also has another son who lives in New York.

Weekend Market

Today we went to the Chatuchak weekend market. A true shopping experience. It's 35 acres and 8,000 stalls of "bargains". Laura came back with necklaces and earrings.

Throughout Bangkok we have been seeing sandbags on the sidewalks. They are left over from the floods last month. Today we watched men throwing bags onto trucks in front of the Swissotel. We saw sandbags on nearly every corner in Sukhumvit, and saw them piled in the shape of a Christmas tree in front of the Tesco-Lotus Department store. And, yes, it was as a Christmas tree because it was one of three Christmas trees made of different materials.

Jim finally found a Blueberry Danish in Bangkok. They are sold in every Bakery in Malaysia, and on the last trip he found his favorite one in Indonesia, but none in Bangkok until yesterday. The danish was in the Yamazaki Bakery, which is between Suzuki Coffee and McDonald's in the Tesco-Lotus mall near the Phra Ram 9 MRT subway) station, if you ever have the urge for a blueberry danish, and if you are in Bangkok.

Lost in Bangkok

This morning we set off to find another way to the main tourist part of Bangkok. We set off in a mini van. The reason we decided to do this is that one end of the mini van's line is in front of our hotel. So, we paid our fare to one of the malls, from which we could catch the subway the rest of the way. We missed our mini van stop and only get out when the mini van reached its destination at the other end of the line, which was sort of OK since it ended at another mall. Except, we had no idea where we were. So, like the brave Americans we are, we took refuge in a McDonald's and waited for the mall to open. When the mall opened we went in and looked around and discovered it had the department store called "The Mall" inside it. Which was mainly interesting because near our hotel is a mall with "The Mall" inside it also. Well, after Laura looking at yarn, and threatening to buy the store out of its US $10 per skein yarn, we went to customer service to find out where in Bangkok we were. After we walked up to customer service and asked for help, they called a lady who spoke good English and she explained we were so far off course we weren't even still on our little tourist map of Bangkok. She gave us directions on which bus to catch to connect with the Sky Train, which then connected with the subway to get us back to our original destination. As the bus we were on got on the freeway we began to believe that we had gone quite a way out of our way. Anyway, the bus eventually got us to Monument Circle, where we caught the Sky Train to Siam Square, a new destination which we had decided on for lunch. After lunch, we caught the Sky Train to the Subway, and then to the mall which was our original destination when we set out hours earlier. From the mall we caught a city bus back to our hotel. All this could have been avoided by taking a taxi in the first place, and probably would have ended up being cheaper, but not nearly half the fun.