Brooke's First Day

We left Grand Wing Mansion - a lovely high-falutin name for a relatively simple, but very lovely place (except for spotty internet) and walked toward the bok soi (street entrance).  Seeing a new cafe with - I very excitedly pointed out - Smoothies, we decided to get something cold to drink.

The owner was so cute, motioning us in to sit comfortably while we ordered and he made the drinks.  He hands us the menu - in Thai.  I point to the section labelled Smoothies, choosing one at random (I realized a minute later that most of the berries are the same in Thai as English). Blueberry.  And Brooke orders a Thai tea.  He explains it in Thai, but as clearly neither of understand he runs off to find someone who speaks English :)  just so the older gentleman can explain it's tea with milk served over ice.  Brooke agreed - look who's being just so adventurous!

We get our drinks ask to take pics and he takes our pic - per Dayanna he posts them on facebook, so I may just be on facebook now :), for anyone who cares to check for proof of our actually being in Thailand, the name of the cafe is Coffamily.  Very cool place - much posher than most places I eat in Thailand.

Next we headed to the Mall Thapra - and I cannot tell you how proud of myself I was to be able to get us there after six months away!

It's a huge mall, though it has nothing on the Mall Bangkae, but still too overwhelming to accomplish much on the first day, just bought a wallet (B), a bag (K) and a couple waters and headed home.

And crashed...

Back in Thailand!!!!!!!!!

Oh yes, it needs THAT many exclamation points :)

Been back in Thailand for about 5 days now, sorry for the delay in posting, but we've been working out some internet kinks - still working on them in fact, so I'll post pics separately lest Blogger decides (again) to not work.

So the plane ride was LONG, but uneventful.  B and I were able to change to get seats next to each other for the flight from New York to China, but the rest of the trip we sat separately.  We flew China Eastern Airlines this time (last time I'd flown American most of the way), and although I'd been worried because I believe it's a budget airline, I found it to be quite nice and new and the food was for the most part an improvement.

One funny note on plane food.  China Eastern by it's name is clearly a Chinese company, hence whereas AA had offered an Oriental and Western food option, China just offered Oriental.  Which for the most part was fantastic since it meant wheat free.  On the way from Shanghai to Bangkok they did a tray of snack foods for breakfast which I found quite intrigueing.  The plate smelled sweet and I was sleepy and so I opened what I believed to be a sweet roll with relish.

And bit into smoked hot dog.  Okay, just hadn't been what I'd expected.  But there was a package of cookies.  Having learned my lesson I read the package this time in the dim airplane lights: Onion flavored.  Hmmm, possibly okay in the right circumstances, but with my tummy now feeling iffy, I was not up to it.  Here they had jelly snacks.  The label was all Chinese, but it felt like gummys, so I decided to try it - only to be greeted by one of the most offensive odors I've ever smelled.  It smelled rotten!

So the day was saved by apple chips and chocolate orea wafers. :)  That's one thing you learn when travelling so far from home - it's best not to have expectations.  Reminds me of a time I had a cup of green soda last trip.  I thought it was lime flavored - what I got was gummy bear.  Per Dayanna there's a purple Fanta soda that tastes of Bubble Gum!

Another fun food travelling story, on our layover in Shanghai Brooke was craving some comfort food so bought a bottle of Starbucks iced coffee and a chocolate bar.  Neither of us were sure of the exchange rate where China's money was concerned, so Brooke got the good news much later - $12 for the coffee and chocolate!  Best part: She thought the bar had almonds when in fact it was chocolate and Jelly Beans.  Hee hee hee.  Talk about an unpleasant surprise!

Leaving the topic of food for a bit, in New York an Asian girl sat next to me while waiting for the plane to board.  I noticed that she had a book that looked like it was in Thai, so I asked, in Thai (one of my like 5 sentences) if she understood Thai.  She was from Thailand and had actually been in the US doing missionary work for a couple years.  At first I had wondered if she was a witness , but no, it was for the Indonesian Youth group or something like that (I'd not heard of it).  She was very sweet nonetheless and we chatted a bit about the US and Thailand, what we liked, what we'd miss about home, etc...

So, back to the timeline, we got into Bangkok very early (around 1am) and waited and waited in the immigration line.  Then we got near the front and oh Brooke hadn't gotten the entry card so we had to step out of line while she filled it out.  Then we got back in line and waited.  And finally without any real ado we could get our luggage!

After reading the board wrong the first time we found our bags safe from the Columbus airport where we'd last seen them and headed to customs where we were waved on without even needing to have our bags scanned.  By then it was probably 2:30 or 3:00 and we learned a taxi would cost about $30 that time of night and that distance, so, since Bangkok is a very nice airport, we decided to just hang out until the train into the city opened at 6.  Total of city line, BTS & taxi to Grand Wing: $4 per person.  Starbucks while we waited: $12 :)

It was a bit of a hassle dragging our bags up and down at the BTS and Brooke lost her token at one point, but finally we were at our new home.  Now we just had to explain to our new landlady who we were.  Fortunately I know friend in Thai so I said we were friends of Terry and Alanna and she mentioned Dayanna - whom I had been terribly worried about since I'd said we'd take a taxi to Grand Wing and hence should have arrived hours ago!

An older man in the lobby invited us to sit - clearly exhausted - while the landlady made a call, then randomly handed it to me.  It was Dayanna, who was a bit suspicious, how had I gotten this number, and no, I wasn't supposed to arrive until tomorrow!  Well at least I hadn't worried her or kept her up!  It just then took a bit of work explaining we were in fact downstairs now.  Later we joked that we had to go back where we came from because she'd not had a chance to set up the bed for us, so we could not be there now :)  Honestly, as long as there was a shower Brooke and I did not care.  We were just happy we'd caught her before she'd left for service because otherwise I don't know what we'd have done.

So we both took showers, and still a bit wired from Starbucks we went out...