Showing posts with label bangkok. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bangkok. Show all posts

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Bangkok 2016

Flying out of the country again, just a day into the second week of the new year. I always plan my holidays way ahead of the actual travelling period, but this time, it was on the spur of the moment. He bought the tickets and I booked the accommodation just 2 weeks before. It's something out of the ordinary and I don't think I can do this last-minute thing without getting stressed out in the process. 

But well, yes, it's time for me to venture out to Bangkok with my boyfriend. He has a work thing the week after in Bangkok, so it's good that we're spending some time together first. 



I finally adorned (yeah just let me use this word lah, my skin is in a terrible state now) my face with this pair of shades from Cotton On. Got it for only S$4 during an online sale a long time ago! Whilst digging up this pair, I realised there were many other pairs that were stuck in shades box and never made their way out of my house. I think that's reminiscent of many other such "boxes" in my room. For example, my nailpolish box - I don't even wear nailpolish anymore! I need to start up my nailpolish engine man. How about my exploding wardrobe? I have tried to put aside some items that I want to sell on Carousell, but that's where they have been all this while - on the side. Bah what's wrong with me??

Okay, I will take photos and sell some on Carousell after this post!!

I think the shades looks good on me, no? A good dosage of mei tu xiu xiu was also used to get this photo looking good. What to do~


I bought myself a giant purple donut/doughnut (whichever's your party) cushion. It was S$14 and expensive by Bangkok's standards, but hey it has been very functional, especially when I'm trying to watch Netflix on my phone. So yes to a good buy!


In all the times I've been to Bangkok, I've never dared to eat at the zhi-char stalls by the roadside near Central World. Call me pretentious, but I didn't want to risk a diarrhea on the FIRST night of my vacation. Also, every time I go back to Indonesia and turn into a glutton, I always get tummy problems. I don't blame the food from the roadside stalls, I blame the rabbit food diet that I force myself into in Singapore, making my digestive organs pompous and clean-freaks.

But when Kengyang told me to have dinner there, I just went, "okay, let's go". My brain works strangely sometimes.

He took this photo of me. Very nice right?


And to return the favour, I took this blurry photo of him. I feel very bad, even till now. Taking blurry photos is a no-no and a huge sin in my books and I actually committed the sin. ZZZ.

Luckily he's okay with it. I chose a great great man. :')


Verdict: DAMN SCRUMPTIOUS. Servings were huge and we couldn't finish the tom yum soup. I paid for this dinner (I think it was 700 baht, that's almost 30 dollars!) and I think the girl added some extra bahts into the bill. But whatever lah, the food was good so I was okay with paying a little bit more that stated in the menu.


We lunched at Platinum Mall's food court and it was okay. Good enough to fill our hungry tummies.


This bowl of beef noodle though. It was fire in a bowl. I thought I could eat spicy stuff. I thought wrong. This was just too much. Kengyang didn't know that the actual broth was already freaking spicy, so he added another heap of dried seasoned chilli. Fireworks!



Off to Chatuchak we go! We also went to Union Mall for a good hour (it was one MRT stop away from Chatuchak Park MRT station). I'm officially way too old for these places. I only bought 2 bags for myself. That's all. I should be happy because I didn't spend much, but I wasn't happy because I was there to spend some moolah!

Kengyang had a smashing time though. I think this shopping trip was more fruitful for him. He even got himself a damn good pair of leather Onitsukas! Triple grade A replica of course, but for 750baht?? Great buy indeed and he looked good in them.

I didn't have any luck with footwear though. Not even a pair of slippers to replace my dying Rubi ones.


At least I got to eat my coconut ice cream!

This was also the day I experienced the mighty drying powers of roaccutane. I had layers of concealer and powder on my face, but when I was back in the hotel room (a good 11-12 hours later), I was not oily AT ALL. My gosh.

I'm going to write another post regarding my accutane update when I hit the one-month mark. It's day 16 today and so far the initial breakouts have slowed down and my face is slowly turning into a desert. Flaky skin galore! Not complaining though~


Dinner was at Somtam Nua and it was a great experience, as always. This was my third time dining here and the standard has always been very up there. I hope that persists!




Can you believe that I've never been to the Victory Monument?

So I went!

But that was more of a convenient stopover because the goal was to find this boat noodles shop near the Victory Monument.


We found it and we had SO MANY BOWLS of tiny servings of noodles and fried stuff.


Each bowl was only 12baht, and according to Kengyang, he could finish one bowl in one gulp, so no need to feel guilty about the next photo.

Okay.


What do you do after eating so much noodles?

You eat some more!!

We wanted to just walk around Siam, but I had a sudden recollection that there was an After You cafe in one of the Siam shopping malls, and yeah we ate again. But this was dessert, and you know the thing people say about having separate stomach for desserts? It's a fact.



My boyfriend with a pikachu visor they handed out at the mall's entrance.

Apparently, a Thai cable channel is going to broadcast the latest season of pokemon soon? Or something like that lah, I'm always misinformed about such things.


We went to the train night market on the last night!

This was a funny story.

The group that opened the original train night market opened another branch nearer to the city centre. but I read online that it was a smaller one. So, naturally I wanted to go to the larger one and I've been there before and I liked it. I asked the hotel frontdesk about the taxi situation in getting us to the further, original market, and she said no taxis would start their meter for that and they would quote at least 300 baht because it was so far away.

I was disappointed but we decided to go ahead with our plans. So, we got a taxi just outside of Pratunam market and the taxi driver quoted us 150 baht. Wow? We were pleasantly surprised and got on the taxi.

The taxi driver drove for a good 10-12 minutes and then stopped by the roadside and said we have reached. Both Kengyang and I stared at each other and we thought of the same thing - we have been conned. Some more this taxi driver so aggressive one. When I asked him if this is the train night market location, he kept saying yes and after that he told me very fiercely to get out and that he would show me the way. I got scared already lah, so I just got out and followed him.

Actually, he did bring us to the train night market, but it was the newer branch. LOL.

And to be honest, I really did enjoy my time there! The atmosphere was amazing and the shopping was great too. So, it turned out to be a great night.

Sorry taxi uncle for doubting you!







Getting back to the hotel was also a problem. No taxi wants to go to the Pratunam area for less than 200baht. ZZZ.

A taxi pulled up and it was a woman driver. I told Kengyang that this taxi confirm will bring us back to Pratunam, and I was right. She even started her meter! What a great lady.

Was that a sexist paragraph? Hmmmmm. But she was a really nice lady. She chatted with us (mostly with Kengyang lah because I was really tired and dozing off) and showed us a photo of her son.

That was the end of our vacation. The next day, we headed out to Kengyang's business hotel and then I left for Singapore. Sad face emoji.


Last meal in Bangkok! It was in a cafe near the hotel (called "Buttercup" I think) and wow the food was good. The toast dessert was surprisingly delicious - on par with After You!



For those who are looking for an affordable boutique hotel in Bangkok, you can try Budacco Hotel. We stayed there for 3 nights and we loved it. Not a lush hotel, but the room had everything that we needed and it was very clean. The service was top-notch too!

A great trip with my pikachu-loving boyfriend. Till the next one! :)

Sunday, March 29, 2015

#fitrinatravels - Bangkok 2015

It has been quite some time since I last posted a blog entry. Work has been taking up most of my time and so it has been difficult to blog. Everyday come home already so tired, just want to wash up and sleep. :( 

But yes, now I'm back with a super long post. I decided to put all my Bangkok photos in one entry so for those who like to read long posts, this one's for you!

My Bangkok trip this year was half for work and half for fun (wanted to say entertainment, but sounds wrong ah). My company has yearly conferences in which all employees from all branches will gather in one location to catch up and listen to the bosses talk about the past, present and future. Last year's was held in Berlin and this year in Bangkok! Quite excited for next year's because it will be in Europe again. :D

Day 0: 20 March 2015

The Singapore team was the last one to leave the office because we were the nearest to Bangkok and we had to handle the support and technical issues from UK/US/Copenhagen. So we reached our hotel the latest at around 8+ pm. All of us stayed in Ambassador Hotel. Our rooms are freaking huge. I actually felt really uncomfortable because it was so vast. I only slept for an hour plus the first night because I couldn't get used to the size. 



Ambassador Hotel as located in the red light district so it's quite normal to see ladies waiting to be picked up outside the hotel. It's quite an eye-opener actually. Once we reached the hotel, we had our dinner and we went to find our European colleagues at a bar (Hillary 2?) and I was amused by how these ladies communicated with the angmohs on prices, etc. The bar was obviously really noisy so they just used hand gestures. Quite an experience!


Ambassador Hotel
171 Sukhumvit Soi 11, Bangkok 10110 Thailand 
Nearest BTS: Nana

Day 1: 21 March 2015

We had our conference early next morning and we were done by 130pm! Excellent work by my bosses hahaha. Last year, our conference ended close to 5pm. 


So yes, time for some quick shopping before our dinner at Niche bar.

Of course must go MBK for some dried fruits and dried shrimp and all that good stuff!!


We also went to After You for some tasty toasts. Not into these toasts as much after I have tried On Lok Yun though (read on for this hidden gem!).


We had a group dinner at Niche Bar at Siam Kempinski Hotel. It was a delicious dinner of atas Thai food. I prefer the road side and food court stuff but hey, company paid for all these atas food, so I'm as grateful as can be.







Niche (Siam Kempinski Hotel)
Rama 1 Road 991/9, 10330 Bangkok
Nearest BTS: Siam

And then, the unthinkable happened. I had an intense tummyache and after 45 minutes of trying to keep everything down, I rushed to the toilet (which was incredibly atas wow!) and vomited my dinner. :( 

I couldn't continue drinking so I grabbed a taxi and went back to my hotel room. It was an arduous night as I was frequenting the toilet so much. It was a struggle to get up the next morning because I was so tired. But I had to because we were visiting the Grand Palace and having lunch on a cruise!

Day 2: 22 March 2015

I finally took the boat in Bangkok!! :D Such an awesome day because it was my first time on the boat and it was an amazing experience!


Grand Palace was as crowded as ever. Not my favourite place to go to in Bangkok but if you ignore the crowd, it's a really beautiful place.








And then it was cruise time! The food was nothing spectacular, but the view was breathtaking. Everyone was just lepaking. :D








We had our last group dinner at Bo. lan, another super atas restaurant. This was the most atas dinner that I ever had. I think we had 12 courses in total and they were all delicious! 



Super pretty tap handle at the Bo. lan toilet! 


And here are the photos of all our food at Bolan...














Bo.lan Essentially Thai ร้านโบ.ลาน อาหารไทย
24 Sukhumvit 53 Alley, Khlong Tan Nuea, Watthana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand
Nearest BTS: Thong Lo

Day 3: 23 March 2015

The rest of the SG team went back to Singapore and I made my way to my next hotel! It was my first solo trip and I was extremely looking forward to it. 

LemonTea Hotel was a really charming one. Service standard is impeccable and the room is comfortable. Location was on-point too because it was located very very near the Pratunam Market. There's a 7-11 right beside the hotel as well, so it was the perfect location. 

The only downside is the incredibly terrible and frustrating wifi connection. It was not good at all. I was planning to work in the mornings but I couldn't because the wifi was so bad. =_= Good also lah right? In the end never work at all. hahahahaha. 











Lemontea Hotel
55 Soi Petchburi15 Petchburi Rd., Ratchthevi Bangkok Thailand 10400, Bangkok 10400, Thailand
Nearest BTS: Phaya Thai/Ratchathewi

I headed to Platinum Mall after checking in and I realised how amazing travelling alone was. My own pace, my own plan, my own choices. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO liberating. Okay maybe cannot use the word "liberating" but you get what I mean lah.

Here's my dinner of pork leg rice. NOMS.


Day 4: 24 March 2015

So.. Sabx2 was quite near my hotel, so I decided to have that for breakfast. Long queue but I persevered...



...but it was so bad!!!!!! :(

I left very grumpy and disappointed.

I'm never going back again.


I walked to CentralWorld just to burn that unsatisfying bowl of wanton noodles. And luckily I did because Forever 21 had some crazy sales and there was NO ONE in the store since it was barely 11am. Oh yay!



Also Miss Tiffany's Universe 2015 was having their rehearsal. Very pretty lehhhhhhh.


Since I had such a terrible breakfast, I wanted to eat something that's confirm nice one. On Lok Yun is a traditional toast place so confirm nice right? I took a gamble and went to On Lok Yun via a taxi. It started to pour so heavily!!


It was absolutely delicious. The gamble was all worth it and this should have been my breakfast. Everything I ordered was so good!!!! I suggest you take a taxi because this place really quite ulu. Just show the cab driver the address in Thai and he should know where is it.


On Luk Yun ออน ล๊อก หยุ่น
72 Charoen Krung Road, Phranakorn
72 ข้างโรงภาพยนตร์เฉลิมกรุง ถนนเจริญกรุง แขวงวังบูรพาภิรมย์ กรุงเทพมหานคร 10200, Thailand
(Near Chinatown)
Nearest MRT: Hua Lamphong

Day 5: 25 March 2015

Last day in Bangkok already. HAIS.

One last place to try - GRAM cafe! It was quite difficult to find this cafe because it was located way inside the street. I walked for around 10-15 minutes before finding the cafe.


This plate of mushroom and tofu salad was refreshing. I had so much oily and fatty stuff the past few days so a plate of greens was more than welcome in my tummy.



Gram Cafe 
(closed on Monday)
1000-1700
1/F, 49 Terrace, Sukhumvit Soi 49, Bangkok, Thailand
Nearest BTS: Phrom Phong/Thong Lo





I really enjoyed this trip to Bangkok because I experienced so many new things. Ate atas food, travelled using a boat, shopped on my own, etc etc.

It's not that scary to travel on my own. I planned so much more in detail so that I won't be lost and I also had 3G plan for my Thai sim card, so I was never lost lah. More solo trips in the future! :)