Bangkok Trip - 2015

  [Update: Oooops I know I am supposed to update this earlier.. But the past weeks has been so hectic and busy that I don't even have enough self-quality alone time. But well now is the time to share!]

  As some of you might know, I went to Bangkok with my family last year during the Christmas period! And yes there's a lot of great food , clothes and deals. I am going to share my experience, which also includes reviews and recommendation! Let's go!


What to eat /drink : Okay, there are a lot of great food but I am just going to list out a few!

   1. Pomegranate Juice. This is different as the stall sellers will squeeze the juice out directly! Not only it is natural but it taste refreshing and great! It only costs 40 Baht (~$1.50+)! I rarely / never see before any pomegranate juice selling locally here in Singapore? If so please comment down and let me know! 

Where: A lot of street sellers at different night market sells it!  In most of the streets of night market near Siam Paragon ,Victory Monument , MBK Centre! 

                   Stalls selling pomegranate juice

  2. Grilled Salted Fish. This is definitely another must try. I am not a fan of fish (except for Salmon, which i absolutely love it) but this grilled salted fish really impressed me A LOT. And especially for people who love salty food, this is going to be a bomb for you. I believe what attributes to the delicious taste is the level of saltiness and its grilled. Personally, its just right for me. To some others, it might taste overwhelming. And of course there are other food such as Roasted Duck, Squid that taste pretty good too! Even the veggies taste awesome?! There are around 4-5 stalls selling the similar menu. Generally, the stalls opens at 0530 pm plus onwards. And wow, the human traffic was really high. Almost all the seats were fulled all the time. But its really a fast paced street hawker and you will definitely get seats in no time. 

Where: Ratchaprasong Thai food street. (street hawker).  It is located outside Central World Shopping centre. 

Grilled Salted Fish

  3. Chicken Rice. Alright I know some of you might be thinking, "Err, chicken rice is so common everywhere and there are many nice chicken rice locally.." and etc. But this is one of the best chicken rice I ever tasted too! If you're craving for chicken rice , you can come here to try! And only steam chicken rice is available. The meat and the skin of the chicken is really smooth.

Where: Victory Monument. Alight from BTS - Victory Monument and once you walk down the bridge, turn right and walk further down, you'll see a corner of food stalls. Their milk tea tastes great too.

       

Chicken Rice stall 

  4. Sabx2 Wanton Mee. Before I went for this trip, I did some research and found out many good reviews about this stall. This famous stall was labelled as the "best" and "must try" in Bangkok And honestly, I did not manage to try this. As i reached there, the queue was really long and that time we were rushing off to another destination. I also realize most people in the queue are from Singapore and Malaysia. Indeed this is a kind of "tourist attraction." I have no idea how it really tastes like. So you can try the taste and have your own judgement. 

Where: Pratunam, Soi Petchburi 19. It is located opposite Platinum Fashion Mall and Pantip Plaza. It opens at 9am and closes at around 3pm plus. 

There is another stretch of queue inside as well. 

  5. Thai Milk-Tea. There is this stall that sells very cheap Thai-Milk Tea. They not only sell Milk Tea but also other drinks such as Strawberry, Cocoa, Green Tea, Coffee, Taro, Contaloupe, Coconut. Great variety indeed, I believed I got it for only 15 Baht (50cents+)!! This is great for those staying near Indra Regrent Hotel whereby once you get down and turn left towards Airport Railway Link station, you can get it within minutes! (That is how near the stall is.) This really quenched my thirst as I was travelling down to Airport Railway Link. And I can't believe how this cheap this is. One of the cool thing is that the ice is blended. So if you like ice blended, this will probably be great for you. (Most stalls just sell the drinks with normal ice.) And this tastes a little bit more sweeter than the usual ones! The other drinks seem pretty cool too heh. 

Where: Outside Indra Regrent Hotel. Turn left towards Airport Railway Link way.

Thai Milk Tea

  6. Chicken Pie. Due to curiosity. I decided to step in to Mac Donald's and take a look at the menu. Most of the burgers and all are the same except for one. Chicken Pie. And I was like" Alright cool. Chicken is my favourite and since I am here, Im going to try this." And wow bam this tastes really good. Its not just a normal chicken pie taste and does not taste dry at all. It has a filling kind of taste with tomatoes inside. And generally, it just tastes different. If you're ever in Bangkok's Mac, just order this too. 

Where: Any Mac Donald's outlet in Bangkok. LOL.

pieeeeee

7. Tom Yum Soup.  I am not a fan of Tom Yum but when I tried it in BKK, I literally can't stop eating. I do feel that the tom yum base is much stronger and does not have much spiciness in it instead. This made me love tom yum hehe. 

Where: Street Hawker in the streets of night market opposite Siam Square. 

Transportation:   There are few mode of transportation for the public access. Taxis, BTS (train), Bus , Tuk-tuks and boats. I would definitely recommend taking taxis if possible. (cos' it is really cheap).Always ask for metre-fare! This is important as usually the flat fee that they asked for are over-charged. (for a 150 baht ride using meter fare, they can charge you at 300 baht).I remember the average taxi fees i paid is usually 100-150 baht (~$4-8). Alternatively you can take BTS as well. And i got to say that the train is really clean and efficient too. If you're going alone or in pairs to Bangkok. I'll suggest taking the BTS (unless if its inconvenient. ) I took a meter-fare taxi from Victory Monument to Pratunam for 150 baht and it costs the same taking BTS (for 4 people). You can do the math. If there were just 2 people, it will cost around 75 baht/pax for taxis and 37.5baht for BTS. 

During the peak hours (11am-2pm, 0430pm-8pm. These are the rough gauge), there will be massive traffic jam and all taxi drivers will charge a flat fee.So it is better to take BTS at those hours.  Unless you're fortunate enough to get a taxi driver charging you according to meter. And the tuk-tuk is really cool. I suggest everyone to try at least once for it is really thrilling. And yea it costs slight expensive than taxis but its pretty shiok!!!

    

Their concession card

Tokens for entry

Typical traffic jam

  Accommodation: There is a lot of hotels available to choose from In Bangkok and based on my observation, it is better to choose the hotels near to BTS station and near Pratunam district. And yes there is a lot of shopping malls near that area ( Central world , Platinum Fashion, Pratunam Market and more). I chose my 4 night stay at Indra Regent Hotel. It is very convenient to a lot of places and the service , scenery and food in hotel is excellent too. (The menu is always changing each day for morning buffet. Yay! So I didn't get sick of the food for the 4 days breakfast LOL) 

The bedroom

pool area 

                               

Breakfast Buffet at Hotel

  Shopping: Alright of course this is something that you can never miss out in Bangkok!! Their clothes are super cheap and fancy! It usually costs 150 baht - 300 baht($6-$12)! But sigh I was not allowed to buy a lot of clothes cos' my parents said I had too been buying a lot recently and blah blah blah.. But Okay la at least I gotten a few, which is better than none!! Basically a lot of the shopping malls /street markets sell similar stuff! Platinum Fashion Mall is great for those buying 2-3 pieces and more. Usually a lot of night markets and stalls are closed on Mondays and weekends are the best time cos' Chatuchak , ArtBox and some other cool night markets only opens on weekends!

Places / Attractions: And yes there are a lot of great places to go! I believe it will be better for me to show of the pictures and I'll just state briefly. (And I am honestly very tired now too) There are a lot of pictures and I am just going to show a few as for now..

Exciting Thai Boxing 

Yes that's actually a "real" soldier..

Okay I think that will be it.. Honestly, my experience in Bangkok is really great, with the great food, awesome shopping places and scenic places and of course with great company(family)! I can't wait to go Bangkok again with friends this year!!! // I can't believe I took a lot of time to write this.. So if you have read this whole post.. YAY!

Update:  And recently I created a dayre account for quicker updates on my daily life..  dayre.me/carmenchee ( tbh my Dayre blog acc is kinda personal..)

That would be all for now.. See you again. 

Carmen

2016. Another New Year Ahead.

  It is another new year once again... Been so caught up with so many things going-on and did not have quality self-time to really reflect and think about everything. To be honest, I have a pretty rough end to 2015 and start to 2016. Nevertheless, all is good! Because I choose to give thanks, be thankful of everything and no matter what happens. 2015 was a year of huge milestone in my life, whereby a lot of things were new to me. New environment to integrate and adapt in. It was a year of bitterness and sweetness. A year whereby a lot of massive things happened. I also realize how much I've changed as well. But in any way, 2016 will be another fruitful year, whereby I continue to learn and grow. And when it reaches 365/365 of 2016, I will look back, it will be another fresh whole new journey.

  Whenever it is another new year, people often come up with resolutions for them to live with and to fulfill it. I was never a fan of doing this every year. I usually just live life as it goes. However, many things happened in 2015 and I never want to make those mistakes that I made again. I want to improve my lifestyle. Doing this "new year resolutions" is not just another new goals of the years to fulfill it. It is also a time whereby I deeply reflect again of whatever that happened and to know what kind of perspective and plans I would like to have. It will be beneficial to start the year with an end in mind.

  2016 New Year Resolutions 

1. To press on to the people that really matter and those that wants to spend time with me as well.
 // This is probably one of the things I regret not doing it last year. Usually as we enter into a new friendships, there are those people that we tend to "notice more" and lean onto than others. Or we would choose to connect closely with certain people only. Of course we do try to connect with everybody but we can't be possibly be close to every single one. There will be different degree of "closeness" in friendships. And in this year, I want to connect back with those that i failed to connect much with last year. Now i choose to press on to those that really matters. I rather have a few close friends with me than to have many friends whereby the friendship level is just on the surface. Those that don't really matter, yea I won't spend any much more time with you.  And i regret not spending much time with those that actually desires to spend more time with me. This time, I will open my eyes "bigger".

2. To be a better person in character. // We are all humans, imperfect and flawed. We all definitely will have things we do that are not desirable or right at all. Even as we make mistakes, what matters is at the end of the day, we choose to acknowledge them , learn and improve on ourselves. For instance, I know I get very anxious easily sometimes.

3. To live a healthier lifestyle. // I suppose many people know that I tend to struggle with this.. Due to the fact that I always have late night sleeps when i have to wake up super early. And it kinda affects my state of condition during day-time. There are a lot of times whereby i get only a few hours of sleep due to last minute rushing of assignments. This is also because of poor time management skills. I am not having the right balance. It's time that I learn to do it properly and right.

4. To control my spending, // Recently I have been spending a lot this year.. I even remembered spending off my $1k salary within a month. And also been spending so unnecessarily.. And every time when I really need it for important things, I lacked the amount to deal with it. And I gotten so many clothes on impulse too which I didn't really like them after once i bought it. (I am really fickle-minded sometimes)

5. To put in even more effort and do even better in my studies.//  Although many people think I study a lot because of my "good" GPA,  that is not really the  truth. The GPA I get doesn't really match to the effort I get. But I don't know how I still managed to get that score. But well, really thank God for that! And I think not many people noticed this but I completely lost my interest to study during a period of time. I was merely just scraping through. I really don't know how my December 2015 Common Test results will be.. But well, I just have to deal with it and continue to catch up.

  So these are the few that I really want to fulfill in 2016. (Of course there are other things that I did not state down specifically here.)  Life is never a smoothing breeze but we need to hang in there. And I know I will be able to overcome it for God is always there.

   May 2016 be another great year for all of you!!

 
   (PS: will be updating my next post on my trip on my Bangkok trip!)

   Signing off,
Car