Mochi

I had another strawberry mochi for breakfast. <(=^"^=)>

Found these awesome drink cans in our hotel refrigerator

A few pictures from yesterday

Wax Obama

Octopus!!!



Queen of England

 

 

 

 

 

 





Visiting Obama

Today I met and took selfies with Obama, then with Katie Perry and the Queen of England. Along with Lady Gaga and Will Smith on the side lines.
And yes they were 3D figures, they didn't talk much or move in my case. Possibly because they were wax figures.
And the only place where you could find these one-of-a-kind wax figures is in Madame Tussands, which apparently, was where i spent most of the day.
3rd day in Bangkok, and my mum and Stefan (younger brother) found a pamphlet in a cafe that had  a free wi-fi service. The pamphlet was advertising Madame Tussands and the Siam Aquarium in Siam Centre.
We decided to head there this morning. Problem was, Stefan and mum were internet starved, (we haven't had any internet for 6 days--the 1st 3 days were spent on travelling) and so we spent another 40 minutes basking in the free internet serviced cafe. I enjoyed my 40 minutes by eating cookie dough ice cream. :3
So after I pulled mum and Stefan out of  the cafe, we headed to the Sky Train which took us up to Siam.
During the trip, Stefan began crying because we "took away his wi-fi". i would've laughed at the concept if our situation wasn't causing disturbance to the other passengers.
When we reached Siam Centre, Stefan calmed when we retold him that we were going to the Aquarium and the wax museum..
 So after entering the mall and purchasing some discounted family tickets,we were able to enter the wax museum!!
First we greeted Obama and the Queen of England, then some sport champions and a large room dedicated to the pop idols and movie stars. (I heard that they were making the members of One Direction soon). Then it was followed by some movie stars- I saw Jackie Chan and Johnny Depp! I personally think that they should add Rowan Aktinson  (known well by the world as Mr Bean) to the collection, coz  he would just be perfect standing next to Johnny Depp, he's also one of my favourite actors. :3
Then there were some presidents from various countries and famous people...
There were also activities in the wax museum like a karaoke room and a 'Just Dance' console. Stefan and I spent most of the time dancing to 'Can't touch this' in front of random people. And all those people were just staring at us awkwardly that were probably shaking their head and  muttering 'tourists...'
Sooo after all that we went to the Siam Aquarium which apparently was one of the best aquariums I've ever been to in my life. It greatly outstands Sydney's and New Zealand's aquariums
(in my opinion of course).
The aquarium was ginormous and took up (I think, from what I could remember) 4 levels. The sea creatures there were all amazing, and it gets more and more interesting the further in you go.
I was especially brought to attention by the jellyfish and starfish....
But the other attractions there that I enjoyed was this indoor boat ride inside a tank. The boat we sailed on had a glass bottom so we were able to see all the sea creatures underneath, it was really awesome!
This person who went on the boat with us was taking pictures with his Samsung phone, and he nearly fumbled it into the water. Seeing this, the supervisor there said that it would cost more money to fix the water and ensure the sea creatures health in the tank than replace his phone if his device actually dropped in the tank.
Siam aquarium also had a attraction where you could hold some of the sea life, like the starfish, clams and sea urchins. You weren't allowed to fully take them out of the water, and of course, Stefan ignores this rule and tries to run away whilst holding a mini starfish.
It must've been a traumatizing experience for that starfish to be suddenly be taken out his home by a 4 year old's hand.
We (eventually) took the starfish out my brother's hand, but that didn't stop him. He later ran away with a mini sea urchin and a piece of coral.
.
.
.
We decided to not spend much time at that stand for the sea-creature's sake.
So after leaving Siam aquarium, we headed back home.
It was actually quite a tiring day, but then as we boarded the Sky Train, Stefan asked where the wi-fi was.... and this whole predicament started over again.

--Dad wasn't here with us coz he had to attend a conference.
I'll be posting some pictures of today tomorrow. Too tired right now... haha

The Journey is Worth More than the Destination

2nd day of Thailand and like yesterday, my family decided to go 'experience' the wonders of Thailand (although yesterday came out as a failure, but today was better). But as always, food came first. But luckily we found out that our hotel 'St Regis' was connected to a monorail station which was called 'The Sky Train'.  The Sky Train was basically connected to various major cities and businesses scattered throughout Bangkok. Mum and dad purchased a few monorail passes for the whole family and off we went to find food.

I was actually surprised when my parents said that we were going to eat at the no. 1 rated mall 'Siam Paragon'. I honestly thought that we were just going to be randomly stopping at a station and ask around if where the best restaurant was. Well it has happened numerous times before.

The Sky Train was fun to ride, but the view was mainly buildings so there wasn't much to say for scenery..

We arrived at Siam station, and took a taxi to Siam Centre. The mall was really grand and it's height stretched way over the other buildings. There was also this mascot called Mr P which was this white cartoonish character that was twice the size of me. Later in the mall we found a stand dedicated to the history of Mr P. I didn't shed much interest on him and his history ... mainly because I was hungry.

So with that thought renewed in our mind, we headed off to the food court.

THE FOOD COURT WAS HUGE!!!!

There were all these stands and mini markets selling food!! They also had these large aquariums stationed on the food court tables. I kinda feel sorry for the sea life that were swimming there because I saw an awful lot of people eating seafood right next to the tanks.  

The desserts area  was the biggest and therefore was my favourite. And the desserts were all really fancy kinds of cakes and bread and they also had these strawberry stuffed mochi, which are Japanese bean cakes, but these were stuffed with strawberries instead of beans!! So I bought this strawberry stuffed green tea mochi, I would've bought a truckload more but they costed like $2 each... and they were all half the size off my palm.

So then I ended up simply having desserts for my breakfast.

Returning to the original point of this post, my family and I took a tuk tuk (tongue twister there) to a wharf next to a river where we bought tickets for a small ferry. The wharves were literally clumped in  some kind of water weed which resulted in a rotten sea smell that attracted a hoard of flies.

Riding on the ferry was better since it relieved the smell, although dad almost missed the trip.

He was videoing us with his phone on the docks as we got on the ferry, but even after we took our seats he still remained there. Videoing. So we started yelling at him to get on the boat, but he seemed to not be hearing us (I presumed he was ignoring us but I'll dismiss it for now). And then the boat started to move. And only then did dad put down his phone and actually looked up to see that the boat was moving. The rest of the family then enjoyed a 13 second comedy thriller of dad shouting and hesitating to jump on the boat.

Of course he made it safely, although he did get a bit drenched in the water spray.

We stopped at a few stations along the river, and i found the scenery quite to my liking. It wasn't pretty, but i thought the river seemed like it liked to sail people down to places among it's coast.

When the ferry pulled up to the coast, the docking stations were completely different to the ones that we previously encountered. River water was sloshing everywhere and we had to cross over these wooden planks that were tied together that acted as bridges. The water underneath looked about waist deep even though we were already a few metres away from the river dock.It was quite fun crossing these make-shift bridges because it was a fun challenge to balance and manoeuvre around brick piles that would jutt out unexpectedly in front of you. There were also some weak spots in the planks where you had to tread carefully.

When we finally found some ground elevation, we were in the midst of a crowd of markets, people and flies. The stalls were offering young coconut juices and flossy bread which I had to stop and look at. But before long, I had to be rushed off through the next crowd of people. 

After enduring a sticky heat zone, we headed towards the nearest road and "hailed" a tuk tuk. The ride was enjoyable as ever and there weren't any traffic jams meaning that we were going at full speed. I think I enjoy tuk tuk's because of their open windows that let the wind stream through, it messes up my hair a lot but it feels nice to felt nice to feel a blustering wind against my face. :)

We arrived beside the walls of the temple. When we entered within the walls, there were vastly decorated pagodas with golden figures of Buddha inside. The designs were greatly intricate and detailed.The area containing  the Buddha pagodas was actually quite small and could probably just fit 90 people in the square space.

After a brief look around, we decided to return back to the hotel. 

Even though the spires were great works of art, they weren't really as grand. But that's just my opinion. 

Here I think that the journey was more enjoyable than the destination.

Especially the tuk tuks. You can never go wrong with the tuk tuks.

Here's some links to some pics of the Buddha pagoda's that were taken by people who were more experienced than my dad.
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3

Thailand tuk tuk :)

               

The things to do on the first day

 

Soooo, today is my first day I've set foot on Thailand. Although I actually arrived here in the middle of the night making that time the first night I've set foot in Thailand. Right now I'm staying at this nice hotel that had large marble pillars and grand staircases, it even had a grand piano in the lobby which I was dying to play. They even served these small treats in our room that tasted like… colourful smoke, it’s the best metaphorical way to describe the taste since the flavor was literally bursting each tastebud in it’s colourful way. It made me feel like I was taking drugs. Strangely…

  So this morning, we woke up, and the first thoughts that came to mind was food. We didn’t know any restaurants in the area (apart from McDonalds, but we knew that if we took my younger brother there, he would ask to eat there every morning) so we walked for a long time, following a brick path that could hopefully lead us to a meal. Eventually we found a poster advertising a restaurant up the stairs, we immediately decided to eat there.

Thai food isn’t much to my liking and my bro seemed to match my opinion but instead decided to express it more clearer and louder. Throughout the whole meal, he constantly rejected all the food on the table, even though we didn't offer him. And if mum tried to ''force feed' him any, he would instantly demand ice cream in his 'menacing' tone, but it just made us laugh and that him more angrier.

After the usual breakfast phase, we decided to explore a little. The transport in Thailand was one of my personal highlights, we rode on ‘tuk tuk’s which are probably known better to you by the name ‘rickshaws’. These vehicles are like taxis with 3 wheels and no doors or windows, just open spaces. I disliked walking long distances so a ride in one of these were more enjoyable than expected.

 

The scenary would probably be more enjoyable riding these vehicles if the atmosphere was less polluted. I’m guessing that Thailand doesn’t an economic standard as high as Australia, the streets and buildings looked pretty run down in some areas in town. But most of the people we met were able to speak English, even the tuk tuk drivers. In the end we didn’t really go anywhere, we only went out on the occasion for food. The rest of the hours were spent lazing in the hotel room. My bro especially was stuck in the hotel because he discovered Cartoon Network on the TV in our room. Aaaand that concludes the first day in Thailand. Definitely not the most exciting first day, but I knew that my parents had more places in mind where they could drag us to.