Bangkok Day 2 - Pratunam Market, Siam Paragon, Siam Square. After You Dessert, Rod Fai Night Market

Hello readers! We spend the night chatting till late and we agreed to wake up at probably 5.30am or 6am because this is the ideal time to get cheap deals at the morning Pratunam market. The price will increase as the day get brighter, hahaha. I have personally experienced how everything was 100 baht early morning when the sun has not rise yet to us visiting it during the afternoon and all the items has been marked up to above 100 baht. 

However, for this trip, we are less enthusiastic about waking up early morning, both Jieying & I overslept, in fact we did wake up, exchange texts that we should probably wake up slightly later, and when the alarm clock ring again, we snooze it. Hahaha. But eventually i managed to get up close to 8am. They was too tired, i wanted to go out by myself when Jeremy is still asleep, but somehow he managed to pull himself out and accompany me to shop at the pratunam market because JY is still sleeping. Haha

Pratunam Market is a major market selling clothes, accessories, shoes at wholesale prices. There are many small alleys and human jam packed streets in the morning and you will find yourself being surrounded by so many stores selling different kinds of apparels.

Glow Hotel is very near to Pratunam market, about less than 5min walk and early morning you will see many of the vendors pushing large trolley with their goods, some might use motorbike so you got to be very careful when shopping around these streets. 

This time round, i didn't bought as much stuff as we used to, before we went to get our cheap breakfast just outside the Pratunam market. 

I will only drink this in bangkok because the ones in Singapore is too sweet! The sweetness level was perfect over here.

Cheap and tasty food.

After the morning shopping at Pratunam market, we went back to rest before heading out in the afternoon, initially we thought Chatuchak market will be open on Friday, so we took Grab again only to realise that the market will only be opened on saturday and sunday. For friday, they usually only start from 6pm onwards. So, we went to Siam Paragon. For this part, it could get pretty confusing because from the BTS station, there is a bridge that you can cross over to different part of 'Siam' places! They have the Siam Paragon, Siam square ,Siam square one shopping mall. It's easy to identify Siam paragon as the upscale luxury shopping mall with all the international brands providing luxury items for visitors that has the extra cash to splurge. At the basement level, there are many world and local cuisines to dine in. 

Siam Square one mall is pretty new, they have total of 7 levels, with lower floors selling all the clothing, and upper floors dedicated for dining with Asian cuisine. If i don't remember wrongly, we dine in one of the Japanese restaurant in this mall.

As we were ordering our lunch, i noticed that Terence is less chatty as usual, Jieying was pretty quiet too. Initially i thought it was because i have been complaining that the guys doesn't read the itinerary that i had planned when they have access of itinerary in their google drive, can't find the direction and i have to be the one to check the GPS when they like to use their phone 24/7. It get pretty irritating for me whenever Jeremy asked where are we going next. Even though I can plan the itinerary, but i am not a tour guide. I won't be able to know everything even though i did my research beforehand unless i had experience it and sharing it like i always do in my blog.

I have also come to the conclusion that even if we are travelling to the same place again, the experience is always different when you travel with different persons. Back in last nov when we travelled as a trio, JY & JJ plus me, it was quite a fun experience.

As usual, i am the main planner but JJ will take initiative to read the itinerary and check out how we can get there or saving the address in his google map. So we don't have to waste time walking around and starting to use GPS to locate the place.

JY doesn't ask too much questions, she's a follower but for this trip, we are travelling as couple dates and the experience was different because i always feel that Jeremy is not good at directions but he doesn't think so. This is one of the factor that we end up quarreling during our Japan trip because he doesn't know the way and he doesn't want to admit and get frustrated when i was expecting him to find the places and he expect me to help him. Tsk

It doesn't help that we have two guys for his trip but both of them are not really good in directions compared to JJ. So, i think i was expressing my frustration while grumbling that it's better to travel with JJ because both of them just sucks at directions. Haha so i was not sure if this might have caused the unhappiness towards Terence and Jieying. Their face expression changed during the lunch and i try to make the conversation lighter but they were behaving strangely.

After our lunch, we decided to browse around and i saw this cute Line store! They seem to invade each country with Mr Brown as the iconic bear in the store. Too cute to miss!

We went inside the store to browse their items and took some cute photo-taking when i noticed that Terence and Jieying were arguing but it's not the kind of screaming at each other or throwing thing at each other, but it looks like a heated argument without my description above because Terence left the store after that.

I tried to pretend i didn't see anything as we were leaving the store because i don't know if i start asking this magic sentence 'what happen? everything ok for both of you? ' that JY might burst out crying. Hahaha. I knew it because i don't like to receive such questions obviously when i am quarreling with someone.

The atmosphere were getting tense but i choose to pretend nothing is wrong with them as Terence appeared again so i suggested to go for After you dessert! Haha. We didn't have the chance to try it previously so i thought maybe it could help to cool their mind after the desserts!

We tried to find the After you dessert cafe in Siam Square one before we realised it is located outside the mall. So if you walk inside the mall, you will never be able to spot the cafe. Haha, we had to take a number because it was full house when we arrived. So we thought of giving them some space as we went out to take photo of the frontage of the cafe.

As we were taking photos and hanging outside before going in to check our queue and them, JY was already crying by then, they didn't make peace, it was war! Hahaha, i am not very good in comforting others and coincidentally it was our turn so i still pretend everything is ok and told them, it's our turn, let get seated! But they doesn't want to and asked us to go ahead first as they was sitting at the counter. So we went to our table and i thought they will come in after awhile. We ordered the dessert first and get them to join later.

We ordered Mango sticky rice and the popular must try shibuya toast! I choose the chocolate with banana flavour. It would have been enough for 4 pax.

Their mango sticky rice is quite different from the typical mango sticky rice you find in night market. This is really good!

The popular shibuya toast! It was so good! 

 I would love to try this again when i visit Bangkok again!

Eventually they didn't join us, things got better between them after that but i guess their mood was affected so eventually JY told me they will return back to the hotel first. Though they were feeling apologetic that we had to witness them quarreling when we are on holiday. I was pretty chill because i think Jieying has seen my kind of quarrel with Jeremy, their level was considered mild but my kind of quarrel with Jeremy can be very serious, if he raised his voice at me, i will raise my voice back at least double of his. He knows very well i am not the kind of accommodating girl that will allow him to show me attitude. If he show me his attitude, i will reciprocate back. Haha.

After our dessert, we went to shop around and i went in this Eve & Boy store to check out all the cosmetics stuff. I bought this mask because it was so cute! Hahaha the caption is so funny too.

Initially we wanted to visit Chatuchak but was worried if they are not open in the evening on a friday too so eventually we decided to take the train to Rod Fai night market! There are two different Rod fai night market, the one that we visit was the new rod fai night market. It was more accessible because it's walking distance from the national cultural centre station and next to it, there is an esplanade shopping mall too.

I am not sure if we board the train during the peak hour because it was so packed when we were heading down, we were at the sukhumvit station and initially i thought the station was closed because there were so many people and the queue were not moving. They had to close the gantry because there were too many people waiting at the platform. If you look at the train station map, it is only a few stations but we took more than 1 hour before we could finally board the train. It was so crowded at one extent that i regret not taking the cab, even though the cab fare was on high demand.

When we finally arrived at the station, it was raining heavily! Luckily i brought my umbrella as we walk to rod fai night market, due to the rain, many of the stalls were not opened, some had their lights on but we wasn't sure if they were running a business.

The rain got heavy so we went back the esplanade mall while waiting for the rain to stop. Esplanade mall has a total of seven levels, having a selection of stores selling clothes, electronic gadgets, beauty products as well as some restaurants for dining options. We didn't explore in this mall because we thought it should be any typical mall, the last time i researched, it say there is a skating rink, bowling and karaoke however i went twice but i didn't manage to see any of these as written in the website. If anyone of you know the exact location in the mall, do let me know!

We thought the rain has stopped, so we went back to Rod fai, hahaha still want to shop even if its raining and the condition is not so conducive to walk around with wet slippers. Halfway, it was starting to rain again, i was pretty fedup with this weather. Hahaha, so i told Jeremy, we should get a place to sit down and have our dinner. I remember seeing the similar version of dancing crab seafood selling in this market, beside there were others who also sat down in some of the food stalls having their food with minimal lighting. It was quite challenging as the seller were using some tentage cover to ensure their walkway is free of rain and each stall had their cover at different levels so as we was walking with our umbrella, we had to bend up and down to pass by the stalls.

In the end, we choose to have this spicy seafood!

The person ask for our spicy level, i think we choose the average and it was really very spicy. Haha, overall, i won't recommend to try this, because the seafood was cold when it was served to us. Not sure if this is the norm because it was the first time we had this.

We couldn't shop around because it was raining heavily so we decided to return back to our hotel to rest early. That pretty much summarise our 2nd day in bangkok.

shall end this post for now.

till then!

Bangkok Day 1 - Suvarnabhumi Airport - Glow Hotel - Chocoville

Hello readers! Finally updating my post on my birthday holiday trip for this year! Since last year, i would travel to celebrate my birthday. I was in Taiwan back then and this year we are going to Bangkok! It can be considered the first time Jeremy visited Bangkok on a holiday trip. For me, this will be my second visit to Bangkok. This is also the first time we are travelling on couple date with Jieying & Terence!

We bought the tickets first, jetstar was having a promo so it costs only $269.16 for 2 pax, 2 way, baggage allowance 25kg each (upon return) + seat selection.  For Jieying & Terence, it cost only $245.16 because they didn't opt for the seat selection. I usually prefer to get out of the plane fast so avoid long queue when clearing the immigration so i will usually have the add on of seat selection.

Mummy preparing this traditional birthday longevity noodles for me with angbao too! 

Just before i was due to travel, colleague aka friends, Selina, Xiao Yun, Irene and Jessica were celebrating my birthday in advance. Selina got these cakes from starbucks, initially she told me that she was going to get some stuffs from starbucks, and i didn't thought of anything suspicious and even offered to go together. Hahaha. Somehow, i was being diverted away before presenting my first 3 slices of birthday cake for this year. This year, i think i have received the most number of cakes in slices. 

As it was a morning flight, so we returned back to Tampines house the night before and it was unexpected but Jeremy sis bought a birthday cake for me! This strawberry shortcake is so good! I still got an angbao from Jeremy mama. Haha

We arranged to meet at the airport, with the self check in machine introduced sometime back ago, it was a breeze to check in. Our boarding pass issued!

We had some time for breakfast before shopping at the DFS store before boarding~

 A group photo before take off!

As Jieying & Terence didn't select their seats, so they were assigned at the back, it happened that the flight that we were taking were rather empty! This was taken when we was taking off but there were many seats unoccupied!

During the flight, i was filling up the declaration form when suddenly Jieying & Terence appeared at our row and presenting to me my birthday cake! Hahaha, another unexpected surprise, birthday celebration in the plane. Initially, i thought they ordered something, i didn't even see them holding any paperbag that contain this cake! Even though Jieying was saying the cake has melt and was not at its original cute state anymore, but i thought it still look pretty decent! Thanks for getting me these cute cakes!

 All you need is a photo editor app and it looks pretty nice after some filter!

As this is my second visit to Bangkok, we were quite familiar with the area and once we have cleared the immigration and collected our luggage, the first thing to do was to buy our sim card. When you exit from the arrival hall, there are many counters available for you to purchase your sim card. We will go to the extreme end of the different counters and get the DTAC mobile data card, the price is still at 299 baht when we purchased (valid for 7 days unlimited mobile data)

So, we took the airport railway link that will bring us directly to the city. You will have to go down  the basement level and there will be directional signage to the way to buy your token to take the railway link. For us, even thought i thought we can alight at Phaya Thai before changing line to alight at Ratchathewi station but somehow, it seems we alight early again at Ratchapraprop station so we decide to walk to our hotel instead since it's the same distance that we walked before. Just that, this time round, we try to take some shortcut. The weather was pretty hot and unknowingly as we walked, we found this Brown coffee shop that JJ bought for his daily coffee perk during our last visit. Their coffee is pretty good!

As the time is too early for us to check in to our rooms, so we placed our luggage with concierge and headed to Platinum mall for our lunch first. We ordered a few dishes to share, we had so much good food for this trip! 

Platinum fashion mall is a good place to shop because there are so many levels and you don't have to shop under the hot sun. I am not sure if it's seasonal but the guys actually bought more stuffs than us! The last time when i visited in nov, the roadside stalls outside the mall only appeared in the evening but now it has changed to running on a whole day basis and the stalls were arranged neatly with tentage for each seller. If you walked to the Macdonald store, you will be able to find popular Demi Concept pop up store and try their matcha ice-cream! They used to have the thai milk-tea flavour but it only offer either vanilla or matcha ice-cream.

They used to have the thai milk-tea flavour but it seems that they only offer either vanilla or matcha flavour ice-cream now.

After that, we went back to check if our rooms was ready. This time round, we stay in different hotel because of our own preference. I wanted to try a new hotel, and don't mind paying higher room rates because i am looking for visual appeal, comfort even if i am not going to spend the whole day in the room, eventually i go for Glow Hotel. It's not hard to miss it because the whole building is in hot pink color! Haha. I heard that the hotel is pretty new and it's quite popular, their design of the rooms is more nearer to my expectations. However for Jieying, her basic needs is simple, the cost is the main factor while at the same time offering decent accommodation will do. So that's how we ended up staying in different hotels as she booked back the same hotel we stayed previously, Centrepoint at Pratunam.

Glow hotel doesn't really own the entire building as level 1 is the shibuya mall which sell wholesale fabric, other levels providing massage services as well as a food court. To check in, we had to access the highest floor if i don't remember wrongly, at level 7 their hotel lobby, on the same floor, they have a restaurant, some seating area as well as a massage service corner. To get to the guest rooms, you have to take another lift located at the other side.

 Their seating area

We booked the deluxe room early through expedia so the room rates was considered cheaper than their usual. We were staying for 4 nights and it was $421.22 (include all gst and taxes). This was our deluxe room!

Personally, i feel that this corner, i called it the vanity counter because i used this space to do my

daily makeup is very useful because i could draw the curtains and let the natural sunlight come in.

However, the drawback could be the mirror facing the bed due to some fengshui beliefs.

This is our view when we draw the curtains, the white building opposite was the centrepoint hotel.

You can slide open the wardrobe both side from the bedroom and the bathroom.

We went to check out the hotel facilities as well even though we didn't really use it. They have very big functional spaces.

 I called this the giant 'bathtub' because it doesn't look like a swimming pool to me. That was my first impression when i first saw the pool. Hahaha.

I thought maybe it's the issue of eye level so we went down and check out the pool on closer look, yes it's giant bathtub. Haha.

 No one work out at the gym.

In the gym, i noticed they have this aerobic workout screening on the tv. I thought this was cool because i have never seen other gym displaying workout exercise on tv before. Haha

We went to check out Jieying & Terence room at centrepoint pratunam! Previously i booked a double room in Centrepoint on our first visit with Junjie, but this time they book a king size room so the layout was slightly different. Centrepoint pratunam is one of the hotels in bangkok that has very big space for a normal standard room. In my personal opinion, it would be suitable for family vacation or friends travelling together and doesn't mind the layout design as long as you have a roof over your head. The rates are cheaper than Glow Hotel and they are both located on the same stretch that is walking distance to Platinum Fashion Mall. (Just that you need to make sure not to have more than 2 person check in at the counter because they will require you to pay for a third person charge) Read on my previous unpleasant experience during check in with them over here

Instead of a double bed, for king size room type, they have the sofa and the coffee table that is useful just that their tv or rather i called it a monitor was too small.

After we have settled in, we were planning to visit Chocoville! 

Chocoville address : 351 Khan Na Yao, Khet Khan Na Yao, Krung Thep Maha Nakhon 10230 Thailand 

Operating hours : 4pm-12am

Do not be fooled by it's name because it doesn't sell anything associated with chocolates. It's a fun and unique attraction if you love to take photographs because the place is huge, their concept was the European village theme so the whole place has been infused with many backdrops or figurines that is associated with their theme.

Basically I did some prior research, no entrance fee is required, the main transport to get there would be taking a cab unless you drive. It was about 30min journey from Pratunam and in case many of you doesn't know. You can use a Grab now in thailand too! 

If you already know how to use the Grab app, simply key in the address, they will locate your address and quote you the price in thai baht. However do take note they accept only thai baht and not cards. You might also want to set aside some buffer time because it could take awhile for the driver to accept your ride especially when we stay in Pratunam area and the roads is always congested. Most drivers can text in english.

Initially, no grab driver wanted to accept our ride to Chocoville, when we try to ask the rate from the flag down cab, they wanted to charge us 500 baht, so we choose to wait. Hahaha, eventually, we manage to get a grab driver that is willing to pick us! I think it was below 200baht plus all the toll charge. It was so cheap especially there were 4 of us!

I guess july is the raining season because it started raining heavily when we reached Chocoville. 

The rain was too heavy so we waited under the shelter before making our way to explore further.You can dine in their restaurant, initially i placed a reservation to sit near the river for our dinner, however due to the rain, most of the outdoor seats are wet so we had to dine indoors instead.

 Had to hold an umbrella because it was drizzling but we wanted to take photos!

 Nobody in sight because everyone was at the shelter.

  

 

The rain was getting heavy, so we went for early dinner first at the restaurant. We ordered some dishes and while waiting, Jieying & I went out to explore the places before it turns dark.

Personally, i feel the ideal time to visit Chocoville will be around 3pm onwards, if the weather is good, you will be able to take beautiful photoshoots with all this charming backdrops. However, due to the delay, by the time we reached, it was about 5plus in the evening, so we had only a short time frame for photo-taking.

Trying to pose under the rain. Haha

It's amazing how we managed to take so much photos in the short time frame while waiting for our foods. The guys were inside the restaurant using their phone as usual. Posing for the photo!

We were taking photos when it was drizzling, but the results is not bad, usually i will be damm pissed when Jeremy couldn't take a decent photo of me. The rain got really big again so we quickly went inside the restaurant, and we came back at the right timing as the foods has just been served.Haha, ordered this spare ribs because we saw several tables ordered the same so it must be good. Verdict : Not bad!

 This soup was pretty ok only. Not to my liking.

The sky were turning dark.

Somehow, i was quite impressed with this above photo because it make me look taller. I didn't even edit the photos. Haha

We were trying very hard to think of the possible pose, and i like the pose that Jieying and Terence, it could get abit awkward because there were other tourists taking turn to take photo and they began to imitate their pose after they were done.

I would highly recommend you to bring a phone tripod stand to take group photo if you have one, we was adjusting the tripod stand and take photo with a click of the bluetooth clicker.

 The difference between having long leg and short legs. Haha same pose but different feel.

 We spotted so many of this penguin figurines when we were coming out from chocoville

Anyway, generally i think the best time to take photo will be during the daytime with some natural sunlight because taking photos at night require lots of lighting so the effect might not be so good. But nevertheless, we had fun with all the photo-taking even though it was raining. 

The rain doesn't really stops so we decided to take grab to the new night market, the Talad Neon Night market! I couldn't remember how much it cost but i know its even cheaper than the fare we paid to visit Chocoville!

The Talad Neon night market were pretty quiet which i assume because it was a Thursday, there were some foods stall, however most of the stalls are not opened, so we didn't stayed there for long before making our way back to the hotel. While walking back from the neon night market to our hotel, i was grumbling to Jeremy that he didn't really put in any effort to celebrate my birthday, i mean even though this trip is planned as my birthday holiday trip, but i was the one that book the hotel, air tickets to planning the itinerary, all he did was giving me his presence by travelling with me and the fact that he was not even the first one to celebrate my birthday! I was kinda mad. At the same time, it is kinda contradicting because i don't get as excited or see it as an important milestone in my life as i used to when it was my 18th or 21st birthday, consider him unlucky because my friends set the benchmark for this year first so maybe that's how i got this unhappiness rising within me especially the day was ending and nothing comes from him.

This grumbling started after Jieying & Terence walked ahead of us to return back to their hotel first before coming to our room later. So we took our time to walk and end up in Macdonalds where i expressed my frustration and unhappiness toward him. He will always have his own excuses which i always feel, it's not a mattar of not having the adequate resources but whether you put in the effort to create a new surprise when your original plan failed. 

For eg: He told me he tried to email to the hotel staff beforehand to prepare a bouquet of flowers and placed it in our room upon our check in but they was not responsive. I couldn't determine if this is true when he doesn't even know the hotel that we were checking in and doesn't check the itinerary. 

Assuming if this is true, when the staff is not responsive, there is always a 2nd plan, 3rd plan or the 4th. But if you think you put in effort but it was the staff not doing you a favor, i can simply see just 'how much' effort you put in. I was disappointed because sometimes it's all these small little gesture that many do not see it as a big deal that can either sustain your relationship or break your relationship when your displeasure towards your partner started to build up. Especially if your partner has a very good memory like me.

I was texting Jieying throughout while at the Macdonalds, complaining to her etc before eventually returning back to the hotel. I was angry and doesn't want to talk to Jeremy at all, as we reached our room door, beside having a good memory, i am observant too so i noticed the room door 'DND' sign was off, it was strange because i clearly remember it was on when we left the room. But i didn't thought much of it, just as i opened the door, i heard sounds coming from the room. I was shocked because the room was dark and i thought we had accidentally entered the wrong room! This is possible if front desk did a double rooming of checking 2 different guests in the same room!

My first immediate response was to retreat out of the room, but just then Jeremy stopped me and i realised it was Jieying & Terence! Hahaha, so apparently it was arranged with Jeremy beforehand when he pass the keycard to them to enter and decorate the whole room, and i got another 2 slice of cake again. However, i know this surprise doesn't come from Jeremy, it should be Jieying idea and he was trying to cooperate only, trying to pass off it's his idea. Tsk. He was exposed immediately by me, credit still goes to Jieying and thank you for the surprise plus the 4 slices of cake! Haha she even try to decorate the whole room with balloons.

 By the way, this is the first time i tried Tom n Toms Coffee cakes, they are pretty good!

With that,i shall end this post for now.

Till then!