Daily Log: 2. 18. 2005

It was so great to wake this morning to the sun sitting high and burning fiercely on the city of Bangkok. It took each of us a little bit of time to roll out of bed and obtain enough energy to shower and get some breakfast in the hotel restaurant. I ended up going down and eating by myself, which gave me time to relax and take in the beautiful view from the restaurant windows.

After breakfast, I went up to Arsen’s room and we brushed up on our international daily news. We were all eager to leave the hotel, so once we did finally leave around 12 we walked out to the street and picked a direction to walk in. The stores that lined the street were very open and very small. We mostly saw a bunch of motorcycle repair shops and little mini markets where food and drinks could be bought. Much to our surprise though, we stumbled upon a 7-11! This of course meant we had to go in, and try ourselves a SLURPEE.

Once we were done exploring the streets around the hotel, we went back for a little rest and relaxation. We are all still getting used to the time change, so down time was a must.

Dinner time came before we knew it, and we all collectively decided to take a cab into downtown Bangkok, and try our luck finding something to eat there. The cab ride was CRAZY, to say the least, and we finally arrived in “downtown Bangkok” after we drove through what looked like 10 parts of Bangkok that could be considered ‘Downtown.’ I had no idea that the city was that huge and that there were so many different bustling sections that all seemed to have tons of things to offer.

The restaurant we ate at was a traditional Thai restaurant with Karaoke. The dish I ordered ended up being not as good as it sounded, which is fine because you live and you learn! The rest of the food we got was excellent though so I definitely was not walking away from the table feeling hungry.

After we had dinner we decided to walk around and hopefully buy some things off of the street vendors which lined the streets for miles. I ended up buying a really cool skirt and a CD called Krishna Beats. Around 10:45, we all decided that it was time to call it a day and we flagged down a cab to take us back to our hotel. I think the only thing each of us could do the second we arrived back to our rooms was completely zonk out and anticipate the day ahead of us tomorrow.

Jamie