Thailand Adventure Series 1

Welcome back to the blog Kings and Queens and Jacks and 10s and 9s and Aces. This week I am still in Thailand, but will FINALLY get to write about being here, because its kinda freaking cool and I'm a little bit hyped to talk about it :)

First off though, quick CURRENT STATUS UPDATE: I'm doing pretty good. I was a TINY bit sad and lonely the other day, but that's gone away now and my mood is QUITE positive thank you very much, happy to be not a sad and lonely guy :D

Let's start off with a bit about what I learned about Thailand after being here for like 2 hours:

1. 7-11 is CRACKED. When I was in Japan I saw a lot of people hype up their 7-11s like they were the be-all-end-all of convenience. They have obviously never been to a Thai 7-11, like holy SHIT they have EVERYTHING and its absurdly cheap. You can get freaking pad krapao in a little box for like 2 dollars, and hame and cheese toasties for like 1.50, and they heat them all inthe store for you, its NUTS, literally first thing I did in the airport after I got some cash.


2. it is EVEN HOTTER THAN HONG KONG. It's probably just the humidity, but WOW, stepping out of that airport and into the heat was Unpleasant at the start. I didn't know it was Thai Summer during April (foolishly I believed since both it and Canada were in the Northern Hemisphere we would share seasonal months), so for my first foray into Thailand I got the experience 38 "Feels Like 45" humidity heat at midday.


3. Scooter drivers will not give you a helmet if you don't ask for one. I took the big train from the airport to get as close to my hostel as I could in one go, and then at the station, desperately tried to hail a scooter driver since I didn't have Grab installed on my phone yet (again, foolishly). I managed to get one after 10 minutes or so of anxious waving, and with all my stupid bags, we ripped out into the busy streets. and not one time did homeboy stop and give me a helmet. I feel bad for the guy cause I was death gripping him and his scooter like my life depended on it (it did.).

But yeah after that super fun time getting to the hostel, I got straight to exploring! I was staying in Bangkok's Old Town, in an area near Kao San Road, a somewhat infamous party spot. It was SUPER cool to wander around and see the sights though, the old town is beautiful, with tons of older buildings and temples and stuff to see. Just outside my hostel was a couple streets LOADED with different restaurants, a common theme with basically any busy area in Thailand LOL. I also learned that first day that Thailand has fairly strict dress codes for temples and sacred spots. You're not supposed to wear shorts, tank tops, or anything particularily revealing, as you must wear modest clothing out of respect to the Buddhist faith (don't ask me why other than etiquette reasons, I tried researching and thats the only answer I could find).

There was basically no one in my hostel though (sad) so I went and got some beers and and food and called it a night. BTW just quickly, shout out to Thai Food, its FIRE and I am going to be SO SAD when I have to leave and can't get Pad Krapao and omelettes and soups off the street for like 2 dollars, messed up.

I hit up a BUNCH of the big temples the next day though, the Grand Palace and Reclining Buddha being the big ones, and then sweated so badly and so entirely in my pants and tshirt. I think they know that a lot of tourists come by the temples though, and they had very nicely placed fans frequently throughout in the overhangs and shady spots. These temples were absolutely beautiful though, holy crap. It's not even like they're comparable to the temples in say, Japan or something just because they are so different aesthetically. These are some MAXIMALIST temples, what with their amazing architecture and bright colourful glass on every surface, it's just, *MWAH* chef's kiss of design. Please look at these photos the temples are so cool.

I also had Thai Lime Iced Tea that day and it's good as hell. Shoutout Thai Lime Iced Tea.

The next couple days I basically just explored the city as much as I could!

CHINATOWN AREA

I really like the Chinatown part of Bangkok and the surrounding areas. I got the train to a nearby neighborhood that supposedly had a bunch of cool trading cards and statues and stuff, and it DID! There's a really big building, like 5 full floors of just straight up toys and games and trading cards and it's AWESOME. I took a hot minute to look at all the cool shops. Some of my favorites included one called "Poo Games" because I thought it was funny, one place that had ALL sorts of video games from every region for their non-region locked consoles, and another place where they mainly sold BB/airsoft guns, but ALSO Graded One Piece cards for some reason???? Ultimate swag for sure, it was just very confusing when I first saw it LMAO. I ended up getting a couple Japanese One Piece packs, helping out the local shops y'know I'm just so swag, and actually pulled a SEC EB04 Luffy. I showed it to the shop and they got all hyped for me and gave me a free sleeve and toploader, straight legends. You will be seeing that card pop up again later because it's just so swag and I keep accidentally bringing it places.

I then made my way to the ACTUAL Chinatown, and while it was really pretty, it was also HOT and CROWDED and I was HUNGRY. I got some really good street food, one of the places I went only made one thing (a bowl of noodle soup) and it cost like 50 baht per bowl and it was delish. I got some spicy food too which was relaly yummy but also bad because I got even sweatier and had to poop :( Was still really cool, don't know if I'd go back but it's super cool to experience once :D

ICONSIAM

ICONSIAM is pretty chill I guess. It's basically a huge megamall with a bunch of bougie ass shops and stuff. There's a "floating market" in the basement which is just kind of a regular ass market but with marked up prices and like 2 fake boats. But they got that mega busy 7-11 though so that was pretty cool. I kinda just went because I wanted to see what was at the end of the main tourist boat path, and also because they had an event for a One Piece pop up cafe! That was absolutely the coolest part, obviously I like One Piece and hate shit like Gucci so makes sense. I'll talk about that later though since I only ended up going near the end of my time in Bangkok. There's also a kinda cool water show they do every night(? pretty sure) that is kind of impressive but still nothing crazy. Pretty whatevers, 5/10 place except for the One Piece Cafe.

OLD TOWN AREA

Probably my favorite place around Bangkok? Probably? It's kinda just mega chill, with some cool temples and really good food. Within 10 minutes of where I was staying was a boat that would bring you all the way up and down the river to all the coolest spots and metro stations, and it had a really cute little park attached to it that I would hit up all the time because it was Breezy and Cool, and then on the border of the area there was the Bank of Thailand Learning Centre which I REALLY liked. It was basically just a bigass library with an AMAZING view of the bridge and it was SUPER quiet and cool, and I got to do a bunch of work on my game on days where I was too tired from exploring to go crazy and do more.

Also Khao San Road, it was there, it was LOUDDDDDDDDD and real busy all the time. Won't lie and say I didn't go out a couple times, but after a while it just got boring for me. It's just loud music and alcohol, very little dancing, LAME.

Also there was Rajadamnern Stadium, the big ass Muay Thai stadium and I got to go and see a Night of Fights and it was AWESOME, I loved every second of it. Some of the fights were fairly chill, but there were a few that were absolutely tough, they were WAILING on each other with perfect form and it was SICK.

And I think that's everything I have time for this week??? There's still alot I want to post about, but I'm A: Very lazy and B: need more time to edit photos, so I'm calling this one here. Have a lovely day and evening everyone please go get a bing chilling for me :) here's a fat dog I saw recently he's pretty cute. Apparently he eats lots of eggs and has gained weight because of it.

ALSO ALSO happy birthday to my boys Connor and Alec can't wait to give u guys a big smooch when I get back