I'm sitting in the "Executive Loung" at the Millenium Hilton in Bangkok. Since dad is traveling around the southern part of Thailand this week, he let my friends and I stay in the hotel for a few nights. It's been really nice since we've been living very sparingly the past few months (at least, sparing compared to our lives at home).

Today we (Colin, Kasey, and I) treated ourselves to a MONSTROUS breakfast. We had so much food, it was unreal. Omelet, bacon, 2 orders of hasbrowns, 2 pain de chocolats, 3 croissants, 2 farm's rolls, 4 slices of bread, 2 English muffins, 2 banana muffins, a plate of pineapple, a plate of papaya, a plate of different seasonal fruits, 2 pots of coffee, 1 pot of hot chocolate, 2 pitchers of orange juice, a bowl of oatmeal, a bowl of cereal, 5 differents kinds of jelly, honey, salted and unsalted butter... and that's all I can't remember. I think there were a few more things. The best part is that we ate every single bite. It took us a good hour and a half of lengthy breaks in between, but we don't eat much western food, yet alone breakfast food, so we were in absolute heaven!

They are about to leave to go back to our apartment in Pathum Thani but I decided to stay here by myself for a night before dad gets back. They have a service at the hotel where they come draw a bath for you, and fill it with all sorts of essential oils and bath salts for only 400 Baht (which is about $12 or so)... so I've decided that I'm going to treat myself to a really nice bath, haha.

Yesterday we went to Bangkok's Chinatown for a few hours and walked around for a while. It was really overwhelming so we got very exhausted very fast. Afterwards, we went to Wat Traimit, the temple that houses the world's largest pure gold Buddha. Our travel book warned us that would be "particularly underwhelming", which it was, but I'm glad we at least took the time to see it. We also treated ourselves to a nice Italian dinner. Usually any kind of Western food doesn't taste so great in Thailand, but this dinner was delicious. It was well worth the expenses--about 190 Baht per dish, and we usually pay about 40 Baht (but 190 Baht is only $6 anyway!). Afterward, we went to one of our favorite Bangkok brew pubs called The Londoner. We found out that every Friday night when you order a glass of wine, you get another glass free, so Kasey and I ordered some expensive Sauvignon Blanc so we both got a glass.

That said, it's been a good week/weekend! And we're going to Cambodia next weekend!

It's amazing how quickly it can go from being beautiful and sunny, to pouring down rain. It's like clockwork. The rain is a blessing here, though, because it cools down the temperatures to a bearable level.

We've had a really nice relaxing weekend. The majority of the people at our apartments went to Koh Phangan this weekend to experience the Full Moon Party. They took an overnight bus (15 hrs long) last Thursday evening and are coming back on the same bus tonight (Monday night). I guarantee that if I had decided to go, I would have gotten there, regretted it, and been stuck for 4 days on a beach with crazy, drug-taking, alcoholic travelers. No thank you!

Saturday we spent the day at the Siam Center in Bangkok, a large area with 3-4 giant malls, malls so big that NOTHING in the United States could even compare. It was unreal! Each mall was at least 5 stories high, some had 7 stories, and were filled with expensive stores like Gucci and Coach. We wanted to go on a glass-bottom boat ride (yes, inside the mall!) at the Siam Ocean Aquarium, but it was really expensive, so we settled for a 4-D x-venture movie instead. It was a cute little film about turtles and how humans have invaded their habitats, like an interactive 3-D movie (water sprayer in our face, our chairs moved around--it was really fun). Then I had Subway for dinner! Real turkey and real cheese! It was so delicious.

Instead of taking a taxi back, which costs up to 300 Baht to get back home, we decided to figure out how to use Bangkok's public transportation. We rode the SkyTrain north to its last stop (35 Baht each), then rode the bus to Rangsit (the town we live in, 22 Baht each), then rode on the university's transportation until we reached campus (6 Baht each), and walked home from there. We saved around 30-40 Baht this way, which is how much a meal costs.

Oh yeah, last Thursday night was really fun, too. We went to Future Park, the huge mall in our province, to have dinner and see a movie. We watched "Pandorum", some new movie with Dennis Quaid, a sci-fi thriller. It was pretty good. The popcorn was funny, though... They had three flavors: original, sweet, and cheese. I got a mixture of original and cheese, only to discover that "cheese" isn't quite the same here as it at home. It tasted good, for sure, but it was like a weird mixture of spices on popcorn. We were so confused as to why it didn't taste like cheese, but then we remembered that they don't have cheese in Thailand, so they had no idea what it was supposed to taste like!

Last night we wanted to out for pizza because we've been craving Western food, but everything is closed here on Sundays, just like at home. Hopefully we'll try again tonight! It's expensive in terms of Baht, but cheap in terms of American dollars. About 160-200 Baht for a Large pizza (which is 5-7 bucks).

I'm really distracted now so I guess that's it. I've uploaded a few more photos on Facebook, check them out if you get a chance!

Traveling.

So this is how my trip began:

Nashville to LA, 4.5 hour flight.
LA to San Fran, 1 hour flight.
Arrived to San Fran to find out that I completely missed my flight, but someone else on my study abroad program did, too. Very relieved!
So now we're travelling together (his name is Tyson, fyi).
San Fran to Hong Kong, 14 hour flight.

Now I'm sitting in the ultra-nice Hong Kong airport, waiting for my flight to depart to my final destination: Bangkok! And apparently the airport in Bangkok is brand new, built in 2006, and is the largest airport in the whole world. With our luck, I'm betting Tyson and I will get completely lost trying to find our way out...

ps. There's a food stand in the airport selling squids in a bag.
pps. My Google homepage is in Chinese and it's funny.