A Trip to Bangkok

At least once a year, I make the trip to Bangkok.  This would be my fourth visit to Bangkok.  It’s a fascinating city, i love to explore it, but I always feel not relaxed.

The trip did not started off well, first I forgot to ask for receipt for the travel adapter and magazines at the airport, then the taxi salesgirl could not understand where i want to go.  Their English is really poor, I need to learn foreign language I guess.  Oh ya, while filling out the immigration card, a group of Malaysians, asked me for help on filling out the card (in Cantonese!).  My kindergarten Cantonese kinda got me through.  But what i wanted to tell you was they tell me that they don’t need to fill in the departure section because they are not leaving Bangkok. ??? Did I understand correctly?  I wonder…

After the runaround to find Mission Hospital (they pronounced it Mitchan, but when i say it, they still don’t understand…i must record myself next time…i wonder what accent i have…hmmm…

Got to hospital, got the guest room…errr…ok…maybe not a good idea?  it reminded me of 1950’s hotel… Time to get food, oh dear, went to the Commissary, it says close at 20:00, oh dear, the time is already 8:20pm, what to do….wait a minute!, it’s one hour behind, let’s buy some food!  Selection was interesting, they have more items then our Commissary.  More interesting items too, maybe this is just a tourist viewpoint…hahaha… I guess no hot food tonight, bought cereal and soybean milk, So Good! yeah, my favorite soybean milk from Sanitarium.  I wonder why Malaysia we cannot get this stuff, but you can in Bangkok and Singapore…

That’s it, time to call it a night.  At this the satellite television provided some distraction.  Watch World War Two documentary on Hitler…good preparation for tomorrow’s meeting?  hahaha…i think not.  Good nite…

The next morning, woke up 5:30am….wahhhh…going to be a sleepy day :8

Grab my cereal breakfast, and it was full of ants!  Yikes!  But since I was hungry, I patiently sieved out some of the ants and put soymilk in it and ate it.  Yummmy! 

After meeting, rush to airport, pleasantly surprise (for once!) the taxi driver was willing to use the meter (and without negotiation!)  When I got there, the counter was at the other end of the building…aidoh…believe me, the airport building is much bigger than KLIA.

Got there, the plane is delayed 20 minutes…haha…AirAsia is keeping a record of some sort, being continuously late? The queue to check in took 30 minutes, there were masses of people checking in.  Note to self: do not try to cut it too fine next time.  After check-in, the international gate is at the other end of the building (where I was dropped off)…my legs are starting to hurt.

After another 20 minutes of queueing for immigration clearance, i got in and check for my gate…guess what?  it’s at the other end of the building!  Did someone decided I need the walking… :@

I was soooo hungry I went looking for food.  Bought a chicken croissant, guess how much?  equivalent of RM16.50!  Boy, this trip is getting interesting isn’t it? 

The flight was supposed to be 20 minutes late, it took another 20 minutes before we flew.  Flight was uneventful until one of those scariest moments in flying, turbulence!  just before we land at Penang. 

There you go…one of the most exhausting trip I have taken this year.  Oh yeah, I did not get a good sleep.  One of those mattresses that did not agree with me.

I’m so look forward to sleep in my own mattress tonight!  Yeah!

A Visit to America 3

The sleeping pill kinda work (took 2 instead of 3 as directed, will have to take 3 tonight for full effect), woke up once a 2am, then 6:30am.  The sunrise was so beautiful, i hopped out of bed, grab the camera and out to the streets within 10 mins!

After a lovely morning of watching people jogged and cycled (apparently there’s a bike around the city event, there were so many of them!), photographed quite a few boats and ships, found out about the war ship museums, aquarium, and more museums (this is a historical city, mind you), had breakfast at one of my favorite place, Panera Bread…ah, must buy their stock liao :P, headed back to hotel via CVS, a 24 hours pharmacy/convenient stores, found lots of goodies, bought instant noodles (most important!), and came back. 

Decided to look at the program, and realize I’m suppose to be on a bus to visit a Planetree Designated hospital in 30 minutes!  Man, do i get mixed up with appointments/events this trip, soooo dangerous. 

Although with a bit of negative thought on the hospital visit, it was soon proved to be valuable once we got there (another definitive word, it took 1.5 hours!!), literally into another state!

A Visit to America 2

Touchdown in America!  Well, what do we get? A blanket of white mist, it’s not haze! 

Decided to have McDonald’s for lunch!  Very healthy Classic Grilled Chicken Sandwich…[ picture to follow]  The french fries has too much salt, i was given six pieces of napkins too.  Differences noted.  alamak! the price really hurts, USD$7.27 = RM25.45!!!

One thing I notice, the escalators and travellators operates at a much slower speed than in Asia, wonder why?

If someone ask me what are some of the differences of Asia and US, i would say there’s a lot of emphasis on public safety, sometimes over the top…I’ll find an example.  There’s sign of don’t do this, don’t do that, all over the place.

Nearly miss the plane as I was in the toilet and announcement made, i was practically the last one.

The plane was small! one seat plus 2 seats, like Konsortium bus :)  When we got to the runway, the weather really moved in and we were stuck on the runway for 30 minutes.  It was interesting to watch all the planes line up and wait.  Big planes, small planes, all different types of airlines.

The ascend was amazing and scary, since we could not see anything.  Finally when we broke clear, we saw amazing cloud formation.  Alas, i did not have my camera with me, finally took some shots with  my BB, but the most spectacular clouds were over.

The descend was greeted by beautiful Baltimore, full of greeneries and rolling hills. The bay was nearby.  I was excited.

The first sight of baggage claim sank my heart – again! The same wheel that was missing last trip, it HAPPENED again.  :@  so many trips to Singapore, nothing happen. It always happen from JFK airport to another city.  Should I avoid JFK next time?  hmmm

Got the rental car without any trouble, drove out of the facility and nearly turned into the wrong lane….boy, left hand drive is dangerous!

reached the hotel, turn the wrong turn and made a big round before finally figuring out what happen.  I keyed in 800 instead of 700 for the street number!  And here I was ready to blame the GPS!

Reach the hotel room, lie down on the bed and promptly went to sleep.  Hey, give me a break, that was 37 hours since leaving home!

Good nite…

A Visit to America

A trip to America.  How does that sound? It’s interesting to get the reaction from colleagues, friends and family members.  The reaction ranges from “wow! you must be very excited” to “why are you travelling again?!”

I’m starting this blog in Frankfurt – a very strange land.  I’m also the only one not wearing a jacket or a coat!  Am I the only one who doesn’t think it’s cold? :-|

Highlights so far:-

- first time i used Terminal 3 at Changi, what amazing architecture!

- had an hour between flight so I did not get to see much, must come back!

- initial impression of my seat mates was WOW! No offense intended here, but they are so big, I could only use half my seat space.  And initially I did not know how long the flight was going to be, but when I found it it’s 12 hours, boy was I stressed out.

- i eat everything the stewardess offer, since I was very hungry, slept on and off, watch 2 movies, slept some more.

- the last 3 hours was more bearable as i started talking to my seat mates, actually it’s always recommended to start a conversation, because it helps pass the time so much faster, but an introvert like me would have used up enormous amount of energy…

- we ended the journey exchanging cards and promised to look each other up if we ever in town [so they could be reading this! so no more details for you…hohohoh…]

 

Well, at the point in time, that’s all I have to say….to be continued…

 

hmmm…forgot to bring my card reader…so no pictures for now :-|