Apparently Jack has officially decided that Bangkok is my city and so I am in charge of all decisions, destinations and official trip plans. So, under my jurisdiction we headed for the downtown city center.

A word to the wise for anyone traveling / staying in Bangkok, don't waste your money on taxis or Tuktuks. Traveling by boat is the way to go. The average taxi ride is roughly 200B whereas a boat ticket to downtown from the royal palace is like 10B. So take a boat whenever you can. If you need help and are staying in a hotel just ask the receptionist for the name of the boat dock closest to you and the name of the dock you want to go. Even if you don't know what they're called, the receptionist will.

After boating into the city we entered the first of four gigantic looking malls to see if we could hunt up something to eat. Here is where I dun-goofed because I was hungry and looking for food. I stupidly overpaid for a bagel and coffee because I didn't really look at the price I just wanted the food. It was probably the most expensive single meal I've eaten in Asia. I paid like 12$ for a muffin, bagel and coffee. Anyway lesson seriously learned.

After the meal we made a quick stop in at the nearby Hard Rock for gifts then continued to a near by University campus. It's nothing compared to UBC but it still takes up like six city blocks squared. The campus was a fairly standard university but we saw a couple big differences. The main contrast was that they have a dress code. For men you have to wear neutral colored dress pants and a white or blue collared shirt. For woman it's the same except you have to wear a skirt and it can't show knee. A modest but beautiful campus by any description.

Coming out of the university grounds it seemed we ended up walking in a big circle because we arrived back at the mega mall complex. Here we tried entering the second mall and wow, Bangkok knows how to build good malls. Even though I can't properly afford anything inside it's still quite the sizeable mall. Took us like half an hour to find our way around.

The third mall is connected to it like the tunnel from Pacific Center to Holt Renfrew (a reference for my Vancouver friends) so we crossed the bridge and my jaw dropped. The architecture was unreal. I'll try and upload pictures at some point because this building is ridiculous.

On the bottom floor was an exhibition called The Social Discovery Project. Basically you plug in your Instagram account and walk into one of those infinity mirror rooms and it shows you what your social media looks like, just in a different way. I have footage on Jack's camera so I'll include that at some point too.

We eventually made our way back to our hotel, showered and relaxed for a bit. Heading out for dinner I temporarily gave decision making power back to Jack because he really really wanted to try street food. So setting off we eventually arrived in as he calls it "the young people district." Where all the restaurants on either side of the street were filled with young backpackers drinking cheap beer, girls getting henna tattoos and people getting their hair done. Woks hissed on the street and the Pad Thai was under a dollar. It's rather soothing in a weird way, being a part of a crowd but not having anything expected of you. Just being able to walk around and mingle without ever being singled out as an individual. Mob mentality at its finest I guess.

Having eaten our fill but not wanting to partake in any of the tacky tourist bars we headed for home.

This is a city I'm very glad I visited but I could never live in. It moves too fast, which sounds contradictory coming from me, the big city boy. Always wanting a faster pace of life. I think the thing is here it's too foreign, too not mine. Like Vancouver and Victoria I think of as my cities but I don't think I could ever consider a city in this part of the world truly my own. I think that's perfectly fine though, and that may be subject to change I honestly couldn't say.

G-

PPS

Today's update. Around like 3:30 this morning I experience the loudest thunderstorm I have ever heard. Granted I haven't heard many thunderstorms but the lightening bolts were hitting like right next to our hotel they were so bright and loud. It woke Jack up while he was wearing earplugs. Anyway here is this post again with (hopefully) all of the spelling errors and stuff out of it and with pictures 😄😄😄

A City of Canals and Street Food