Hello from Bangkok!
Two years ago, we went to Bangkok and stayed in the hotel named Berkeley. This year, we wanted to try this fairly-new hotel named Glow Hotel in Pratunam.
We stayed in the 11th floor (non-smoking floor) and the services here is very good.
The hotel room is quite spacious for a small hotel like this.
Our view is directly at the street of Platinum Mall.
There's also a wide mirror with a television in the middle of it
being placed directly in front of the bed and under the writing desk.
By the way, there are only two universal plug points while others are Thailand power plug points.
There's also a hair dryer inside the desk but it's a low-power type of hairdryer. The hairdryer also comes with a diffuser.
The dresser is quite spacious with multiple racks for you to put your things on.
There are two robes and two pairs of slippers provided, as usual.
The hotel will provide two bottles of water in room temperature, as well as another two bottles in the fridge. There are also coffee packets available along with the water boiler. The hotel, however, do not provide snacks.
The bathroom is quite spacious as well BUT THEY DO NOT HAVE A BATH TUB T-T
Also, they only provide you with paper wipes, two pairs of toothbrush and toothpastes, two shower caps, some cotton pads and cotton swabs, as well as two plastic cups. They also have a bottle of hand wash gel, which is a very eco-friendly method, I would say. (Thumbs up). However:
They do not provide shavers.
I repeat: they do not provide shavers.
Again: They do not provide shavers.
Bring your own shavers or epilators.
The shower room is clean and there's only one shower head.
The body wash and shampoo are also in bottles. (Cleaning staffs will fill up the bottle every time they clean up your room). The water gets hot faster than expected too!
Their room service food looks kinda yummy tho, with a decent price.
However, I didn't get to try because there are so many other good food around Pratunam.
The swimming pool is... uh... decent sized HAHHA
Well, it's enough for me to swim and best of all?
This swimming pool is hardly occupied, which means you can swim in it all on your own
without having to swim with other people!
Underneath the pool is this small garden that looks really, really pretty for a small outside party.
The massage parlor is quite affordable, I would say.
Every staff here are very friendly even though there's a big gap of language barrier.
They are also quite skilled too.
This is their only banquet/meeting room, called the Glitter Room.
This is where you'll usually eat for breakfast (if you've included breakfast in your package)
Christmas was around the corner!
So the cafe management decided to give us a complimentary cookie :)
I didn't eat it tho, because of the grease that got soaked into the paper packaging...
Kind of a turn-off there...
This is what it'll looks like every morning.
They usually have stew fried vege, sausages, ham..
Also, pretty looking sunny-side ups.
During Christmas Eve, they prepared Roasted Chicken.
Not turkey :/
There's also a section for fruits, yogurts and salad.
KIMCHI IS AVAILABLE TOO!!!
Then, there's another section for toasts and jams.
This side of the table has porridge and soup-of-the-day sometimes.
Here's also a station for cereal, juice and ice water.
Here's my second day's meal.
On the third day they prepared Bacon but it's very salty ><
During my fourth day, I tried their pumpkin soup.
It's nice to taste but trying it once is enough.
Because the hotel is above the mall called Shibuya Mall, there's also some commercial franchises here,
such as McD and Starbucks.
Ps: my mom bought a lot of limited edition Starbucks cups and bottles here..
are there Thailand version of special edition merchs or.. what?
Platinum Mall!
Just a walking distance away!
Shop here for a huge variety of clothes until you drop, like literally.
(My first two hours got me spending 3000 bucks.. sigh)
You can't really bargain in here anymore, unlike two years ago at least.
I guess it's also because the sellers are also a lot smarter now *shrug*
My advice is to walk the entire mall first (preferably during 10am) then only proceed to serious shopping. This is because some stores sell the same clothing but different prices. Want an example? I bought a bomber jacket for about 450 Baht and another store was selling it for 1000+- Baht. See how crazy the gap could be?
Right beside the Zone 3 of Platinum Mall, there's a bridge made to cross over to Central World and Big C within 10 minutes. It's safer than crossing the road, I'd say, which is what we did two years ago.
But also, you can go over to Central World to use the BRT there, which is closer to BTS Siam station, I believe.
The ticket counter here is mainly for people to buy passes (daily pass, monthly pass, etc)
If you wanna buy one-way tickets, you gotta do it at the (new) machines at the side.
The machines do slot out multiple tickets at once, too.
Sometimes the ticketing counter allows you to purchase one-way tickets, but sometimes they don't.
So just head to those (newer) machines instead. By the way, they are all touch screens but the sensors aren't sharp enough, so you may need to cut your nails or press harder against the screen.
Here's how it looks like when you go up to the rail station.
The advertisements here are all digital too.
Some banners on the other side are not, though.
The messages on these digital banners are quite humorous too.
Here comes the train!
Inside the train, no one talks, there are very minimal amount of noises being emitted.
Some start reading, some just.. stare.
The space is a bit wider than Malaysia's, I would say.
The air conditioner is colder too.
Our stop is at Terminal 21.
We're here basically for the fun of it, like just to take photos with stuffs.
You'll get what I mean later XD
They were having the Gift Fest going on.
Basically just shops selling stuffs that are considered to be gift ideas for people you love.
Every floor in Terminal 21 has a different theme.
There's also an Auntie Anne here with a somewhat different menu from Malaysia.
Did you know that you can also depart from M floor straight to the 3rd (or was it 4th) floor by using this long 'butt' escalator?
Anyway, the best part is at level 5.
Ta-da!!!
It's the Golden Gate Bridge!
Looking down from the escalator, this is what you'll see.
Not to mention, there's also a light tower here!
Remember the part where I said we came here just to take photos with stuffs?
Well, here they are XD
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| My new boyfie lolololololollololo |
Directly opposite of Central World lies a huge building called Big C.
This is where everyone shops for yummy snacks at a relatively cheaper price!
Big C also provides recycled boxes for you to use if your luggage is too full to fill up the goods. But here's the catch, you need to bring your own cellophane tape, or packing tapes. They don't provide you with that. If you forgotten to bring a tape, you could always cross fold the lids.
The night of Central World is gorgeous, filling the area with warm bright lights from the deco right outside the mall. Two years ago, it was filled with snoopies. This year tho, it was filled with LED flowers.
But will ya look at the crowd!!!
Before we took more photos of this place, we went to this buffet shop called Shabushi by Oishi.
You see, it's a good thing I made reservation through their Facebook page but it seems like there was a miscommunication in between store and the customer service department. They didn't get the memo. After tell the staff members that we indeed made a reservation, they let us in 15 minutes later. This made us to get away from queue outside the restaurant for TWO HOURS.
YES people waited outside for two hours just to dine in this buffet shop!
Crazy!
They have lots of food tho, with different juices and teas from the brand Oishi, to sushi & tempura, to steamboat ingredients like tons and tons of pork meat, vege and seafood.
However, try to get there as early as possible to be seated at the front because that's where all the good food are, before anyone else gets to take em. We sat at the back so we didn't get to eat the good stuffs...
After eating, we tried to take photos outside the mall but hollie cow manure look at the crowd.
It's impossible to take photos here, especially during the Christmas night.... !!
But the trees are pretty tho, here's a close up.
And here's what it looks like from high above:
The only historical place that we went to was Ayutthaya.
This place has a lot of ruins and remains of buildings and temples from the past few centuries.
We went straight to one of the temples first, which I didn't get to ask the name of it.
This temple has two large Buddha statues on each sides of the entrance.
According to my sisters who climbed all the way up there, they said that there's only a well inside the building. Nothing else.
There are many more Buddha statues along the sides of the brick fence.
This place is seriously majestic.
The "Elephant Palace"
Inside Ayutthaya, there's this place called วังช้างอยุธยา แล เพนียด Ayutthaya Elephant Palace & Royal Kraal.. I'll be honest with you, I was terribly horrified by the fact that there are still places like this to exist. The man on the right hand side of this baby elephant seemed to be its "guardian" but from the looks of it, it's more like its "abuser."
I'm not making accusations here. (Well, I'm mostly not.)
Based on what I've observed, the baby elephant is highly afraid of the stick that the man is holding in the picture above. At the end of the stick is something like a reaper's blade. I'm talking bout real metal blade, not a plastic toy. It's also very a sharp looking one. Now if you would look at the baby elephant's forehead, you'll see a scar. I am assuming that it got the scar from that reaper-blade stick over there. In the meantime, this man showed no care towards the baby elephant but only the profit that he is getting. This man is selfish. The money that he gained was only used for himself. Why would I say that? Because while he crossed over to the other side of the road to buy a pack of sliced pineapples, he didn't bother to look at the baby elephant or even offer a slice of it to the baby elephant. (Maybe pineapples are bad for elephants but still, there are so many other fruits at the stalls nearby.) Anyway, the baby elephant was also seen to hesitate when people handed it baskets and baskets of corns. We're talking about 10 corns per basket and many tourists (over 30 per day) are so excited to feed it with baskets of corns. The baby elephant would seem to be happier if people would hand it cucumbers instead but I noticed that the "food stall for this elephant" has more corns than cucumbers. Quite frankly, I feel like the baby elephant was forced to eat the corns and otherwise punishments for it will be on it's way. (Okay, at this point, you'd be thinking "Ngeh, the man doesn't need to offer the elephant any more food, right?" Well, then let me rephrase my point a bit. The mand will not even pet his baby elephant or even looking at it with a pair of caring eyes, like an owner would to his beloved pet. See the point here?) I can see the sadness in its eyes when the man showed no care towards it. But what can I do? I would be completely reckless and stupid if I confront him since my family members don't seem to be giving too much f-ks about it. They know that the baby elephant was not in good hands but they looked like they're not going to do anything.
Bystander effect, possibly.
Again, baby elephants were taken here to be "trained."
Although I've never witnessed the process of it but I can tell that it's never the kind-and-gentle way.
See, if a tourist would want to take photos with this baby elephant, the man will collect money from the tourist eagerly. Then, the man will push the baby elephant's bum bum downwards, indicating that it has to sit in a specific position, like the photo below. Each tourist can only take two photos with this baby elephant while sitting on it's left front leg. One is when the baby elephant wrap it's trunk around the human, another one is when the baby elephant puts its trunk on its head and "wave" the tip of its trunk. I find it awfully disgusting when a tourist sit on its leg and smiled like they've finally seen heaven. It's disgusting, I'll repeat that. Most of the tourists who would pay to take photos with elephants and ride on the back of adult elephants are Caucasians. It's true. Ask your driver to drive around Ayutthaya and you'll see a lot of white people riding on elephants. I don't have any grudge against Caucasians. I don't. However, if they want to be seen as civilized people from the developed countries, the least they should know is that riding on an elephant is understandably known to be distressful for the elephants. Can it be called as "elephant abuse?" I don't know.
But, HELLO, it's freaking 2k17! Why are you still so ignorant?
(Same goes to you other foreign tourists who rides on elephants.)
I get it if it's for ceremonial purposes, but what kind of fun will the elephants get to become a "Tourist Attraction" or "Tourist Entertainment" if they were to be forced to do all these sorts of things just for their so-called 'carer' to gain profit? There's nothing debatable for this case simply because:
a. humans are exploiting animals for their own profits and benefits
b. animals were not born to do all these kinds of things
c. it's not nice to force an animal to do things that could hurt them physically and mentally
[[[ P.s.: This is irrelevant to the topic above but since I've been talking bout ignorant Caucasians, I'd like to talk about another matter too. I know not all Caucasians do this but I always see Caucasians cutting queues everywhere I go, especially in airports. They went all the way from the end of the queue to the front of the queue. I'm talking about long-s-queues. It's always white people doing it and I find it awfully ridiculous because it seems like they think they could get away with it just because they are "special." Trust me, you're not special, especially in Asian countries. If you are one of those who cut queues, then listen to this. We are disgusted by you but we are good people, we don't humiliate people in public and neither would we want to. Giving faces is a practice that most Asians do. Just because we don't call you out doesn't mean that we're afraid to do so. We just don't want to embarrass you (just yet). So don't be ridiculous and proceed to cut queues because it's already 2k17 now and many Asians aren't afraid to speak out anymore.
Again, let me repeat:
1. You're not special in anywhere else because we're all the same.
2. Just because you're a Caucasian, it doesn't make you someone higher up in our society because we're all the same.
3. Stop cutting queues if you don't want to embarrass the people of your country because that is very rude.
4. Get educated again if you forget how to 'moral and ethnic'
SO STOP DOING IT, WHITE PEOPLE.
(This also applies to non-white people. We know you're doing it too, just not as frequent as white people.)]
The Bang Pa-In Palace.
I'm not really a history-lover kind of a person, unless the history of something is really, really interesting. By looking at this palace, I can tell that I'll most likely not going to enjoy the most of it. (It's really just my own problem here, not the palace's). So anyway, this is the entrance of the Palace.
The dress code policy here is quite strict, which is something that had heavily turned me off as well.
I mean, I understand it is to respect the royal palace and its history, but despite the fact that my outfit for that day had not violated the dress code in any way, I still feel tired after looking at the dress code board.
Here's the ticketing counter and information counter.
If you are violating the dress code, you can rent sarongs (?) here for free but you need to put in 200baht as deposit.
Well, in my country we called it sarongs but I'm not sure what is it called in Thailand.
Again, I didn't go inside, so here's a photo taken by my sister.
She said the royal members will still come back here once in a while and many of the rooms are the princesses'. Well, the late King had 3 daughters and 1 son, so I guess that's why.
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Night Markets!
We went to different night markets that are within our reach.
Here's a list.
Here's a list.
1. Talad Roi Fat 2 Market, Ratchada.
This place is FOOD HEAVEN I tell you.
There are other stuffs too, I got like two pairs of hipster glasses for only 100Baht!
If you buy it in anywhere else, it would be either 1 for 100 Baht, or, 1 for 390 Baht.
But you know what? I forgotten to take photos :)))))
2. ArtBox, Chatuchak.
This place is pretty hipster.
Everything here has it's very own hipster aesthetic.
Some of the things are expensive but there are also cheaper clothes and decent priced commission art.
The artists are very good too!
After Artbox, we tried to walk around Chatuchak Night Market for a bit but meh.. Nothing much.
I heard from a sales girl in Platinum saying that Chatuchak market has a lot of doggy clothings but when I asked around in the Night Market, they said that those shops only open in the day but not night..
*sighs*
Everything here has it's very own hipster aesthetic.
Some of the things are expensive but there are also cheaper clothes and decent priced commission art.
The artists are very good too!
After Artbox, we tried to walk around Chatuchak Night Market for a bit but meh.. Nothing much.
I heard from a sales girl in Platinum saying that Chatuchak market has a lot of doggy clothings but when I asked around in the Night Market, they said that those shops only open in the day but not night..
*sighs*
3. JJ Green Night Market
Please try to avoid going because it's a very long distance from Chatuchak Night Market and the crowd was so horrible that we didn't stay any longer than 20 minutes. Even trying to get a taxi outside was so, so difficult because the traffic jam over there was also crazy.
The items there are affordable but I didn't get to see a lot of it.
There are a lot of used vintage goods too.
4. Asiatique The Riverfront
One of the main attraction here is this Ferris wheel. Some would call it the Eye of Bangkok.
This place has like, 10 warehouses with more than 15 shops each.
It's a huge place so try not to get lost in here.
Reading the sign posts will be very helpful too.
There is also a mini theme park inside.
This place has a lot of things to see but most of them are pretty similar, such as aromatherapy shops.
There are also a lot of antique shops around here. However, whether or not if they are truly an antique is the question..
but they do make a nice home deco.
There's also a MiniSo here lollolololol
Ferris Wheel view from one of the corners.
I could've taken a better picture of the ferris wheel if I had known where to go to.. (the balcony area beside Asiatique). I was a bit lost in here so I guess this is the best shot I have when this sky phase was occurring.
There is also one warehouse here dedicated for food stalls and mini restaurants.
Not my type because it smells greasy when I walk past here.
The washroom HAS AIR CONDITIONER IN IT.
Seriously, anywhere else of Asiatique doesn't have air conditioner in them (unless you're talking about higher budget shops that could afford one). Also, it's bright inside (the picture is darker because I set the exposure lower) and it is pretty clean too.
Ferris Wheel from the mini theme park section.
When you find your way to the balcony area of this place, you'll see the river itself and a nice view of scenery.
The first picture of this place (that Instagram photo) was taking from this side too.
Anyway, here's an up close photo of the ferris wheel.
Oh yeah, one of the stalls sell stuff made along with soy milk.
I went to try this Mango + Soy Milk drink and it was okay.
My mom hates it though HAHAHHAH
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The dedicating citizens to their beloved King.
I would like to end this blog post with something important.
The late King of Thailand, King Bhumibol Adulyadej was loved by majority of His people and that many would consider Him to be almost a figure of divine. If anyone would try to criticize His Highness in any way, the person will be facing punishments regardless of his/her power and position in Thailand. (Read: Lèse majesté law). However, the late King Bhumibol was ill and His death during the 13th of October 2016 had caused the entire nation of weep. So if you would be visiting Thailand in between October 2016 and October 2017, please be reminded that you should not be a fool of yourself to do things that could spark anger in citizen's heart. They love their King so much that almost everywhere you go, you'll see tributes towards the King in many different shapes and sizes of banners and prayer tables everywhere. If you'd like to take a photo with the prayer tables, go ahead but try not to smile. I would say that it is very disrespectful. (I've seen many people smiling while taking photos with the prayer tables, which is kinda disturbing to see, to be honest.) Also, do not wear flashy clothing because, again, it's disrespectful. People don't wear flashy clothing in funerals, shrines, temples, mosques and church. So you shouldn't be doing that too, considering the entire Thailand are praying for their former King.
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| One of Terminal 21's tribute. |
That's all for my Thailand Trip in December 2016!
Hope this blog post can be informative enough for you while planning for your Thailand Trip.
Remember, respect is highly prioritized in Thailand!
 on Dec 23, 2016 at 7:09pm PST ...){kind=link}
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