Bellisimo Italia!

Buon giorno! Here in beautiful, beautiful Italy now for work. Even if we try not to, it's inevitable to soak up its fabled rich culture.

Arrived in Rome late last night and was instantly psyched to see the Trevi Fountain (amongst other ancient sites) enroute to our hotel!

Overcoming shopping jitters and more food finds

Shopping. Thanks to friends who insisted that Jatujak (or JJ or Chatuchak) was an absolute must for them to come over to Bangkok, I wouldn't have re-discovered the wonders of this shopping destination. Recent reviews (and personal experience), have led me to believe the Weekend Market is starting to lose its plebeian appeal.

And for a non-shopping enthusiast like myself (notice, this is the first time I've written about shopping...in a place like Bangkok!), I felt brushing sticky shoulders through sweltering heat and a confusing mixture of incense, salted fish scent and exotic fragrances was not worth all the trouble.

Fortunately, Marla, whom I consider to be the shopping expert amongst us girls, managed to make it a rule that we get ourselves to Chatuchak during the first hour, ensuring we're out by noontime. Needless to say, the results were as fabulous as most tourist guide literature promise: great finds at great bargains.


Likewise, I finally discovered MBK (Mah Boon Krong) to be a good place to find, as most testify, clothes, bags, etc. I usually go there for home stuff but now know I can get more than that. Yes, after half a year in this city!

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Food. One of the greatest highlights of my friends' trip here is the food tripping. Are you even surprised? From trying out different supposedly "high-so" (local slang for sosyal) places, according to Thai locals, like Baan Kanitha...
...to simply hanging out at my place. Fortunately for us, Roy loves to cook and cooks well, too. This was the first time I actually saw my friends wash dishes. Nice to see their more domesticated side. But sorry, Heids, we didn't get to try the street food. Next time.

Laundry Business

My friend Roy left a short story on my laptop last Thursday. Not only does he own and manage a laudromat (with Marla) back home but he also writes! I don't know if it was because he was bored stiff with all our female chatter but he simply decided to quickly type up a short story and leave it on my computer. Tell me, how often does anyone give you a short story?! :)

Amidst a tight schedule the next day, I couldn't help unravelling my 'present' entitled "John's Laundry and Redemption Center." Okay, I thought, this must be partly the story of his life. Interesting...

To my surprise, it made for a very appropriate Good Friday message.

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John's Laundry and Redemption Center
Somewhere in this city sits a little laundry. It’s rather small, just a fifteen square meter deal, and yet, the loads it takes can border on the ridiculous... (FULL STORY)

MSR drops into town

My high school friends of over 20 years, aka the MSR, just spent the Holy Week here in Bangkok with two of them, Heidee and Marla (with husband Roy) having flown back to Manila this afternoon, and Jika (with husband Mike and son Joshua) flying back on Tuesday.

No, MSR does not stand for some chick squad spun off an 80's version of "Mean Girls." It's an acronym Jika and I coined after picking up an ad agency habit of submitting Weekly Status Reports to clients. After college, the Monthly Status Report (MSR) was launched amongst the four of us --- catch up with each other every month --- which has amazingly persisted to this day. To my knowledge, the only times any of us had missed an MSR (if at all) was whenever something absolutely unavoidable happens like giving birth or relocating to another country for work. Yes, even in between travels and honeymoons, we still manage to see each other.

With my recent posting, I've obviously missed out on a couple of MSR's. It was really such a treat having all of them over (complete attendance!) at the same time. They were apparently planning to come here during my birthday but my parents had that covered. Hence, they came the next soonest time possible they could all come together. The other blessing? Good Friday (6 Apr) was also a national Thai holiday (Chakri Memorial Day) so I got to maximise the time I had with them.

Here with Heidee, Jika and Marla during my despedida (send-off) dinner last year at Fire Lake Grill in Tagaytay (Philippines).
More on the MSR visit...

Taken for a (Tuk tuk) Ride...

What we had intended to be a necessary trip to the Royal Grand Palace ended up to be a hot and humid tuk tuk ride around the "old city" (felt like how a foreigner might feel inside our own Intramuros). Upon reaching the gates of the palace at noontime, we were stopped by "officials from the tourism office" to say we can't enter the premises until 2:30pm because of some Buddhist ritual going on (first time I've heard of that). Nevertheless, we were referred to a tuk tuk driver assuring us that for only THB 20, we can go to other historical spots including a "quick stop" to some lapidari.

Long and short of it, we did pay only THB 20 alright seeing the less-than-beautiful-side of this city, passing by the Temple of the Golden Buddha...

...gaping at gemstones and jewelry in some lapidari, only to miss the main event itself --- the Royal Grand Palace! Apparently the tuk tuk drivers get a cut of THB 100 for every purchase made in the shops they unwittingly slip the tourists into in between palace and temples. Ours even wanted to bring us to several other shops before going to the palace so he could get a few liters of petroleum for free if he brought us there. I firmly declined. Ano pang makikita namin (What else will we see) if he did?! At best, I got to show the Golden Reclining Buddha to my parents.
To top it all off, we couldn't find a metered cab to take us back to my apartment downtown. Going to the palace, we paid the cab driver THB 120. On the way back, we had no choice but to accept a THB 300 flat rate, reason being traffic downtown is extremely bad on Saturdays. Okay...but guess what? The driver gets us back in half the time it took us to reach the palace! Unbelievable.

This happened on my parents' last day before flying back home. What a fitting end. I should have trusted my Bangkok Survival Guides' advise on tuk tuk's. My Mom aptly commented, "All that glitters is not gold."

Oh well.