Day 3: Doing all the touristy stuff...
    - Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Woke up early the next morning and made our own breakfast..Quite a good view from our hotel room...

Headed to the Chao Phraya River after that...Paid quite a bit for a boat cruise along the river...and it definitely is not the cleanest rivers around..


And we paid a bit more to feed the fishes bread...


The dwellings along the river...

Many temples and statues along the way too...




By the way, it was high tide during that time too..so the boat ride was super bumpy and wet!


We then alighted at the jetty near the Grand Palace, out next destination. Check out this funny sign at the entrance of the Palace...

Thai soldiers...not really sure if they are here to guard the place or just for show only...

You are gonna see lots and lots of photos of Grand Palace below...entrance fee to the Palace also not cheap so gotta make full use of it..=)

The dress code to enter the Grand Palace is extremely strict! No shorts, berms, three-quarters, short skirts, sleeveless tops or slippers/sandals. That explains why I am wearing a traditional Thai skirt which was loaned out free at the counter.But I felt so mismatched that day..Red + Green..just so weird..



Wanted to capture the both of us with some scenery behind but did not realise that the camera was on zoom mode...so it only captured our huge faces..haha..but i like this photo..







Everyone queuing up to enter the Emerald Buddha Temple..




Attempting to take photographs for ourselves is really so difficult..I can never take a nice shot where no one is cut off..like this one again..

A really cute statue...


I think I look preetty good in the next few photos I made him take for me...






It was so freaking hot and polluted that day that we could not bear to eat at the roadside stall..so we headed for lunch at the nearest air-conditioned restaurant near Grand Palace.Typical spoilt Singaporeans..


I also had enough of walking around in the hot sun so I begged him to head to the city for more shopping instead...He was really nice to let me have my way so we asked the waiter to recommend some shopping places.The waiter told us to head to Emporium and we thought it was gonna be cheap stuff but it turned out that it was a large high-end shopping mall with all the branded labels...In the end, we just made use of the clean toilets there and then walked around the area...Walking around the area was good cos not only did we see a baby elephant along the streets...

but I also ended up doing manicure + pedicure and he did foot massage! It was really cheap...15 dollars for both mani+pedi..a great steal..


Next we headed towards Thong Lo as we heard there are many pubs and restaurants there. The customer service guy at Emporium also told us to go JA at Thong Lo and we thought we heard him mention that it was a Japanese restaurant. We walked for a super long time and we finally ended up at J Avenue.

In the end, we realised that JA was not a restaurant but rather a hang-out place with many restaurants and cafes. It was really like a mini holland village, and it felt like we were back in Singapore. This place was really "atas", probably what my good friend Maggie would like..Ha...

I wanted to treat him to a good dinner this trip and besides it was gonna be our last dinner in 2007 so it was extra significant. There were 3 Japanese restaurants to choose from but we eventually chose to have this!


There was salmon, beef and pork slices, veggies, tofu and straw mushrooms..

The beef was thinly sliced and the sauce was just great. Think I ate a whole cow that night man...


A very full and satisfying meal...

The mini holland village...



A really cute cartoon..



That new year's eve, we did not do anything spectacular. We just went to 7 eleven to buy chips and drinks and headed back to the hotel. We watched a bit of the countdown concert and counted down together with the rest of Thailand. We even managed to catch the firewoks display when the clock struck 12...It was a simple countdown to 2008 but it was definitely very memorable..our second new year together...=)

raeanchiq penned her thoughts @ 10:47 AM