Capybara

6/1

Woke up like rays of sunshine and went down to the enormous breakfast hall. I didn’t even have time to go through everything they had. There was a whole section with sushi that Lawa was exploring.

Lawa and I went ahead to the room to change into swimwear; Mulle simply didn’t want to leave breakfast until he had tried everything.

We went down to the pool to swim. The water was ice cold, but we were going to do it anyway. Mulle then came and jumped in with us, which I never expected. At least we got the obligatory pictures before we jumped out of the water.

We then took a skytrain to our next destination, the surprise for Lawa. She has been nagging about this, but we had said we wouldn't have time for it.

She was absolutely thrilled. We had booked at Capybara Café. There you can pet these incredibly cute animals as they roam around and relax. They have a pool they love to bathe in and, of course, love when the kids feed them hay. I am just as fond of them, having been so since I saw them at Kolmården many years ago.

There were also meerkats, and they usually hang out with capybaras, but they had babies so maybe that's why they were separate.

From there, we took a Grab (bolt) to Icon Siam, which is such a large shopping center that it’s hard to take it all in. We really only had one goal, Popmart! Of course, we came home with yet another Labubu.

Then we hopped into a tuk tuk, after I haggled it down from 500 to 450. Mostly because I love to negotiate. When we arrived, I naturally gave him a 500 baht note, and he laughed heartily at my antics. He said he drove so well that he deserved it. He cheerfully Wai-ed several times. Fun for Lawa to get to ride this type of tuk tuk as well.

We went to Wat Po to see the reclining Buddha but of course forgot proper clothing, so we could only look from the outside.

We strolled towards Chinatown but ended up on some sketchy back streets, so we took a different route, including through the flower market. Then we ran out of steam and hopped into a Grab again.

Apparently, the market doesn’t open until 6 PM anyway. But we went through a good part of the Chinese areas nonetheless.

We got stuck in such traffic that we actually got out of the car and walked the last 20 minutes.

Back home, we went up to the top pool, and one of the family members was swimming, even though the water was closer to permafrost at a maximum of 20 degrees. (I) Blows so much on the 37th floor that it never gets warm.

We took the elevator down to the pool on the 22nd floor, and there we all jumped in.

The hotel is a hangout for influencers because it looks great for pictures at the infinity pools. There were four influencers taking pictures of each other constantly for 20 minutes as it was sunset. We took it upon ourselves to ruin the pictures with our presence at the coolest spots in the pool.

We laughed heartily with the waiter about this phenomenon.

Lawa swam for a long time, and we enjoyed some nice drinks.

After a shower and getting ready, I found a Korean barbecue with a rating of 4.9 from nearly 6000 people. Of course, we had to try it! We had Wagyu meat with lots of delicious sides and, of course, Korean beer. Full marks from all of us.

I also found a small square next door with lots of restaurants, populated only by Thais and no tourists. That’s always a good sign!

We walked home, full and satisfied, in the lovely evening and enjoyed all the bustling sounds that occur in the big city!