Big City Life :D (Day 56 of the world trip)

10/30/2019

The night was short but totally okay for me. Not that I was particularly awake and fit in the morning, but it wasn't the delirium anymore :p We were already up at 8:45 am, brushed our teeth, and then got breakfast at the 7-Eleven, which was 2 minutes away on foot.

In case you don't know, I loooove 7-Eleven!!! <3 When I was an au pair in the USA, I went there almost every day. It is a small, usually very cramped and not always very modern-looking supermarket, which is widely spread in Thailand (which we already knew from Phuket). There seems to be a 7-Eleven every 100 meters, which is great when you are looking for something to eat ;-)

Today I chose a yogurt that has granola on the lid that you can pour into it, a banana, and a pineapple muffin. Jonas had a toast with butter (yes, the toast already had the butter spread on it! It's funny – especially unrefrigerated :p) and milk buns filled with vanilla cream. As you can see, our healthy diet is going splendidly :D :D

When checking out, the receptionist asked us where we were headed next, and when we said we want to go to the city, he just nodded and asked "Metro?" Yup! Jonas actually wanted to walk the 2.3km (45 minutes in 30°C on a main road...) but to my relief, we found out that walking is very difficult and he would rather recommend taking a taxi. Too bad we couldn't walk in the sweltering heat with four backpacks ;-) Kindly, he hailed a taxi for us, told the driver to leave the meter running so we won't get ripped off (really nice!!!), and off we went :)

Maybe it's because we just came from India, but we almost had a little culture shock because everything here is so clean, tidy, and organized :D The taxi ride was short and we got the correct change (which is not a given...). Then we went to the metro station. Here in Bangkok, there is the Skytrain and the Metro, which is an underground subway. First, we had to take the Skytrain and then transfer to the Metro to get to our hostel. All clear! :)

At the ticket machine, the first disillusionment came: when we withdrew money at the airport yesterday, we naturally only got large bills – too large to put them in the machine :( So we went to the counter and asked cautiously if he could give us change for a 1,000 baht bill (about €35). He not only could do that, but also sold us two tickets for 30 baht each (about €1). For that, you get a chip (token) that you have to hold at the turnstile and throw into a slot at the exit turnstile when you leave the Skytrain.

A Thai person stood next to us and filmed us apparently looking a bit helpless while doing all this :D Two officers also came directly to our aid, and with incredible kindness, they directed us to the correct platform ;-) We didn't ask for it, but they simply approached us because they wanted to :)

Changing to the Metro was also super uncomplicated. There is a bridge over a main road and from there it goes underground. Since we now had small change, we could buy our token at the machine and zap! We were at our final station and only had to walk about 600m to the hostel.

As soon as we got off, we immediately noticed that we are in a business district. There are many skyscrapers, wide streets, and everything looks very pretty (and expensive!! :O €15 for a dinner in a restaurant!). Many of the skyscrapers are hotels or apartments with a pool. Opposite our hostel and next door, there are such apartments that also have a tree or some other plant on every balcony, which makes it look very inviting. It's so cool here <3

We arrived at our hostel at 12:30 pm, which has a vintage/factory style or something like that. Really cozy and inviting :) Unfortunately, check-in is not until 2 pm, but this gave us the chance to upload yesterday's blog post (the WiFi here is super fast and reliable so far! We are in paradise :p) and get our lunch: I bought a pack of white bread and pineapple jam, and Jonas got a microwave dish that can be heated at the checkout in the supermarket :) So, we were all set for about €3.50.

It's crazy, but somehow we are now calculating everything in rupees :D Compared to India, Thailand, or at least Bangkok, is significantly more expensive, but oh well. It is also a big city ;-)

After our return, we were able to check into our 6-bed room. This time, Jonas and I have bunk beds – yay! There are drawers under my bed that Törki can fit into completely, and you can draw a curtain in front of the bed if you want a bit of privacy. So, it's a whole different level compared to the hostel in Delhi ;)

After checking in, we went to a nearby park. We were there in about 20 minutes or so, and even though it's not big, it was pretty cool. Of course, Jonas wanted to go bouldering, but I convinced him not to do it in a completely exhausted state but rather the day after tomorrow when we are rested :D

In the park, we took some photos of the small lake with swan-shaped pedal boats <3 and the skyline in the background. I asked Jonas several times if we also wanted to take a ride – after all, they were swan pedal boats :O :D But he remained relentless ;)

After the park visit, we went to the mall for a short time. Actually, we want to buy a new additional lens for our camera, but somehow it never works out...

None of us expected to go to malls so often on the trip :D :D But this one was really cool! It has like 6 floors or so, and each one is dedicated to a different city: Tokyo, Paris, London, Rome, San Francisco, Istanbul. On the floors, there are classic figurines like the Golden Gate Bridge or red double-decker buses :) Asians really love this kind of stuff, and even Jonas and I were not completely unenthusiastic.

For Jonas, there was a pretzel from Auntie Anne's, and then, yes, then we found the best ice cream shop in the world :p Coldstone!!! To my delight, they still had the ice cream that I liked so much!!! Jonas also ordered one for himself, so yeah, that was somehow our dinner^^

On the top floor, there is a kind of "food court." Like at an outdoor market, there are stands where food is freshly prepared in woks, and the prices are super low!! If we hadn't had the ice cream, we would have eaten there ;-) You could tell how popular it was by the fact that it was crowded! The rest of the food court was rather moderately visited.

It's a bit cheeky of us that today we only ate junk food instead of trying the local cuisine, but we want to change that tomorrow ;) The hostel offers breakfast – as we found out, we are the first guests ever to have booked breakfast :D :D She is looking forward to it though ;)

Tomorrow, we will go on a big sightseeing tour (well, we want to see three things, not more, but that's enough^^). We actually want to leave very early so that we can arrive there before the tourist crowds, but if we have breakfast, we will leave later... A real dilemma :p :D

Right now, we are sitting on the rooftop terrace. The sun has set, and the temperature is pleasant. Only the mosquitoes are annoying :D

So, Day 1 in Bangkok is almost over. As mentioned above, it is like a different world when you have just come from India, and our neighborhood reminds us more of pictures from Japan, South Korea, or Taiwan than of a developing country (which Thailand still is?).

Well. We are looking forward to the next few days here and to seeing more of this amazing city <3