It’s our third morning in Bangkok, and Maylin and I are AWAKE while Joe and Téa are not. We decide to go up to the roof top, because we know there’s a game area there that we haven’t checked out yet. The first thing we find, is a soccer/trampoline/tetherball area, all covered in umbrellas!
Maylin and I play soccer for a while, until Joe messages that they are awake. We all head back down to our trusty buffet for breakfast.
It’s another hot and sunny day, and we’re walking to our first destination today. It’s only about 15 minutes to the northwestern corner of the Benchakitti park, which has a lake, a forest area, a playground, a forest museum, and much, much more.
But it’s really hot, and little legs are soon tired of walking in the heat. We never heard any complaints, no matter how far or long we walked in Osaka in the cooler weather, but now, Maylin is done. When she’s done, she’s done, and it’s no longer fun for anyone. So we decide to walk to the closest point within the park that can get a Grab taxi to pick us up. On our way, we see this:
We get to what the Grab app calls a pick up point inside the park, and we’re in the middle of a bike path. There is no road here, no taxi can pick us up on a bike path in this enormous park. So we pick a likely escape point from the park, and head towards it. On our way, we walk on these wooden paths through a thick marsh-like landscape. We JUMP sky high when something splashes in the water next to my feet, but we don’t see what could have made that sound. We hurry off the path and onto safer ground (paved paths).
If you look up the Benchakitty park, you’ll see a forest museum next to the convention centre. This building does NOT look like it’s open, operational or even safe to be around. According to Google Maps, it’ll be open the next morning… It’s a mystery we don’t plan on getting to the bottom of.
We see a road, and walk towards it. Where there are cars, there must be freedom! Right? Wrong. We’re fenced in. No gate, no exit. I contemplate climbing over the fence, but don’t say it out loud. Instead, we look at the map for the umpteenth time (no wonder we recharge our phones daily when out and about, thank you battery bank) and locate a corner that looks promising. We finally find a gate, wide open, and escape the park where the wild things live. The Grab taxi picks us up, and 20 minutes later, we arrive at EmQuartier, another “must see” mall on Joe’s list of air conditioned spaces to explore Thai culture in comfort.
Of COURSE we’re starving by now, so we agree to have a snack. The snack is larger than just a snack, so it’s like a snanch? A luck? Something in between!
Maylin had a BBQ pork bun, a family favourite. I bought Joe and I a bowl of boat noodles (noodles in soup), which are delicious but a large portion. It’s almost a full lunch for the both of us, except Joe can’t stop eating it, soup noodles are his favourite thing, and these ones are absolutely fantastic. He saves me a little bit, maybe he had the lunch and I had the snack?
After we have eaten, we leave the market floor basement (I love this concept. All malls should have market stall type basement floors!) and check out the rest of the mall.
This is a very confusing mall. It’s as if there are two buildings, kind of glued together behind a waterfall to make it one building, but it’s not very cohesive, and it’s definitely not “user friendly”. Suddenly we’re at an exit, and we see Christmas decor outside, so of course we have to go check it out!
This mall, just like at our “home” mall Terminal 21, there’s an entire entertainment floor. This one has a trampoline park and a movie theatre. But first, we have to take a picture with our good friend The Hulk:
We purchase tickets to a 3pm movie, which gives us 2 hours to explore the rest of the mall and eat an actual lunch/snack/lack/snunch? First we head upwards into the Helix area, where there are 4 restaurant floors of fine dining options. We step outside to explore the garden section (on the 5th floor of a mall) and find… a Starbucks. Why is it always Starbucks?
We go aaaaaaalllllll the way back down to the market area in the basement for our second lunch/snack of the day. This time Joe shops and I sit. He comes back with a delicious crab egg over rice (albeit very crunchy, I don’t believe shell is meant to be part of the recipe) and a tasty chicken briyani dish. Beware of the spicy dipping sauces! Our bellies are full, our mouths are on fire, and the little pile of crab shell has grown.
It’s finally (after repeated “is it time yet” “is it time now” “what time does the movie start”) time to head back up to the movie theatre! At home in Ontario, we would go to a movie a couple of times every month. Téa is particularly interested in movies, and may end up a foley artist, an actor, a hair stylist or a teacher. In any case, we haven’t been to a movie theatre since leaving Canada three months ago, and we’ve been really wanting to see Zootopia 2. Here in Thailand, they show original movies with Thai subtitles, whereas in Japan, most movies were dubbed, and it was difficult to find movies played with original audio (so hard in fact, we gave up). So off we go, to cool off and hide from the heat in a movie theatre!
Two hours later, we emerge from the theatre. Such a fun movie, I loved the layers of adult jokes that still seemed funny to the kids, and appreciate the cleverness that goes into managing to keep the interest in both young and old.
Because the EmQuartier is only about 30 minutes from our hotel, we decide to walk home. Here’s the real Bangkok, the chaotic traffic, the scooters, the tuktuks with loud engines, and the beggars. We’ve gotten it confirmed, that crossing a Thai street is essentially an extreme sport. I wonder if we signed up for additional insurance just in case we wanted to cross the street here? At most intersections, you just wait for a gap and run for it! Easy enough if you are one adult with the responsibility just for yourself, but try that with a 6 year old! (It’s actually amazing how quickly she takes to things, I guess it also helps that she’s afraid of absolutely nothing!)
Back home at the hotel, both Joe and Téa say they’re full and don’t want any dinner, while Maylin and I head out to find food. We end up with 7Eleven, when Maylin walks half a block and wants to head home. Luckily for me, 7Eleven has delicious summer rolls with spicy dipping sauce, while she eats a sandwich. Then Joe takes the girls swimming, while I blog. Tomorrow is our last full day in Bangkok, so we hurry up to get to sleep!
The glasses on that website are not for the shape of my face. They definitely fit the shapes of the faces of the models.
Tilda Swinton looks fabulous in them! But yes, not for me either!