Seth and I have been to Bangkok several times before to see our favorite person in Asia: Aunt Patti. And every time I go, I have trouble putting together a post to accurately describe all the amazing things we do there. ‘Tis a magical place! This time I am going to try to do it justice. I’ve decided to sit down and make it happen. But I have also decided that it deserves two posts, because as always, we were super busy having fun there.

So this time, we spent 3 nights in Bangkok (and the world’s my … pad thai.) Actually, every time I go to Bangkok, I start singing the 1.5 lines of that song that I know. So let’s just get this out of the way and listen to it.

Wow, that music video is actually super racist, and clearly was not filmed in Bangkok. Are there even any Thais in this video?? The only slight nod to any traditional Thai clothing (at 1:26) is nowhere near ornate enough, and ALSO why are people pretending to eat with chopsticks? Couldn’t the producers have just given them food? Do Thais even like oysters?? Well, clearly the only thing I have accomplished at this point is to have created more questions. I guess I should have just left it up to my imagination with the chorus. Let’s move on.

Day 1: Shop and Till You Drop

We arrived in Bangkok on Sunday fully relaxed from the beach and armed with money to buy things we can’t get in China. I know what you’re thinking; if everything is made in China, how can we not get it there? This question also baffles me, but I choose to look at it as an excuse opportunity to go shopping in Bangkok whenever possible. (Mostly, the issue is that Seth and I have feet that are JUST above the biggest size that Chinese stores usually carry — I wear a 9 and he wears a 12, but those average US sizes are monstrous in China). But before that, we needed some food. Again, not difficult to find in Bangkok — in fact, there was a streetfood festival going on that day outside Central World, the biggest mall in Asia! So we went. And we ate.

Loaded up on carbs and the smells of the streetfood fair, we were ready to tackle the malls. A few years ago, I fell in love with Oofos flip flops and have worn them almost everywhere, especially in warm Southeastern China. Then, at the rest stop on the way to Bangkok, they finally died (RIP, gold Oofos). After buying some Crocs flip flops, then, of course I found more Oofos. So now I have two extremely comfortable brand new pairs of flip flops! Among other purchases on the trip: two new purses, some comfortable work shoes for Seth, elephant pants (that I do not wear in public) and some tops to go with them, and new running shoes for us both. Yeah, mostly shoes. We really needed more shoes.

So the moral of the story is that you can literally find anything in Bangkok that you could ever want, from fake Rolexes to name brand shoes to 180 pairs of chopsticks for your wedding guests. And Bangkok malls (42 big ones, according to Wikipedia) are often tastefully decorated, like the Emporium Lunar New Year decor. Emporium got schools all over Thailand to decorate Chinese lanterns, and then hung them up with an inflated dragon head!

On the way home from shopping, we passed the Erawan Shrine, famous for being the site of the bombing in Bangkok in 2015, which killed 20 and injured 125 people. The history of the shrine is also interesting, too: in the 1950s, the Erawan hotel being built next to the site was beset with so many problems and accidents that the construction workers refused to continue doing their job until the land spirits were appeased. So the shrine was erected to house Phra Phrom, or the Thai version of the Hindu creator god Brahma — and seemed to solve the issues. The Erawan hotel was eventually bought out by the Hyatt, but the shrine today is one of the most visited shrines in Bangkok, often graced with traditional Thai dance troops or a Chinese lion dance! From a distance, we watched the Thai dancers (who were much more ornately dressed than the “One Night in Bangkok” woman btw).

Day 2: Face Stuffing and Going Off-the-Beaten Tourist Path

After our traditional jalapeño Cheeto and olive binge with Aunt Patti in the evening followed by a wonderful French dinner cooked by other guests the night before, we slept in and made our way to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel for lunch the next day. To get to the Oriental, get off the Skytrain at Saphan Taksin and then go to the river, and wait for the Mandarin Oriental longboat to come pick you up (fo free). Then you can just ride the boat to the hotel and eat (not free)! In the evenings, the Oriental does a buffet dinner — but since we were there for lunch, we “settled” for a really, really good lunch. I had khao soi again (obviously) — Northern Thai noodles in a coconut curry. We topped it off with an espresso and a little raspberry and white chocolate dessert 😍 and then rolled ourselves to the lobby to catch a cab to our next stop. I mean we were so stuffed, we could hardly believe that we expected ourselves to move for the next 3 hours. But there were things to see!

Oh yeah. The Mandarin Oriental Hotel lobby is a friggin work of art. It’s so fancy!

The next stop was River City (not to be confused with the setting of “The Music Man”), which had an exhibition from the Taiwan National Palace museum. Now this was cool. In an opportunity to enjoy ancient art through new and modern means, we learned about silk handscrolls. One of the exhibits took an old scroll told a 1295 painting called “Autumn Colors on the Qiao and Hua Mountains” and MADE IT INTO A VIRTUAL REALITY EXPERIENCE. This is not a drill. Each with our own headset, Seth and I went into the painting and moved through it on a boat, in a field, in a little house, etc. The sounds from the headphones and the sensation of feeling like I was INSIDE THE PAINTING with animated yet moving people and horses was totally… well, surreal.

Another part of the exhibit was a 10-meter-long scroll called “Up the River during QingMing,” created by 5 different artists in the 1700s. It took 9 years to complete the painting, which is extremely detailed and depicts daily life during this time. In front of the painting was a huge, zoomed-in digital representation of it, much of which was animated with the figures on the large screen in front of it, bringing the intricate painting to life.

To demonstrate 3D technology, the museum also had an exhibit in which we were able to color or own horse or dog, have it scanned and uploaded to a screen, AND THEN WATCH IT MOVE AROUND. Seth turned his dog into a tiger. Then our creations ran around the screen with others’ drawings!

After totally geeking out at the museum, we headed over to Wat Traimit: the 5.5-ton Buddha made of solid gold! Probably made in the 13th to 14th centuries, the statue used to be covered with stucco and glass to conceal its true value from the Burmese invasion in 1767 (more on that in Bangkok – part 2!). But in the 1950s, while the statue was being moved, someone dropped it, a piece of the plaster chipped off, and the gold was revealed. The statue is made of 9 parts with a key at the base to be able to take it apart for easier transportation (how clever!).

The rest of the day was spent shopping, smelling Chinatown’s many smells (right next to Wat Traimit), and inhaling spring rolls, flat bean chicken salad, and pomelo salad. God I love pomelo salad. But we needed to carb up: the next day we were going to Ayutthaya. Check in to Part 2 for more on that!