Another Bangkok post.

Sorry for the lack of updates! The program likes to throw a bunch of assignments for us to do all at once… And then gives us nothing at all for a while.

So I guess… Two weeks ago? Yeah. I went to Bangkok to visit my mom’s side of the family. First adventure came when I got off the overnight bus from Khon Kaen to Bangkok at… 4AM. That resulted in me waiting for almost 3 hours at the nearly empty bus station for my aunt to come pick me up. And what did I do during that time? Watched kpop-related videos and snacked, obviously.

Yeah. Seriously.

So my aunt Ju eventually picked me up and sent me to my grandma’s house, which is one I remember from my childhood well. It has, like, 5ish floors and is very Chinese-y. Here’s a picture of the dining room/kitchen floor I randomly took one day while I was trying to do my homework.

Anyway, that first day, I went with aunt Ju to get some breakfast. We then walked around this park that was close to the house, which incidentally had a bunch of old people doing Tai Chi in it. We went back to grandma’s house, and I accidentally fell asleep in my grandma’s room while waiting for my cousin Lhin to wake up. Oops. When she finally did, she and I went with her boyfriend, Lek, to Siam Paragon, the big mall that I visited when I arrived in Bangkok way back in August. We walked around a bit and then saw Paranormal Activity 2 (which was absurdly horrible, btw). It’s still pretty weird to me that before every movie, you have to stand up while this slideshow of the King of Thailand and a song honoring the King plays. But, you know, nationalism, whatevs. We then bought some food at the grocery store inside the mall to cook for lunch tomorrow. Because that’s apparently what the cool kids do in Thailand: make their own food. We finally ended up at a beautiful rooftop restaurant somewhere and ate a really large dinner. Lhin and I also reflected on the last time we saw each other (10 years ago) and how we played by racing up and down the stairs of the 5-story house and how I cried, like, all the time because the mosquitoes kept biting me. I guess some things never change.

The next day, all of my aunts came over to talk to me. We had a nice little discussion in grandma’s room, and then I decided to have my mom skype in. And basically, I was so happy that I cried. Again, things just don’t change, I suppose. Afterwards, Lhin, Lek, and I made some delicious western-y food: pasta, broccoli, and steak for the meat-eaters. Then, one of my aunts and I went to the Chinatown portion of Bangkok, where I saw lots of gold shops. Shame that this can’t be a transition into my next entry about mining~ Anyway, the evening ended with aunt Ju taking me to a hot-pot dinner of sukiyaki and then we walked around some other malls in the area.

The day after that, I met up with Phan! We first went to a pretty temple near my grandma’s house!

Then, we basically walked around, talked, and caught up. We finally met Amy and Reef for dinner at a Japanese place! There was a whole lotta business-y talk at the table, and I definitely felt like a young’un. The three of them are NU graduates, and they all currently work in finance and entrepreneurship. So proud of ‘em, though.

Got my herpderp face on again. This time with extra food coma!

On the last day, I woke up and talked to my two uncles for a bit. Then, I met Tana at Paragon and had freakin’ RED MANGO! I pretty much spent the rest of the night watching movies with Lhin while she did her architecture homework. The next morning I left to go back to KKU. Which was, you know, pretty boring.

After a week, I then left to go to Loei province for the mining unit! Woo!