Southeast Asia Day 14

Today was a huge day. It was our first full day in Bangkok and I definitely feel like we made the most of it.

In the morning, we had breakfast at the hotel then took the Sky Train to the pier. We got on the boat and it took us to Wat Arun, in English the Temple of Dawn. The temple was a gift from the Chinese and took 20 years to make because they had to keep bringing materials by boat on the river and it was a 4 month journey. It was beautiful and I really liked it.

After the temple, we got back on the boat and headed to the Department of Trade Negotiations. This was probably my favorite company visit we’ve done so far. I loved learning about ASEAN and how trade impacts these countries, since I only ever really hear about how it impacts the US. The speaker was engaging and I even got a shirt for answering a question right! I loved it and really learned a lot.

After the Department of Trade Negotiations, we went to the Grand Palace by boat. There we were able to see the Emerald Buddha as well as the Royal Palace. Unfortunately we weren’t able to enter the Royal Palace because there are members of the royal family living there. However, it was cool to walk around the grounds. We saw a lizard on the grass and I really liked that.

When we left the Grand Palace we walked to Reclining Buddha. This may have been the coolest thing we’d seen yet in Bangkok. It was just this huge Buddha in a temple laying down, but it was SO big. The rest of the temple was also really cool so it’s not even like that was the only thing that was there. The temple was Wat Pho Temple and it’s regarded as Thailand’s first national university because King Rama I had lots of knowledge engraved in stones there to preserve it.

After Wat Pho we were very hungry so we tried to make our way to the flower market for dinner. Two things went wrong: the flower market has only flowers, and it started pouring rain. We got totally soaked in our business casual clothes that we’d been wearing all day because we started at the Department of Trade Negotiations and never stopped back at the hotel. We stopped in a 7/11 (I love that place) and I got purple Winnie the Pooh flip flops.

We walked to the riverwalk in the rain with our cool new shoes. We actually couldn’t find it at first, but we did find the flower market which turned out to be indoors so we stopped in and looked around. It was really cool and very pretty, I’d never seen anything like it. It was literally a flower market. Shop owners were putting together wreaths, displays, bouquets, and more. I love flowers so I really liked it.

When we left the flower market we tried again for the riverwalk. This time we found it. We were totally starving at this point and it didn’t look like there was any food to be found at first so we were getting super annoyed. However, at the very end there was a restaurant that looked good and prices were reasonable so we ate there. I had Pad See Ew with chicken and it was so good.

After dinner, we walked back through the riverwalk and got on a boat to go to Icon Siam, a huge high-end shopping mall. It was so cool, we all loved it way more than we were expecting. The ground floor is like a food market and I honestly wished that I’d still been hungry. We went into many stores, including Versace, Christian Louboutin, Chanel, Swarovski, and more. Please remember that I am soaked, wearing business casual with my shirt untucked, and in purple Winnie the Pooh flip flops through all of this. It was a unique experience to say the least. We also saw a Maserati and two Rolls Royces upstairs. We had a super good time and I’m really glad we stopped there.

From there, we took a tuk-tuk back to the hotel. Lauren, Arnav, and I went to pick up our laundry and then we went back to the Art Box because Arnav wanted to check it out. He got Pineapple Fried Rice and I got gyoza (I know they’re Japanese but I love them). I love the Art Box so I was super happy to return there.

After the Art Box, we went back to the hotel. It was a big first day in Bangkok but I was glad to see a lot of important sites and had a very fun day!