It is shopping day!

We took a taxi to Chatuchak Weekend Market which took around 15 minutes and we reached about 9am. The taxi dropped us at the entrance of Jatujak Plaza and we then made our way into Jatujak Plaza to get to Chatuchak Weekend Market. Before that, we had breakfast and because everything was written in Thai, we had to point at what we wanted to order and pray that what we point is what we get.

Walking around Chatuchak Market was a bit like walking in a maze. Even though we had a free directory, we kept walking to the same place again. So much so that we actually gave up hope of looking at the map. Some clothing items were very cheap, so cheap that you don’t know if you should bargain or if so, how much should you bargain it for.

Managed to find ourselves in the pet section and I saw bunnies. Bunnies wearing clothes…but then we were not allowed to take pictures..so I won’t be able to show you the bunnies that I saw.

We left the market at about 4pm. By then, we were all hot, sweaty and sticky!

This time around, we were cheated by the taxi driver who drove us home. When we came, it only costs us THB150. But when we went back from Chatuchak, the taxi driver didn’t want to follow the metre and demanded for THB360. And because he was saying how jammed it is and all, we believed him. But in actual fact, there wasn’t any jam because it’s a Saturday. No jams on weekend. Considering that this was our first day out to Bangkok by ourselves, we just took it as a learning experience.

We went home to rest and take a bath before heading to Sofitel Silom Bangkok for a buffet dinner. My colleagues have got a complimentary meal voucher for 2…so I tagged along and being the extra person, it was chargeable and the bill was then divided among us.

Next, we walked to Patpong which was just a stone’s throw away, taking glances of scantily clad girls dancing inside go-go bars. And as you walk along Patpong, there’ll be guys asking you if you want to see shows. There’s a list of pussy shows and one of them was Pussy Ping-Pong. I have no idea what is that. Then, there’s this guy who came along with a list, accompanied with illustrations. One female, two female, one male and one female and etc.

We then went for a Thai Massage. Foot massage to be exact but it wasn’t really good as it wasn’t painful at all. We managed to have another foot massage session on the next day…but I’ll leave that in the next entry.

This is the view overlooking Bangkok city from where we stay. Awesome I know.

We put up at my colleagues’ friend’s condo near Central Rama 3, located about 39 kilometres from the airport. A nice and cozy place. We had earlier booked a triple room at a hostel but cancelled it at a very last minute.

We talked for a little while about our plans for the next day before falling asleep.

On a sidenote, Bangkok is also known as Krung Thep, which means City of Angels.

More tomorrow.

After taking the steam train (the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Steam Railway) and steam boat across Lake Windermere, we stopped by Grasmere for lunch before we proveed to Glasgow, Scotland. We didn’t know which place to eat. If there was a choice, we’d always go for Chinese or Asian food because having too much Western food doesn’t make us happy.

You should look at our faces whenever we discover a Chinese restaurant! And the way our eyes lit up when we eat!

Anyway, we decided to go into Grasmere Garden Centre where there is a cafe in it. It wasn’t Chinese of course but the food was quite good. We then hang around the shop where I bumped across a toy duck which reminded me of Ducky. Its fur and beak colour is somewhat similar to that of Ducky’s.

I went in search for Iris who was looking at something else at the other corner of the shop to show her that duck. After we had a good look and admiration of the duck, Iris and I went out to the garden to snap some pictures with the flowers.

“Grace, Pappy is looking for you.”

“Why?”

“He’s holding a duck and he wants to show you.” Mummy said.

“Oh…I think I know which duck and I’ve seen it already.”

What’s funny is when I see Pappy holding the duck, came out of the shop, walk towards the garden and showing me the duck from where he stood, his facial expression was depicting that he’s very excited that he found a duck.

I just laughed from where I stood and said “I know!!”

We had to go back to the coach to meet with the tour members before continuing our journey to Glasgow city. As we were walking out, guess what I saw? Pappy holding a plastic bag with a duck in it.

O.H.M.Y.G.O.D!

Pappy then handed me the plastic bag and said, “Okay, I bought this for the both of you.”

But I know it is for me!

This is how the duck looks like. There is a few other selection of toys comprising of different animals but there was only a limited selection of it at Grasmere Garden Centre and the duck was among the cuter ones. Or the cutest.

So what’s so special about this duck?

I’ve decided to name it Bebeki as suggested by Iris. Bebek means duck in Bahasa Indonesia. So to rhyme it with Ducky, it’s Bebeki.

What’s so special about Bebeki? First, she’s an English duck and has flown in from far. So, that itself makes her one hell of a duck I would say. At the back of the box where she stood, are some wordings which read:

Just heat up my easily removable tummy in a microwave for 1 minutes, pop it back inside and let me give you a lovely warm cuddle. I'm scented with calming lavender and camomile pure essential oil perfect for helping you get a really good sleep at bedtime.

The only problem now is…I don’t have a microwave.

She’s going to bed with me tonight anyway so I’ll have two ducks. I need them both because I’m not feeling really happy today. It’s an issue of self-esteem and being comfortable under my own skin. A disease which I’ve been trying to fight and conquer since the day I was born. Insecurity and lack of self-confidence to sum it all.

I don’t really know how these two ducks will be able to help me with that…but they’ll help me get through the night.

Good night and sleep tight!

define:gullible. The result is fleeceable: naive and easily deceived or tricked;

define: yong mek mek. LAMB.

Do I really look like a “yong mek mek”?

And with that, it brings me back to 28 July 2007 where we were shopping at Tesco, Bayswater. We were waiting by the side of the queue for Pappy to buy his lottery. He is trying his luck on the Euro Millions lottery, so that we can go for another UK trip. (But honestly, enough of UK for me now.)

Standing in the line was a lady from Sudan who started a conversation with Mummy.

“You’ve got two beautiful daughters!” She said with a smile.

I smiled too. Who wouldn’t, upon hearing the word “beautiful”?

“How old are they?”

Mummy asked her to guess.

She took a good look at us and said, “15 and 17″.

15 and 17 wei!

“They are 22 and 25.”

“NO WAY!” The Sudanese lady didn’t want to believe it and then she kept insisting my mum is 35 years old.

She turned around and greeted a Pakistani.

“Mualaikum salam.”

This Pakistani guy said he has a Pakistani background and an English foreground. I’m not pretty sure what that means.

The Sudanese lady then asked the Pakistani if he believed what my mum just said.

He looked at both of us again, hesitated and said, “No”.

Pappy is almost done with his lottery and as we walked away towards the exit. A man standing at the back of the line smiled to Mummy. He is from South Africa.

If you want to meet people from all over the world, go to London! I’ve never seen such a diverse and cosmopolitan place.

On a sidenote, I like Tesco in the UK very very much. I have been to several Tesco outlets throughout my trip and everytime I step into a Tesco, I get very happy and excited. I love looking at the chocolate bars, the biscuits. The juices, milk…everything! The chips!

I also love going to Boots and Superdrug, both of which are pharmacies. Like our Guardian in Malaysia. I also like WHSmith.

Actually, I just love getting into a supermarket.

I’m going to jump to Day 15 today. It’s one of the days where we get to plan our own things to do and places to visit in London. Before this, we were on a one-week tour to some parts of Britain, Scotland and Ireland, where everything is very much fixed by the itinerary. I’ll come back to that when I finish off with this zoo stuff.

We just finished having lunch at Bayswater where we took the tube to Camden Town, which is the nearest station to London Zoo. We decided to go to London Zoo on today itself. Among all, I think I was the one who was feeling the most excited. I love going to the zoo. I don’t know why. Well, part of the reason was that I wanted to see the gorillas.

When we got to the zoo, it was already 3:30pm and the zoo closes at 5:30pm. Not that we didn’t want to come earlier but we had spent the morning at Madame Tussauds with such long queues, it took us an hour just to get the tickets. We only had 2 hours to spare in the zoo, so we had to prioritise in getting to visit animals we wanted to watch the most first. The first would be the GORILLAS! And I made sure we watch the Penguin Feeding Time at 4:30pm. These two items will be able to satisfy my soul in London Zoo.

I’ve never seen a gorilla in my life, except on the television so when I finally get to see one quite closely at the Gorilla Kingdom, it was just awesome! The crowd just loved Bobby, especially when he pooped and ate his own poop. And then purposely ran towards the glass wall and gave it a good bang. Below is a picture of Bobby.

This is taken from one of the signage at the zoo. I took a picture of it but was too blurry so let me quote it for you….

Bobby came to London in 2003 from Rome Zoo which had rescued him in the late 1980s from a circus. Born in the wild he was illegally captured for the circus as a baby in about 1983. Despite such a difficult start to life, Bobby is a very gentle giant. It takes him a few months to get to know a new face, but then he will welcome keepers with a mutual grooming session. The fact that he was wild-born means he is genetically important for the breeding programmer.

Zaire is another gorilla staying together with Bobby outside at the open space but I didn’t get a good shot of Zaire as she was standing quite far away.

Zaire is now past breeding age but is a long standing London resident, arriving in 1984. Her age and experience will make her important as the gorilla group grows; older females help with group stability. She is very interested in humans and is very intelligent, which made her a good study for actor Andy Serkis who worked here researching his role as "King Kong". They built up quite a friendship!

Effie is another cute gorilla. She’s only 14 years old. Bobby is 23 years old and Zaire is 33 years old.

Effie is a newcomer to London from Germany. She arrived in 2007 for the opening of Gorilla Kingdowm and we hope she and Bobby are going to get along just famously. Gorillas are very social animals so introducing them is an important and complicated process. So far things have gone really well and the group are showing a lot of interest in each other.

Slightly before 4:30pm, we got ourselves a spot to stand before they feed the penguins. I like penguins a lot too!

To view more photos at the zoo, click here.

This will remain a sticky post until I post another new entry so that it’ll be easier for you. No need to scroll back to July to read this.

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18 July 2007

Woke up at 6:30am today even though I’m not the one who’s graduating. I’m just excited!

Today is not a very good day to have period. I just hope that I will not be in pain later because I want to look pretty in my sister’s graduation picture shoot. I can look ugly for the rest of the days to come but I must look pretty today.

Mum cooked breakfast and we had “mee hoon kueh”… or you call it Pan Mee. Mum calls it “mee hoon kueh”.

We went to the Student’s Union for robing and photography session. I must say everything was very organised and the people were efficient. Everything was done in a short while. After the photography session, we went to St. David’s Hall for the graduation ceremony.

Each graduant is only allowed two tickets, which means only my parents are able to enter the hall and I’d have to wait outside. Iris managed to get a last minute ticket as one of her friends’ extra guest will not be attending the ceremony. I didn’t get to sit with my parents as I was seated at another part of the hall…but it’s fine. I’m in.

As soon as the graduation ceremony ended, we headed to the university’s main building for the reception. There were finger food available, along with strawberries and champagne.

We had a stroll in Bute Park before Iris returned her graduation robe. We then had dinner at Chiquito. A Mexican restaurant.

Congratulations to Iris who now has a degree in Law. She graduated with Second Class Upper Division. I am very proud of her!

More photos here.