The Queen's Hotel isn't Sparkly Tonight
This is not a euphemism, just a fact. The hotel that is named after a queen here is just... well... not doing it's epileptic seizure light-up dance that I've oft speculated must drive its residences well... seizured. My laundry is taking more than an hour to dry, I'm comfortable outside and living, somehow, in a parallel universe to the Bangkok I've known for the last month +. What the hell?
I'm 2.something beers into my evening, having spent my "personal" time today wandering all over the place, as getting lost is my SOP. It all started with a particularly light-weight, well-printed, sarong that Aaron had bought in Little Bombay that I've coveted ever since. Today, come hell or high-water (an obvious comparison, right?) or a new year holiday, I was going to get mine.
Monk at an ATM
I left the apartment at approximately 4:15pm (or 16:15, as most of the rest of world calls it, damn precision kilo and military time). It was a neat 15 stops away, 5 on the BTS, 5 more on another section of the BTS, and 5 on the water taxi stops away. Music in ear, I was consulting my map and marching purposefully in whhat I hoped was the right direction, and a farang asked, "where are you headed?". We walked companionably for a while, exhanging the usual, where are you from, how did you get here, and what are you doing here. Him, unknown origin but stint in Vancouver, WA, one way ticket turning into 8 years, and teaching english at the university level until October - some kind of contract snafu.
He pointed me in the right direction (where I was already headed) and recommended a restaurant before we split off without exhanging names. Tidy. The shop was closed.
Wandering off into the backstreets of Little Bombay, I u-turned into the textile mall and let my inner-hippie shop. Two pairs of pants and a skirt/skort combo later to the tune of $20, I happened onto a small store with exactly what I was looking for. I bought a long-sleeve top, THE sarong, and a scarf to match. Later, when I did the math, I realized the shop keeper gave me a B 100 discount without my haggling.
The recommended dinner was good, vegetarian, varied, and B 110, around $3.50. And I got to watch a Bollywood film around a miliary takeover of a small village with high drama and all of the restaurant workers ta-boot. Quite the deal!
Meandering through a sweet-scented flower market, I picked out two heliconia plants (almost as tall as I am) and a couple of arrangements typically used for religious purposes. Total: $4. Proud of my purchases, I made it to the water taxi and when I encountered a blocked entrance, my guidebook research revealed I'd missed all of the water taxi's back. Damn.
Marching back through Chinatown (ALL of Chinatown), I had plenty of time to review my large and strangely-sized purchases, concluding every time to continue to carry that crap home. It was a long walk, flip-flops and sweating bullets as I dodged tuk-tuks, cabs, buses, Japanese tourists taking pictures, and elderly Chinese folks falling asleep as they manned their night market booths.
I was stopped by two Thai gentlemen just past the gate to Chinatown, asking what I'd paid for the flowers. I told them, practicing my poor Thai to their very good English. Apparently I got the good kind of deal only one who goes to that specific flower market gets. The satisfaction of knowing that helped me lug those huge flower arrangements all of the way back to the apartment. Totally worth it.
Work tonight was totally uncalled for - I had the night/day off, but since having my computer stolen I've missed so much, I didn't mind showing up, endevouring to help out other designers with issues.
So far that has been my 2013 experience: getting plenty of work/sleep/food/shopping and chilling the heck out. Not too shabby, as Meredith would say.