Bangkok Pt 3 - temples galore

Bangkok is all about Buddha temples. This is an outdoor posting of picture after picture on how we spent a full day out on the hot streets of Bangkok, mainly visiting as many temples as we could.

Beginning with Khao San road, a short but very touristy street packed with pubs, clothing and bag shops, massage and tattoo parlours, all aimed at drawing in the Western backpackers. 

Strings of Thailand flag lining up the streets..

Prices are slightly marked up here, looking at the type of crowd that shops here.

Still, i managed to buy a The North Face backpack here for only RM 70. Not to mention, tried the KFC here for lunch. ^^

Just like you can find a Chinatown in every corner of the world, you can find one too in Bangkok. Unfortunately for us, due to the Songkran, it was a dead quiet street. Hence, no cheap sharks fin soup for us for now.

So, wat now?
we went on with our temple (wat) sight-seeing. To my amazement, i never knew Bangkok is home to some of the most beautiful temples i've ever seen.

a little refreshment stall at the Golden Mount (Wat Saket)

Hot hot day indeed...

Mark found his zodiac bruder!

While my horsey looked more like a donkey.

 This one's for baby Darren...hop hop hippity hop.

 

An usual cemetery is found at the base of the Golden Mount, known to be a dumping ground for some 60,000 plague victims in the 18th century.
Climbing up about 300 steps, you find a wall of bells and the beautiful enchanting sounds of chime haunting the hills.

Gongs of all sizes ...from small,

to medium...

..and HUGE!

beautiful bright lotus flower..

Caught a glimpse of the Grand Palace - didn't pay to go in though as we were in kind of a rush.

This exquisite roundabout just around the corner of the Palace looks amazingly surreal on photo!

How cool does the Ministry of Defence look?

Entrance of Wat Pho holds the 46-m reclining Buddha; did not go into this one too as it was less than 2 hours before its closing hours.

Making our way by boat across the river to Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn). Caught a monk with a few 'mini' monks on our boat.

Turns out Wat Arun is more captivating than i had expected.

Seriously, if we had more time, i would have loved to scale the magnificent steps of this temple!

Our final stop for the night was Soi Cowboy (near Sukhumvit road), the red-light district of Bangkok.

Find plenty of go-go bars here with group of girls (and girls wanna-be) clad in the sexiest of outfits luring customers into their bar.

We made our way here quite early (around 9pm), so the atmosphere isn't as wild as it would be. As blinding as the flashing neon lights were, it was pretty tempting to pop into one of the many curtained entrances just to satisfy my curiosity.

Too bad, not everyone of the traveling gang were keen like me. Guess i'll just have to take a rain check this time. Besides, better to be more suitably dressed next time, rather than in sweaty t shirt and shorts. lol.

Can't help it la - Bangkok gets super duper hot in April.

So hot that i can visualize Mark holding up a bottle of Heineken.

rip aunty doris

my beloved ah~yee Doris passed away quite suddenly last night, after her battle with cancer...
it is indeed a deeply saddening news for us, especially since she was so looking forward to her 38th wedding anniversary dinner in Sept, where she had pledged to donate all ang-pows received that night, to the cancer society. she was such a giving socialite, my aunty Doris.

though we don't get the chance to meet often (since CNY this year), she's always been a favourite aunt, bubbliest ever with a glowing smile and laughter that's so infectious, it lights up the entire room. she was my tea chaperon (dai kam jie) during my wedding tea ceremony in Mcca. 

she's one to help anyone  in any way she can, always a giver, a great daughter, mother, sister, aunty and friend. 

mostly, her greatest achievement in life - bringing up a beautiful family of my 3 cousins Alicia, Jo and Cathleen.

thanks for everything, ah~yee.
you may now rest in peace.

buffet at taman sari brasserie

My department recently had our annual dinner at Taman Sari Brasserie, Istana Hotel. Each of us were given a budget of RM 50 (nia!) but we still managed to enjoy a buffet dinner at a 5-star hotel, thanks to Groupon! ^^ 

We were there right when it opened at 6.30pm sharp, hence there wasn't a bustling crowd in sight yet.

While their steamed mussels and prawn were delightfully fresh and sweet, it was kinda depressing i didn't get to eat any raw oysters that night. Not to mention, the only sashimi they served were those smoked ones and even those were extremely salty for any sane diner.

 They do have a little seafood BBQ corner by the poolside where we got to choose what we wanted for the chef to grill on the BBQ pit.

Gaik Bee was my trusty BBQ pardner.

 Wanna check out what i ate....? Here's a look for when my plate was a full one.

Variety wasn't much, and it was mostly Asian cuisine.

little glass contained salmon mousse which tasted like pink whipped cream

Doesn't my BBQ platter looks mouth-watering? You got that right, it's got just the 'look' part right.
Fish was so called ikan merah but turned out to be really rubbery!
Of all the rich seafood i selected, only the two la la were the sweetest and tastiest.
Could improve on its sauces too, which were all watery and bland.

I went Indian as well...

Desserts were my favourite part of the dinner. Their chocolate mousse and i were a match made in heaven! Creme brulee was just plain sweet.

 Then came our favourite time of the night where we did the thing we do best...posing for the camera.

This is one wacky and health- business-conscious pack of medical underwriters! Minus the boss who went off early and the camera-shy camerawoman.

Our 2 new SYTs, Charmagne and Vivian who just joined us about 2+ months ago. Glad to have the gals onboard!

The girls are seen attacking Danny. Guess they have had enough of him as he always seems to butt in into every single picture. hehe.

Don't ask why this awkward pose, but Moon here seems to be real happy about it.

Something else caught my eye at the dinner table - while AXA's tagline is 'Redefining Standards', this hotel is looking into 'Redefining Refinement'. Hmm, as profound as that sounds, i certainly hope they don't forget to revamp their food standards, especially when they're charging RM 90++ for a buffet ticket.

Just my two cents' worth. *_*