A Brand New Year from Over the Sea

it was meant to be a post wedding bachelor's party and new year's celebration for DL... joined in by my cuz, TA from nz... plans changed... TA went mia, busy cleaning up his messy personal life... DL brought his new wife along... and it became a family sort of vacation... just the two best friends and the wives...

friday, dec 28 2012

klia
suvarnabhumi airport
phaya thai
the residence rajtaevee hotel
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platinum mall
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central
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although our flight was 12-ish in the noon, we woke up early to avoid the traffic... checking in couple of days before, we had until 11-ish to check in our luggage... it was just as well, we got stuck in a long queue of traffic en route to klia... accident at the elite highway, or something like that... i couldnt remember... by the time we got ourselves at the airport, it was 2 hours later... having fun checking out the limited duty free stores in klia, he went gaga-ing over the limited edition booze available for sale...

it still put a smile on my face, with him enjoying himself so much... what more, his first flight out of the country... and his first step in klia... plane gawking... checking out the platform connecting trains... =) there will be more to come...

touching down in bangkok, it was a totally different scene... weather was dry and hot... suvarnabhumi airport was super crowded... clearing immigration took longer than expected... but oh well, we were on vacation... so what's hurry???

forgoing the cab this time around, i took us into town with their new express airport rail... cheaper, faster and nice elevated view from the coach... oh, did i mention clean??? that was what i love about their culture... everywhere i go in thailand (non-tourist area) is always clean...

while waiting for DL and ES, we took a walk and started our shopping... with platinum mall just around the corner, my shopping instinct kicked and went nuts... in just 2 hours, we had a whole backpack filled with plastic bags... o.O crazy stuff!!! not wanting to spend more on the first day, we headed back to the hotel to wait for our double dates... by the time DL and ES arrived, all hell broke loose... >.< the shopping, eating, drinking went bezerk... it was just so much fun!!!

saturday, dec 29 2012

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siam paragon
chatu ---
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--- chak market
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initially, all of us were super excited... we took the buggy to siam paragon... proceed to the bts station (if you must know, it's their elevated train system)... took the train to the last station for the most crowded weekend market... knowing that it's not exactly the cheapest place to shop these days, it was still a must go itinerary... especially so, when i was bringing three bkk newbies in town...

AY finally found his really expensive and good leather jacket there... i got to see and ogle over the pet section... imagine an offer bin that our malls use here where they dump a pile of clothes on sale... that offer bin, and a few puppies in it on sale in chatuchak market... when i say puppies, i dont only mean shih tzu or chihuahua or any other small breed puppies... i'm talking about rotties, goldens and big breed of great boned quality puppies...

sunday, dec 30 2012

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mbk
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big c
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what can i say... it's purely a shopping and eating trip... what better way to do that than to stay at a very strategic yet affordable hotel... =)

monday, dec 31 2012

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pratunam market
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central
new year'eve street party
hugs and kisses xoxoxo
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zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

i was geared to bargain for my purchases... but in pratunam wholesale market, i couldnt even bring myself to do that... clothes are so cheap, it's amazing!!! any further bargains actually made me feel like i was cheating the vendors off their bread and butter...

after half a day of shopping and sweating ourselves silly, all of us decided to get a nap back at the hotel before heading out for the countdown... really, if you think kl has thirst and street parties... you definitely have not seen the parties here... the thais really go all out in their events and celebrations... the big area in front of central was turned into mobile bars... mind you, it was not just one bar, but 4 mobile bars!!! each bar, with its own sponsor, was as big as zouk mainhall and came with different themes, song choices... that was just the mobile bars... the main street in front of the bars was closed for a street party with a concert of its own... it was just plain crazy!!!

tuesday, jan 1 2013

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hugs and byes
mbk
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suvarnabhumi airport
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klia

coming from different locations, DL and ES had to leave earlier to catch their air asia flight directly after breakfast... we on the other hand, had more hours to kill... our mas flight was at night... and that left us with more shopping time in mbk...

although we timed ourselves for extra hours at the airport... we totally lost touch of time shopping and eating at the duty free shops... wrongly estimated the distance from the shops and the boarding gate, we ended up running 20 minutes from the shops to our gate, reaching just in time for a pee break before being called to board the plane...