bangkok rok

day one. admired this stunning sunset on board the plane. i shared this romantic moment with clare. how nice. except that clarence is a guy. damn.
touch down in bangkok. dinner. sleep. boring. but the fun's only beginning.

day two. overslept slightly. 45 minutes. i felt like i had wasted 45 hours. after breakfast and a quick shit, it's on to MBK.
MBK has plenty of shops, mostly selling brandless products. but i'm not complaining. the designs are fresh and unique. i ended up spending half my shopping budget there, much to the disdain of OC sir clarence. oops.
it's a shopping trip man! YOU said so. what did you expect me to do?
"retail therapy really isn't therapy until the purchases are actually made." - ben koh.

it's pretty obvious we spent the entire day shopping. check out the evening sky.

i'm standing in front of siam paragon, the spanking-new mall along bangkok's main shopping strip. it's bright and clean inside. the floors are white and glossy. the departmental store is HUGE. high-class boutiques lined the hall; versace, chanel, armani to name a few. not to be outdone, siam centre next door has its own line-up of von dutch, mark echo, nike, quiksilver and levi's.

with a puny budget of $300, it doesn't take much IQ to figure that i didn't spend a cent in these boutiques. i, for one, prefer to support the local designers.

pretty dancing fountain with lights. kinda reminded me of bugis junction. except thai kids have more common sense than to play in the fountain.

siam station's in the background. being the interchange a la city hall, it's where we took the skytrains from. with budget travel on our agenda, we tried to keep taxis out of our transport plans most of the time.

clarence was giving me his chao bin in a slightly act-cool pose. maybe more like a little kid throwing a minor tantrum on the colourful stools.

yes we were both shagged, but he, in particular, must have felt the full brunt of fatigue. after all, i was the one doing all the browsing and buying while he just stood and watched.

and since i mentioned he didn't shop much, you must be wondering what he's got in that big red bag. two words for you: pork floss. oh, and one t-shirt in that white bag.

i did find out about his sense of style though. let's just say it's kinda muted.

i couldn't resist a taking a picture of the cinema opposite siam centre. it's got these boards with the movie names. really old-school, kinda reminds me of the american theatres of the 1960s.

hold on, this is not the end of day two. if you read carefully, it's only in the evening. the night's still young. no points for guessing where we went next...