Thailand Part 1: #lizaandlellelbangskoks

Hi.

[Because of how incredibly long and detailed my posts are turning out, I will be splitting my Thailand posts into four parts!]

DAY 1:

After a fairly short plane ride (and months of planning and saving up), we finally made it. We're finally in Thailand, the land of smiles! Our first stop, Bangkok.

We took a taxi to our hostel, and during the whole ride, we could only talk about how we still could not believe that we are actually on this trip. It was our first time travelling overseas (that is not The Philippines) by ourselves, and everything was just so exciting!

We finally reached our hostel, and it was barely like what it looked like on their website. We made reservations to stay in a 12-bed dorm, but the room was tiny! It felt like a 20-bed dorm, there was barely any space to put our things, and the bathrooms felt dingy. We didn't worry too much though, because that only made us feel like we should go out and explore the city more. So we settled in and got ready to conquer our first day in Bangkok!

We were running on zero hours of sleep, so we decided to take it slow on our first day. It only takes 25 minutes and 8 baht to get to CentralWorld by bus, so we decided to forgo convenient taxis and take public transport instead. There weren't any sign of riots or unruliness despite how the media made it sound, and if you hadn't known about it from the news, you wouldn't have suspected that there was any mess at all.

After our fairly enjoyable bus ride, we finally arrived at one of my all-time favourite malls! CentralWorld! I know it's ridiculous to crave to go to a mall when you're in a beautiful city like Bangkok, but I just love love love this mall so much. It's so clean and modern and organized and it has practically everything you could ever wish for in a mall. We went to grab a drink at Starbucks to wake ourselves up, got a data simcard for our iPhones, and headed up to the foodcourt to grab lunch. 

The foodcourt is one of my favourite things about this mall. Everything is fairly cheap, they have couches, and it has the best Phad Thai I've ever had! After eating, we went to watch 12 Years A Slave (cinemes in Bangkok are just truly amazing, okay!), which we ended up falling asleep in because the film felt too slow and we were both extremely exhausted. We then decided to go back to our hostel to wash up get some proper rest for our next big day.

DAY 2:

We got up a lot later than we had intended and ended up taking the bus down to CentralWorld again to have lunch. As we were both completely starving, we had a massive feast at the foodcourt with french fries, fried shrimp balls, tom yum soup, and our own dishes with rice. After recovering from the food coma, we decided to walk down to Platinum Mall and shop, so at least we could say we had a bit of exercise.

We walked through the entirety of the mall and barely got anything for ourselves. I only got myself a swimsuit for Krabi, two bib necklaces, and a dumb flower crown Lellel made me buy so she can get a discount. Also, she got called a "cheebye" by one of the aunties for bargaining something down to half its price. It was hilarious. After a fruitless but draining shopping trip, we got drinks at Starbucks to energize ourselves before taking a tuktuk down to Healthland Spa.

The massage was incredibly entertaining. We booked a 2-hour Thai Massage, and Lellel kept laughing cause she was ticklish, which then made me laugh. The masseurs just laughed at us as they cracked our joints. I started feeling painfully ill by the time we got back to the hostel and wasn't able to finish my dinner, so I just completely crashed when I got back to bed.

DAY 3:

We set out to head to Siam Paragon for lunch, then walked all along the shopping streets down to MBK with the hopes of buying things, but we were fruitless, except for this amazingly obnoxious cat sweater that I totally fell in love with. After walking around for hours, we decided to head down to Asiatique and hopefully catch a beautiful sunset from there.

We took a boat ride down to Asiatique right as it was getting to the golden hour, and it was quite a scene. However, we felt a bit disappointed when we got to Asiatique cause there really wasn't much to do. The shops were mostly closed and things were overpriced, and it could just be that we went to the place too early, but we just weren't that impressed.

So we just chilled for a bit while we waited to meet up with our friend from secondary school, Kiwi. She happened to be in Bangkok so she hit us up to meet up for dinner, which we gladly agreed to. We took a cab down to Khao San Road where she led us to a pretty hidden restaurant, where she apparently brings chicks she wants to impress. Well, it surely worked on us!

After chatting over the dinner, we took a cab down to Pat Pong to see a Ping Pong show! The show where ladies blow ping pong balls and darts out of their vaginas? Yes, that one. I have to say, the experience was way more depressing than it was entertaining. Don't get me wrong, their -capabilities- were impressive and I was truly in awe, but it was just sad to watch, so we left after watching a full routine. Somehow, we ended up going down to Kiwi's place to just chat and stay the night.

DAY 4:

After washing up, Kiwi led us down to a vegetarian cafe for breakfast. We then said our goodbyes, and Lellel and I made our way back to the hostel to pack up and get ready to fly to our next city, Chiang Mai!

Bangkok - Chiang Mai - Krabi p.1 - Krabi p.2

Lack of Possibilities in Singapore

Hi.

It has been almost two weeks since I got back from my 15-day trip around Thailand, and until now, I am not completely over the whole thing. There is just so much I love about traveling, and even with Thailand itself, that I just can't help but wish that I wasn't stuck in Singapore for an extended amount of time.

I think that the thing that upsets me so much about being back in Singapore is the lack of possibilities.

Back in Thailand, especially in Krabi, you could get on public transport and there's a high chance you could end up having a lovely conversation with someone during your ride. How often did I step up to talk to people? Not often, but it makes me so happy knowing it's an actual possibility.

During one of our rides, this lady beside us was snacking on watermelon seeds, and out of nowhere, she offered me some. I didn't have any, but man, did that make me happy. If someone in Singapore did that, number one, they would be fined a ridiculous amount because you can't eat on public transport, and number two, it would be extremely weird and unwelcomed.

The devil's advocate may say something like, "there's always a possibility! You just have to step up and talk to people!". Yes, yes I can, but it will be incredibly unwelcomed for the most part. I might end up being called crazy on someone's Twitter or, even worse, STOMPed. It just isn't the norm for Singaporeans, and I don't like how that is an issue. Of course not every Singaporean is like that, but it is a great majority. It just doesn't feel as easy to approach someone here in Singapore as it would anywhere else, as far as I've experienced. 

The main path for people here in Singapore is to go to polytechnic, or even better, a good junior college, followed by going to a good university, preferably local but a reputable overseas one could work too I guess, then going straight to work to provide for your parents and future offspring, preferably in business, engineering, or basically anything that is not the arts, then living like that until you can afford to retire. Of course that whole ordeal is slightly exaggerated, but from what I've seen, if you're not following that path, there is not a lot of space in Singapore for you to grow, and if you are able to follow that path, there isn't much space in your life for anything else.

My points may be slightly exaggerated or be seen as a stereotype, but it wouldn't be seen as a stereotype if it wasn't as big enough of an issue, right? I think anyone who has lived in Singapore for long enough would understand where I'm coming from.

Now I do not, by any means, hate Singapore. I am a Singaporean and I love Singapore, but for completely different reasons than, say, how I love the Philippines or Thailand. Singapore has amazing modern architecture, amazing public transport system, it has one of the top education systems in the world, it's orderly and is safe enough where I can walk home alone at 3am and feel completely safe. But beyond that, Singapore just isn't for me in the long-term, and that is just me.

I hope you all find the place where you should be, or at least the place where you want to be. Currently for me, it's on Bamboo Island, just constantly screaming about how amazing the water is. (And yes, a post about my trip, including photos, will be coming very soon!)

Goodnight.