Bangkok, Thailand March 2012 (Part 2)

The second night  (Tuesday) after I got done I looked in a jewelry store that they had in the hotel. They had beautiful pieces of corundum, but much more than I could afford.  After that I went back to the room and when my co-worker was ready we walked around down by our hotel and looked in lots of different shops. We looked in silk shops where they make clothes. Nice, but more than I can afford right now. We also looked in a variety of jewelry shops.  They had all sorts of bead jewelry and strands of gemstone beads. It made me wish I had my tools so I could make up something new, but they are packed away back home. There were all sort of street vendors selling faux watches and other expensive looking apparel. They also had lots of food vendors but I was a little leery about trying it and worried about getting food poisoning. My co-worked did buy a huge quantity of plain cashew nuts as her Mom asked her to bring some back. I wasn't sure as to the reasoning since they can easily be obtained in Malaysia. I am sure they taste the same and even though they are cheap in Bangkok I am sure it is not any less than Malaysia. Eventually it was getting to be about 8:30p.m. and shops were closing. We turned ended up at this huge department store and wandered around it. We saw a McDonald's outside there but since we can get that in Malaysia we decided to pass. After that we walked back to the hotel and went to Angelini's again for dinner. Another great dinner.

The third night (Wednesday) my co-worker had to attend a meeting for the Teacher Reps. I decided that I wanted to go to this Wat Mahathat temple where they teach Vipassana meditation as I thought that would be something interesting to learn, but I knew my colleague did not want to go. On my way down to the concierge desk I ran into my Director of Studies who was getting a map because he wanted to go for a walk before dinner. He had arrived earlier that day. I told him that our colleague was at a meeting but I wasn't sure how long it would take. We decided to go for a walk down the street while we waited. We walked in the direction of the department store and kept going. I saw this woman selling her wares on the street like many others and she was nursing and not being discreet about it. It made me think of all the hubbub about breast feeding in public in America where the women are discreet and how they want them to do it in the bathrooms (which are sometimes disgusting). Anyway we stumbled across another temple. The first part of it was several new buildings but at the back was the original one that was very old and they had built a roof over it to protect it some.

Really old temple with roof over to protect

Behind that we walked to the edge of the river. There was a group of people standing by the railing feeding the fish. I had never seen so many fish so tightly packed together fighting for food. There was also lots of trash. On the way back we noticed a building that had been abandoned and never completed being built. It reminded me of the movie Ghost Busters. I love that movie.  After we got back I send a text to my co-worker forgetting that we had new sim cards and that she did not get my message. After sitting downstairs for a bit I finally went up to see where she was. We then all met up downstairs at this tapas restaurant on the deck next to the Next2 restaurant where we had been eating breakfast and lunch as it was included with the conference. The Director of Studies and my co-worker have dietary restrictions related to their religion, so I let them chose the place. After checking out the tapas place we went in and looked at the buffet at Next2 which suited their needs. I went along and had the buffet. When we go the bill though I was really shocked at the price. It was much more expensive than I realized and I was paying for it on my own. It was my fault I did not ask for the price beforehand as I could have ordered off the A`la Carte menu instead. After that we called it a day. The next day was the beginning of the conference and we had to be ready even earlier than the pre-conference.