My Busy Three-Day Weekend

Sunday, 12 December 2004

Yesterday, I went to the market in the morning to get baby gifts as we were going to visit P'Mem, one of our teachers who just had a baby girl a few weeks ago. Matt came to pick us all up, and 6 of us headed on a half hour drive to P'Mem's family's house. The baby was sleeping when we got there, but she was very cute. After we visited and oohed and ahhed at her, we ate lunch that her family prepared for us. Then we headed back into town. I caught the bus back with Jill into Bangkok to stay overnight and spend time visiting the big city.

After our 1 1/2 to 2 hour bus treks, we got to her apartment by 4:30 pm, when she had to tutor one of her students. After that, we headed to MBK, one of a few huge shopping centers at Siam Square. We ate dinner up at the food court, and saw the movie "Ocean's Twelve". I liked it, and now I'll need to buy the soundtrack because I loved the music. We walked down Silom Road afterwards, a popular road full of street vendors selling Thai products and souvenirs for tourists. I fell in love with all the paper and wooden lamps and lights on a string. I ended up buying two lamps for myself, and didn't get any cd's that were on my list!

On Sunday, we woke up early to get ready for a special Christmas church service at a church she just started going to (and the entire service is in English!). Because this service is catered to foreigners and they expected about 800 people to attend, they held the service at a hotel banquet room rather than the church. So, we caught a taxi (20 baht each - 50 cents) to the MRT station and caught the new MRT underground subway (I think about 20 - 30 baht) to the Swiss Hotel. When we got there, there were hundreds of people dressed up and we enjoyed cheesecake, cookies, and hot dog croissants before they hurried us into the ballroom.

The service was one of the most beautiful Christmas services I've been to! It was so well organized, with video screens and a power point of all the Christmas lyrics. The service opened with a handbell choir playing some popular Christmas tunes, then a youth choir sang, and some little toddlers and schoolchildren (about 60 of them) sang and signed a couple of songs. Interspersed in the program were little video snippets of interviews with people on the streets of Bangkok, as they asked them questions like, "What does Christmas mean to you?". It was very entertaining. I even noticed friends of Christy's there, whom we had karaoked with back in August, and realized that this is the church they go to.

We ran into Lindsay, a friend of Jill's who is a fellow Christian Volunteer Teacher living in Bangkok this year. Then we met another one of Jill's current coworkers from Bangkok Christian College. She offered to take all of us back into town (which saved us subway and busfare!) to Central Chitlom. Central is a huge shopping plaza. She and her husband and son took us to a fancy food court on the sixth floor. It was way more expensive compared to my street vendor prices around Nakhon Pathom, but probably more comparable to Seattle prices for the Italian, Japanese, Vietnamese, or Thai food options we had. But, I didn't have any American food at all this weekend, if it was accessible since I was here in Bangkok. I had Vietnamese pho soup, and Jill's friend ended up treating all of us for lunch, which was her "welcome to Thailand" lunch for us. It was very generous of them.

Jill had to head back to her apartment to tutor again, and so I headed to MBK shopping center with Lindsay. We talked about her school, how her time has been living and teaching in Bangkok, Minnesota and dairy farms (she's from Minnesota), and she showed me the funny (yet odd) mannequins on the street corner, dressed in red dresses adorned with reindeer antlers on their heads. Go figure! She went to MBK to do email, since her school doesn't have internet access, and we exchanged phone numbers so perhaps when I come into town again, we can tour around Bangkok together. I wasn't sure what I was going to do while I waited for Jill to finish tutoring and decided to check the movie times. "The Incredibles" was going to start in 5 minutes, so I bought my 120 baht ticket ($3.00), chose my seat (you get to choose your seat from a screen of available seats), and bought popcorn (35 baht for a small - less than $1) to enjoy. Watching a movie here is an experience, as not only are all the movie previews in Thai, but you have to stand for the King's national anthem. There is a montage of Thai scenery and the King in action as the music plays, and then you sit down, watch a few more commercials and previews, and then the actual movie starts.

After the movie, Jill met me with my bag, we ate Thai food upstairs at the food court (and shared some yummy sticky rice with coconut milk drizzled all over it and slices of yellow mango), and then she sent me off to catch the BTS subway (20 baht - 50 cents) to Victory Monument. Then I caught another bus (5 baht - 12 cents) to the Southern Bus Terminal, and then ran to my bus which was waiting to leave (34 baht - less than $1.00) back to Nakhon Pathom. I got home within two hours, and was proud that I am learning the transportation systems in Bangkok. Now, I'll have to go back again and buy more lamps! Not bad though, I only spent about 1,000 baht (about $25) in Bangkok, including my travel to and from and within Bangkok, food, two movies, and my lamps.