September Update

As I spent most of the latter part of August traveling around Hong Kong, September became the month where we traveled outside of Hong Kong.

-- Taipei ---

September 13 - Flew in to Taipei International Airport and stayed with Paige's family in Tien Mu. We got to spend time with Paige, Henry, Haley, Paige's brother and his girlfriend all at the great hospitality of Paige's parents.

September 14 - Visited Taipei 101's Observation deck in the morning followed by a visit and lunch at Taipei American School (TAS) to reminisce the good old days with old friends. Grace Chen, Helen Chen, and Lilian Yu were all able to make it as well for a little mini-reunion for class of 95.

September 15 - Visited the Palace Museum with Paige and Henry. We spent a good 4-5 hours day and had tea and dim sum at the tea house on the 4th floor.

September 16 - Flew out of Taipei and back home to Hong Kong.

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--- Bintan, Indonesia and Singapore ---

September 18 - We flew into Singapore, followed by a 1-hour ferry ride to Bintan to settle into the Bintan Lagoon Resort. We were welcomed in by Indonesian dancers and enjoyed a nice Surf and Turf buffet dinner at the Nelayan Grill.

September 19 - Woke up to a cloudy day followed quickly by a short thunderstorm. As soon as the rain stopped, we headed to the beach to book our first snorkeling trip. We went to a coral reef bay about a 10-minute boat ride from the hotel and had a great time exploring the waters with lots of fish, sea anemone, and corals. We wrapped up the day each with a giant cheeseburger and fries at Verandah by the Leisure Center. Boy, did the burgers hit the spot after the snorkeling and salt water.

September 20 - We decided to explore the shopping area and headed over to Pasar Oleh Oleh. It's not much of a shopping area but we got to sign up for some massage session and try some Indonesian food outside of the resort. Two one-hour massages and lunch for less than US$50... not too bad :-) We wrapped up the day with the Mangrove Discovery tour which took us through the mangrove rivers to discover several different species of mangroves, snakes, birds, and a local family fishing.

September 21 - Beautiful sunny day in Bintan. We decided to book another snorkeling trip for the afternoon and headed off to the driving range since Bintan Lagoon is known for its golf course. We then snorkeled again and repeated our burger and fries ritual :-).

September 22 - Headed in to Singapore and met with Alice for lunch and walked through Suntec City Mall before my meetings. We didn't have much time left but got to stop by the Singapore Concert Hall and check out the F1 set up on the streets before heading back to Bintan.

September 23 - Headed back in to Singapore for the airport and back to Hong Kong.

--- Bangkok, a city of excess ---

September 24 - Headed out to Bangkok after just a little bit more than 12 hours in Hong Kong. We walked around the area by our hotel, Anantara Baan Rajprasong, before Larry, our friend from Hong Kong, joined us. I took advantage of some street vendor food and tried the broccoli pie and the sweet corn pie from McDonald's. We also got to see Thai prayer dancers at the Thao Maha Brahma Shrine. One can pay for 4 to 8 singer/dancers to sing and dance to prayers while one prays. After Larry landed, we headed out for dinner. We walked over to Siam passing by shopping malls and night markets. And then had dinner back at You & Mee at the Erawan Grand Hyatt to wrap up the night.

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September 25 - We took the MRT train to the Tha Sathon (Central Pier) to catch a boat to Tha Chang by the Grand Palace. The boat ride was only 20 Bhat and you can pay on the boat and go to any stop. We tried a few local drinks that were served out of big tubs and headed out for a little tour of town on a tuk tuk.

The tuk tuk took us to Wat Traimit (Temple of the Golden Buddha) which is known to be dated back to the 13th century and the Buddha himself is over 900 years old. The Buddha is made of pure gold and is the largest pure gold Buddha statue in the world.

We then toured around town passing by the Democracy Monument, Chitlada Palace grounds, and stopping at a jewelry shop and a tailor shop, before heading back for lunch and onto the Grand Palace, Wat Phra Kaew (the Temple of the Emerald Buddha) and Wat Pho (the Temple of the Reclining Buddha).

The Grand Palace is in one-word, WOW. Every palace was ornately and intricately adorned with gold. As you walked through the grand palace grounds, we were initially wowed by all the gold and exquisite architecture, but were soon overloaded with the extensive number of palaces that spread the ground. It definitely provided quite a sensory overload.

Wat Phra Kaew was very grand as it was the place of worship for the royal family. Despite the temple's grandness, it housed a rather small (in comparison) and unassuming Buddha all encraved out of a single piece of jade (hence named the Emerald Buddha).

We then walked over to Wat Pho to see our largest Buddha of the day, the reclining buddha. It's 46 meters long and all covered in gold leaflets. Its feet were covered in Buddhist chants, and the side of the temple were lined with a row of buckets for donations. We wrapped up the afternoon by hopping into a cab just as the rain shower started coming down.

In the evening, we hit up Patpon for some "interesting" evening entertainment. We got front-row seats to see the miracle of plastic and sex-change surgeries, and then headed to a couple of bars around Soi 4.

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September 26 - We started the day with a visit to Chatuchak market. Did I mention that Bangkok is a city of excess? Well, this weekend market had an excess of everything you can think of. There are rows and rows of covered and open markets that sold everything from clothes to fake flowers to ornaments and art. You could also find eateries that ranged from quick Thai classic dishes like papaya salads and noodles, to Western style bars and Chinese hot pots. After a few hour stroll through the market, we decided to get some Thai pampering with a Thai foot massage and Thai full body massage before we headed out for the evening. We met up with Larry's friend, Mike, for dinner at Baan Khanitha Thai Cuisine, one of the few fancy Thai restaurants in Bangkok. The food there was excellent though it was a bit on the pricier side, especially when you compare to the street foods ;-). We then walked over to grab a few drinks and walked through Soi Cowboy (a mini and more skanky version of Pat Pong).

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September 27 - We took it easy on day 4 and headed over to the Marriott's Trader Vic's for their famous buffet (thanks to Travis' recommendation). This had to have been the best buffet I have had ever, and I've been to some nice buffets... We took the Marriott's shuttle boat service from the Central pier and headed over to this resort hotel for a nice Sunday brunch. The day was beautiful and the boat ride was very relaxing. Trader Vic's welcomed us in and right away there are cocktail drinks at your service. The menu included outdoor grill stations, fresh green papaya salad station (made on order), oyster station (with oyster shooters made on order and caviar), make-your-own-bloody-mary station, mango and sticky rice station, Taiwanese oyster pancake station (made on order), cheese station, and so many more. The most impressive aspect is that there are several made-to-order stations. You could also pay an extra US$6 to have unlimited wines with your meal. After this large meal, we then headed over to Patpong to meet a few more of Mike's friends for a drink. It was amazing to see the difference between Patpong in the daytime versus at night. The Thai workers were starting to put up the scaffoldings for the evening vendors that filled up the streets. It's amazing that they put up and put down these scaffoldings every day. We wrapped up the day with another massage and ended up staying in for the evening as the rain came down again.
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September 28 - I woke up early to head out to Lumphini Park for an early morning stroll and take in the early morning site. The park was full of life at 7:30am. Lots of people jogging, walking, doing martial arts of different sorts, doing Taichi, practicing dances, biking, etc. I also bumped into a group of retired Chinese folks who get together every morning to exercise and share in a nice breakfast meal at the park. I joined them for a little bit of dessert soup and a little chit chat. I can't help admiring these people who have found such a great community of friends to share the days with in their old age. After the park, we finished packing and headed to Chinatown. The taxi dropped us off on Yaowarat Road, the main artery of Chinatown and also lined with gold stores and Chinese medicine shops. Since it was a Monday morning, we were told that it's a keep-the-street-clean Mondays now so there were very few carts or vendors out. We wondered around the alleys and stumbled on what we called "shoe alley" since the small alley had more room occupied by shoes than there was room for people to walk. As we wound through the streets, we then came across a covered larger and longer alley that I later learned was called "thieves alley". Unlike it's name, this place is actually not skeevy. I'd guess that it's probably named that since you can practically find everything in the stores here from rolls of cloth to stationery stores, to little trinkets of all sorts. Our exploration then also took us to the outskirts of Chinatown were we passed by stores selling guns and rifles, and street vendors selling porn, and lots of other used tools and things. It was definitely an interesting stroll to wrap up our travel.

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