Archive for the ‘trip to Thailand’ Category

Night Market


2009
12.30

 

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 The Second day, we went on our own to the night market that we saw on our way back to AIT. Its just about 15 min journey on bus. Visiting a new place, of course we want to try something different and not just do some window shopping. Upon arriving all the food, food and food jumped into our sights.

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Again we walked around hunting for food that looks delicious, amazed at their variety of food. But not all are drooling, though. Some are just weird. :p Saw a little squirrel trapped in a cage. Is it going to be one of the food as well?

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Khanom Buang – just found the name from internet. This is crispy yet soft, sweet and mouth lingering~ Another famous Thai snacks.

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Thais love pork! Pork is just everywhere. And they eat all parts of pork.

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The bamboo rice, very good too. Found weird looking corns, didn’t smell nice so didn’t try it. :p

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Japanese food is everywhere, too. So sushi is of course another snack to be found.

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This one is really weird for me~~ They just mix everything and eat with some sauces. Ok I’ll never like this!

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The famour som tam, made of green papaya mixing various sauces and ingredients. Looks so sour to me.

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And some other stalls selling clothes, kichen utensils etc.

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This is a good one. Never saw this at other markets or eating place. We were attracted by the colours and tried to ask in sign language whether its edible or not. The cute lady just offered us some to try on our own! Its our candy floss/cotton candy (棉花糖) but in form of hair line. You can just place some of any colour you like on the popiah skin, wrap it anyhow you like, and there you go~ Its sweet, but with the popiah skin you don’t get cloyed that soon. :)    Did try to bring back, but its spoilt already by the time we reach Msia.

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Future Park


2009
12.28

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The first day after the programme ended the postgrad student brought us to the shopping mall nearby AIT — Future Park. We can’t really communicate as their English is also ‘Sendirian Berhad’. :p

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AlvinJani ^^

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First we explored the food in Future Park, the first item attracted us is this colourful fruit candies. I did come across this Thai dessert while I did research on Thailand. :p We bought a box to try it out, share among the few of us. Very good indeed, not too sweet and chewable. :D   Too bad I can’t bring them back! Anyone can buy some for me if you go? :p

This is called Luk Chup, Luk or Look means small objects and Chup or Choop means a type of coating. Look Choop was a Thai dessert that originated in the royal palaces of ancient Siam. It is said that the royal family members ate this candy which was shaped like small fruits and vegetables.

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Everyone bought different food, there’s just too many to be tried!

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Didn’t try all, of course. There are too many. I tried till forgetting how did they taste like. :p  The peddlers were laughing at us, and we had funny time trying to communicate with them, they hardly speak any English!

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Beautiful jellies!

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Other than food, basically we don’t find much thing to buy in Future Park. Its just like any other shopping mall back in Msia. We found that there are quite a number of gold stores in the mall, and all are of Big store.  It is heard that most gold stores are mostly controled by Thai-Chinese. Chinese are global businessmen, huh.

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A man doing handcraft. I saw cute piggy. :p

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We went out of the shopping complex to try more food. Street food is a must to try in Thailand. :) Not knowing what we are eating, we just try out whatever that looks nice. :)

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Food


2009
12.28

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Food that can be found in the campus… Most of the time we eat in the cafeteria, also not much of the choices. The roasted chicken stall outside of cafeteria wasn’t a pleasant taste.

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Food we’ve tried there… Pork noodle which is just average, fried ‘dong fen’, fried rice, toasted bread, pork steak, pad thai (fried ‘ho fan’ but the noodleis much harder) etc. Food price are more or less like Msia’s. Not cheap also eh~

The students learnt a lot from the talks given by various speakers. I did attend the first talk by Prof. Honda (obviously he’s a Japanese :) ). Can you spot me? :p

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Foot Massage


2009
12.25

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As our flight delayed for almost 3 hours, we went to try out the Thai’s famous foot massage. Didn’t have chance while still in Bangkok, and thus tried out this one in airport with double the charge compare to town area.

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The few students also having their foot massage. I was shocked to see a guy coming to serve me. All the others are ladies, where on earth did this guy came out? Quite uneasy but he’s very professional though.  The students commented they don’t feel much (pain) so I think the guy’s got more strength. :p

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 They use wooden stick in massage of the acupuncture point. Not much pain, means I’m healthy? :p

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Upon finishing both my legs became pink elephant legs. I think this is the best service I’ve got in Thailand. :)   Am very not used to have a stranger serving me.  Yes, its a humble job, where you put down your pride.  

Suddenly I thought of the washing of feet. I was unprepared and embarrassed when the massagist wanted to wash my feet, and so were the disciples. It was a different feeling and experience comparing to the washing of feet during the last supper. Those who wash the feet of others were humble, and I know, that I’ve not been serving as the Lord do.

Blessed Christmas to you, for our humble Lord, who serves with love, is born today.

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Shopping Fever


2009
12.22

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Walked till cramp in Thailand. The most worthy one would be Alvin’s coat, bought at 200 bahts (~RM20+), of which its quite a famous brand when he search in internet, costing 5000+ yen in Japan. It might be a second hand one (for we can’t read and can’t communicate) but its just too cheap. :)

Not all stuffs are cheap, and you need to be lucky to come across them. Some students get to find RM1 tie, which is extremely cheap! We bought some though, but at much higher price. In Bangkok you need to learn to bargain to get better price. Sometimes price can differ up to 100%. But the thing is, we always have limited time for shopping. :p

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Roses bought from Bobae Tower. This is about RM7+. Nice? :)

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Back Home


2009
12.21

We’re back, just reach home 12sth last night. Had a real long day… We departed for airport at 7.30am (Msia time) and reached airport in time, but only to find out the flight was being delayed from 10.25am to 1.00pm.

The flight made me having serious headache + nausea, and the plane had to wander about in air for about 30 minutes as there’s other planes that were also landing. :(  Upon landing it started to rain. Its lucky for us as after we got into the terminal it rained cats and dogs. But unfortunately, one of our luggage got all wet. Now I have tonnes of clothes waiting to be washed!

Its really good to be back again. We had a rest at sis place and took nice dinner, then took another 4 hours driving back to JB. AJ is indeed happy to see us again, but I think she’s getting used to our missing in action. :p Two of our fish died, leaving bones only. =.=  And the 3 hamsters are growing fat!

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From Pathum Thani


2009
12.17

I’m writing this from Pathum Thani, a town in the north of Bangkok. Following Alvin for an outreach programme of his course, bringing along 21 students for a 5 days programme. He’s leading the group together with his colleague, who also brought along her husband.

Checking in took quite a long time as most students are holding group passport.  The flight wasn’t a pleasant one, the noise of the plane made us raising our voice to let others hear us. We were in the same flight with a group of China Chinese. They were making noise in the plane and moving along aisle pretty much, waking me up everytime as I’m sitting beside the aisle. We heard someone spitting even. :(

Arrived in Bangkok International Airport at around 11.45pm. I was surprised to see buses awaiting us outside the air plane. Everyone was ‘packed’ into two air asia buses which is basically empty,  almost everyone were standing.  We thought it would only take 2 or 3 minutes to reach, but in fact it took about 15 min I think. What a long distance!  I’d prefer LCCT back in Msia that we have independant terminal rather than taking bus trip every flight.
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First thing striking us was their giant statues in the airport. That’s demons.

Again the immigration clearance took almost an hour to be done. After they were finally out and collect their luggage, its already an hour behind schedule. Alvin and his colleague stopped to buy prepaid card here as foretold by person in charge, and its really cheap! One can just call back M’sia at 1 baht per min (RM0.10+).

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We were worried that our two drivers should be losing patience. But in fact they were very polite and even helped us to bring the luggage trolley. The drivers put up the back row seats and packed all our luggages at the back of one of the van. It amazed us as we watched them stacking up the luggages without falling any of them.  Students sitting at the back had an adventurous time guarding the bags not to fall on them! :p
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This is other van that is just opposite ours. Seems to be very comfortable with the leather wrapping. :p  Would it charge higher price?

First impression of Thailand’s road was clean and smooth, the highways are all four lanes!  Flyovers are everywhere.  It took us another 1 hour plus to reach AIT (Asian Institute of Technology), passing 2 tols, with each tol paying 30 bahts (about RM3+), which we thought its cheap cheap as its a long journey up.  Too bad our driver couldn’t speak English thus we couldn’t know more.

The trip costed us 1500 baht (RM150+) per van, which is quite cheap, as its a more than one hour journey. Each of us just need to pay like RM12+. After this few days we get to know that the public transport here are pretty cheap compare to Msia.

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We were given briefing by the post grad students in AIT upon arrival at around 1.30 am. They showed us the 108 shop which is similar with our 7-11 shop. We grabbed something to eat as its been a long night. But didn’t really like the weird taste of the sandwiches though. The swiss roll is just way too sweet for me. After a long night we finally can go to bed at 3 sth, which is 2 sth in Thailand’s time.

more coming up next…

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