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The Land of Smiles Part 2

Saturday, July 27, 2013 |Comment(s)

Fredfredtan says...

Before I begin my post proper, I shall do a quick update! I have officially graduated from NTU! Woohoo! After 4 years of journeying to the west, staying in hall majority of the time, went on a half year exchange/internship to Shanghai, meeting the craziest people in Econs who share all my joy and sorrow in clearing our mods, having Hall mates to take popular and at times obscure electives together (and sharing those "illegal" past year papers) and of course meeting my first love. Hahha

My graduation bears and balloon, missing the sunflower bouquet that was evident in all my photos! Will do up a post just on graduation. :) And together with convocation, I have finally found a job and will be starting real soon on 1st Aug, so pretty excited about it.

And onto BKK proper now! Hahah.

Remember I told you that I want to share shopping tips with you! Hahah, here is the place that I actually end up buying A LOT with my partner in crime Jessica!

It is PRATUNAM MARKET! I know this market is definitely no stranger to anyone, and you guys would have probably been there on your trip and found items that are out of fashion or comparable price to Platinum. HOWEVER, the key thing here is the time to visit the market. From the picture, it looked like we visited the place at night. Boy, you are wrong!

WE CAME HERE AT 5AM TO GET THE BEST DEALS!

And I can reassure you that it is definitely worth waking up for the deals over here at this hour. The items are definitely trendy and you can also find similar items in Platinum, but you are paying less than half the price. Plus, shopping at this hour was way cooler (both figuratively and literally). We were fighting for good deals with other purchasers from this wholesale market! Prices differ when you get 3 pieces and above (usually) and that is why I say a good friend is very important to getting good deals too. The usual practice there is that the 3 pieces would have to be the same design in different colours. However, when we actually started shopping at 5am, the sellers were all very keen to do our business and were thus flexible on their 3 pieces and above rule. We were allow to mix pieces in their stores while some would ask for an additional small fee of 10 baht additional to each piece if we were to mix, which was still really reasonable too. But when more people enter the market at 7am, they became less willing to do our business.

Let me give you an example of a really good deal I have gotten. 100 baht each for a floral skirt with safety pants lining and a belt if I gotten 3 pieces and above. If not, it would be 150 baht each. So it works out to buy 2 get 1 free! Moreover, those same floral skirts were sold in Platinum for 180 baht without the belt. So for a budget of 900baht, I can get 9 different skirts with belts while someone else would only be able to get 5 pieces in Platinum. And at the wholesale market, practically everything was around the range of 100-150baht for everything, from tops to bottoms to one piece!

And in case you are not familiar with this market, it is actually right in front of Baiyoke Sky Hotel! After the whole shopping trip at Pratunam, we lugged back so many things, our arms hurt like mad and we were so shagged out.

We rewarded ourselves with Mac Breakfast. Actually, it was the only place that was opened for business that early, so it was a bit of a no choice. Hahha. And off we set off to Chatuchak!

Me with my new Naraya bag at the BTS platform. Getting to Chatuchak was really convenient. Just alight at Mo Chit station along the BTS line and walk a short distance over. Our adventure at Chatuchak was short-lived! We overestimated our energy level and underestimated Chatuchak. The morning shopping trip had zapped all our energy and we retreated to our hotel for a recharge at the massage place. Chatuchak was left to the third day.

We went to Terminal 21 after recharging! Terminal 21 is one of the new malls in BKK. It is built with the the concept of incorporating a different country theme on the different levels of the mall. As such, at each escalator, you will find a departure sign to the country you would be entering. Quite a neat idea, and of course a great marketing strategy as most people would be intrigue with the idea and would post up photos of the place to attract more people to come! Ingenious!

Prepare for a flood of pictures!

We were actually heading to a restaurant recommended by Alex. He told us that the restaurant serves great dimsum at really cheap price, approx 20baht for every basket! I would definitely recommend anyone heading to Terminal 21 to have your lunch there. Cheap and good!

Canton House Restaurant!

And the various dishes we ordered!

And after the delightful lunch, off to take more pictures in this beautiful mall!

And I was so excited to see this! Taokaenoi Land! :D

Items displayed on a conveyor belt! A wide selection of goodies! I left here with a lot of goodies!

After that, we were headed to an exciting location- Asiatiq! It is also a place I would recommend you to go. I really enjoy Asiatiq and you would too! Simply take the BTS to Saphan Taksin station. Upon exit, keep to the left and follow the sign to queue for a free ferry ride to Asiatiq. The wait is approximately 15-30mins. There are several ferry services at the harbour, so please make sure you are in the right queue as the others are paid services.

Caught the sunset while on board the free shuttle ferry service.! It was so beautiful. The ride was pretty fast. There were seats too but we were the last few to board, so we were standing. However, I had some unpleasant memories of the ride as I was being pushed by this oversized Chinese national woman twice and she didn't even apologize. I was so angry, I actually voiced out loud my displeasure and her husband responded by staring at me. So rude! Such bad examples to their young kid! *Grr. Other than that, still a pleasant trip. And Jessica was mistaken to be a Thai Chinese! Haha.

Now, more photos...!

And we were really lucky, there was a Southern Thai food carnival ongoing at Asiatiq at that time! So we actually saved on food because most of the eateries at Asiatiq were posh restaurants, cafes or bars and the prices were rather steep.

The grilled squid with the to-die-for chilli! The chilli was a good mix of sour, saltiness and spiciness, really big on flavour and had the awesome kick! I loved it! Even Jessica whose spicy tolerance wasn't that high was happily eating it while dousing the spiciness with a cup of ice beverage! Shiok!

We waited really long for our 2nd dish as it was a really popular store. There was no proper queue and we had the language barrier, but thankfully, we managed to order in the end. And introducing our 2nd dish- Golden mushrooms wrapped in bacon, Abalone Mushrooms and Shimeiji Mushrooms. They were all grilled to perfection and doused in the same sauce as the grilled squid! The mushrooms were really fresh and juicy and a perfect complement to the spicy sauce! :D Definitely worth the wait!

Then off we went to explore the various boutiques at Asiatiq. A really comfortable shopping place but prices were rather steep too. But I bought a hat over there. I was looking for a long time for this hat as most places either don't carry them, or don't have the shade of red that I was looking for!

Tadahhhhh~ Happy me with my hat, and my hands were full with all my Taokaenois bought at Terminal 21!

After such a long day, starting at 5am in the morning. And that concludes our second day in BKK! Stay tuned for the next installment of our BKK trip and would probably be the last post on BKK. (:

And in case you missed out on Part 1!

Labels: Asiatiq, Bangkok, Bkk, BTS, Chatuchak, Convocation, Grad Trip, Massage, NTU, Pratunam Market, Shopping, Terminal 21

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