Emmy in the Rice Paddy: Lauren & Gwen in Thailand! Part 1: Bangkok!

Last Saturday was one of those special days where I woke up feeling SO excited. Around 10pm at night my friends, Lauren and Gwen, were to arrive in Bangkok! It was crazy to think that they still were on their initial stopover flight to Korea when I woke up, but that in a few hours they would switch to their final Korea to Bangkok flight. Even stranger, was that I had booked a quick and easy one hour flight to meet them at Suvarnabumi Airport, and my flight to pick them up didn’t even leave from Ubon until 825pm (getting me into Bangkok around 9:50pm). Perfect timing!

At school on Friday I had made Lauren and Gwen a big “Welcome to Thailand” sign. Waiting at the international arrivals gate was so exciting. These girls were coming off of nearly a day of traveling, and almost 20 hours in flight. At the airport, I met these three really cool Canadians from Vancouver who were waiting for one of their Dads to get in. One of the girls boyfriends had discovered, and patented, the Acai Berry. All three of them worked for his company, MonaVie, and were on a World Tour promoting their products. They will be in Bangkok for the next month (not a bad job, huh?) Anyways, they asked to see my sign, loved it, and were part of the jumping up and down welcoming Lauren and Gwen crowd when they finally showed up. These new friends asked for my email, name and even cell number, but I’m disappointed they never contacted me. Note to self: Always get their information if you want it, too!

From the airport we took a cab to the Ibis Sathorn Hotel, the hotel where my Mom and sister stayed, as well as the hotel Fulbright puts us up in when we have meetings in Bangkok. The cab ride was one of the best parts of the whole trip for me. It was so surreal having my friends here, and we were all just bombarding each other with questions and hugs and catching up. At the hotel we weren’t sure if they would allow 3 people/ room, so I just strolled into the hotel (with this ridiculous sign from the airport) and agreed to meet them on the 2^nd floor. It worked out great! So funny. From the airport, I took the girls to Khaosan Road, where we ate Pad Thai and people watched (over stimulating!) I mean, it was a Saturday night! These girls were such troopers.

I was shocked that the next morning (Sunday) they wanted to wake up by 830am. We took a cab to the famous open air “Chatuchak Market.” At the market, we all strolled around, saw some crazy cute puppies, and bought souvenirs. Per usual, I made friends with many of the street food venders when I spoke Laos. (Thais from Isaan think that this is soo funny. I love it). From Chatuchak, we rode the BTS for the first time to the Siam stiop, where we bought cupcakes at the train station, and went to enjoy them outside of Siam Paragon’s terrace before checking out the crazy mall, and then walking down to Jim Thompson’s House. After dropping the girls off at Jim Thompson’s House, I perused the gift shop and talked with the staff and a man (from Isaan too!) who was demonstrating a silk exhibition. It was great. I had also never seen how silk was spun, so it was so cool to see the silk worms in their “cocoons” and how the silk spinner coaxed the silk out. It was a very long, hard process that required a lot of skill. I have some cool pictures of this below. From Jim Thompson’s house, we headed back to the “knockoff mall” MBK so to shop for knockoffs. Gwen got a killer pair of black Christian Louboutin knockoffs (thanks to me showing her where the little stand was in the sea of shops ;)) From MBK we went and got some American-priced drinks at the roof deck of the Siam@Siam Hotel, and then got massages at a nearby massage place (I tried my first ever "Aroma Therapy Massage!") For dinner we headed to Thong Lor Sukhumvit 38- my favorite hidden gem for delicious Thai food. However, I was a little bit disappointed that neither of them were that impressed or wanted to try that many foods because they were afraid of getting sick! We stuck to Pad Thai and Pad See Ewe, but I was really happy to also be able to treat them to their first Mango & Sticky Rice experience J

On the way back from dinner we quickly stopped at the Sala Daeng BTS stop so that they could see the night market. However, we were tricked into going to a gay male strip club. (You can ask me the details later if you really want to know haha). It was a hilarious night I will never forget.

On Monday morning we were picked up by a friend of a friend of Lauren’s family. This was exciting for me too, because he took us to the “Royal Bangkok Sports Club” (a very high-so place that I had never been to). It was CRAZY for me to see how Western it was- there was gold, horse racing, CHEESE. This is a side of Bangkok I haven’t really experienced. However, the man who treated us was also incredibly rude and insulting, so I was ready to leave by the end of lunch. After lunch, this man and his secretary took us to their fancy-shmancy English school (it is actually well known, the AUA). While we were getting a tour of the school, there were some classes that were in session and I peered through a classroom door and saw my friend Michael who I’d met once going out in Bangkok last November. He recognized me and came to say hi quickly. Such a small world!

The world gets smaller. In the afternoon, Gwen, Lauren and I headed to the famous Wat Pho to see the giant reclining Buddha. I hadn’t been there since my first time last October with other Fulbrights, so it was special for me to go back under the present circumstances. While we were making our way around the reclining Buddha, I hear “Emily?!” I look over and it was my old friend from New Trier high school, Ollie! I hadn’t seen him in 6 years. We had a little love/ excitement “I still can’t believe this moment” for about 10 minutes. Then Ollie’s girlfriend, Julia, goes, “Gwen?” It turns out that Gwen and Julia went to elementary school together. The world is too small. To make the world even smaller, on our way out from seeing the reclining Buddha I ran into Katie (Fulbright Katie who lives in Chiang Rai) and her girlfriend who was visiting Thailand! I love running into people, because that signifies to me that you are actually starting to form a home in that city. And a city as vast as Bangkok…Oh my!

I tried to keep this post brief (after all it was only 2 days!) but I see that it is long already. I flew back to Ubon on Monday evening (where I was randomly on Fulbright-Andrea’s boyfriend Dan’s flight with his parents back to Ubon!) to go to work on Tuesday, and Lauren and Gwen had a solo day in Bangkok during the day on Tuesday without me before meeting me in Ubon on Tuesday night. My next post will be all about our adventures in Ubon (Part 2!)