First Sunday in Bangkok

While in Bangkok on this trip Sam and I had the privilege of staying in her friend Jay’s brand new luxury condo in the heart of the city. Jay is one of Sam’s oldest friends and she’s actually the reason we made the trip to Thailand this year, as she is getting married on August 1st.

The complex has two towers, but I only took a shot of one of them at night. The two shots below are from Jay’s living room balcony.

At noon Sam’s sister and brother-in-law picked us up and we went to a Chinese restaurant in Central Praram 9. The mall reminded me of the spaceship the humans inhabit in Wall-E.

It was gigantic and streamlined on the outside. The inside was hollow and fitted with white panelling from top to bottom with glowing colors.

White boys have long been suckers for fried chicken skin. At this Chinese restaurant they served fried duck skin with a kind of sweet thin burrito wrap and green onion.

We also had some fried soft shell crab in curry.

A noodle dish and a spicy salmon dish.

And lastly, the REST of the duck.

On the way back to Jay’s condo we bought 5 kilograms of Rambutan and Mangosteen (heavy on the mangosteen).

A few hours later we were on our way to Jay’s rehearsal dinner. The dinner was held at the Neilson Hayes Library. The library was opened by western (British) immigrants to Siam in the 19th century, and that feel is still alive and well on an inside that screams out for a scene in an Indiana Jones film.

Joe, Jay and Sam’s friend, (with other friends) organized the event and decor. It was very tastefully done, with a color theme of “Tiffany’s” that matched the existing brown and light blue interior of the building.

There are tons of photos on facebook of this event as everyone had a cameraphone. Here is a sample (courtesy of Nutsuda) of me lurking about taking photos before it started:

We were told that this was the first time anyone had been allowed to host a dinner party inside the library. The meal was a very western themed, which was fitting for the location. Dinner started off with french onion soup. The guest list included a chef, a good cook (Sam) and many other cosmopolitan individuals that noticed the lack of cheese in the soup (Sam also noted that the onions had been cooked wrong). From what I hear, the chefs had little experience with western/european cooking, which caused the bride’s friend in charge of the menu some frustration.

The food was still all very good though. The second dish was a fried soft-shell crab, which made two for us that day – and the second consecutive Thailand trip in which soft-shell crab was the first meal eaten. In fact, last year our first meal was also with Jay.

Dinner was a choice of fish or steak, and we chose the steak. If I just had some sour cream for those potatoes I could have imagined I was back in Ohio.

As a blackberry and apple cobbler was served for dessert most of the guests made speeches about the bride and groom to be. Although I can’t understand Thai, from the reactions of the guests and the bride I can only assume the tales told were a mix of the embarrassing, the heartfelt and the congratulatory. From what little Sam translated for me, it would seem all of Jay’s friends have been touched by her generosity; of which I have little doubt since we’ve already benefited from it multiple times.

After the speeches everyone was stuffed inside a small circular domed gallery for photos. One of the guests brought a much more impressive camera (and tripod) than I had, so he was doing the main shots, but I tried to sneak in my own from time to time.