The first week of May is called Golden Week in Japan. This is because there are three national holidays in a row (as well as no school the Friday before). The only one people seem to remember is 5\/5: Children\u2019s Day. This year those days were from Tuesday to Thursday, but for some reason people actually went to school both the Monday before and the Friday after. I am not one of those people. I took Monday off to go on a trip to Thailand, where the only thing hotter than the weather is\u00a0some of the boys. Trivia time! What\u2019s the capital of Thailand? If you\u2019re a male who ever went to school, you probably just instinctively covered your crotch. Good reflexes. The rest of you were likely not taught it as effectively, though\u00a0Thailand basically only has two famous cities: the one that sounds like the (male) c word, and the one that sounds like the f word. I\u2019ve honestly never had any desire to go to Thailand, but some other people said we should go, so I figured I might as well check it out.<\/p>\n
When searching for flights form Nagoya to Bangkok, you\u2019re given some interesting options. The quickest option is the direct flight, which was a bit more expensive, but only took 6 hours. Some of the other listed options took over 24 hours. Why are you even giving me that choice? Who needs to save money so badly that they\u2019re going to take a layover that\u2019s three times longer than the actual flight (if you just tried to correct me by saying it\u2019s four times longer, you forgot to subtract the flight time)? Most other options were around 9-10 hours, but left at ungodly hours in the morning. We took the financial hit for the sake of comfort and sleep. Maki and I left around 11 and got there at about 3 (2hr difference). We went to information to find out the best way to get to the hotel. They said we could take an airport taxi at a flat rate of 1400 baht (<$40), or a public taxi and have to pay tolls. It was a matter of who would rip me off less. I decided to try the airport taxi. They also offered to pick us up from the hotel when we came back, which I liked because then I wouldn\u2019t have to deal with it. Then they also tried selling us city tours. I had read about this, so I knew to watch out for the foot-in-the-door style stuff where they keep trying to sell us things. Our driver was an older man with a long beard. Now, you\u2019re either picturing a long Dumbledore-esque beard, or one like mine but longer. However, his beard was only growing out of a giant mole on his chin. It looked like something you\u2019d expect from a cartoon character. On the way to the hotel, he asked us when we were going back. We showed him the paper that said Wednesday. He then proceeded to tell us, \u201cDon\u2019t call company. If you call me, I give you discount. 1000 baht ($30).\u201d I was glad that I didn\u2019t have to worry much about him ripping me off because he was too busy ripping off his own company. We had already gotten the ticket back, so it didn\u2019t matter anyway. Then he asked what we were doing, gave us his number, and told us to call him if we needed a ride. This was a better method than a taxi driver in Florida who asked me for my number, then got annoyed when I didn\u2019t give it to him. Why the hell would I give a random taxi driver my personal phone number?<\/p>\n
One of the first things we noticed was how much hotter it was here (almost 100\u00b0). Luckily, unlike Japan\u2019s humid heat, Thailand is a lot drier and therefore more tolerable. The other thing was how much more colorful everything is. The taxis were mostly pink or\u00a0yellow and green<\/a>, the tuktuks<\/a> driving around were decorated with all sorts of things, and the streets were littered with colorful shrines<\/a> and food stands. I was also surprised at the amount of English on their billboards considering no one seems to really<\/em> speak English here. However, their English is better than my Thai. Curtis can\u2019t talk Thai (unlike Jack. Jack talked Thai real <\/em>good). I looked it up a bit, but it\u2019s too tonal. As we got closer to the hotel, there were more and more streets with food vendors, kids playing soccer on old basketball courts, and people just lounging outside of run down shops. It felt like an Asian Mexico rather than a big city.<\/p>\n We got to our hotel, which bore the unfortunate name of The Twin Towers. Our friends who came later were staying at a nearby hostel, but a Bangkok hostel did not sound appealing to me. The hotel room was pretty big (and super cheap because Thailand), and had wooden floors, which I\u2019ve never seen in a normal hotel room. The AC was on full blast, which would be a good change from the sweltering heat outside. The one thing our room was missing was a safe. Instead of a room safe, there were two rooms with safety deposit boxes next to the lobby. You had to ring a doorbell, then wait for them to buzz you in. Then they\u2019d give you a box to put your valuables in (so my 3DS and tablet (I had to keep my passport on me)). They also had the cheapest room service I had ever seen. It was cheaper than the food would be at a lot of normal restaurants. They had some Thai food, some Japanese food, and some American food, including a hamburger with \u201cYour favorite toppings: bacon and eggs.\u201d What? What weirdo puts eggs on a hamburger? Maki said a lot of people do it. I told her those people are wrong. By the time we got checked in and settled, it was getting late (by Japan time), so we just ordered room service and watched TV (which included hilarious Thai versions of Spongebob and the Fairly Oddparents).<\/p>\n The next morning, we headed out to check out the local malls and street vendors. As soon as you step out of the hotel, tuktuk drivers flock to you like seagulls fighting over a French fry. \u201cWhere you go?\u201d \u201cI take you! 100 baht (<$3)\u201d One of Maki\u2019s main goals was to ride in a tuktuk, so we got in and he took us to the mall. Leading up to the mall, we looked at some of the food that people were selling. Now, I\u2019m not usually that germaphobic. However, a lot of the food they were cooking didn\u2019t look sanitary. In some cases, there were flies buzzing around, and a lot of the food just seemed like colored goop. I\u2019ve gotten a lot better about eating, but I\u2019m not quite that<\/em> adventurous. We got to the sidewalk outside the mall, where they checked our bags. Just outside was a cool little shrine and a big painted\u00a0metal elephant<\/a>. Once we got inside, they checked our bags again. They can check our bags as many times as they want, because it means they\u2019re checking everyone else\u2019s. Despite what Nicolas Cage may have you believe, Bangkok doesn\u2019t seem particularly dangerous. However, there had been some attacks there last year, so better safe than sorry. The first mall we went to was very Westernized. They had Gap, North Face, H&M, even an Auntie Anne\u2019s: the same stores you\u2019d expect at most American malls. For brunch, we went to a pancake place where you could choose from a bunch of options to make almost any kind of pancake you wanted. You chose the type (buttermilk, chocolate chip, 5 others I stopped reading after chocolate chip), what fruit you wanted, what ice cream on top, what secondary topping (chocolate chips, nuts, etc.), and whipped cream or whipped butter. I got a chocolate chip pancake<\/a> with more chocolate chips, strawberries, strawberry ice cream, and whipped cream. My only regret was not getting enough pancakes. Downstairs there was a \u201cChocoholics Convention\u201d going on. There were people making their own chocolate, fondue fountains, sculptures<\/a> made out of chocolate, and tables where I\u2019m assuming people discussed in groups how their chocolate addiction is slowly tearing their family apart.<\/p>\n We took the Skywalk, which is just a fancy name for a bridge that goes along the street, to the next mall<\/span> supercenter that was a little more Thaiish. We looked around the supermarket, which had tons of weird fruits and packages I couldn\u2019t read. I found some Reese\u2019s, which I\u2019m required to buy any time I see due to them being unavailable in Japan. They even had root beer! Japanese people notoriously hate root beer, and Korea didn\u2019t have it either. It would have been even more joyous had I not ordered two packs from Amazon a month ago. Either way, I\u2019ve missed it. The third mall had a big store filled with Thai decorations like carpets (none magic), golden elephants<\/a>, a sequin Pegasus<\/a>, a tiger whose stomach was a geode and a fat lady doing yoga<\/a>. There was also a chandelier store. I have no idea who\u2019s buying a chandelier for their Bangkok apartment, but it was there. They even had some cars on display on the third floor. I have no idea how they got up there. In a connected building, there was an aquarium, but there was an hour and a half wait just to get in, so we didn\u2019t bother. All around the mall there were statues of famous people like Tom Cruise, Predator, Spider-Man, and various other heroes (I took this sexy pic<\/a> with Catwoman). Apparently there was a Madame Tussauds museum nearby, which explained that. Across a little plaza was another mall. It was one of the strangest places I\u2019ve ever been. As soon as you walk in, there\u2019s two kind of robotic statues where the male had a\u00a0lightbulb penis<\/a>, and the woman had two lightbulb boobs<\/a>\u00a0(as they do in the future). Down the hall were mannequins with weird colored animal heads<\/a>, and others that were Daft Punk-esque baby heads<\/a>. The clothes were all sorts of crazy patterns and things you can\u2019t imagine anyone would wear in public. One store even had boob checkers. The mens\/womens symbols for the bathroom were really weird<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n Later that day, a few of the others arrived and after checking into their hostel, we all went out to dinner. We asked the lady working there if she had any recommendations for famous Thai drinks. She said they like Pepsi. Her other recommendation was a coconut drink. Then we asked for a dinner place, and she told us there were a few good restaurants at the nearby mall (different one). Mall food wasn\u2019t exactly the Thai food we had in mind, but we went to check it out. This mall was much less Westernized, and in addition to normal stores, just had big areas with similar products placed together. The placement of the escalators required you to move to a different area every other floor (smart but inefficient), more like a video game than a mall. Once we got to the right floor, we had to walk through a forest of full coat racks and tiny shops to get to the restaurants. After looking around, we settled on the food court area that had a lot of different food options, Thai and otherwise. I had a traditional Thai food called Smashed Burger with REAL BACON. Japan\u2019s bacon isn\u2019t cured the way American bacon is, so it\u2019s never as good. This, however, was the closest I\u2019ve gotten since I left the US. The rest had actual Thai food. I don\u2019t travel for food; I travel to see cool things. I don\u2019t do well with spicy stuff, and my desire to eat American food not available (or rare) in Japan far outweighs my desire to try new things. For dessert, we went to a caf\u00e9 that specialized in mango drinks and desserts. I got a watermelon smoothie. I like what I like. After dinner we got some drinks and went back to the hotel to play some card games. We turned on Thai Nickelodeon, but ended up getting too distracted watching (English) Totally Spies, because we had forgotten how terrible<\/span> amazing it was. Once our drinks were empty (did I mention how much I missed root beer?), we went to bed and got\u00a0some sleep before our full day of sightseeing in Ayutthaya.<\/p>\n