The next few days in Bangkok are harder to remember exactly, but I remember Jo and Maria showing up the next morning at my hostel door, giving it the knock of 1000 happy palms. They were picking me up for lunch, so we went with these 2 girls I had met in the lobby from Norway, Femke and Sanne, who had just arrived in Bangkok to start their treks. We tried to go back to the amazing place we had eaten at the night before but it was camouflaged like a speakeasy--we didn't see it. So we ate at a place that catered more to westerners and absolutely got ripped off and the food wasn't that good. It completely baffles me, but the best tasting food I am having is also the cheapest. If all the food from Southeast Asia came togethor to form a giant food superhero and he walked into the DC universe, then his bizarro would be the American food monster, because its one giant flip flop. Giant nerd tangent.
After Lunch we got Luke, who was sleeping off a more than laudable night's consumption of alcohol and caught two taxis down to siam square to check out the infamous shopping malls. We couldn't all fit in the same taxi so we separated, Me, Maria, Femke, and Sanna in one and Jo and Luke in the other. Unfortunately our taxi drivers didn't drop us off in the same spot and. We got out and looked around and didn't see Jo and Luke. Then I looked on my map and saw that there is a SIam Center and a Siam Square and wondered if maybe the word center had changed to square by one of us, or our drivers. A lady with polka dots informed us that we were indeed at the Square, so I dialed in a direction on my infallible wrist compass and led us to the Center. It turns out the Siam Center was one of the malls; it was a bit big--no sign of Jo and Luke. Since we had mentioned checking out the food court with extreme glee, we headed there first, but that required asking for help, because there was no food court in the Center. We were directed to the Siam Paragon, which is the bigger, more popular mall. It was aptly named, as it was the nicest, most luxurious, mall I have seen. We found the food court. It was a food field. It had fast food, semi fast food, a fancy grocery store, and fancy food. There were chains like McDonalds and Mos Buger (Japanese) and unbranded stuff. We walked around the grocery store and bought some chips with our fun fund, which was leftover money from breakfast, then the girls got some bread (sweet probably). I found some spring rolls and Maria got some meat skewers. Sanne went to buy some dumplings and discovered her wallet was gone. She announced, in a valium intoxicated tone, that her wallet was in the taxi cab! I thought she sounded oddly calm, since she had JUST arrived in her first country, only to lose her wallet. And she had no backup (which I always have). Our first thought was to call the taxi company, but we couldn't remember the name. As we discussed this, Femke snuck out her camera and looked up the picture we had taken of her, sitting in the front of the taxi pretending to drive. Right in front of her, in the picture, was the id card for the taxi driver. Not only did we have the taxi company, but we had the driver's name and ID number. So Norwegian girls went to call while Maria and I went outside to eat our snacks. We sat next to a Japanese family that were wearing gangster sneakers. To pass the time I taught Maria the doodle game and we started a round. Our drawing was one of the better doodle masterpieces I've had. Maria picked up the game as if it had been Matrix'ed in to her. After 30 minutes the Norwegian girls returned with faces of slight disappointment. They were getting the run around with the taxi company and didn't sound very hopeful that they would find Sanne's wallet. So they decided to go back to the hostel. Maria and I wanted to go find a way to email Luke and Jo; we figured they were probably doing the same.
Maria and I had fun cruising around the mall. Our first goal was email. We found a computer store and succeded. Maria emailed Jo and told her we would be hanging out by the Krispy Kreme, which is insanely popular in Thailand, at 7:30. Next we checked out the movie theater and bowling alley, which were on the top floor. The movie theater was impressive--there were 3 different sections: imax, regular, and vip (which are couches instead of seats). The bowling alley was western prices, which was a lot compared to what I had in Laos. Next I wanted to see if we could locate an arcade. I was hoping we would find one near the theaters and bowling, but there wasn't. Maria is pretty spontaneous and matter of fact, so she just walked up to a cleaning lady and blurted out, "Hi. do you know if there are any arcades here?". The cleaning lady didn' t undersant enough to give a respone, and instead she led us to a phone where she called someone, spoke a few words, and then handed the phone to Maria. It was the foreigner help line! The mall people talked to Maria and gave her directions to the "Arcade". The word must have gotten lost in translation, or they took it literally, for we were led to a women's department store. Part three failed. No arcades in Thailand. It was almost 7:30 anyway, so we treked down to Krispy Kreme. Sure enough, there were Jo and Luke waiting for us. When they got out of their cab and couldn't find us (after walking around for an hour) they went back to their hostel, where they got our email, and then came back to the mall to find us. We felt really bad that we had had such a fun day despite finding them and they had gone back without any fun pennies. So we thought a movie would cheer us all up. We got tickets to see Tron 2.0 in 3d Imax. We had some time before the movie, so we sat in the lobby and Maria and I finished our doodle game. Then the four of us played a bit of telephone pictionary. Finally we went into the theater for the movie. Before the movie went on an anthem video was played to honor the King of Thailand. It was somber. It was a montage of his life and made me think the king had died, but he hasn't. The movie was Awesome!
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