Feb 28, 2007

First off..Happy Birthday Kristy! I hope you have a great birthday and have an extra drink for me.
Today was an amazing day. We did not have any students to teach today because they are all preparing for their weekend exams. Today we spent the day with SiJie, starting off with an hour oil massage. People, this place was incredible! It was in the heart of the slums, and arguably one of Klong Toey's best kept secrets. All of the workers from Mercy go there, so it is mainly based on word of mouth. We had a little bit of trouble finding the place at first, but after asking for directions a few times, one woman actually walked us straight there. The prices were 100 baht for a foot massage, 100 baht for a Thai massage and 200 baht for a oil massage. Considering we never had a massage before we decided to go with the less painful, oil massage option. All I can say is wow... They have made us an offer to teach us Thai massage if we teach them English. We might take them up on this. Also they were really excited that we were their first foreign customers.
They then took us to one of the local food stalls for lunch. I had stir fried rice with prawns.It was really good. The prawns are not like ours at all, you actually have to separate the head from the body while you are eating. It is kind of hard to get used to at first because you could be eating and then have some legs in your mouth, but all in all it wasn't that bad.
We hopped on the songtheaw and then transferred on to a bus to see the reclining Buddha and the temple. The reclining Buddha was made of gold and was huge!
Next we crossed the river by boat to see the temple of Dawn. We climbed this and had a spectacular view of Bangkok. At dawn when the sun is setting, it lights up the whole temple.
We then took a canal cruise back to the sky train. We met a girl named Journey on here who has been volunteering around the world for the past year. She just came back from India and was spending a few days in Bangkok. She came with us for supper at a restaurant in the Night Bazaar. On the way from the sky train to the bazaar we saw one of the mini dinosaurs eating a turtle! What a sight this was! Don't worry, I also took lots of pictures and video.
The night bizarre was a lot of fun. Hundreds of stalls are mazed together. This bizarre appeals more to the high-so people as the cheapest thing is usually not under 200 Baht. Misty and I loved it here but didn't buy anything. We plan on going back sometime when we have more time to look, as it is open every day from 3 pm till midnight.