BKK Work Trip, March 2012: Home Sweet Home

 

Arrival in BKK @ Renaissance Bangkok Hotel

Coffee Beans by Daos & Banana Prata

La Tavola

Bangkok Street Shots

Another Hound Cafe 

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I do enjoy traveling. As often as I say work trips are always different from personal trips,  I'm extremely grateful that I landed myself in a job that allowed me to travel :) Counting my blessings that I'll be able to venture into more regions soon! Before we usher in the weekend, here is the final post of BKK work trip.

 

After a hearty lunch at Another Hound Cafe, I met up with Roger at Black Canyon Coffee (Platinum Mall) for a quick coffee session before I head to the airport.

 

He had extended his trip to rest & relax for a couple more days in BKK.

 

My 2nd glass of thai ice tea within 2 hours. You can probably tell that this is my standard drink in Thailand. Thai ice tea tasted differently across Thailand as well, depending on the type of sugar/milk used.

 

In Thai restaurants, thai ice tea is served in a tall glass. When sold from street & market stalls, it is more typically poured over crushed ice in a transparent bag or tall plastic cups. To me, it doesn't matter as long as it's good! 

Black Canyon Coffee

Platinum Mall, Ground Floor

 

 On the way to the airport. I normally leave for the airport 3 hours before actual flight time, as we all know of BKK's horrific traffic jam. I tend to leave slightly earlier if my flight is on Friday evening, as the traffic jam starts early for many of the city dwellers will leave work earlier to begin their drive back to their home town.

Taking the highway, passing by the 1st toll.

 

 Baiyoke Tower with its recognizable "Joy is BMW" advertisement from afar.

 

 Some of the car-shoots that I took along the way.

Traffic starting to build up. Sometimes, I even see policemen on the highway directing the traffic to ease congestion. It was smooth traffic to the airport after we passed the 2nd toll. In fact, I fell asleep at the back of the car & the driver woke me up when he asked which airline I'm taking. 

 

One of the airports that I normally frequent, besides Changi Airport & KLIA.

Waiting for check-in only to be notified that the flight will be delayed :(  

 

With the delay in flight, that technically meant that I had close to 3.5 hours to burn in the airport. I walked around the main hall area, took a few "touristy" pictures like the above. Time checked - only 30 min had passed.

 

Headed for a meal to satisfy my mama-mee craving, watched some drama till I had to conserve my battery for the way home. Time checked - 1 hour passed. 

 

Straight to Chanel for some retail therapy. Had to force brainwash myself not to buy anything as we'll be heading to Europe in a couple of weeks.

 

Walked into duty-free & checked out a couple of items. Tried on several scents for my new perfume, but they just don't seem to fit my taste. Walked out empty-handed too. Time checked - 45 min had passed.

 

Strolled my way to departure gate for the flight. 

Home sweet home, soon!

BKK Work Trip, March 2012: Another Hound Cafe

 

Related entries for this trip:

Arrival in BKK @ Renaissance Bangkok Hotel

Coffee Beans by Daos & Banana Prata

La Tavola

Bangkok Street Shots

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I settled at Another Hound Cafe (by Greyhound) for lunch. Following the success of Greyhound Cafe, they created a sister brand, Another Hound Cafe with the concept of Chic & Glam Asian - Italian dining twist. 

"Half breed usually produces an amazing result, more beautiful in unexpected ways. The same applied with our menu of italian delicacy with spicy thai twists. Both are very tasty, full of herbs and spices. When mixed together in an artful way, it created an amazing taste and aroma like you have never tried before."

I was able to get a table quickly, but a party of 6 that arrived after me had to wait for 15 min before they could enter the cafe. 

 

 Sweet Hound, which is a dessert bar conceptualized to hit the sweet spot of any sweet tooth's tastebuds. This is located just next to the cafe, where you can indulge in your favourite desserts. 

 

They have a couple of seasonal menus, eg: Summer Special, Special Menu that cater to the months/occasion.  

 

I had a table by the corner, so I couldn't get a nice picture of the interior :( Well, food came along pretty fast, so I was all ready to tuck in! 

 

Thai Iced Tea to start :) This came with tea ice-cubes, which I'm grateful for to quench my thirst in the humid weather. 

I ordered items from the "Special Menu", so I'm not sure if these items will be featured in their main menus. Started my lunch with Tamarind Fried Chicken with root chips (THB180). Wow, this was rather spicy though it looked like plain fried chicken. 

Dory Fish with Thai Herb (THB520). Served on a pool of cabbage, the dory was the only thing I ate, lol! In my defense (besides the fact that I don't like my veggies), these cabbages actually tasted raw.

 "Tan hai aroi na", loosely translated into Bon Appetite.

Another Hound Cafe & Sweet Hound Cafe

Siam Paragon, 1st Floor

Tel: 66 0 2129 4409 10

Opening Hours: 11am till 10pm (daily)

BKK Work Trip, March 2012: Bangkok Street Shots

Related entries:

Arrival in BKK @ Renaissance Bangkok Hotel

Coffee Beans by Daos & Banana Prata

La Tavola

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Since I had a couple of hours to spare before my evening flight, I took the new camera out to test out its functionalities :) As you can properly tell, I have a slight interest in photography - with my amateur works on PicPrints & instagram (@caihonglim). I can never figure out the technical behind focal length, shutter speed, aperture, ISO speed etc. I get confused with all the jargon. For me, I just pick up the camera, look for the angle & shoot. Nothing complicated about it. 

 

Back to the hotel after my morning meeting to check out. Pardon the unmade bed (^^)

 On the phone with Leecher, then with mummy dearest.

 Discover fresh coffee, delightful donuts, cakes and sandwiches all under one roof with The One by Renaissance. This little cafe is located along the drive-way to the hotel.

 

Mail box! I took this when I happened to come across this on the internet 

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#truestory. I used to exchange letters with my friends during sec school days, but stopped for a v long time.  Nowadays, all I receive in my mail-box are bills, bills & more bills.

 

I made my way to the famous Erawan Shrine (commonly known as 四面佛） located near Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel. There are a lot of vendors selling flowers, incense and candles outside the area.

 

This famous shrine attracts more visitors than many of the city's temples! Unending streams of devotees & people pay their respects from early morning till late at night. I once stayed at Hyatt (another post soon, I hope) and was surprised to see that the temple was still full of people even at 10pm.

 

Birds that you can buy to release, signifying that your prayers are answered. 

 I'm sure we have all heard of the notorious Bangkok traffic in some way or another. I was once stuck in traffic for almost an hour. Thankfully I was on my way back to hotel after a client's visit. Since the govt introduced a policy to refund tax for 1st-time car buyers, the traffic condition has gotten worse with 5 million vehicles in a city which can only cope with less than 2 million cars.

You can almost see Bangkok's name on every Worst Traffic Jam's list. A typical Bangkok driver is said to spend at least 2 months of the year stuck in traffic. Wow, I must have caught these shots during a rare time of the day where there was relatively smooth traffic on the roads.

 

Crossing over to Central World via the overhead bridge.

Central world - this place is soooo big that I've yet to comb the entire building, only stopping @ Naraya most of the time.  

 Display at Central World. It was such a scotching hot day (almost 37 degrees) that I had to seek shelter in the shopping mall before continuing my journey.

 

The legendary Route 66. I'm a huge fan of Pixar movies (Wall-E being my fave!) & quite a lot of characters/places in the movie - Cars - are directly inspired by real Route 66 places and people.

Trimurti Shrine outside Central World. Trimurti is the god of love. Lots of singles, wearing red with red roses in hand will turn to Trimurti in the hope that they will meet their love in life.

 

I have to admit - I'm very bad with countries flags, apart from those countries that I normally frequent. Looking at these flags reminded me of my childhood days, with my box of flags eraser and playing "flipping your eraser over your opponent's" game. Yeah, I was pretty much a tom-boy in my younger years.

The "skywalk" that connects 6 large shopping centers in Bangkok. This walkway runs below a stretch of BTS & connects to three 5-star hotels. You can walk from Central World all the way to MBK via this sky walk. Beats being trapped in traffic too!

 

Another shot of their traffic :) 
 
Street hawkers starting their business, lining up the streets. 

 

Siam Paragon - I seldom step into this shopping mall cuz it housed a host of high-end fashion brands, akin to Paragon in Singapore. Today, I took the chance to have lunch here, in a little cafe that I chanced upon.

 

Boy, I really wished I could just walk through this little fountain to cool myself (^^). I wished I had more time to venture further and take more pictures, but I had to stop for lunch & desperate need of AIRCON!