It’s a really useful thing that I went to hotel-management school - hot on the heels of Geoff and Deb (and Gavin) leaving, our next round of visitors arrives!
On Friday night, Juliana and Jon, Jon’s brother Nick, (who all live in Aus) and Richard (Aussie but living in Singapore) arrived on the midnight flight. A very exciting reunion of course and many cocktails and stories where shared. Then on Saturday, Kathleen (aka Katie Redshoes) arrives from the UK - even more excitement because it’s been absolutely ages since seeing her. So we had a full house! (Unfortunately Richard was staying at the Westin up the road since we’d run out of beds, but I know he’s on a mission collecting Starwood points, as I am, so I suspect he was glad for the excuse to get an extra two nights’ credit.)
During the day there were many shopping and massage experiences, trips to temples and the usual tourist stuff. Paul, Jules and Richard had a bit of an antiques-shopping spree, and they found some really interesting things.
Saturday night was a real highlight, as not only the seven people already mentioned but five other Aussies were in town as well - Kester (who I used to work with at SalesForce), her friends Nicky and Abi, and old friends of Jon’s, Tarn and Christine. So a major night out was on the cards! We organised dinner at Lan Na Thai, a beautiful restaurant in a old-style Thai teak house, where we had a private dining room - probably a good thing as we made a bit of racket! It was such a happy night having so many friends old and new around, it reminded me of big dinners we used to have in Melbourne from time to time.
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Of course after such a fun dinner it was essential to visit the old favourite Sky Bar to show the newbies the sites of Bangkok from 80something floors up… and to squeeze in another cocktail or two…
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What a fantastic night out. Of course, the fun didn’t stop there. Having so many people staying over meant that breakfast was going to be a major production anyway, so we turned it into Brunch, called it a Soiree, and got everyone to bring duty-free Champagne. This basically ended up taking the whole day and was great fun, Paul and I (especially Paul - check out the hand-made mini muffin burgers!) having made a lot of food-preparations in advance meant there was lots of yummy stuff to eat, and everyone only needed to ever venture out of the apartment for swims, last-minute massages and some last-minute shopping (by Juliana, of course).
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Unfortunately all good things must come to and end, it’s only been 36 hours but we did so much talking and carrying on, it felt like days! Sunday afternoon we farewelled everyone as they headed of to Koh Samui for a week’s holidays. (Minus Richard, who like our poor selves, had to head off to work again on Monday.) Paul and I were well exhausted and collapsed happily into the couch.
ps: If anyone’s interested in the full set of photos from the weekend (only the best ones are on this page) they can be found at
http://www.tincanct.com/gallery/v/BangkokCarryon.
When the boys turned up on the doorstep with six bottles of champagne we knew there was going to be trouble! Well not trouble exactly but we have just enjoyed a fun week of eating, drinking, shopping and carrying on while Will & Gavin have been staying with us.
Our local barbeque magnates arrived from their home in China with another friend, Alex, in tow. Alex had been doing the European Adventure thing for a couple of months before visiting the guys in China and then passing through Bangkok on the way home. Very happy to have met you Alex, thanks for coming!
So of course the first thing on the agenda was some shopping. And then some more shopping and a bit more shopping. Actually that characterised the whole week rather well!
Oh did I forget some fanciness? A couple of fancy dinners and nights out; one at the fave Bed Supperclub, and on their last night, what’s becoming a tradition for our visitors, dinner of the divine Thai food at Naj followed by drinks on the rooftop at Sky Bar.
Oh did I forget some debauchery? Of course that couldn’t be avoided either, a trip to some rather “interesting” bars one night may have happened, although I had a crook tum and was confined to bed that night and therefore have no knowledge of such activities.
Thanks to Gavin too for cooking a roast one night! Been a long time since we’ve had one of those.
Strangely the other major diversion of the week was an enthusiastic round of dentist vists by everyone taking advantage of the high-standard and low-price of Bangkok dentists. Who would have thought a group of people on holidays would be so quick to jump in the chair? Go figure. (Actually, I think the answer is that China doesn’t have dentists that you’d actually trust with your own teeth.) At least Will changed his mind about getting braces and cancelled that spur-of-the-moment appointment.
So overall a lovely week with lots of laughing and only a few sore heads. Thanks so much guys for coming to stay with us, it was great to have some time to hang out together. Please come back soon!
Just a quick stop off passing through to Koh Samui, Geoff and Steven from Hong Kong popped in for a one-night stay at the Hotel d’Pete & Paul. A bit of shopping in the afternoon and dinner later, a quick drink at Sky Bar… very nice. Thanks for visiting guys, don’t forget to avoid those Apple Martinis in future!
For the last two-and-a-half weeks we’ve had our good friend Jiin Wei staying with us from Melbourne. And we’ve had such a great time!! Lots and lots of adventures and laughs.
One weekend we made a trip to Bangkok’s Chinatown, which unlike any Chinatowns I’ve experienced before it really was like being in a different country! Took a river taxi (boat) and then visited a flower and fresh fruit market on the way,
fought our way through crowds in markets, ate plenty of tasty street-food snacks and then finally found ourselves a beer at a very strange bar.
Finished off with dinner at a very “rustic” restaurant! Later that night we went for cocktails & jazz at the Sheraton… a very dignified way to finish a very hectic day!
I (Pete) had to work during the week but Paul and Jiin managed to have plenty of adventures so they didn’t miss me too much! One day, a trip to the spectacular Grand Palace:
Another day, Thai cooking classes at the famous Blue Elephant restaurant.
Since Paul and I have been living in Bangkok we’d been hearing about the oh-so-glam Bed Supperclub… we saved the first visit up until Jiin Wei was in town to join us! Fantastic food, amazing venue, great volumes of cocktails, sooo chic. I honestly felt like we had walked into a James Bond movie. Too cool.
Just in case we hadn’t been having enough fun already, the Queen’s Birthday long weekend came up so we took advantage of the occasion to head down to Koh Samui for a bit of a break. Things did not start well when the normally-40 minute trip to the airport took over 3 hours due to the pre-holiday traffic jam. Luckily we’d allowed way too much time for the trip but still had to run to catch the plane! Very stressful I must say - fortunately the only thing that went wrong for the whole weekend, so we were lucky there.
We were staying at the oddly-named Big John resort, a cheap-and-cheerful place right on the beach. An old friend of Jiin Wei’s, Ed, had been travelling in Thailand at the time also and joined us for the weekend.
It turned out that on our second night at the resort a couple was getting married right there on the beach. Well after a few drinks and when they’d all finished up for the night we couldn’t help but take advantage of their setup:
I think all that tropical air must have been going to our heads……
When we finally made it back to Bangkok there was only a day or so left before both Jiin and Ed had to go home… on the last night we celebrated Jiin’s 30th birthday a couple of days early at the fantastic roof-top Vertigo restaurant - outdoors with a bird’s eye view over Bangkok. Spectacular and with food to match. Finished up with drinkies at another rooftop venue, the spectacular Sky Bar. (Any of you who read this and come to visit, we promise to take you too! It’s awesome.) It was a great way to finish up what had been a great couple of weeks.
Thanks for coming to visit us Jiin, we had a ball! Glad to know that you did too. Come back soon!
xoxoxoxoxo