Toni tagged me to write 10 Things I Love That Start with the Letter K which I found difficult since there weren't a lot of things that I love that start with the letter K and so I had to be creative. May I now present, in no particular order, the 10 things I love with the letter K.

1) KFC- Ahh, fingerlickin' good Kentucky Fried Chicken. There Zinger sandwich with a side order of mashed potato and coleslaw plus a large softdrink is my idea of comfort food after a tiring, stressful day at work. KFC has always been my family's choice of take out dinner when we do not have a cook or we came home late and there's no food prepared. We've had countless of happy KFC dinners. Our first meal as a family in our new house was courtesy of KFC.

2) Kristen Bell aka known as Veronica Mars or Elle Bishop on Heroes- Veronica Mars triggered my love for downloading off the internet and my love for US tv shows, so much so that I follow them weekly. Currently, I'm downloading 17 shows a week (18 if Lost is already showing). I haven't included One Tree Hill and America's Next Top Model Cycle 11. I'll download those when I have nothing else to watch.

3) Kitkat/ Krackel/ Keeblers- My lifelong affair with chocolates. I'm enjoying it while I can since I found out diabetes now runs in our family. My first favorite chocolate, that I can remember, is Nestle Crunch though I hav a picture of me less than a year old holding a Krackel wrapper. "Wait, first favorite?" you ask? Because I have lots of favorite chocolates. From truffles to pralines to Cadbury and Crispy M&Ms to Meiji. I eat at least a row of a chocolate bar a day.

4) Kinsella, Sophie/ Kleypas, Lisa- I have loved books since 4th grade. These 2 authors represent the 2 genres that I thoroughly enjoy, namely chiclit and romance. Currently, I'm reading The Ivy Chronicles by Karen Quinn (another author that starts with a K!) and I have 22 more books to read. All of them are in a pile by my bed. My love for books has also expanded to audiobooks which I listen to whenever I'm driving. Currently, I'm listening to It Had To Be You by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. Audiobooks help me save a lot of money. No need to buy them as I download them off the internet.

5) Ketchup Fries- One of the junkfoods I love! Admittedly, I hated Ketchup Fries when I first tried it because it was such an odd flavor. I guess it's an acquired taste. I used to hoard 6 huge cans of these from Royal Subic back then when these weren't available in Manila.

6) Knickers- Also known as lingerie. Wearing a cute matching set of underwear is like having your own little secret. One of my rules when it comes to lingerie is that they should match because what if you get into some accident and a cute doctor has to cut open your clothes in order to operate immediately? Shouldn't you look good underneath your clothes too? It would be a disaster if you wore a plaid panty with a floral bra! That's just a scenario. Don't take it too seriously!

7) Kindness- Who wouldn't love a little kindness?

8) Keys- As a child, I would always get keychains as a gift which I found useless because I do not have any keys. Keys, to me, are a sign of responsibility and trust. Count how many keys you have in your keychain and that says a lot about you. Before I moved to the new house and office, I used to have a lot of keys. I had keys to my car, keys to my office drawer, keys for the gate of our compound, keys to the door of the house and keys to the office. Now, all I have left are the keys to my car and keys to my office drawer. Our office now has a guard who locks up after I leave and our front door at home doesn't have a need for keys because we use biometrics/ punch a code to enter the door. How's that for high tech?

9) Keeping in Touch- I have lost touch with a lot of my grade school friends but with the onslaught of Friendster and Facebook, I have no reason not to get in touch with them. Finding friends is actually fun!

10) Kisses and Kiligness- Now who wouldn't love getting kisses and kilig over romantic gestures from their special someone? Nuff said, right?

Labels: Surveys, Tagged

Chalking it up to experience, I learned:

1) A trip to Bangkok is best experienced with girlfriends simply because it's a shopping haven! Boys wouldn't appreciate it as much. So if shopping is your mission, go with girlfriends.

2) It's best to be organized by having an itinerary, checklist of things to bring and projected expenses before coming to Bangkok. Research, research, research is key. The internet is your friend.

3) Why go for a hotel when you can have the same accommodation and service at a cheaper rate in a serviced apartment? Besides, you went to Bangkok to shop, right? And your hotel is just for resting? So why spend so much for accommodations? The money you save in getting a serviced apartment can easily go to your shopping allowance.

4) Play down being a shopaholic by injecting a few cultural activities in your itinerary. In our case, we had the river cruise, snake farm, Thai jewelry shop visits courtesy of our free tour. We also had the two massage sessions and Patpong. Yes, I classify them as cultural.

5) Buy a local sim card for cheaper communication between you and your girlfriends, in case you will have to go separate ways. A local sim card also makes communication abroad cheaper as well. (With the sim card I got, a text from my Thai sim card to the Philippines cost only P9.59 whereas a text from Globe to Globe would have cost me P20- P30, regardless whether the number is in Thailand or the Philippines!)

6) Serious shopping? Bring a huge luggage that's almost empty. Bring a huge, preferably expandable bag, where you can put your small purchases in while you shop. Instead of carrying a purse, use a belt bag. The belt bag I used was so slim that I wore it under my spaghetti strapped top!

7) To save on money, my friends and I brought our own breakfast. We brought canned goods and bread and even plastic utensils, cups and paper plates (since our serviced apartment had a kitchenette). We were quite sure though that all the utensils and plates would have to be rented which explains why we brought utensils we can easily dispose of.

8) It is cheaper to have your money exchanged to Baht here in the country. We had our money exchanged at Banco De Oro.

9) A lot of stores lower the price of clothes if you buy wholesale (read: 2 to 3 pieces). Elaine and Cris learned that it would be best to team up and shop together just to get clothes at wholesale prices. It's a good thing they had the same taste in clothes.

10) We realized that if we had our boyfriends with us, we would:

a) have more cultural activities than shopping
b) have more pictures
c) not have accomplished as much since there would be 4 more other people to wait for.
d) probably end up going separate ways because we'd have our boyfriends to accompany us if we wanted to go somewhere else/ stay in the hotel/ etc. With just the girls, one would not have any choice but to come along.

11) Do not just ride a Tuktuk without asking how much. You can get a ride as low as 40baht but sometimes taking a cab would be cheaper. This we learned on our last day.

12) Never buy the Skytrain (BTS) pass that's good for 20 rides. We were planning on doing that yet on the entire trip, we rode the Skytrain 3x.

13) Jin implemented a great idea of printing on a small piece of paper different denominations in baht and their conversion to pesos starting from 100 baht to 200 baht to 300 baht all the way to 2000 baht. That way, when a seller would tell us "450 baht!!", we can just look at our cheat sheet and know immediately how much it is in Pesos.

14) Thai people are generally friendly and helpful. (It helped also that Filipinos can easily be mistaken as Thai). When they say thank you, they press their heads together and bow their heads, no matter what they're doing! The simple gesture just shows how sincere they really are.

15)It's best to travel with people you know you can get along with. We hardly had any problems with one another and any changes in our plans were discussed and decided upon by everyone so that nobody felt bad about the change in plans.

16) People sometimes ask you, "Which would you rather be? Rich but sad? Or poor but happy?" Ask me that after coming from Bangkok and you'd definitely know what my answer would be.

Labels: Bangkok

Day 1

I woke up at 4:30am to shower and pack my toiletries. I was 30 minutes early as scheduled and I could have gone back to bed but I was worried I might oversleep and not be able to meet Elaine at our meeting point. Because I was early, I decided to just hang out first at our meeting point (Starbucks) so that the driver can go back home and bring my brothers to school. Unfortunately, Starbucks was closed. By 615am, we were on the road to Cris's house where her driver will bring us to the airport. Jin decided on the last minute to meet us at the airport because her boyfriend offered to bring her. She ended up being late because she slept at 4am reading Breaking Dawn. =P We got to check in at 9am which gave us enough time to have breakfast, do a quick bathroom/ yosi break before departure.

We arrived in Bangkok and after going through immigration and baggage claim, we bought Thai mobile network sim cards and we got stopped by a friendly airport staff who directed us to information... which was a good thing because not only did they tell us which cab to take, write our hotel address in Thai but they also offered us a free tour just for the 4 of us in our own airconditioned van simply because it was a holiday the next day (we eventually found out it was the airport's anniversary). We had 3 tours to chose from: The river canal tour at 730am, The Temples Tour at 9am or The Grand Palace. It was a good thing I stumbled upon information on the Grand Palace while researching on dress codes in Thailand because it said that guests should be covered from head to toe when visiting the Grand Palace and if you're not dressed, you'll have to rent clothes! Eewww! Obviously, my friends and I brought our shortest shorts since it was hot in Bangkok so The Grand Palace was not an option. The Temples tour was fully booked so it was just the river tour for us. All we had to do is pay tax of 125Bt (P171.25).

We then exited the airport to find girls screaming in excitement across the road. I thought they were happy to see us only to find out that a Korean movie star was coming out of the airport right behind us. After a 40 minute drive, we arrived at our hotel or rather serviced apartment. We were surprised that for a really nice two bedroom apartment with living room and kitchenette, our accommodations were really cheap(P3700 per person for 3 nights)! After drawing lots to find out who would be roommates, settling in, resting, making inquiries and reservations at the dinner cruise, we decided to have our first shopping adventure at 4am.

Jin suggested we go to Platinum Mall since a friend suggested it at the last minute and it wasn't in our itinerary. We walked to the mall and gave ourselves a 2 hour time limit. We all went separate ways. At 6:20pm, Jin, Cris and I met at the entrance. Elaine didn't feel well and decided to go back to the hotel earlier. After passing by a 7-11 to get prepaid credits, we took our first Tuktuk ride to the hotel, bought a bottle of Vodka and Strawberry soda at the convenience store in front of our hotel and decided on room service. We decided to stay in as well because we just had a pretty long day. One that started at 4am and we just didn't feel like going out anymore. Since we had to get up at 6am the next day for our 7:30am tour, I was in bed by 10:30pm.


Day 2

The day started really funny. Jin, my roommate, nudged me awake and told me it was 7am. I heard the shower ongoing in Cris' and Elaine's room and I thought, Wow! Our tour guide is arriving at 7:30am and no one seems to be panicking considering that Jin and I haven't showered yet and we haven't had breakfast yet. That's when it hit me. I turned to Jin and said, "Jin, it's only 6am." Jin burst out laughing and went next door to tell Elaine that she was up too early. None of them adjusted their watches to Bangkok time. At least now, we're not scrambling to hurry and we managed to call room service for 3 orders of rice and an omelette. We brought breakfast with us to make expenses cheaper.

At 7:30am, the tour guide arrives and takes us to the river canal where we saw different temples and structures, that captured the history and culture of Thailand, along the river banks. Amazingly enough, the river didn't smell and had less garbage than our very famous Pasig river. In fact, Thailand looks just like Manila except with cleaner streets and disciplined drivers. In the middle of the river canal tour, we were dropped off at the snake farm where there was a zoo and a snake show (man vs cobra or rattlesnake). After which, we rode the boat again and finished the river tour. Our tour guide, Kob, then told us that the reason our tour was free was because our tour is sponsored by 2 jewelry shops and 1 Thai silk shop which meant that after the tour, in all our sweaty, river stench glory, we had to go to these posh places. We weren't obliged to buy and Kob told us never to feel pressured to buy though admittedly, I was pissed off at the old Indian lady at the Thai silk store who kept pressuring me to buy by lowering her prices even when I kept dropping hints that I'm not interested. Why would I buy a tailor made silk pants and skirt at 1500 baht when I can buy at least 5 dresses for that amount? She even grabbed my arm when I started walking away! In the end, she asked, "So you're not interested??? Because I have other customers to attend to!" Wow, talk about someone working on commission. Not only did she harrass me despite showing that I'm not interested but she made it seem that I wasted her time!

After the tour, Kob dropped us off at MBK where we had our most expensive meal for the entire trip at their food court. We were THAT famished! After our meal, we decided to burn calories by shopping at the department store, particularly at Wacoal because Wacoal undergarments are waaaay cheap in Bangkok. After our purchases, Cris and I found out that there was a VAT refund for purchases totalling to at least 5000Bt though we have to spend at least 2000Bt per store. We went to the VAT refund application center to fill up forms where the nice lady was very helpful. She asked us how long have we been in Bangkok and for a moment, Cris and I blanked out and looked at each other for the date and we realized, "Oh! We just arrived yesterday!" It was such a long day that we felt we did a lot already. After filling up the form, we found Elaine and Jin purchasing underwear too so we had to wait for them since their purchases had to be included in the VAT refund form. After that, we decided to part ways again and shop on our own. We set a 2 hour deadline again. As the time crept to our meeting time, I ran out of cash and wanted badly to go back to the hotel to get more because the plan was after MBK, we would head to another mall. Thankfully, Cris was in dire need for a restroom and we all decide to just head back to the hotel.

After the day's trip, we decided to forego the river cruise since we already had been to the river and the river cruise was expensive at 2000 Bt. The shopaholics in us agreed that 2000Bt would go a long way in shopping. Furthermore, we decided that we preferred going to tiangge like malls than malls with branded names since we were after value for money. The cheaper the clothes, the better. And therefore, we struck out all the big malls with brand stores from our itinerary.

We decided to check out Pratunam Mall but was disappointed with the selection that we decided to hit Platinum Mall again and go for the third and fourth floor this time until they closed. When we all met up again to decide what to have dinner, I realized that since we were no longer going to any department stores, we have to consume the rest of the balance we needed to refund the tax. We decided then to go back to MBK, look for something to buy then have dinner. Undergarments were on sale so we decided to go through other brands as well and for the fun of it, we bought matching underwear! It was hilarious going through the piles of underwear looking for matching panties! Cris and I bought bras to match the frilly boy shorts. After filling up the VAT refund form, we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant since everybody was in the mood for Japanese. After dinner, we decided to go back to the hotel to drop off our purchases, freshen up and just get a foot and back massage at the massage place near our hotel. We could have gotten a full body massage but we were in a thrifty mood and we figured we could always come back for a full massage. After the relaxing massage, we all went back to the hotel to hangout, watch some tv before turning in. We decided we would sleep in the next day since we had Chatuchak on our itinerary and the market opened at noon.

Day 3
We left the hotel at around 1230pm after having brunch. Decked in our most comfortable outfits, slathered in sunblock, hair tied up high, money safely tucked in our pockets (or slim belt bag that fit under my top), sunglasses on top of our noses, and huge empty bags slung on our shoulders, we were ready to brave the heat and adventure that Chatuchak will bring us.

The shopping we did was unbelievable. I brought with me an empty sack bag that were about 2ft high, 2ft wide and 6 inches thick and was able to fill it up! If my arms didn't hurt from carrying all the stuff, I would still have stayed and done some damage to my pocket. Cris and I managed to find shirts that could serve us Christmas gifts to our office staff at P57 only! Mind you, they were good quality. I would wear them myself if it came in my size. I was able to buy my mom a dress worth P137 only. I also bought earrings worth P13.70 each. I love wholesale! We left at around 4pm and trekked back to the BTS station (their version of our MRT). Upon reaching the station, we couldn't care less what other people thought cuz we were so tired! Poise or no poise, we sat on the floor and treated ourselves to mint chocolate ice cream. It was sooooo good because the mint flavor really refreshed us. Buying mint chocolate ice cream after shopping on a hot afternoon is a really good idea. Soon after, we headed back to the hotel.

Upon arriving to the hotel, we all retreated to the bathrooms/ living rooms to relax. Elaine and I tried one of the street foods which was green mangoes and chili, which we thought was bagoong! What a mistake! Despite wiping the green mangoes on tissue paper to remove the chili, the delicacy was still too spicy for me. After resting for a few minutes, Jin decides to have more of her money changed while I decided to go back to MBK to buy some of their delicacies as pasalubong. After handing our money to Jin so she can have them exchanged, Elaine and I headed to MBK where, after getting our purchases, we went around in circles because we got lost. Cris decided to stay in the hotel and sleep. She sure loves her sleep.

When we got back to the hotel, we waited for Jin, who not only had our money but our KFC dinner as well, in the lobby, hoping she didn't get wet in the sudden downpour. After dinner, we rested a little and took our time getting dressed for another cultural activity~ a night at their red light district: Patpong!

People often say that you've never really gone to Bangkok unless you've visited the freak shows at Patpong. Elaine and I call them "talent shows." It was definitely a new experience for us entering a girly bar, being taken care of by the mamasan and getting milked for it at the process. After 2 hours at the bar and seeing enough talents, we decided to go. Only then after leaving did we realize that we snuck out of the bar without a goodbye or thank you to the mamasan but at least we left with a few bucks saved up since the mamasan wanted us to tip her (HEY! we already paid for her shot of the tequila!)

We walked a little and found a side street night market packing up. Jin found a watch that a friend of hers asked her to buy. Elaine managed to bargain with the seller from 2500 baht to 500 baht! That was the biggest bargain ever made in the entire trip.

It was too late to get a full body massage like we originally planned since we arrived at the hotel at 1am and the spa place closes at 1am. Instead, we opted to start packing our bags instead. Elaine and I dragged our luggages to the living room and unwrapped all our purchases and started rolling clothes then packing them. We finished at 3am.

Day 4

Being the last day of our trip, I got up early because I wanted to go back to MBK to buy more dresses. Jin and Elaine weren't feeling well which explained why they were up already. I enjoyed the sunday morning by trekking to MBK by myself only to find out that they opened at 10am, instead of 9am like Jin informed me. It was only 9:20pm so I decided to hang out, like the other people waiting for the mall to open and just pray the rosary since I couldn't go to Church that day.

After buying the dresses, I went back to the hotel where we're about to have brunch again. While everyone showered and dressed up, I washed the dishes and finished packing up. We checked out of the hotel at 1pm but asked if we could leave our bags with them since our flight was still at 11pm. Since van like cabs were very rare in Bangkok, we decided to just rent a van that could fit the 4 of us and our luggages.

We then headed to Platinum to do some last minute shopping. Jin and I planned to head to Pratunam after to buy belly rings for her friend since the cheapest ones I found were there. After Pratunam, we planned on going to Pantip Mall, also known as their gadgets mall. Gadgets there were said to be very very cheap. Almost half the price. Unfortunately for us, it started to rain real hard, just when we were about to meet, that the streets flooded almost immediately. We couldn't wait for the rain to stop so we just decided to go back to the hotel, squeeze our last minute purchases into our luggages, get one last foot massage before having dinner.

Our van came in time and after bidding goodbye to the wonderful staff of our hotel, on a rainy Sunday night, we drove away from Bangkok- from its clean streets, friendly people, disciplined drivers and most importantly, bargain shopping centers.

Of course, our adventures didn't end there. There was that moment where we kinda panicked because the padlock on Cris's luggage jammed and wouldn't open. Short of having the padlock cut, I decided to give it a try and on my second attempt, it opened. The trick was putting in the key half way. Then there was the time that we had to scrape all our loose change so that Jin could buy delicacies for her mom. We also attempted to add more photos to our measly collection of photos of the trip by taking pictures of ourselves. We were so serious with our shopping that we hardly took pictures and most of the pictures we had were sceneries.

Finally, we boarded the plane at around quarter to 11 where we all fell soundly asleep. Upon landing, Jin and I headed to a small duty free store and bought a bag of chocolates as pasalubong to our families. We rode Cris's car and dropped of Jin then proceeded to her place to pick up Elaine's car. Elaine and I decided to have breakfast at Mcdonald's. You could always count on Elaine to eat with you. Shortly after 530am, we headed home where I had to lug my humongous luggage up 4 flights of stairs! Trust me, it took a lot of effort.

In conclusion, the trip was money worth spent. I was with girlfriends who I enjoyed being with, the trip was well organized, we maximized our time but most importantly, I may be poorer but I'm happy.

Labels: Bangkok

I haven't left the country since 1995 and all the travelling I did was locally. When A and I started investing in a condo, I knew that travelling would be one of the expenses I had to forego. After paying the downpayment for one year, A and I had to apply for a loan and while waiting for our loan application to be approved, I was slowly saving up money from May till September.

Back in June, on one of our girls night out with the girlfriends of A's high school barkada (2 of whom became recent exes after 4 year relationships), one friend suggested we go to Bangkok because the airfare rates were on promo. Without hesitation, I jumped at the chance. For one, this was one group that I saw myself travelling with and secondly, what were the odds that the opportunity showed itself at the perfect time? We bought our tickets a few days later because there was a June 30 deadline.

July was spent scouring internet sites and testimonials looking for cheap accommodations while August was spent researching places to go to and creating the uber- OC itinerary. We spent the rest of September laying the final touches and perfecting the itinerary. We even held "Bangkok meetings" to discuss developments of our trip (actually, we ended up talking more about the events in our respective lives and anything Bangkok related was injected in between topics).

Throughout the experience, I knew I was travelling with the right group of people because:

1) They were as organized as I was. Our itinerary included time of waking up and sleeping, travel time to and from places, meals, etc. There was a balance of shopping and cultural activities. Our itinerary also included projected expenses, checklist of things to bring and things to do prior to departure such as researching on mobile network rates, asking the hotels if we can stash our luggages somewhere after check out when we do our last minute shopping since our flight was still at 11pm. I even added a weather forecast two days before departure to assist us in our packing. We just laughed at how detailed our itinerary was.

2) We hardly disagreed at any changes in our itinerary. Sure, we voiced out opinions but everyone was basically happy with the changes.

3) Everyone pulled their own weight. Each person was responsible and didn't even have to be told what to do or what part of the itinerary was assigned to them. Even in the hotel, each of us took the initiative to handle a certain chore like washing the dishes, setting the table, ordering room service, preparing breakfast. The trip was a group effort. I felt I was working on a project in college!


Truth be told, I couldn't exactly feel the excitement as the days crept to departure day simply because there was much work to do. The bar I work for was changing the menu again and the tedious task falls under my department which meant that aside from redesigning the menu, we had to continuously proofread and quadruple check prices. Right up to the evening prior to my departure, there were last minute changes to the final draft of the menu before it went to printers! Furthermore, my parents scheduled our long awaited house blessing the night before the flight. As such, I had to pack two days before the flight and even worked during the reception of the house blessing just to ensure that everything goes well while I was away.

That night, while my parents were partying away, I was already in bed by 11pm.

Labels: Bangkok