100th Post!

Wow! My 100th post! Actually I'm writing this the second time... mainly because after writing a nice long essay about my first day in Thailand there was a power outage and I lost it all... arrrrgh!! How come blogger didn't autosave before it happened??!!!

Anyways, I'm gonna do a quick list of summary of what I've said, mainly because I couldn't be bothered re-writing what I've written before and also because I can't remember exactly what I wrote. I mean... how do you re-write your thoughts and feelings?? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of being true and authentic... you can't really re-write your first impression... can you?? Anyways here's the gist:

1. Arrived in Thailand on Saturday night. Turns out to be an all expenses paid holiday due to various reasons - mainly because of business dealings between the company my dad works for and another company in Thailand.
2. Next morning went to the famous weekend Jatu-Jat market. Sells anything and everything there! It's almost like a whole suburb full of stores - extremely huge! However, it seems that it's daily/nightly rival is the Suan-Lum Night Bazaar where it is much cleaner and I guess more favourable due to it's cooler weather (well, it's at night) and entertainment facilities around it (ie, restaurants, beer gardens with stage, etc). Anyways, browsed around Jatu-Jat market for most of the morning before heading off to other shopping centers ie MBK and Central Plaza.
3. Day 02 on Sunday went to the Grand Palace; really nice and great and all that... I guess a picture says a thousand words, so here you go... remember to click on the image for the full size:
   
   

I think the roof architecture and external building design are amazing and a sight to enjoy. Although it looks good, they simply are tiles of colored tiles/mirrors and sometimes 18K gold-plated tiles.

One of the things to see within the temple ground that is the Emerald Buddha... I'll let you read about it from the brochure below: (click to see full size image). Or you can also read about it here --> http://www.palaces.thai.net/night/index_gp.htm You'll need to click on the drop down menu and select "The Chapel Royal of the Emerald Buddha." It actually has two links that allows you to have a 'virtual' tour inside. Unfortunately, they didn't allow me to take pictures inside so this virtual thingy is the next best thing... just copy and paste the following link below in a new browser window.

http://www.palaces.thai.net/night/new/gp/gp_movies/coeb.mov


I think we really can learn a lot from a visit to any major palaces in the world about the culture of the people there. Comparing to the Malaysian monarchy, the Thai monarchy seems to be very rich and compelling for us to learn more about. I'm not sure if it is personal bias or what, but it seems the Malaysian monarchy isn't so glamourous or I guess 'rich' enough (for lack of a better word) to know. I think it's because of this 'rotation' of kings system that we have here in Malaysia; doesn't really help in creating a long line of royal family history of hundreds, if not thousands of years.

Stay tuned for more next time!