So some people are really excited about malls. Bangkok was a popular destination for travel from South India, and when people came back to Chennai they inevitably raved about the great malls here, many of which are in Bangkok's main shopping district, about a mile from the U.S. Embassy.
I learned a while ago that I just don't really care about malls. I have yet to walk into a mall that didn't seem exactly like every other mall I've walked into just about anywhere in the world. Aside from the smells, that is. (The mall that's down the street from our house here smells EXACTLY like the mall we used to go to in Chennai when we wanted to see a movie. Why is this? Something moldy in the air conditioning?)
I remember being excited to go to the Mall of America the first time I was in that area. Well, it's a mall. Camp Snoopy (I guess it's Nickelodeon Universe now) is kind of fun, but really it's just a big mall with the same sorts of stores you find in every other not-so-big mall in America. Woohoo.
I say the Mall of America is big, but it doesn't even crack the top 20 when it comes to big malls worldwide. Vast shopping centers seem to be an Asian specialty. Of the top 10 largest malls in the world, 10 of the 11 (there's a tie for eighth place, hence 11 top-10 malls) are in Asia, and the other one is in Turkey, half of which is in Asia. Confused?
Bangkok's Central World Plaza (and here and here) claims the No. 6 spot. It's world famous in Thailand.
Because of a snafu in the scheduling of kids' doctor appointments (long story) the kids and I found ourselves downtown Thursday morning with almost four hours to kill before we had to be at the medical unit. We (I) decided to do a little exploring and walk from the embassy, through part of the central shopping district, and check out this ah-mazing mall.
The kids were excellent adventurers and hiked the mile and a bit with good cheer. Only a few "where IS its" escaped Johnny's lips. I think there was just too much to look at to allow time for complaining. That part of Bangkok is packed with beautiful, first-world-esque hotels and businesses, but the streets are still uniquely Thai, with little shrines and spirit houses on the corners and sidewalks packed with street-food vendors and men making little wire cars and airplanes for sale. And there's the colorful Skytrain to watch, too. Fun!
It took us about 25 minutes to get to Central World, where the kids were immediately drawn to some adorably round elephant sculptures and a dancing fountain.
They ran around the sculptures and fountain for a while until my need for air conditioning became desperate enough to round them up and head inside.
We were welcomed at the entrance by a concierge? security guard? in a crisp white uniform, which was ... different, but after that, well, it's a mall. If you're really in to designer stuff and high-end names like Zen and Calvin Klein and Coach, then you'll love it. I felt like I'd just walked into Tysons Corner again, which just isn't super exciting.
That said, it wasn't a bad place to kill some time. Like most malls here, stores are generally organized by floor, meaning that you'll find most electronics stores on one floor and most clothing stores on another floor. We saw on a map that the children's stores were all on the sixth floor, so that's where we headed.
We found a pretty cool play area with a great indoor slide. The kids loved it, and we were there early enough to have it almost to ourselves for a while.
Then we ogled the Legos at Toys R Us. All three of my kids are absolute Lego maniacs. Since I'm such a softy, I let them each pick out a mini set. Samuel found and is now obsessed with a Millennium Falcon Microfighter, Evie got a Lego Friends mini set, and Johnny chose a Ninjago something-or-other.
Here are Samuel and Evie with Lego Geoffrey ...
They also had a Lego Central World Plaza! (at least, I think that's what it was)
After some more wandering, we had lunch (the kids chose Burger King ... yawn) and a scoop of ice cream from Swensen's, and then we walked back to present ourselves for inspection at the medical unit. One morning successfully squandered.
The real adventure was our trip home.
We generally try to time our appointments downtown so that we can ride the family shuttle that (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) leaves Nichada (our neighborhood) for the embassy at 8:30 a.m. and then leaves from the embassy for Nichada at 2 p.m. It's handy dandy, since our housing complex is miles from a Skytrain or Metro stop and pretty much unknown to downtown Bangkok taxi drivers.
Alas, because of the aforementioned snafu, which had something to do with a doctor's temporary duty assignment, canceled flights, and who knows what else, our perfectly timed appointments got shifted later into the afternoon, well after the shuttle's return to Nichada. Taxi time!
I'm sure grabbing taxis to and from everywhere will become old hat at some point, but this was my first try at it, and I was nervous. Taxi drivers don't know Nichada, so the thing to do (according to Those In The Know) is tell the driver you want to go to Central Plaza Chaeng Wattanna, which is the mall right near our house. Then when you get off the freeway for Chaeng Wattanna (that's a major street in our area) you direct them turn by turn to the Nichada gate.
Sounds easy, but there are some complications. One of them is that most taxi drivers speak very little English, if they speak any at all. Another is that Central Plaza Chaeng Wattanna is a 20-minute drive from central Bangkok in no traffic ... and there's ALWAYS traffic, especially in the late afternoon, so the actual drive time is anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. Many drivers will simply refuse to take you that far. Another complication is the crazy route from the Chaeng Wattanna expressway exit to the Nichada gate. I've never seen anything like it! You have to make sharp turns between concrete barriers, drive down a little alley that leads under the expressway ... Any sensible driver might suspect you're leading him off to his murder.
Oh, yeah! AND "Central Plaza Chaeng Wattanna" has to be pronounced "Centan Plaza Jaing Wattanna" or the driver won't know what you're talking about. Almost forgot about that. Anyone planning to visit me should be taking notes.
So Thursday afternoon I stood in front of the embassy, took a couple of meant-to-be-calming breaths, and started hailing cabs. The first driver said no way. The second driver said he'd do it if I gave him 500 baht. I said no way. I want the meter. (This is why you do research. I knew that it should only cost about 200 baht.) He said no way and drove off. The third driver hesitated, and then said "traffic, traffic, OK?" which I took to mean "You do understand it will be heavy traffic?" I said sure, double-checked that he was going to use the meter, and loaded the kids into the car.
Between my limited Thai (numbers, left, right, straight, I don't understand what you're saying, etc.) and the driver's few words of English, we managed to get through all the toll booths (the passenger has to pay the tolls), off the freeway, around all the crazy turns, through the Nichada gates, and to our house. YES!!!
The driver was a friendly guy, and though he was obviously baffled by my weird directions after getting off the expressway, he had a hearty laugh about it with the Nichada guards. I had no idea what they were actually saying to each other, but I got the impression it was something like this:
TAXI DRIVER: "I thought this crazy foreign lady was leading me to my doom! But now I see it's a hidden ex-pat enclave! Ha ha!"
GUARD: "Yes! These foreigners are hiding out under the expressway. Ha Ha! They're so strange!"
Meanwhile, I was breathing a sigh of relief. "Back, safe, home again," we all said together (to paraphrase Richard Scarry).
I gave the taxi driver a gigantic tip (and still came nowhere near the 500 baht that other crook had asked for), he drove off laughing, and the kids and I were happy to be home.
Stay tuned for more adventures! Now that we're mostly unpacked, I'll try to be a little better at keeping up with the blog. Ha!
I learned a while ago that I just don't really care about malls. I have yet to walk into a mall that didn't seem exactly like every other mall I've walked into just about anywhere in the world. Aside from the smells, that is. (The mall that's down the street from our house here smells EXACTLY like the mall we used to go to in Chennai when we wanted to see a movie. Why is this? Something moldy in the air conditioning?)
I remember being excited to go to the Mall of America the first time I was in that area. Well, it's a mall. Camp Snoopy (I guess it's Nickelodeon Universe now) is kind of fun, but really it's just a big mall with the same sorts of stores you find in every other not-so-big mall in America. Woohoo.
I say the Mall of America is big, but it doesn't even crack the top 20 when it comes to big malls worldwide. Vast shopping centers seem to be an Asian specialty. Of the top 10 largest malls in the world, 10 of the 11 (there's a tie for eighth place, hence 11 top-10 malls) are in Asia, and the other one is in Turkey, half of which is in Asia. Confused?
Bangkok's Central World Plaza (and here and here) claims the No. 6 spot. It's world famous in Thailand.
Because of a snafu in the scheduling of kids' doctor appointments (long story) the kids and I found ourselves downtown Thursday morning with almost four hours to kill before we had to be at the medical unit. We (I) decided to do a little exploring and walk from the embassy, through part of the central shopping district, and check out this ah-mazing mall.
The kids were excellent adventurers and hiked the mile and a bit with good cheer. Only a few "where IS its" escaped Johnny's lips. I think there was just too much to look at to allow time for complaining. That part of Bangkok is packed with beautiful, first-world-esque hotels and businesses, but the streets are still uniquely Thai, with little shrines and spirit houses on the corners and sidewalks packed with street-food vendors and men making little wire cars and airplanes for sale. And there's the colorful Skytrain to watch, too. Fun!
It took us about 25 minutes to get to Central World, where the kids were immediately drawn to some adorably round elephant sculptures and a dancing fountain.
They ran around the sculptures and fountain for a while until my need for air conditioning became desperate enough to round them up and head inside.
We were welcomed at the entrance by a concierge? security guard? in a crisp white uniform, which was ... different, but after that, well, it's a mall. If you're really in to designer stuff and high-end names like Zen and Calvin Klein and Coach, then you'll love it. I felt like I'd just walked into Tysons Corner again, which just isn't super exciting.
That said, it wasn't a bad place to kill some time. Like most malls here, stores are generally organized by floor, meaning that you'll find most electronics stores on one floor and most clothing stores on another floor. We saw on a map that the children's stores were all on the sixth floor, so that's where we headed.
We found a pretty cool play area with a great indoor slide. The kids loved it, and we were there early enough to have it almost to ourselves for a while.
Then we ogled the Legos at Toys R Us. All three of my kids are absolute Lego maniacs. Since I'm such a softy, I let them each pick out a mini set. Samuel found and is now obsessed with a Millennium Falcon Microfighter, Evie got a Lego Friends mini set, and Johnny chose a Ninjago something-or-other.
Here are Samuel and Evie with Lego Geoffrey ...
They also had a Lego Central World Plaza! (at least, I think that's what it was)
After some more wandering, we had lunch (the kids chose Burger King ... yawn) and a scoop of ice cream from Swensen's, and then we walked back to present ourselves for inspection at the medical unit. One morning successfully squandered.
The real adventure was our trip home.
We generally try to time our appointments downtown so that we can ride the family shuttle that (on Tuesdays and Thursdays) leaves Nichada (our neighborhood) for the embassy at 8:30 a.m. and then leaves from the embassy for Nichada at 2 p.m. It's handy dandy, since our housing complex is miles from a Skytrain or Metro stop and pretty much unknown to downtown Bangkok taxi drivers.
Alas, because of the aforementioned snafu, which had something to do with a doctor's temporary duty assignment, canceled flights, and who knows what else, our perfectly timed appointments got shifted later into the afternoon, well after the shuttle's return to Nichada. Taxi time!
I'm sure grabbing taxis to and from everywhere will become old hat at some point, but this was my first try at it, and I was nervous. Taxi drivers don't know Nichada, so the thing to do (according to Those In The Know) is tell the driver you want to go to Central Plaza Chaeng Wattanna, which is the mall right near our house. Then when you get off the freeway for Chaeng Wattanna (that's a major street in our area) you direct them turn by turn to the Nichada gate.
Sounds easy, but there are some complications. One of them is that most taxi drivers speak very little English, if they speak any at all. Another is that Central Plaza Chaeng Wattanna is a 20-minute drive from central Bangkok in no traffic ... and there's ALWAYS traffic, especially in the late afternoon, so the actual drive time is anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. Many drivers will simply refuse to take you that far. Another complication is the crazy route from the Chaeng Wattanna expressway exit to the Nichada gate. I've never seen anything like it! You have to make sharp turns between concrete barriers, drive down a little alley that leads under the expressway ... Any sensible driver might suspect you're leading him off to his murder.
Oh, yeah! AND "Central Plaza Chaeng Wattanna" has to be pronounced "Centan Plaza Jaing Wattanna" or the driver won't know what you're talking about. Almost forgot about that. Anyone planning to visit me should be taking notes.
So Thursday afternoon I stood in front of the embassy, took a couple of meant-to-be-calming breaths, and started hailing cabs. The first driver said no way. The second driver said he'd do it if I gave him 500 baht. I said no way. I want the meter. (This is why you do research. I knew that it should only cost about 200 baht.) He said no way and drove off. The third driver hesitated, and then said "traffic, traffic, OK?" which I took to mean "You do understand it will be heavy traffic?" I said sure, double-checked that he was going to use the meter, and loaded the kids into the car.
Between my limited Thai (numbers, left, right, straight, I don't understand what you're saying, etc.) and the driver's few words of English, we managed to get through all the toll booths (the passenger has to pay the tolls), off the freeway, around all the crazy turns, through the Nichada gates, and to our house. YES!!!
The driver was a friendly guy, and though he was obviously baffled by my weird directions after getting off the expressway, he had a hearty laugh about it with the Nichada guards. I had no idea what they were actually saying to each other, but I got the impression it was something like this:
TAXI DRIVER: "I thought this crazy foreign lady was leading me to my doom! But now I see it's a hidden ex-pat enclave! Ha ha!"
GUARD: "Yes! These foreigners are hiding out under the expressway. Ha Ha! They're so strange!"
Meanwhile, I was breathing a sigh of relief. "Back, safe, home again," we all said together (to paraphrase Richard Scarry).
I gave the taxi driver a gigantic tip (and still came nowhere near the 500 baht that other crook had asked for), he drove off laughing, and the kids and I were happy to be home.
Stay tuned for more adventures! Now that we're mostly unpacked, I'll try to be a little better at keeping up with the blog. Ha!
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