Vivi, my mom, and I took the family shuttle downtown. I was going to try to walk us to the BTS station, but Vivi really wanted to take a taxi, so I caved. She had a BIG meltdown yesterday, that was triggered by one little thing, but led to all kinds of other stuff coming out, so I decided that today was Vivi's day. Plus, the taxi was air conditioned and cost about a dollar fifty to get us to the mall.
Unfortunately, since we were so fast, we got to the mall well before its 10 o'clock opening time. There are two huge malls right next to each other, Siam Paragon and Central World. In between them is a beautiful temple complex, Wat Pathum Wanaram. We decided to walk over and explore until the mall opened. It was very strange to walk around a temple in the middle of all the big modern buildings.
Closest to the mall was a building that was locked up, and had golden Buddhas lining the walls. In the middle was a huge tree wrapped in shear material. I don't know what it was all for, but it was really beautiful. We went there to kill time, but ended up thoroughly enjoying our unexpected detour.
By the time we got back to the mall it was almost ten. We sat on the steps leading up to the mall with all the other people waiting for it to open, which seems to be my typical mall going experience. I had told the taxi driver we wanted to go to Ocean World, so he dropped us off at the door right next to the entrance to it, which was really helpful because the mall was another typical labyrinth Thai mall, and if we had been on the other side of the building, we never would have found Ocean World.
I used my shiny new diplomatic resident card to get Thai price, which was still almost $40 for me, mom, and Vivi. But, to keep things in perspective, the stores in the mall are Gucci, Prada, etc., and they have a Rolls Royce "dealership".
Ocean World was totally worth the price of admission though. All the signs were in English, so we could see what everything was and learn about it. The set up was really well done too. There was a shark learning area with big projections that you could touch to select a shark, spin it around, and learn things about it. Of course, these big screens were on the wall on the other side of a glass floor that looked down into the shark tank. Mom and I didn't walk on it. Vivian eventually did, but very tentatively.
I took lots of pictures of the fish, but between their movement and the lighting, only a few came out really well.
Towards the end, there was a penguin area which Mom got really excited about and an indoor playground which Vivi got really excited about. While they were having fun, part of the giant group of Thai school children caught up with us. We first saw them when we got to Ocean World. There were easily a hundred little kids, somewhere around three years old. They were all wearing uniforms, and they walked in rows with their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them. They were super cute and really well behaved, but they were excited and numerous, and therefore loud, so we tried to avoid them most of the time.
When we got to the really cool part where you walk under the tank, the school group wasn't with us, but they were close enough that their excited squeals echoed all around. Still, lots of fun.
After our fabulous time at Ocean World, we realized we were hungry. Luckily, the escalator brought us right up into the food court area. Vivian opted for Subway
while Mom and I explored some of the more exotic options
We wanted to try the roast duck, so we got a little bowl with noodles to share. It was tasty, but had lots of skin and fat. We decided to save our appetites in hopes of finding the dumpling place my friend had told me I had to try.
We walked around the mall after lunch and had fun looking in the fancy stores. Mom especially wanted to price check the Coach purses. We had so much fun at the Coach store I forgot to take pictures, sorry! Vivian decided that she needed a Coach purse, and so one of the salespeople helped outfit her with one. He also showed her where the sunglasses were. She proceeded to strut around the store and talk to herself in the mirrors with much disdain for those around her. Next time pictures, I promise. Needless to say, we didn't buy the six year old the three hundred dollar purse or sunglasses, but she certainly enjoyed trying them out.
As we were getting towards the top of the mall, I saw it, the dumpling place. It's called Paradise Dynasty, and, as promised, the dumplings were delicious.
I've also seen these things that look like super dumplings, and I've been really curious about them. They're apparently called "buns", so Mom and I tried the pork ones.
The insides were tasty, but there was too much dough. It was really thick inside, with just a little pork ball and some broth. I decided next time I would just stick with dumplings, but I'm glad that now I know what's inside these. Since Vivian sat patiently through our dumpling/bun experiment, I caved and got her a Krispy Kreme doughnut on the way out of the mall.
For our final adventure, I wanted to go one block over to the other gargantuan mall, Central World. They have a really big Asia Books there that has almost all its books in English. I had also heard that they have a good kids' section. They do :-)
Vivi's final treat was a book which she read the whole way home on the shuttle.
Another great day in Bangkok :-)
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