Hanging Out on Sukhumvit

Sukhumvit is a long street that runs east from the center of Bangkok and is crossed by numbered streets.  The BTS also runs along Sukhumvit, so usually if you're talking about a location on Sukhumvit, you'll say soi (street) whatever number, and probably what BTS stop it's closest to.  The fun fact that I learned this weekend is that the even sois are on the south side of Sukhumvit and the odd sois are on the north side of Sukhumvit, but the numbers don't actually line up.  For example, we went to a party at the apartment of some friends who live on Soi 24, near the Phrom Phong BTS stop, but if you go the other way from the BTS you're on Soi 39.

Our friends are leaving this summer, and so they decided to have some people over to help them finish up their alcohol, which they don't want to ship.  Since we're good friends, we agreed to come and help them out.  I knew we wouldn't be driving back to Nichada afterwards, so I tried to find a hotel close to where they live.  We decided to try the Sheraton Grande which is one stop down, at Asok, and is across the street from Terminal 21, the fun mall with floors themed like different cities.

The very nice lady who checked us in understood my need for views, and put us on the top floor, 33.

The best part about the hotel is that it has its own connection to the sky walk.  The sky walk is a pedestrian walkway that runs underneath the BTS.  The sad part is that it doesn't run the whole length of the BTS, so you can be enjoying your sky walk, and then have to go back down to the ground with everyone else for while before you can find a place to pick it up again.  Luckily for us, we could get pretty much everywhere we wanted to go on the sky walk.  Our first stop was at a restaurant called Hemingway's.  It's in a house that used to be the French ambassador's residence.

They have beautiful outdoor seating on the balconies and a courtyard, but it's still a little too hot for that, so we sat inside with air conditioning this time.  We'll be going back when it's cooler though.  One of our favorite parts was the menu, which had some fun names and descriptions.  Jeff had to try Hemingway's Hot and Salty Nuts,

and, after reading the description, I felt I needed to try the Singapore Sling.

The food was really good too, so it was a great start to our evening.

After dinner, I took Jeff exploring at Terminal 21.

By Bangkok standards, it's actually a pretty small mall, but we still managed to find some interesting stuff.

We eventually made our way to our friends' apartment, and had fun exploring a bit more along the way.  The host is quite a mixologist, so they had a menu of drinks to choose from.  My favorite for the evening was a Thai colada.  We also played cards, and I learned a couple new games.  My new favorite is Midnight Baseball.  We stayed until after midnight, which is when the BTS closes, so we caught a taxi back to our hotel.

The Sheraton has some of the best restaurants in the city, but they're very expensive, so we had decided not to have breakfast there.  Instead, I had read about a place that's supposed to have the best hot chocolate in Bangkok.  It's called Chu Chocolate Bar and Cafe, and we could get there without leaving the sky walk, so that's where we went for breakfast.  The hot chocolate did not disappoint.  They actually had a whole section of the menu devoted to chocolate.

Silly Jeff got coffee, but I got a creamy and delicious hot chocolate.  His may have looked fancier than mine, but mine tasted better.

After a delicious breakfast, we ambled back along the sky walk to our hotel, and then made our way home to the girls who greeted us with hugs and kisses.  Elena cried out "Mama! Dada!" when she saw us, and Vivi gave Jeff a running leap hug.  Young said they were both very good, and it sounds like they had fun without us, but we're all enjoying having a lazy family Sunday after our night apart.