Taking It Easy for the Labor Day Long Weekend

Jeff gets Labor Day off, so we were planning a Sunday night downtown, but before we left, we wanted to do something fun at home.  There's a "new" restaurant on the lake, which is really just the Nichada Club, but in a new location and renamed Vapor.  Of course, the place mats and the menus all still say Nichada Club, but they have a cool sign out front that says Vapor.  It's up in an apartment building that overlooks the lake, and there's seating with a view over a balcony, so that's where we decided to sit.

We lounged around there for a while, and then Jeff and I got in the car to drive downtown leaving Mom and Young in charge of the girls.  For this staycation, we were planning to stay at the Centre Point Grande above Terminal 21.  It seemed like a great location, but what we didn't account for is that a hotel on top of a mall might be difficult to get into on a Sunday afternoon.  The short version of our adventure involved a right hand turn across six lanes of traffic with no lights (We love you Bangkok!), a u-turn, going into the mall parking lot and then out the exit at the next level to get to the front entrance of the hotel.

We were so relieved to reach our destination that all we wanted to do was get rid of the car.  All the hotels we've stayed at so far have had complimentary valet parking, so we just told the people who came out to help us that we wanted valet.  They seemed a little confused, but there were three guys, so we just figured they weren't sure who should take the car and who should take the luggage (one tiny carry on rolly suitcase which I keep trying to roll myself and which the scandalized hotel employees always take away from me).  They like to send us up to the room first, and then bring our one piece of luggage.  We were a little worried, because we hadn't gotten a valet ticket for the car, but the lady at check-in assured us that they would bring it up with the luggage.  The guy showed up with our suitcase, a parking ticket, and the keys to our car.  Apparently, they don't actually have valet parking, but in classic Thai fashion, they weren't going to tell us no, so they must have done the equivalent of rock, paper, scissors to see who was going to park our car for us.  Gotta love Thailand.

You also have to love the views of Bangkok from the 31st floor.

It's rainy season, and so the clouds make all kinds of unreal creations in the sky.  This is a picture I took lying on the bed in the room.

While we enjoyed the wall of windows, the toilet options in the bathroom scared us a little.

It took a while to figure out how to flush it (the black buttons at the top).  We were too scared to try any of the other buttons.  Instead, we got on the BTS and rode down to National Stadium to go visit the Jim Thompson House.  I'd been there before, but Jeff had not.  Luckily, I knew it was at the end of an unassuming looking little soi.  It's right on a klong (small river) and the gardens are beautiful.

You can't take pictures inside the house, but that allows you to focus on the tour and enjoy it.  Afterwards, we were hot and thirsty, so we stopped at the cafe for delicious mango smoothies.

We got back to the hotel with enough time to rest and change for dinner.  Our plan was to meet up with several of our friends who live downtown.  Jeff has been missing Brazilian steakhouses, so I looked online, and found one a few sois up Sukhumvit from where we were staying.  It was about a ten minute walk to the restaurant from our hotel, which gave us the opportunity to look around.  Walking is definitely the best choice, because some of our friends got an uber from almost exactly the same spot, and it took them over half an hour in traffic to get to the restaurant.

We started with drinks, and once everyone got there, we took a pass at the salad bar.  These are the only non-meat items that Jeff allowed on his plate.

The non-stop skewers of meat service made it easy for us to stay there for several hours, talking and eating.  It definitely wasn't as good as our favorite Brazilian steakhouse in D.C., but for about thirty dollars per person it was the best priced steak we've had.

The next morning we weren't sure if we could handle breakfast, but we made room for Chu's Chocolate.  One of Jeff's friends recommended the chocolate milkshake, so that's what he had to drink with his chorizo frittata.  I love that man, and I love enjoying delicious chocolate while watching Bangkok traffic that I'm not stuck in.  I also got a kick out of the fact that the guys on one side of us were speaking in French and the ladies on the other side of us were speaking in Japanese.  Love Bangkok, great stay downtown, as always :-)