The first thing that comes to mind when someone mentions 'Thailand' is its nation-wide chain restaurant - MK. It is a suki style restaurant where you order meat and vegetables that are then cooked in an electric pan in the middle of the table. The food is then shared with everyone in the same table. See, just writing about this makes me drool! I personally think that the hot sauce is what makes the whole thing extra special and YUM! Surprisingly enough, with such good food, the price is pretty low! Then again, maybe it isn't so surprising considering that the cost of living in Thailand is pretty low (80 cc of milk costs about 42 baht = USD 1.2).

With that in mind, one needs to know good places to spend money at. One thing I really like about Thailand is the range of shopping centres they have - upmarket for 5-star-hotels class people to large cheap market for backpackers. =P Oh..and don't forget the floating markets! My parents and I went to one just outside of Bangkok - Damnuen Saduak. It took a bit more than an hour to get there, I guess it depends on the traffic in Bangkok. Keep in mind that the traffic in Bankok equals to that in Jakarta (if you know what I'm talking about!). Snails move faster! Anyways, my parents went absolutely ecstatic at the floating market because they sell freshly picked fruits and my oh my...they are tasty, juicy, and CHEAP!

At another occasion in Bangkok, I got a chance to go to the grand palace. It used to be the official resident of the kings of Thailand, but is still very much in use nowadays. To go inside the area, one must not wear shorts and sleeveless. My friend who happened to be wearing shorts had to rent a pair of Thai wrap-around-trousers. She looked kinda comical, but fit in very well. hehe..

One thing we didn't want to miss at the grand palace was the Wat Phra Kaew (a.k.a the temple of Emerald Buddha). Ignorant as I was, I expected to see something as large as the Buddhas of Bamyan. Well, just imagined my dissapointment when I saw that the statue was only about half a metre high, and we saw it from outside the ubosoth - some metres away from where it was sitting.

A lot of worshippers were there, but we somehow got to talk to a lady who was very interested in Christianity. So I guess her being there at the same time as us was really God's timing. Funny how God works!

Other parts of the palace was stunning. The walls were carved with delicate work of arts suitable only for kings (of course..duh!). At one point, after too much walking under the afternoon sun, we rested in a small open air hall and realized that it was the same place that was shown in one of scenes of the movie 'Anna & the king' - although the movie was shot in Malaysia, not Thailand. =)