CNY Recap, 2008

This year our Chinese New Year celebration saw the family going on a holiday rather than having a quiet affair at home. Rather a refreshing change, we must say.

It started with mum coming up with the suggestion that, since the family doesn't go back to the hometown (as all grandparents have already passed away), we might as well all go for a holiday instead. Her suggestion of Bangkok came as a surprise to us, as we already made plans for it sometime later this year, but it wasn't unwelcomed: we'll get to visit Bangkok more than once, plus travelling with the family would mean expenses would be...much easier. :)

Sis and us found it quite funny that, while we've been informed early on in January to apply for leave as we were leaving on the 6th, both of us didn't know anymore than that. Both of us didn't know whether we were coming back on Saturday or Sunday, we didn't know the flight schedule, if we were going via AirAsia or otherwise...

Well, when it came to packing, since it was our first trip to Bangkok we were a bit more uncertain as to what to pack. We guess the only guideline we had for packing was, 'pack light clothings for hot weather'. Decided not only were we going to dress light, we were also going to pack light - so we only brought along our L'Amour, our iXus, a book (Wicked), and our iTouch. We were thinking that by our next trip we would have a better idea if it was feasible to bring along the Nintendo DS and the Crumpler to stuff everything inside.

Then there was that nightmare that is budget flight.

Once we'd landed we were picked up by the Brother-In-Law (BIL). So not only were we on a family holiday in another country, we also did not need to depend on public transport. Instead we could experience Bangkok traffic first hand. It's terrible. Painstakingly slow and terrible. Nevertheless BIL has better EQ when it comes to traffic.

We stayed at the Ambassador Hotel in Sukhumvit, which the parents tell us was the same hotel they stayed in when they visited 30 years ago. Whoa. While it definitely looked old, it had the basics and it was clean and comfy. We weren't out to pamper ourselves in some 5-star boutique hotel so it was fine with us.

All in all, during the 5 days we were there, we covered:
Day 2: Paragon, Little Siam, Siam Square, MBK.
Day 3: In Ayutthaya - Wat Chaimongkhon, Wat Chaiwatthanaram, Wat Phra Sri San Phet & Wat Phra Ram. At night we explored the street stalls on Sukhumvit.
Day 4: Chatuchak Weekend Market, JJ Mall, Wat Pho.

Of course, while dad did mention some other things that he would have liked to have done (like go watch a kickboxing match), time, traffic and tiredness sorta prevented us all from doing so. Still, it was all good.

The only downside we find about this year's CNY celebrations was that we missed out on the visitations as well as on the Klangite dinner meetup. And CNY is coming to a close already. Well on the bright side we did get to have a couple of yee sang sessions!