So since I've graduated I haven't been traveling much, and instead have been devoting the majority of my time to finding a job. It's only been a month that I've been looking for jobs hardcore, but I'm already exhausted! They teach you a lot in business school, but what they fail to teach you is how to handle rejection, keep your head up, and stay motivated. Sure I know a lot about being an effective manager, but how do I get someone to hire me to become one?? Where are my powers of persuasion, hypnotics, and voodoo? Yep prestigious MBA, you didn't teach me that!
One thing I realized in the past couple days is that interviewing is a lot like dating. I recently met a guy that I'm kind of interested in, and now not only am I waiting to hear back from the two interviews I had last week, but I'm also waiting for his call! This is way too stressful, I can't handle both at once. The only difference is that you're supposed to be persistent with hiring managers, while simultaneously play hard to get with boys. And these strategies are definitely NOT interchangeable. If i were to play hard to get with a company, they would write me off as not interested. But if I were to call a boy and leave a voicemail, and then send a follow-up email immediately after, and then call again the next day and leave a message with his receptionist, followed by another email, he would think I'm PSYCHO. Ahhh! But like dating, interviewing can lead you on too, maybe even more so. Interviewers may seem interested, nod and say "great" after all your answers, and then just like that choose another candidate!
Just this week I was supposed to have a second interview with a company I was really interested in. The first phone interview went "great", and the interviewer asked me right then and there to come in for an in-person interview. I had to postpone the interview a week since I was going home for a family reunion, but less than a week later I get an email saying the position was filled! How can you reject me before even meeting me! I can't help but think that if I hadn't postponed the interview I might've still had a chance. Oh well, I can't keep thinking what if. What if I missed out on family fun, had the interview, and still got rejected? But just like dating, interviewing is all about timing too.
So in conclusion, this boy better call me soon, or his time is about to run out.
Spanish mishaps
I took Spanish in high school for 4 years, so I can pretty much understand everything, but can only speak conversationally. So during my trip to Colombia so far I have had a couple mishaps here and there.
I met one of Diana's friends from college the night we went out to Gaira in Bogota, and although she spoke a little English, I wanted to practice my Spanish with her. I wanted to ask her how she knew Diana, so I asked "como sabe Diana?" I realized I said something wrong when she repeated what I said and then looked at me like I was crazy, so I asked Diana what I said. Apparently I asked her friend "how does Diana taste?"
The same night I started dancing with a guy, and again attempted to practice my Spanish. I wanted to ask if he was from Bogota originally, so I said "esta en Bogota?" He also looked at me like I was retarded, and I realized that I asked him "are you in Bogota right now?" He stopped dancing with me soon after that.
I guess I'm more confident speaking Spanish when I drink, because later that same night I tried speaking again with Diana's brother. He went to a soccer game earlier that night, so I wanted to ask him how it went, and said "como eres futbol?" Of course he started laughing, because what I asked was "how are you football?"
My last Spanish mishap happened during our boat ride to Playa Blanca in Cartagena. We were all angry because they wanted us to pay 6000 pesos in tax when we got on the boat, even though we already paid the tour in full beforehand. Diana and Elif were in the back of the boat and had already paid, but me, Mirella and Paula didn't know what to do and were arguing with the driver. I tried to tell our tourguide that he didn't tell us that we had to pay this extra charge, so I said "no digame!" I was furious when he turned and walked away, but later on Diana told me that I told him "don't talk to me!" Ay dios mio.
I met one of Diana's friends from college the night we went out to Gaira in Bogota, and although she spoke a little English, I wanted to practice my Spanish with her. I wanted to ask her how she knew Diana, so I asked "como sabe Diana?" I realized I said something wrong when she repeated what I said and then looked at me like I was crazy, so I asked Diana what I said. Apparently I asked her friend "how does Diana taste?"
The same night I started dancing with a guy, and again attempted to practice my Spanish. I wanted to ask if he was from Bogota originally, so I said "esta en Bogota?" He also looked at me like I was retarded, and I realized that I asked him "are you in Bogota right now?" He stopped dancing with me soon after that.
I guess I'm more confident speaking Spanish when I drink, because later that same night I tried speaking again with Diana's brother. He went to a soccer game earlier that night, so I wanted to ask him how it went, and said "como eres futbol?" Of course he started laughing, because what I asked was "how are you football?"
My last Spanish mishap happened during our boat ride to Playa Blanca in Cartagena. We were all angry because they wanted us to pay 6000 pesos in tax when we got on the boat, even though we already paid the tour in full beforehand. Diana and Elif were in the back of the boat and had already paid, but me, Mirella and Paula didn't know what to do and were arguing with the driver. I tried to tell our tourguide that he didn't tell us that we had to pay this extra charge, so I said "no digame!" I was furious when he turned and walked away, but later on Diana told me that I told him "don't talk to me!" Ay dios mio.
March 19-23- Bogota, Colombia
Diana, Mirella, Elif, Lucas, Paula, Yoli, and myself arrived in Bogota Friday afternoon, and were welcomed by Diana's father and best friend Julia. From the moment you meet Diana's father you can understand where Diana gets her warmth and kindness from. Senor Galan is an extremely loving and inviting person, and instantly made us feel at home. We arrived to the Galan's lovely home and were greeted by the rest of Diana's amazing family, her mom, grandma, and younger brother Gustavo. Let me just say that if I was Gustavo's age, 19, his girlfriend would have to watch out!
We arrived to the Galan house exhausted and starving, and were welcomed by the famous dish, Ajiaco, prepared by Dora, the Galans' cook. Ajiaco is a Colombian soup specifically from Bogota, and is made of shredded chicken, corn, capers, cream, and avocado. Oh, and is DELICIOUS. We then passed out until dinner time, and went out to eat with Julia for a late dinner consisting of a platter of meat, platanos, calamari, and fries.
Saturday we woke up to Diana's mom's delicious breakfast of arepas and tamales, and then walked around Diana's neighborhood, Usaquen. It's such a beautiful neighborhood, calm and peaceful, with flowers and parks everywhere. We had lunch at Diana's favorite spot, and now ours too, Crepes and Waffles. It's a famous Colombian chain, and is amazing. I had a spinach, cheese and mushroom crepe, and shared a rum raisin ice-cream sundae with Diana and her brother ;)
Saturday night we went to a bar/restuarant called Gaira, for appetizers and drinks. We had one amazing dish called Abojarrados, which is fried sweet plaintains wrapped around cheese and bocadillo (guava). As the night went on the drinks kept coming, everyone in Gaira was up and dancing to the awesome live Cumbia band. We danced right up until the bar closed around 3am. I like Bogota.
We slept in on Sunday, and went to central Bogota with Julia and Diana's dad. I never knew Botero was from Colombia, but we went to his museum which was pretty unique. Botero had an obsession with "volumized" women, and everything he painted or sculpted were of naked fat women. Fat women on the beach, fat women in the bath, fat women in the bed, a fat Mona Lisa, fat women anywhere and everywhere. We then walked around Plaza de Narino and saw the casa de presidente and cantelaria cathedral.
On Monday we took a tourist train to Zibaquira. There are no passenger trains in Bogota, only this one tourist train which is like the really old, antique trains. Besides the fact that the train almost broke down and we were close to being stuck in the middle of nowhere, it was a pretty fun 2 hour trip, with live music playing onboard. After reaching Zibaquira we went to the Cathedral de Sal, which is an underground Cathedral constructed in a salt mine. All the crosses and figurines were made of salt, and I've never seen anything like it. We ate lunch in a small town, Cajica, and I ate pandeja paisa, which is rice, beans, platanos, avocados, and chorizo, and was goooood. We barely made our train back to Bogota, and I was the last one on literally running to jump on the train as it started moving. After our rebellious adventure we attempted to pass out on the train ride back, until I was suddenly awakened by an accordion playing in my ear.
Since Monday was our last night in Bogota we took Diana's family out to dinner, Crepes and Waffles of course, and gave them our gift which was a beautiful green tablecloth from Williams & Sonoma. They were so happy and grateful, and I really feel like I have a home in Colombia now :) They did so much for us and were happy to do it, and they reminded me so much of my family in India.
Tuesday morning we woke up early and were off to Cartagena!
We arrived to the Galan house exhausted and starving, and were welcomed by the famous dish, Ajiaco, prepared by Dora, the Galans' cook. Ajiaco is a Colombian soup specifically from Bogota, and is made of shredded chicken, corn, capers, cream, and avocado. Oh, and is DELICIOUS. We then passed out until dinner time, and went out to eat with Julia for a late dinner consisting of a platter of meat, platanos, calamari, and fries.
Saturday we woke up to Diana's mom's delicious breakfast of arepas and tamales, and then walked around Diana's neighborhood, Usaquen. It's such a beautiful neighborhood, calm and peaceful, with flowers and parks everywhere. We had lunch at Diana's favorite spot, and now ours too, Crepes and Waffles. It's a famous Colombian chain, and is amazing. I had a spinach, cheese and mushroom crepe, and shared a rum raisin ice-cream sundae with Diana and her brother ;)
Saturday night we went to a bar/restuarant called Gaira, for appetizers and drinks. We had one amazing dish called Abojarrados, which is fried sweet plaintains wrapped around cheese and bocadillo (guava). As the night went on the drinks kept coming, everyone in Gaira was up and dancing to the awesome live Cumbia band. We danced right up until the bar closed around 3am. I like Bogota.
We slept in on Sunday, and went to central Bogota with Julia and Diana's dad. I never knew Botero was from Colombia, but we went to his museum which was pretty unique. Botero had an obsession with "volumized" women, and everything he painted or sculpted were of naked fat women. Fat women on the beach, fat women in the bath, fat women in the bed, a fat Mona Lisa, fat women anywhere and everywhere. We then walked around Plaza de Narino and saw the casa de presidente and cantelaria cathedral. On Monday we took a tourist train to Zibaquira. There are no passenger trains in Bogota, only this one tourist train which is like the really old, antique trains. Besides the fact that the train almost broke down and we were close to being stuck in the middle of nowhere, it was a pretty fun 2 hour trip, with live music playing onboard. After reaching Zibaquira we went to the Cathedral de Sal, which is an underground Cathedral constructed in a salt mine. All the crosses and figurines were made of salt, and I've never seen anything like it. We ate lunch in a small town, Cajica, and I ate pandeja paisa, which is rice, beans, platanos, avocados, and chorizo, and was goooood. We barely made our train back to Bogota, and I was the last one on literally running to jump on the train as it started moving. After our rebellious adventure we attempted to pass out on the train ride back, until I was suddenly awakened by an accordion playing in my ear.
Since Monday was our last night in Bogota we took Diana's family out to dinner, Crepes and Waffles of course, and gave them our gift which was a beautiful green tablecloth from Williams & Sonoma. They were so happy and grateful, and I really feel like I have a home in Colombia now :) They did so much for us and were happy to do it, and they reminded me so much of my family in India.
Tuesday morning we woke up early and were off to Cartagena!
In Memory of Dadi Saab, 1/4/2010
Your beautiful blue-green eyes and warm heart will never be forgotten.
She believed in only one caste: HUMANITY, one religion: LOVE, and one language: ART.
Incredible India- Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Indore
Tracy and Mirella came with me to India, and it was my first time being a tourist in this country I call my second home. I've done a lot of sightseeing with my family over the years, but it's a completely different experience doing it with foreigners. If people weren't trying to take pictures with us (not so much me, but Tracy and Mirella), then they were trying to rip us off. Entry prices for foreigners at most places are ridiculously more expensive than entry prices for locals. For example, it cost me 20 rupees ($0.45 USD) to enter the Taj Mahal, but it cost Mirella and Tracy 720 rupees each! I understand that locals can't afford to pay that much, and if they had to then they wouldn't come at all. But that's still a huge difference! And if people weren't trying to take pictures with us or rip us off, then they were trying to feed us.
It was amazing to experience India through a newcomer's eyes (I was 5 during my first visit, so I don't remember anything), and India really is completely different than any other country. We visited several sites in Delhi (Qutab Minar, The Red Fort, India Gate, etc), the Taj Mahal in Agra, my dadi saab (father's mother), family, and more sight-seeing in Jaipur (Hawa Mahal, City Palace, Amer Fort..), and my nani and nana (mom's parents), and some temples in Indore. Since I've been coming to India every 2-3 years and I'm obviously very biased towards it, Tracy agreed to be my guest blogger for this post. I asked her write about her very first impression of India, and she wrote the following awesome overview. Thanks so much girl!!
"I can’t remember if I invited myself or not, but somehow I ended up traveling through India with Nitasha and staying with her amazingly generous family in Delhi, Jaipur and Indore, with a detour to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.
My first day in Delhi, I was by myself, with another westerner and we were completely unprepared, exhausted, lost and dirty by the end of the day. It made me so incredibly grateful to be traveling in India with Indians, as being a westerner by yourself for your first visit could potentially be a very trying experience. Fortunately, mine was pretty awesome, thanks to the Mehta’s and their extended family.
That first night night we met up with Nitasha’s family and went to a beautiful house in the outskirts of Delhi where her parents vendors had left us their house and their servants. In the west, servants are seen as old fashioned, or reserved for the extremely wealthy, but in India, apparently anyone with money has a few servants to help them with preparing food and keeping the house clean. We also had a driver, Bhushan, who drove us around Delhi for the next three days and was a welcome relief from the Rickshaws! I won’t go through the whole trip, but below are some of the highlights for me:
Food: Food is one of my most favorite things about India because I love to eat and Indians LOVE to feed you. Any time you enter a house, you are going to be offered food and then tea. And you will continue to be offered anything and everything until you at least accept something. Fortunately, everything is pretty much home made and amazing. Every meal, we were served paratha or roti (whole wheat bread) served hot, one by one off the stove. The raita (yogurt) was home made! I don’t even usually include dairy in my diet, but I tried to shovel as much of this onto my plate at every meal because it was amazing and probably something I will never have outside of India.
Favorite Dishes: Raita, Pani Puri (but it has got to be with mineral water), papadum, masala papdum, yellow dhal with rice and some rajasthani awesome biscuit thing we had (kachori)
Family: Nitasha’'s mom asked me if I noticed how much effort people put into seeing their extended family, and how much more people discuss their lives and their problems with each other with frequent social visits. She said there aren’t any psychiatrists in India because people use each other and don’t feel the same sense of isolation as we do at home. I don’t know if that’s true (there being no therapists/psychiatrists in India), but it did make a lot of sense. When I got back to New York, it was a shock to step back into my own bubble of self-interest and notice how comfortable I am in having our own independent space. I thought that was interesting.
Laughing Club: Nitasha’'s Grandparents are so incredibly kind, and I think her grandfather might have been my favorite person I met over the two weeks. He is 85 and constantly either laughing or roaming about being happy and restless. Or trying to feed me. Nitasha and I joined him for his Laughter Club, which I guess happens throughout India. People meet up early in the morning in a park and do some basic yoga exercises and then they do laughing exercises, where you pretty much practice 5 different kinds of laughing. I'd imagine this has great psychological and stress health benefits.
People! There are something like 11 million people in Delhi! It is one of the most initially shocking things about India. Every street you are on has a lot of people on it and the traffic is even more overwhelming. You pretty much have cars, rickshaws, mopeds, bikes cows, elephants and various other live stock roaming the streets in some sort of barely organized chaos. Crossing the street is a fun scary adventure almost every time, where you might die, and yet you somehow don’t.
Trash: I’m not sure if there is a trash system in India, but people pretty much just dump their trash outside in piles, and it's pretty shocking at first.
Clothes: All the men were dressed in western dress and most of the women were in beautifully colored kurtis and saris. The colors and the fabrics are beautiful and they were one of my favorite visual parts of India.
Celebrity: As a white westerner , a lot of people just wanted to take pictures with me. This pretty much happened at least a couple times a day.
Shopping: This is a crazy experience in India. Outside of the newer western malls, many Indians still shop in a more traditional way, where everything is folded up and is taken out specifically for you, and the price can be half to a third of the price you were originally quoted. Observing Nitasha’s mom, the best is to walk out of the store and have them chase you down, lowering their numbers as they continue to follow you down the street."
It was amazing to experience India through a newcomer's eyes (I was 5 during my first visit, so I don't remember anything), and India really is completely different than any other country. We visited several sites in Delhi (Qutab Minar, The Red Fort, India Gate, etc), the Taj Mahal in Agra, my dadi saab (father's mother), family, and more sight-seeing in Jaipur (Hawa Mahal, City Palace, Amer Fort..), and my nani and nana (mom's parents), and some temples in Indore. Since I've been coming to India every 2-3 years and I'm obviously very biased towards it, Tracy agreed to be my guest blogger for this post. I asked her write about her very first impression of India, and she wrote the following awesome overview. Thanks so much girl!!
"I can’t remember if I invited myself or not, but somehow I ended up traveling through India with Nitasha and staying with her amazingly generous family in Delhi, Jaipur and Indore, with a detour to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.My first day in Delhi, I was by myself, with another westerner and we were completely unprepared, exhausted, lost and dirty by the end of the day. It made me so incredibly grateful to be traveling in India with Indians, as being a westerner by yourself for your first visit could potentially be a very trying experience. Fortunately, mine was pretty awesome, thanks to the Mehta’s and their extended family.
That first night night we met up with Nitasha’s family and went to a beautiful house in the outskirts of Delhi where her parents vendors had left us their house and their servants. In the west, servants are seen as old fashioned, or reserved for the extremely wealthy, but in India, apparently anyone with money has a few servants to help them with preparing food and keeping the house clean. We also had a driver, Bhushan, who drove us around Delhi for the next three days and was a welcome relief from the Rickshaws! I won’t go through the whole trip, but below are some of the highlights for me:
Food: Food is one of my most favorite things about India because I love to eat and Indians LOVE to feed you. Any time you enter a house, you are going to be offered food and then tea. And you will continue to be offered anything and everything until you at least accept something. Fortunately, everything is pretty much home made and amazing. Every meal, we were served paratha or roti (whole wheat bread) served hot, one by one off the stove. The raita (yogurt) was home made! I don’t even usually include dairy in my diet, but I tried to shovel as much of this onto my plate at every meal because it was amazing and probably something I will never have outside of India.
Favorite Dishes: Raita, Pani Puri (but it has got to be with mineral water), papadum, masala papdum, yellow dhal with rice and some rajasthani awesome biscuit thing we had (kachori)
Family: Nitasha’'s mom asked me if I noticed how much effort people put into seeing their extended family, and how much more people discuss their lives and their problems with each other with frequent social visits. She said there aren’t any psychiatrists in India because people use each other and don’t feel the same sense of isolation as we do at home. I don’t know if that’s true (there being no therapists/psychiatrists in India), but it did make a lot of sense. When I got back to New York, it was a shock to step back into my own bubble of self-interest and notice how comfortable I am in having our own independent space. I thought that was interesting.Laughing Club: Nitasha’'s Grandparents are so incredibly kind, and I think her grandfather might have been my favorite person I met over the two weeks. He is 85 and constantly either laughing or roaming about being happy and restless. Or trying to feed me. Nitasha and I joined him for his Laughter Club, which I guess happens throughout India. People meet up early in the morning in a park and do some basic yoga exercises and then they do laughing exercises, where you pretty much practice 5 different kinds of laughing. I'd imagine this has great psychological and stress health benefits.
People! There are something like 11 million people in Delhi! It is one of the most initially shocking things about India. Every street you are on has a lot of people on it and the traffic is even more overwhelming. You pretty much have cars, rickshaws, mopeds, bikes cows, elephants and various other live stock roaming the streets in some sort of barely organized chaos. Crossing the street is a fun scary adventure almost every time, where you might die, and yet you somehow don’t. Trash: I’m not sure if there is a trash system in India, but people pretty much just dump their trash outside in piles, and it's pretty shocking at first.
Clothes: All the men were dressed in western dress and most of the women were in beautifully colored kurtis and saris. The colors and the fabrics are beautiful and they were one of my favorite visual parts of India. Celebrity: As a white westerner , a lot of people just wanted to take pictures with me. This pretty much happened at least a couple times a day.
Shopping: This is a crazy experience in India. Outside of the newer western malls, many Indians still shop in a more traditional way, where everything is folded up and is taken out specifically for you, and the price can be half to a third of the price you were originally quoted. Observing Nitasha’s mom, the best is to walk out of the store and have them chase you down, lowering their numbers as they continue to follow you down the street."
Krabi, Ko Phi Phi, Ko Lanta
We reached Krabi Thursday evening, and stayed in a guesthouse in Krabi Town. There isn't too much to see or do in Krabi town, which is typically just a stop-over to one of the islands. So we just got some really good food from a night food market close by and passed out early. The next morning we took the first ferry to Ko Phi Phi, about 2 hours away. The island is super developed and very touristy, but is gorgeous. There's a huge number of expats who opened up small shops on the island and basically live on huts on the beach. Ko Phi Phi is famous for diving, so the island is full of dive schools and shops. If we had more time there I would've definitely gotten my diving certificate, but I think that would be my next adventure.
After checking in the hotel and grabbing some lunch we joined a half day boat tour around the islands. We visited Monkey Beach (literally a beach full of monkeys), Maya Bay where we snorkeled and kayaked, Phi Phi Leh (where DiCaprio's The Beach was filmed), and had dinner on the boat while watching the sunset. I've never seen so many beautiful colors in a sunset than I have in Thailand. Words can't even describe how beautiful these islands are, so take a look at the pictures :) It was a perfect day, beautiful, peaceful, and serene, can I just move here? I'm seriously considering moving to an island in Thailand for a couple months. That night we grabbed dinner and bar hopped around around the island. It's basically run by expats, and there are very few locals on the island, but it's definitely very fun and worth seeing.
Romika left to go back to Hong Kong Saturday morning (miss u!), so me, Mable and Tracy took a ferry to Ko Lanta, another nearby island. It's not as developed as Ko Phi Phi, and tourism is just now on its way up, but it was a nice change from Ko Phi Phi. It's a beautiful almost untouched island with mostly locals, and is perfect for couples and honeymooners. We stayed at the Lanta Nice Beach Resort, which was really nice! We found out too late during our trip though that we could've gotten much cheaper rates for places to stay if we didn't book in advance and instead bargained as soon as we landed on the islands. People we met found huts on the beach for $300 Baht/night, or $9 USD. We were worried that places would be full if we didn't book in advance, but there are plenty of accommodations.
Once we reached we took an elephant trekking tour, where we rode on elephants for an hour and then hiked to a really beautiful waterfall. That night we had Indian/Thai fusion at the hotel (which is bomb by the way), and then went to a beach party with an awesome local reggae band. We met some really cool American guys (the most Americans I've met in the past 4 months!), and although we were only planning on staying for a couple hours, we ended up staying for a quite some time ;) There are literally millions of stars visible from Thailand, and I think I saw about 9 shooting stars in that one night.One thing I've noticed is that not many Americans travel to Asia, and most of the internationals that I've met during these past 4 months have been Europeans or Australians. The Americans that I have met have been really cool and well-traveled, but I wonder why there are so few of them. I am one happy American in Thailand though, and if you happen to pass by a fire dancing/diving school on a Thai island in a couple years, if might just be mine :)
Bangkok, Thailand
I arrived Bangkok Tuesday evening, after sitting next to a very chatty Thai woman on the plane. She's originally from Thailand, and has been living in New York for the past 6 years. She was super nice, and told me all the places we had to visit and all the food we had to try. Talking to her just made me so much more excited! After I landed I headed to our hostel in Sukhumvit 25, which was surprisingly nice and clean. I've stayed in hostels in Europe but this one was 10 times nicer, and for only $15/night it is well worth it. Tracy was already there, and Mable and Romika weren't arriving until a couple hours later, so it was just me trying to maneuver around this non-English speaking country as soon as I arrived. Luckily my cab driver spoke some English, and the man wouldn't stop talking! After getting some amazing Pad See Ew with Tracy, me and Mable headed over to the night market in Lumphini. It's definitely geared to tourists, but had some really good food stalls and small clothing/souvenir shops. We were too tired to spend too much time there, so hopefully we'll be able to make it there again on our last night in Thailand before leaving for Delhi.
Wednesday we woke up and headed for the ferry to the Grand Palace. The Bangkok subway system is pretty convenient, so the subways and the ferries are what we mostly used to get around. We entered the Grand Palace only to find out we had to borrow clothes because our clothes weren't appropriate. Tracy, Romika and Mable just had to borrow wrap skirts which were actually pretty cute, but since I was wearing a sleeveless dress I had to wear my shawl around my waist and a borrow a man's button down shirt. Let's just say I looked absolutely ridiculous, which is why there are very few pictures of me from the Grand Palace, hah. The palace was stunning though, composed of intricate and colorful mosaics and sculptures. Inside the Golden Temple was the Emerald Buddha, which was a tiny little statue, but on top of a huge beautiful stand. We sat there and meditated for some bit, and then headed to Wat Pho, home of the largest reclining Buddha in the world. 
Wat Pho is the oldest and largest temple in Bangkok, and houses the 40 meter long reclining Buddha. The statue was impressive, but is sectioned off so it was hard to see the entire Buddha all at once. Nevertheless, it was an amazing statue. After the Buddha, we hopped on the cross river ferry to Wat Arun, also known as the temple of dawn. It's a Khmer style temple, and very closely resembles Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The only differences are the beautiful mosaics and Thai-esque statues. It was beautiful.
Wednesday night we went to eat at an awesome seafood market restaurant, which was like nothing I've ever seen. Basically it's a supermarket and restaurant in one, so you shop for all the seafood and vegetables you want to eat, and literally put them in bags in a shopping cart. Once you pay for all the raw ingredients you tell the waiters how you want everything cooked and they prepare everything exactly the way you want it, and then you pay again for the preparation fee. It was a little pricey for Thai standards, about $15 USD, but the food was ridiculously fresh and delicious. After dinner we went to the Calypso Caberet in the Asia hotel, which is famous for Ladyboys. These ladyboys were some of the prettiest girls I've ever seen, and could dance their butts off!
After the cabaret me and Mable went to check out Bangkok nightlife, and went to Q-Bar. It was a Tuesday night, so was pretty dead, but there were still old white men with younger Asian women everywhere we turned. The music was pretty good but the crowd sucked, so we ended up leaving before last call, which was only 1am! Bangkok is notorious for prostitution, and our hostel was actually not far from the red light district. People say that men traveling alone in Bangkok are usually there for one reason and one reason only, and I found myself suspicious of every foreign man we encountered! Let's just say that I would NOT be happy with my boyfriend/husband ever traveling to Bangkok alone.
We woke up early the next morning for breakfast and massages right near our hostel. I had an amazing Thai massage, for only 150 baht, or close to $4 USD. I can definitely get used to this! We then headed to airport for our next stop, Krabi.
Wednesday we woke up and headed for the ferry to the Grand Palace. The Bangkok subway system is pretty convenient, so the subways and the ferries are what we mostly used to get around. We entered the Grand Palace only to find out we had to borrow clothes because our clothes weren't appropriate. Tracy, Romika and Mable just had to borrow wrap skirts which were actually pretty cute, but since I was wearing a sleeveless dress I had to wear my shawl around my waist and a borrow a man's button down shirt. Let's just say I looked absolutely ridiculous, which is why there are very few pictures of me from the Grand Palace, hah. The palace was stunning though, composed of intricate and colorful mosaics and sculptures. Inside the Golden Temple was the Emerald Buddha, which was a tiny little statue, but on top of a huge beautiful stand. We sat there and meditated for some bit, and then headed to Wat Pho, home of the largest reclining Buddha in the world. 
Wat Pho is the oldest and largest temple in Bangkok, and houses the 40 meter long reclining Buddha. The statue was impressive, but is sectioned off so it was hard to see the entire Buddha all at once. Nevertheless, it was an amazing statue. After the Buddha, we hopped on the cross river ferry to Wat Arun, also known as the temple of dawn. It's a Khmer style temple, and very closely resembles Angkor Wat in Cambodia. The only differences are the beautiful mosaics and Thai-esque statues. It was beautiful.
Wednesday night we went to eat at an awesome seafood market restaurant, which was like nothing I've ever seen. Basically it's a supermarket and restaurant in one, so you shop for all the seafood and vegetables you want to eat, and literally put them in bags in a shopping cart. Once you pay for all the raw ingredients you tell the waiters how you want everything cooked and they prepare everything exactly the way you want it, and then you pay again for the preparation fee. It was a little pricey for Thai standards, about $15 USD, but the food was ridiculously fresh and delicious. After dinner we went to the Calypso Caberet in the Asia hotel, which is famous for Ladyboys. These ladyboys were some of the prettiest girls I've ever seen, and could dance their butts off!
After the cabaret me and Mable went to check out Bangkok nightlife, and went to Q-Bar. It was a Tuesday night, so was pretty dead, but there were still old white men with younger Asian women everywhere we turned. The music was pretty good but the crowd sucked, so we ended up leaving before last call, which was only 1am! Bangkok is notorious for prostitution, and our hostel was actually not far from the red light district. People say that men traveling alone in Bangkok are usually there for one reason and one reason only, and I found myself suspicious of every foreign man we encountered! Let's just say that I would NOT be happy with my boyfriend/husband ever traveling to Bangkok alone.
We woke up early the next morning for breakfast and massages right near our hostel. I had an amazing Thai massage, for only 150 baht, or close to $4 USD. I can definitely get used to this! We then headed to airport for our next stop, Krabi.
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