BKK II Day 1-2: Platinum Mall & Chinatown

DAY 1
As we really enjoyed our time at Bangkok last year, we decided to plan another trip and bring my girl, my mum-in-law and brother-in-law. My girl was so excited that she was already thanking God in her prayers for letting her fly on an airplane!

Family photo at the Departure Gate

We arrived early at the airport and checked in. After crossing immigration, I brought my girl to play at the Family Zone at the transit area.

Family zone at Terminal 2 Transit

Having loads of fun at the slides

There's a huge playground, fully furnished nursing rooms and even a TV room for kids and their parents to hang out. My girl had so much fun at the playground that we became the last to board the plane because we couldn't drag her away from the slides. We were flying with Singapore Airlines this time as there was an amazing promotion online (each ticket only cost S$277!).

Boarding our SQ flight

Everyone is all geared up to go!

My girl also finally had her own seat so that I can relax =)

Freebies & entertainment on board

But even the entertainment system couldn't keep her eyes open for long as she soon fell asleep just 5 minutes into watching Disney Junior. All the excitement and play had finally tired her out! With my girl fast asleep (she's an awesome traveller like that), we had a moment of peace to watch a movie and eat our lunch.

Lunch is served!

And just as I was getting comfortable in my seat, the Captain announced that it was time to land! The total journey was only 2 hours.

We crossed the Thai immigration pretty smoothly and proceeded to get a public cab at the ground floor (2 floors below the arrival hall).

Queuing up for public taxi

We had a lot of luggage so we needed a larger taxi and ended up paying 770 baht for our cab fare (much more than the 320 baht we paid previously). And unlike the previous trip where we stayed at the fancy Novotel Platinum Hotel, we stayed at Grand Diamond Suites Hotel this time due to the availability of family rooms that suited our big family.

At the lobby of Grand Diamond Suites Hotel

Clockwise from left: Master bedroom toilet (with bathtub); Master bedroom with double bed;
Secondary bedroom with twin beds (suitable for older children/ parents)

Clockwise from left: Small kitchen area furnished with adequate amenities;
Large living area with a large balcony and a beautiful view;
The living area connected the 2 bedrooms together such that it's more like an apartment rather than a hotel

There were initially many things that were wrong with our room. First, the main light in the living room was not working so the living room was extremely dark. Second, the faulty electric kettle caused the power to short-curcuit the minute we plugged it in. We had to call housekeeping to bring in an electrician to deal with the problem. It took a while before everything was fixed (thankfully we had no problems after that for the rest of our trip) and we could head out for dinner.

We decided to take a 10 minute walk to Big C, where we had our dinner at Yum Saap.

Yum Saap restaurant

Clockwise from top left: Thai fishcakes; Tom yum seafood soup with glass noodles;
Fried morning glory with chili; Seafood Pad Thai

And then it was off to the Big C hypermart to buy drinks and snacks for the rest of our trip. Big C opens till 12 midnight and it's the only supermarket in the area so if you're staying nearby, this is where you go to get your groceries =)

DAY 2
The next day we woke up late as my girl didn't sleep well and kicked both her daddy and I throughout the night (neither of us were used to co-sharing a bed!). We were famished by the time we headed down to the breakfast buffet provided by our hotel.

Breakfast buffet at the hotel

My family loved the fresh coconut juice straight out of the husk while I liked the crispy croissants (we have very differing tastes).

After breakfast, we did our shopping at Platinum Mall, which was located just next to our hotel.

Shopping at Platinum Mall

I had a great time buying cheap assesories and bags while my girl had fun trying to destroy everything -_-". Luckily I'm well-trained to shop fast! =P

And when baby girl and the guys finally got too cranky with all the walking (we managed to cover a large area record speed!), we had our lunch at the food court at the 6th floor. I have no idea how a little bit of shopping can make the guys hungry so soon after a heavy brunch -_-. After our short recharge, we continued more of our shopping before heading off to Chinatown to introduce my in-laws to the famous birds nest soup at Nam Sing.

Sharks' Fin soup (top right) and Bird's Nest soup (bottom right)

We thought the birds nest soup was delicious but felt that the sharks fin soup that my mum-in-law made during CNY was much better (she was obviously beaming after we said that, which was true! =P). Next, we crossed the road to our usual massage parlor for cheap massages (the cheapest of our trip). Per hour, foot/ shoulder massage is only 150 baht, Thai is 200 baht and Oil is 400 baht!

Massage at Chinatown

Of course since it's cheap, the skill of the masseuse may not be as good (一分钱,一分货). It also depends on your luck because I had a good experience the first time that I patronised but this time, the masseuse massaged so strongly that my inner thighs hurt like crazy after that -_-.

After our massages, we had a sumptuous seafood dinner at our favourite restaurant at Chinatown.

Seafood dinner!

Clockwise from top left: Barbecued cockles; barbecued king prawns;
barbecued squid; barbecued crab fried with glass noodles

With all the eating every 2 hours, I don't think I ever felt hunger pangs since our first meal here in Bangkok! Looking forward to more good food and shopping in the days to come =)


Continue to >> Day 3: Terminal 21 & Siam Paragon

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