Bangkok Design Festival 2008

‘Everybody’s Everyday Life’ is the slogan for Bangkok Design Festival 2008. From the slogan, we can see that Bangkok really want to bring designs into people’s everyday life. There are many events going on throughout Bangkok in this annual festival. The main area for the events are in the Siam Area, but spread in a few buildings like the newly opened Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, Siam Paragon, Siam Discover, and Siam Center. There is also a Bangkok International Gift Fair (BIG) and Bangkok International Houseware Fair (BIH) at IMPACT, MuangTong Thani.

The events ran for 2 weeks. It has interesting exhibition for those who are interested in Arts, Design and Architecture. However, I think it would be nice to include Fashion Design in this festival too. Bangkok Design Festival is a great event to promote a city’s status to be the so-called ‘Design Capital’. Other than design talents, it also needs some marketing and promotion by the local government. Besides, inviting foreign designers to the event also helps to elevate a city’s status to be a ‘design capital.’ And Bangkok is doing just that to promote and encourage it’s local talent and bring design into people’s daily life.

As for the events, there are too many to be listed in my posting. Let’s just take a look at some pictures that I had taken. Hope to see you here in Bangkok Design Festival 2009!

7-Eleven... or '7' as Thais call it

One of the things I like about Thailand is its 7-Eleven. Alright, you would probably wonder why 7-Eleven and it is not even originated here. Well, Thailand has this talent to take a foreign franchise and make it better than the original.

First of all, 7-Elevens are everywhere in Bangkok and the local call it ‘7’ (I don’t know why). For example near my office on Silom, there are 4 7-Elevens on a stretch of 20 minutes walk. They come in various sizes, range from compact size to big comfortable space. It is literally a ‘convenience store’ because it is really near to where ever you are. Nearby my house, there are 3 7-Elevens within 3 minutes of driving from my house. And another one is 5 minutes walking distance from my house. There are more than 30,000 branches in Thailand!

When you enter a 7-Elevens here in Thailand, after hearing the ‘ding-dong’ from the door chime, you would be greeted ‘Sawasdee Kah!’ by the cashiers. They certainly make shoppers comfortable shopping here. Some shops also play music for your shopping pleasure.

I am really impressed by the variety of goods they sell here in 7-Eleven. You can expect to find your normal snack, beverages, bread, stationary and etc here. Besides that, you can also find a section call ‘Book Smile’ in bigger shops that sell magazines, newspaper, CDs and books. In terms of food, some 7-Elevens also have a food counter that sell warm “bao”, hot dog, burger, coffee, and also provide warm water for instant noodle in foam cup. There is also a frozen food area where shoppers can find frozen food such as rice with dishes, eggs, dumpling soup, salad etc. Basically, the list goes on and on.

Every month, 7-Eleven will have special promotions. There are things you can buy with very low price when you purchase up to a certain amount of merchandise. Most of the 7-Elevens here also have an ATM for your convenience. And if I am not wrong, I think they even have 7-Eleven Value card! I will have to find out about it.

So when you visit Thailand, feel free to stop by a 7-Eleven.

Damnoen Saduak Floating Market

Many visitors who visited Bangkok have probably been to the famous Damnoen Saduak floating market. It is actually located in a neighbouring province of Bangkok called Samut Songkhran. It took me about 90 minutes on car to reach Damnoen Saduak on a Saturday. For those visitors who don’t have a car, they can either join one of the one day trips from Bangkok or take a bus.

Damnoen Saduak is very touristy. I went there on a Saturday and it was packed with tourists, both local and foreign. But this is one of those unique experience that makes Bangkok famous. Even the reality tv show ‘American Next Top Model’ did a photo shoots of the models here!

First thing I did was to get some breakfast. I sat on one of the concrete steps near a noodle vendor who sells on a boat. Whie my friends and I were waiting for our noodles, we bought some local snack to try. When the noodle was ready, the lady handed me my bowl of noodle soup and I enjoyed it the local way on the step, by the canal.

After we finished our noodles, we rented a long tail boat and on our way to tour and shop at floating market! One of the options was long tail boat with motor which would go faster. Another option was the slow boat that had to be manually rowed by a person. We went for the second option. There were colourful straw hats for us on the boat as the sun was scorching hot! On both sides of the canal were all kinds of souvenir aimed at tourists. It was almost like Chatucak Market has been moved to a canal. Nothing really interested me as they are not that unique. However, what I thought more interesting were perhaps tropical fruits sold on boats. They looked so colourful and fresh.

At almost the end of the trip, we were stuck in a ‘floating traffic jam’!! I couldn’t believe it was so crowded that we were actually inching slowly for about 30 minutes! The whole trip took about 90 minutes and I felt relieved when I got back to the pier. This is the place that I would only come once just as the ‘thing-to-do.’ Otherwise, personally, I think there are more interesting things to do or places to shop in Bangkok than this. Nevertheless, when I look at my photos from Damnoen Saduak Floating Market, it was definitely very ‘Bangkok’. It was self-explanatory that it is Bangkok (although it is NOT in Bangkok)!

Noodle soup seller on the boat... delicious noodle soup

"Floating Traffic Jam" at Damnoen Saduak...

Learning Thai Language

Learning Thai language is not easy. Well, not that learning any language is easy, but Thai in particular is difficult in terms of pronunciations. I have been living in Bangkok for more than 3 months, but I have yet to speak a full sentence. I started learning by learning vocabulary. Thank goodness that I can speak Mandarin, and other Chinese dialects and that helps a little in terms of pronunciations. Let me share with you some similarities between Thai and chinese languages.

(orange words are Thai pronunciation)

numbers:
3 – sam (sounds like chinese number 3)
4 - si (also sounds like chinese number 4)
8 – paet (slightly similar to chinese number 8)
9 – gao (sounds like hokkien number 9)
10 – sip (sounds like hakka number 10)
11 – sip et (also sounds like hakka number 11)

objects:
table – tok (sounds like hokkien for table)
chair – gao ee (sounds like hokkien for chair)
chicken – gai (sounds like hakka for chicken)
noodle (in general) – kuey teow (sounds exactly like hokkien for kuey teow)
yellow noodle (wantan noodle) – bak mee (sounds like hokkien for ‘meat noodle’)
dog – ma (sounds like horse in mandarin)
cat – meaao (well, sounds like cat meow )
turtle – tao (as in ‘island’ in Mandarin)
elephant – chang (like ‘long’ in Mandarin)
jambu – champu (very similar to malay language)
durian – turian (very similar to malay language)
no - mai (like 'don't want' in hokkien)

There you have it for some basic Thai language  Hope I am able to speak like a Thai in no time.

Life is like a stream…

Sometimes I think life is like a stream. We just flow in the stream of life. Along the way, we experience different stages in life. At different stage, our friends around us would have experienced similar big events in life. Once upon a time, I always discussed with my friends, what each of us was going to do after SPM. After that, we graduated from whatever courses that we studied, and then we stepped into different walks of life.

There was a period when friends around me got married. When my sister got married, I was so busy with preparing the wedding. When my best friends got married, I was the driver. My cute little Honda Jazz was involved too. :-) When another friend got married, I was one of her ‘sisters’… haha…. It’s so funny to have a guy to be a ‘sister.’

Then, there is a period when my friends start to buy houses and build their home sweet home. When my friends moved to their new houses, I was asked to give suggestions. Recently, another friend moved to a new condominium, I was there to help moving. Tiring, but it was all fun to be able to help.

And then, here comes the time when family and friends start to have babies. When my sister went for ultrasound lately, I went with my sister to say hi to the baby. When my friend became a father, I was involved in choosing a Chinese name for the baby.

In life, there is no turning back. I cherish all different stages in life as I am fortunate to share all the special moments with my family and friends. I am fortunate enough to be able to celebrate all these events with them. It's like fireworks that bring colours into the dark sky and then the moment fades away. What remains will be always in my mind. I would like to thank them for letting me involved.

Homecoming... AKA Balik Kampung

Last week, I went back to KL for a short visit. Coincidentally, it was the long Hari Raya holiday week. KL was a bit quiet and traffic was lighter than usual. Since all the KL people left town for holiday, I came back to KL for my own holiday. One week seemed like a bit long for me at first. But when it reached the last couple days of my stay, it seemed too short.

I spent most my time with my family, especially my sister, who is expecting a baby. We went out to eat together for almost every meal, except for when I went out with my friends. Whenever I went out with my friends, there was always food involved. I had buka puasa buffet with my gang of best friends. I went to ex-colleague’s house for our annual hari raya get together. Then I also brought my family out for a nice Sunday brunch at the Gardens.

Besides food, I also shopped a lot in KL. I really do miss shopping at Mid Valley! I always get what I want. Another of my favourite shopping place is 1U. I only spent about 1 hour there and ended up with many things in my shopping bag. Many things are souvenir for friends.

Yes, I admit that I do miss KL. Bangkok is great but KL is my home. I miss my family, my friends and as you all know it, the food.