September 8/9 (Saturday/Sunday)
No Rest For The Wicked
Saturday was our last day in Thailand and with hotel checkout being 11am there wasn't any chance to really sleep in. As soon as we were up we checked out, dropped off our bags with the front desk, and set out to find some breakfast. In order to get a little variety we opted to skip the hotel's buffet and find somewhere on Khao San Road. That wasn't terribly difficult to do, so while we ate we set about planning a nice, easy final day.
The National Museum still seemed like a good, low-impact option, so we decided to give it one more try. We walked down the block with fingers crossed and--success! It turned out that the museum had a ton of exhibits covering a wide variety of subjects. As you might suspect there were areas filled with works of art and displays on Thailand's history, but there were also rooms full of antique weapons and a whole garage full of royal chariots. It was very interesting and made for an excellent way to ease into the day.
After a few hours there we figured it was about time to move on and, when trying to figure out where to go next, we remembered that Nikki had said that a good way to escape the midday heat was to take in a movie. It seemed eminently compatible with our plans for a laid-back day, so we gave her a call and made plans to meet up at Paragon Mall, home to a huge movie theater.
One Fancy Mall
Paragon Mall is located in Siam Square, which was where we'd caught the skytrain to Chatuchak market last weekend. As you may recall, it's a decent distance away from our hotel, so hailing a cab was in order. Once we got there we found the mall pretty quickly and, since Nikki was still going to be a while, we spent some time wandering around. The place is huge and I think it's fair to say that it leans toward the high end. Not only are there a ton of designer stores like Gucci and Louis, but they also have vehicle showrooms for companies like Lamborghini and Maserati on the second and third floors. The mall also houses Siam Ocean World, which is apparently the largest aquarium in South East Asia.
Our destination, however, was the top floor, which houses the multiplex. Once we got up there we discovered an interesting difference from cinemas in the States: you're allowed to bring outside food into the theaters. In fact, the lobby is lined with coffee shops and ice creameries and the like to help you do just that. Another thing we found out was that every showing for the afternoon was already sold out.
Contingency
Plan B ended up being "walk around and eat a bunch of street food," and I was totally okay with that. I can't recall exactly what all we tried, but it was good. Nikki also insisted that we buy some green mangoes and olives to try later. I guess you could call all of our street food sampling an appetizer course, because the next stop was dinner at Som Tam Nua, a restaurant that had won CNNGo's Bangkok Best Som Tam award in 2010. Once again Nikki took care of ordering and once again it was awesome.
Happy Trails
After dinner it was time to head to the hotel one last time to retrieve our bags and after that we were off to the airport. We said our goodbyes to Nikki, made our way through security, and found our gate. It was at this point that we realized we'd neglected to eat our mangoes and olives, so we broke out a little picnic. The olives were only alright (I'm not much of an olive fan to begin with), but the green mangoes were really good. By the time we'd finished our snack the plane had arrived it was time to head out.
Just like on the way to Bangkok we had a layover in Seoul's Incheon airport, only this time I wasn't dealing with a bout of food poisoning. This time I got to spend the time looking through photos and searching YouTube for remixes of One Night in Bangkok. Definitely an improvement over our stop two weeks prior.
Before we were allowed to board our plane we had to submit to an additional screening for liquids courtesy of the TSA. I guess overpriced airport smoothies are okay when flying domestically, but there ain't no way you're bringing one into America from abroad.
After another long, uneventful trans-Pacific flight and an absurdly slow line for customs we were back in the good old US of A. Two weeks had gone by in the blink of an eye and I guess that just means that I need to figure out where to go next. Suggestions welcome.