Sadly, our time here has come to an end and we are all packed and ready to go to the airport for our noon flight to Bangkok. The Grab taxi picks us up at the end of our little house lane and we are at CNX in absolutely no time. All checked in, we head to the lounge for an hour or so, then off to our quick flight to Bangkok.

As usual, we are always amazed that we get food and beverage on a 40 minute flight! It is crazy that all these Asian and European (but mostly Asian) airlines can do this but American airlines can’t. Sad, really. Ok – rant done. Arriving in BKK, we grab our bags then head out into the arrivals area to find our pre-booked taxi. OMG! First of all, it is a zoo out here. Tons and tons and tons of people milling about, some drivers with signs, some deplaning passengers, some family. An assault to the senses. But then, there is the pre-booked taxi area. We have never, ever seen anything like this! Yards and yards of paper signs held up by tape on railings that run along both sides of the arrival hall. There must have been hundreds of names on those signs. You have to walk up and down each display to find your name, then one of the helpful attendants grabs your name off the railing and calls your driver. Incredible!

It takes us a couple of minutes, but we do find our name, and as we are looking we spy a sign that is for “Sexy Elaine.” Ohhhhkay. Hey, someone with either A) a sense of humor, or B) an over-inflated ego. Either way we find this hysterical and joked with the transfer attendant lady about it who laughed along with us. She took our name off the rail, took our picture (to send to the driver) and then called our driver to come around to pick us up. As we stood there waiting to get confirmation of where to go and whom to meet, the attendant comes back over and very surreptitiously shows us a picture of Sexy Elaine! Too funny!!!

Driver acknowledged, our sweet little attendant points us out to the curb and we’re off through the ever present Bangkok traffic, on our way to the Century Park Hotel. We’re there surprisingly quickly, a little over half an hour, but that’s because we’re close to the Victory Monument which is nowhere near the river or the area where we typically stay, so we’ve not had to deal with most of the traffic. It is a wholly new area for us to explore in our Gate 1 free time, of which we have a lot on this trip.

It is late enough that we are able to check in to our room to drop our luggage and begin explorations. The itinerary for the next few days is posted in the lobby and oddly enough there is no orientation meeting this evening, we are just meeting in the morning to go on the half day city tour, then orientation and drinks tomorrow night. Ok, well, gives us the evening free. We’re not arguing!

The room is great, large and comfy on a high floor with views out over a nearby park, a Wat complex and of course the sprawl that is Bangkok. Still, it is pretty cool to be up this high and just gaze out over the traffic and the buildings and the general hustle and bustle.

Bags stowed, travel gear put away, we hit the mean streets to explore our new home neighborhood. First thing, we mark all the 7-11 locations – beer a priority – and we also go in search of the grocery store for snacks and wine if necessary. An easy walk down Racthawithi Road, passing Santiphap park where you know we’ll walk one day, and onto the area around the Victory Monument circle. The transportation hub is here, monorail, taxis, songthaews, everything you’d ever need. There are also little shops and a huge street food market. Yes! Dinner is handled!

We find the grocery store in the basement of one of the malls, peruse the offerings, picking up a few supplies then head back to the hotel where we find the bar is open and they have 2 for 1 drinks! Oh yes! Because, remember, wine is expensive here to begin with – and in a hotel? To our surprise, These drinks are actually fairly well priced, so 2 for 1 is an even better bargain. And we get a preview of our drinks/orientation from the other Gate 1 group that is here in the hotel (there are actually 4 all told) who are having their orientation tonight. It is fun to listen to this guide talk about their itinerary and what to expect. He’s actually from Chiang Mai and his wife has a bakery. We’d love to be able to ask him more about that, and keep her name and location in our notes for next time, but of course he has more important matters to attend to than talking to other tour members!

Later, at the appropriate dinner time, we are back out on the streets heading for the street market. Lucking out, we find a table and rotate wandering the different stalls. There are lots of different offerings here, because of course we are now in the South where the food is different from Northern Thailand. It is fun to see all the different food here, but it also makes for tough decisions. We end up with Chicken satay and sausages, plus these little Japanese Takoyaki balls which we chose because they have some with octopus in the middle! Also Chicken ones and Ham ones – we’ve never had these and they are yummy – and something to remember when we go to Japan in a few months! We finish out our feast with fried pork belly (sort of actually bacon, but thick bacon) which I get to grab right off the hot grill after with a bunch of local Thai’s who were trying to pick out skewers from a big tray and of course, knew what they were doing! The lady at the grill actually took pity on me and handed me a bag full of piping hot skewers.

Excellent first meal in Bangkok. Afterward we wander over to the Saxophone Pub, which we had spied earlier, for a drink and hopefully some music. The pub has a great atmosphere, all dark wood and low lighting, but apparently doesn’t get going until later in the evening, plus, no wine by the glass, only by the bottle.

Not wanting to wait for the music and figuring we’ve got enough in our room to make an evening, we have one drink here then head back to the hotel, passing the street market on the way and finding that we missed the insect stall! Darn it! We could have had house crickets! Can’t believe we missed that. We’ll just have to come back again for that delicacy. But the burning question is this: Why designate “house” cricket? What other kinds of crickets are there? And are these special because they caught them in the house?

Back at the hotel, we hang out watching the world go by all those many floors below us, getting ready to meet our fellow tour passengers in the morning.