Crowned jewels, hot shit, and lots of fun.

Before heading to Emporium yesterday, I stopped by the gas station to fill up the gas. In Thailand, there's no such thing as self-service gas stations, and so there's always someone there to fill up the gas for you. Anyway, the lady who filled up my tank forgot to put the gas cap back on, and so I went driving through Bangkok without a gas cap for the entire day yesterday. Luckily, the guard at Siri's apartment complex noticed it and pointed it out to me. Argh.


So anyway, I picked up Siri from her place before we headed to Emporium to meet up with everyone else. She'd just gotten back from a week-long trip to Chiang Mai and said it was PARADISE! Man, na eecha jung loey. Everyone I know has been there before, but I still haven't, and so I'm really looking forward to my trip there next month.


Siri took me through a maze of obscure sois, and despite my vain efforts in attempting to memorize the way, I lost track after Sukhumvit Soi 20-something. Ah well. She jabbered about her trip and I jabbered about my cousin's wedding, and we concluded that this year had been a great year indeed. We can't wait for 2004.


When we got to Emporium, we spent about 15 minutes looking for a place to park. Ahhh. I guess that that's no big surprise because this is Bangkok we're talking about here. We finally decided to stalk this one guy who was pushing a shopping cart through the parking lot on his way to his car. Bwahaha, we finally tracked him down and patiently waited for him to finish unloading his things so that we could snag his spot.


We met up with Patrick and Monta in front of Kinokuniya Books. It was SO great to see them again! Although Monta looks a little different now, she's still exactly the same; we started yakking away and it was like we were in middle school all over again. As for Patrick, I remember him as being the nicest guy in the class back in 6th grade, and after seeing him again, I realize he still is. His Brit accent was even more pronounced in person, and so we had a lot of fun ragging on him about that (but that's just because we're so jealous and want classy Brit accents too, Paddy ).


Caro showed up a little later, and so we all found a place to eat. Siri and I'd already had breakfast, and so we shared a bowl of kao lao. We probably annoyed everyone around us with all our squealing and prattling. My GOD, Monta and her friggingly addictive laugh - I'd almost forgotten how addictive her laugh was. She has this loud, bellowing guffaw and you have to have a will of stone in order to resist not laughing along with her.


Caro and Siri surprised me by giving me a belated birthday present. Hehehe, that's so us - since we're all so busy and have different schedules and all, we don't get to meet up that often, and so we're always late in giving one another birthday gifts. In fact, giving belated birthday gifts has almost become a tradition of ours.


Monta, Caro, me, Patrick (left)
Monta, Caro, me (right)


Lynn the belated birthday girl is 4-years old all over again.

I couldn't have asked for a better gift. I opened it up and was ECSTATIC when I saw that it was an organizer filled with gorgeous pictures of Ireland and quotes by some of my favorite Irish poets. Haha, I'm such a dork. Thank you, thank you Caro and Siri!!





Patrick told us about this great place next to Emporium that serves crocodile burgers. He swears they're excellent, but I think I'll just take his word for it and steer clear of that place. Monta, Caro and I started reminiscing about all our weirdo classmates and teachers from back in the day (of course, that's not to say we ourselves weren't all that weird back then either). Poor Siri and Patrick, I think they wanted to throw bags over their heads and slink away into the weekend crowd of shoppers because Caro, Monta, and I got a little carried away with all our laughing and jabbering, we probably embarrassed them. Ah well, you only get to meet up with an old childhood friend once every now and then.


~*~

Gug called and said she'd be running a little late. I reminded her to bring the birthday present we'd gotten for Caro back in September (see, I told you it's practically tradition). We decided to head on over to Monta's place and meet up with Gug there, and so everyone piled up into my car, and with the Dixie Chicks blasting away in the background, we drove off into the Saturday afternoon traffic. Besides nearly running through a red light once and having to hit the breaks rather hard, I don't think I drove that precariously (damn you Monta and your stupid-funny jokes!). After all, I got us there in one piece.


I haven't been to Monta's place in ages! The last time I was there was in 12th grade, I think, and it was great getting to see her parents and grandma again.


Front courtyard of Monta's apartment complex.

We headed for the sixth floor where the pool and garden area is located. The view from up there is priceless, and the gardens were just lovely. Monta ran into a few old German friends of hers who were swimming, and so they had a grand old time catching up.


View of the Sukhumvit area.


Garden area on the sixth floor.


And the pool area.

Monta dug up all of our old yearbooks from middle school and high school and hauled them to the pool. We had a field day gaping at everyone's embarrassing childhood pics, and you can probably imagine the great amount of chortling and snickering that ensued.




Siri, Caro, and Monta's gnarled hand.

I'm not sure who started it, or even how it started, but someone started listing off all of our old crushes and all the sa-thooooopid nicknames we used to give them (Kimchee, Carrot, Orange, French Fries, Lollipop, Katie, Kooberz, etc.). Patrick just stared at all of us in a sort of bewildered stupor and asked, how can you guys remember all of that? It's a girl thing, Paddy. We have special compartments in our brains reserved especially for petty, little things like that, hehe.


Caro and Monta laughing at some poor person's picture from our middle school days.

Gug called, and she'd just gotten off at the Tonglor BTS station and was walking into Monta's soi, so Siri and I went down to pick her up at the lobby.


Siri, me, and Gug with Caroline's birthday present.
We have a nickname for her - Caroppi - dubbed after the famous Sanrio Keroppi frog, and so we hoped she'd like the stuffed frog.


We weren't all that sure whether or not Caro would like the gift, but telling from her reaction, I think she did.

Time literally flew by, and we spent a couple of hours doing nothing much besides talking, recounting days gone by, and catching up on what everyone's been up to since graduation. We planned a trip to the famous Maldives Resort over at Jantaburi where I hear the water is crystal clear and the view is to-die-for.


Gug looking at some of Caro's pics from her trip to Korea, and Siri looking rather appalled at someone's yearbook picture, hehe.


Monta, Caro, me, Gug, Paddy. (left)

Paddy, Caro, me, Siri, Monta, Gug. (right)

~*~

We later piled into my car again and headed towards World Trade Center. As we were leaving Monta's place, I had to stop in the middle of the soi since there were three dogs having a full-fledged orgy smack in the middle of the street. Ewwww, haha. Along the way, we snapped a few pics. I know it's terrible driving conduct, but with all the Bangkok traffic, things can get incredibly boring after a while...


Poor, weary passengers.


Crazy driver with half a face, Monta, Gug, Caro, and Patrick's sleeve.

I think that at this point we were starting to scare Paddy away with all our silly zaniness, haha. Somewhere along Sukhumvit Soi 30-something, some of the peeps in the cars next to us started to stare, and I think it was Paddy who said, everyone's probably wondering what the heck's going on in here.


*~*

I dropped Gug off around Sogo because she had to go to JJ's to buy a present for her nephew. The rest of us headed for WTC, but Siri had to leave a little early because she had to attend a Christmas dinner and mass. We said our goodbyes, and Paddy, Monta, Caro, and I headed upstairs in search of some dinner. We decided on Fuji's, and since there was a rather long queue, we decided to take sticker pics at some nearby booths. We were allowed four backgrounds, and so we each chose one.



We finally got a table and almost forgot to order because we got a wee bit carried away with all our chattering. I'm not so sure why exactly, but the silly-looking smiley potatoes on the menu made me and Monta laugh like loons.


Smiley potatoes, anyone?


Monta the llama amidst her bamboo-brimming surroundings.

As we waited for our food, I flipped through this ultra cool magazine that Paddy had brought along with him from London. They analyze all the greatest songs, music videos, and albums from the past twenty years, and Monta and I couldn't stop drooling over this one pic of Julian Casablancas from The Strokes.

Monta: Dude, Julian's hot shit!
Paddy: (with his Brit accent) Hawt shit?
Monta: Yeah, he's HOT SHIT.
Paddy: I can understand if you say he's hot, but hot shit?
Monta: Yeah, that's what they say in the States. Dude, if I have a son, I'm gonna name him Julian after hot-shit-Julian from The Strokes.
Paddy: (sort of buries his face in his hands and gives a little oh-god shake of his head)


For some odd reason, this 'hot shit' topic kept reappearing for the rest of the evening.


There was a picture of Bon Jovi from the eighties, and we girls could not stop giggling over his very furry, very hairy chest. This led to furry-chest-stories, and Monta told us about this one ex-boyfriend of hers who actually shaved his chest. Ah, fun times.



Paddy told us a few amusing stories. There was this one time he threw up in the front lobby at the Grand Hyatt Hotel after chucking down numerous glasses of white wine. He said that the doormen there still remember him up to this day, haha. I asked Paddy about life in the UK and how long it took him to acquire a British accent, and he said about six months. His middle school teachers actually sent him to some sort of accent school when he first moved there so that he could get rid of his "lowly American accent" and adopt a British one instead. Gee. Anyway, our food finally came, and we dove in like refugees.


Monta and Caro had some salmon steak while I'm not so sure what it was that Paddy had.


I had some curry soba. It was DAMN GOOD.


And the aftermath.

Monta saw some kanom hee-mah (crushed, chilled ice covered with condensed milk and other sweet tidbits) on the menu, and this revived "the hot shit topic" whereby Monta said kanom hee-mah was "some damn cold shit". Idiots that we are, this sent us guffawing into oblivion again. Anyway, as we waited for the bill, we laughed at each other's various ID cards. I don't know what it is about ID and passport pics, but everyone always looks horrible in them; it's like a rule or something.

When the bill came, the waitress gave us a free New Year's gift. After playing a little game of hot potato (no one seemed to want it), I ended up with the horrid salt and pepper holder.



We left Fuji's and passed by this modelling agency where they had pictures of oil-smothered male models decorating their front window. We paused and decided none of them were our type, and Paddy inquired why the heck they always seem to smother male models in oil. We told him that it was to further accentuate their man-boobs, and we offered to demonstrate, provided he be the model. He briefly ran away from us for a moment after that, hehehe.

We decided on some Haagen Dazs for dessert, and left World Trade in search of it. The entire front area of WTC was filled with Singha and Heineken beer gardens, live bands, and people getting drunk in light of the holiday season. Beyond this, the streets were flaming with flickering Christmas lights of Xmas trees, reindeer, and "Happy New Year 2004!!!" signs.



The street scene from the front of World Trade, and Monta the llama again.

As we crossed the bridge and headed for Gaysorn Plaza, we started laughing like morons again because Monta thought the word Gaysorn was amusing ("Hey! Let's grab some spray paint and change the sign to Gayporn Plaza!"). As we passed by the Grand Hyatt Hotel, we told Paddy we wouldn't mind stopping by the Hyatt for some white wine, that way he could say hi to the doorman who'd witnessed his unfortunate accident a few years ago. He politely declined, hehe. Along the way, Monta told us about some self-defense classes she took, and Paddy told us about the time he and his friends were taking the tube in London and this guy started, uh, jerking off in front of them.

Paddy: He just whipped out his crowned jewels and went for it.
Me: His crowned jewels?
Paddy: Err, yeah.
Me: There was this one time at uni last year when I was walking to my car, and this guy popped up out of nowhere and whipped out his, err, crowned jewels and starting going at it, too.
Monta: You should've kicked him in the crowned jewels and shattered 'em!


As we walked past Le Meridien President Hotel (where we had our senior prom), we spotted dozens of artists sketching and painting live portraits of tourists. Caro and I thought that this would make a great birthday present for Siri, and so I gave this one artist Siri's pic and he guaranteed that the sketch would be done by Monday.



We finally reached Haagen Dazs at the Maneeya Tower across the street from Central Chidlom, and found a table on the third floor where they had a live guitarist playing cheesy love ballads from the eighties.


Yep, we'd definitely freaked Paddy out at this point.


I could live off of cookies-and-cream milkshakes and chocolate for the rest of my life.

We finally crossed the street and headed back to WTC where we bypassed all the drunken farangs and tourists who were drinking the night away at the various beer gardens in front. There was this horrible live band singing what Caro and I dubbed "the lalalalalala song".


Late night traffic in front of WTC and the Amari Hotel clad in Christmas tree lights.
That big green globe on the left is where the Heineken beer garden was located.

~*~

I dropped Paddy, Monta, and Caro off at the BTS station, and headed back home. I had to stop by the stupid gas station to get my stinkin gas cap first, though, and finally reached home at around midnight.


I had a stupendously awesome time!



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