Monthly Archives: May 2012

Terminal 21

29 Tuesday May 2012

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Terminal 21 is just another (nine-storey) shopping place in Bangkok. But you will be walking inside feeling like you are traveling. The mall is designed to look like an airport –It opened last year while the nation was dealing with the flood crisis.  Life does go on.  The world goes on. And it’s right under one roof for Bangkokians and visitors –

I was here for the first time yesterday, but only to have brunch in Mexico opposite the Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, not far from the city’s municipal railway –

There are more spots to see. Or I could get lost in a maze of shops in Tokyo.

 ABC Wednesday

Pet names

24 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in Booking Through Thursday, Books & Reading

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In this post: Booking Through Thursday and Thursday Thirteen

Lu asks

Do you have any pet that has a name inspired by your readings?

If not, what would you pick if you DID?

Do any of your friends have book-based names for their pets? (Or their children?)

Piano lessons were imposed on me when I was a little girl. My love for reading extended to the short background of the music or biography of the composer written on my music books. I think I enjoyed the reading part more than working on the keys. Fast forward to 2002 I bought a toy poodle and named him Mozart, that’s him on the sidebar, after the composer. I use his photo as a bookmark.

My mother’s dog is named Shakespeare, after you-know-who. (sorry for the HP reference). A fairy tale – addict young niece named one of our cats Snow White, and the other George, after King George.

Thursday Thirteen: Books the feature dogs

1. Odyssey by Homer features Argos
2. The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov features Banga
3. Dumb Witness by Agatha Christie features Bob
4. Call of the Wild by Jack London features Buck
5. The Roly-Poly Pudding by Beatrix Potter features John Joiner
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck features Candy’s dog
7. Two Gentlemen of Verona, by Shakespeare features Crab
8. Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens features Diogenes
9. Harry Potter by JK Rowling features Fang
10. Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien features Garm
11. Ulysses by James Joyce features Garryowen
12. Adam Bede by George Eliot features Gyp
13. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens features Jip

Songkran soaked

21 Monday May 2012

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Songkran is the Thai new year characterized mainly by people celebrating it with water. According to Wikipedia, songkran is a term derived from Sanskrit, and may refer to new year celebrations in or parts of southeast Asian countries like Cambodia, Lao, Thingyan in Myanmar, Yunnan in China and northern Vietnam.

Fifteen years in the kingdom and this recently concluded Songkran on April 13-15 was only my second time participating and really having fun – in Huahin, Thailand’s summer capital last year and in Silom, the country’s financial district this year.

This is the Songkran ‘make-up,’ or that’s how I call fragrant talcum powder mixed in water and rubbed gently on people’s cheeks –

Originally, water in bowls is poured on the wrists only. People exchange good wishes and go their way –

Nowadays a huge fire hose spews water on revelers. In some instances it’s not even water in the dippers, but whiskey.  Silom is closed to traffic. No one in this formidable crowd is dry. Not the cops, not the food or booze vendors, not even the journalists covering this event. In one corner people danced to Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive –

Songkran ammo – the red and blue water gun behind the ever present somtam (papaya salad), fried chicken and sticky rice in every Thai celebration –  

The Thai government provides mats for people having their Songkran dinner in parks. A nephew and a niece who flew in from Cebu in time for the frolic would have made perfect mat models but discretion had better be the order of the day if their aunt do not want to get murdered this early in her blogging past time.

Our World  ABC Wednesday

Live in

17 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in Booking Through Thursday, Harry Potter

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In this post: Booking Through Thursday and Thursday Thirteen

abookandashortlatte1 asks

If you had to choose to live within a novel, which would it be?

Without much ado Harry Potter’s Hogwarts! What a place to explore! I’d like to transfigure arrogant Malfoy into a cross-eyed cockroach. *kidding* And when I feel like cutting Snape’s class I’ll hang out at Hagrid’s hut. Then during summers head to The Burrow. As Ron Weasley says, “it’s not much, but it’s home.”

Thursday 13: My favorite places in Harry Potter

1. Hogwarts the moving staircases and all the magic learning!
2. The Burrow ‘dilapidated and standing only by magic’ ah!… wonderful
3. Hogsmeade Village appeals to the country girl in me
3. Madam Puddifoot’s is where we will have high tea
4. Diagon Alley shop til I drop
5. Shell Cottage a newly-weds’ home must be sweet and lovely
6. Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes I want their anti-acne cream
7. Honeyduke’s Sweetshop for my sweet tooth
8. The Leaky Cauldron when one day in Diagon Alley is not enough
9. The Three Broomsticks running a pub and living above it
10. Scrivenshaft’s Quill Supplies good old writing paraphernalia
11. Magical Menagerie offers advice on animal care and health
12. Florean Fortescue’s choco-raspberry with chopped nuts
13. Flourish & Blotts books of course

River city shopping complex

14 Monday May 2012

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Quick info

Business hours: 10 AM to 8 PM, Sunday to Saturday
Majority of merchandise:  antiques, (specializing in Thai art and culture)
Feature: monthly auction (every first Saturday) in the 4th floor auditorium

Event going on: Nude & Erotic Painting Exhibition, 23 April – 31 May 2012 @ The Art Zone, 2nd floor

Location: 23 Si Phaya Pier, Soi Trok Rongnamkaeng, Yota Road, Sampantawong
Fastest way to get there: take the Silom Line BTS skytrain to Saphan Taksin Station. There’s a free shuttle boatto the River City Shopping Complex.

***

Some fascination for antiques motivated this adventure.  With very limited Thai I took a shot of the address and asked a sky train station guard to write it in Thai. This is the Saphan Taksin pier where I waited for the boat to RCSC –

Capacity of this boat must be between forty or fifty passengers but there were only three of us on this trip: a European couple and myself

 Some of the sights during the boat ride are temple spires, facade of international hotels and high rise condominiums. Bougainvilleas did a pretty job on this building –

A boat carrying RCSC shoppers arrives at the Si Phaya pier

For some reason unknown to me the complex was virtually devoid of shoppers that day which was fine by me. Admiring these paintings was better in the quiet

The undisturbed shopping gave off a  ‘night in the museum’ effect

Some of the art pieces on display: staring at these antiques could transport one to the whimsical orient –

This is RCSC entrance opposite the banks of Chao Phraya river. I like how it looks so modern on the outside but a different world on the inside.

 Our World  *   ABC Wednesday

In or out

10 Thursday May 2012

Posted by in Booking Through Thursday, Books & Reading

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In this post: Booking Through Thursday and Thursday Thirteen

Heidi asks:

Do you consider yourself an extrovert or an introvert?

Perhaps a combination of both. I have been living alone since my big D in 2006 and I don’t seem to mind; rarely wish for company. Seventy five percent of my king size bed is littered with books. I occupy the remaining 25% when I sleep. As for socializing I am happy meeting friends for lunch, dinner or high tea in or outside my nook. I love cozy cafes. Church, concerts, lectures, or family get-togethers  – I welcome them as revitalizing shot to my routine which is being alone.

Thursday 13: They are also in and out

Breakfast this morning was spent watching CNN’s Pierce Morgan talking with people about President Barack Obama’s support for gay marriage. I wonder what would these writers have said if they were the ones interviewed.

1. Sappho (600 B.C.) Greek Poetess
2. Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626) British statesman and writer
3. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) English dramatist and poet
4. Lord Byron (1788-1824) British poet
5. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) Danish poet and writer
6. Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) Euro-American writer and journalist
7. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) Euro-American poet
8. Herman Melville (18-19-1891 Euro-American writer
9. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish writer and dramatist
10. Marcel Proust (1871-1922) French writer
11. W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) British writer and dramatist
12. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) British writer and publisher
13. Truman Capote (1924-1984) Euro-American author

Quaint

08 Tuesday May 2012

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Medieval justice was a quaint thing ~ Frederick Pollard

I have yet to read what is that about, but the line appeals strongly to the history lover in me.

Quaint has become one of my favorite words since I searched the net for info and pictures of England in preparation for a trip there in 2006. There are several definitions of quaint. These are what I like the most:

  • having an old-fashioned attractiveness or charm; oddly picturesque
  • strange, peculiar or unusual in an interesting, pleasing or amusing way
  • skillfully or cleverly made

If you clicked images for quaint on Google, you will find mostly European cottages and churches in the countryside. As for quaint places in Asia, I’m sharing one that has been hibernating in my archives since I took it two years ago – part of Angkor Wat in Cambodia

Shakespeare’s wife’s cottage has to be quaint too.

ABC Wednesday