Busy streets of Bangkok. MBK the largest shopping mall in the city (very much like Sungei Wang)

An old abandon Inn right next to the BTS. Its blood red walls is an instant eye catcher.

A common sight on the streets as children squat and sit on sidewalks begging for money. Sometimes you can even catch the parent peeping from the corner. What a pity and waste for such innocence.

One of the few Bungalows converted into a restaurant around Sukhumvit area. This one is ‘La Romanina’ serving Spanish and Italian cuisine. A place worth for a fine dining experience. Food and ambience was a delight.

An oblivious sleeper deep in lala land completely unaware of the crowd of shoppers streaming into the weekend market.

Everything and anything under the sun – that’s the shopping directory for the famous Chatuchak Market. Give yourself at least half a day to explore every nook and cranny of this vibrant market.

Let’s just say it was a breeze getting Terence’s suit done. Somehow things to do with fashion, men just have it easier then ladies. We were recommended by a friend to go this tailor as his workmanship was commendable. Even more convenient when we found that the tailor was situated in the same building as our hotel. Flipping through some mags, we chose the design immediately and the tailor got his measurements taken. Within an hour we were out of the place and was guaranteed delivery the next day itself! I’m still astounded by the speed and efficiency of these people. And if you think quality is sacrificed, you might just be wrong as they take much pride in tailoring your suits having repeat customers from Europe coming all the time.


Measurements, measurements, measurements.

A beaming customer with the shop assistant at his service. You can tell by the look of his face, he can’t wait for the suit to be done eh?!

Unfortunately photos cannot be released to keep the suspense up for the big day. All I can fill you in is you’d be seeing a really smart suit on a tall, handsome young man – the groom of course!

So we returned Bangkok a week ago with overflowing bags and satisfied grins across our faces. Our search for bridal wear was a huge success. Strolling over half a dozen bridal shops and finally choosing ‘the’ dress is a real relieve and half a chunk bitten off our pockets. I’d rather not think about that for now. So let’s back track a few weeks when our hunt actually began.

Two weeks prior to Bangkok foremost taste of bridal shopping when a few selected shops in SS2 were chosen for our experiment. Setting eyes on some gorgeous gowns I couldn’t resist but to try them on. The only setback was most of them topped the RM4k mark for purchase and dipped slightly lower if we were to rent it. Rental prices easily starts at a ridiculous RM2.5k for a week! Anyway we took some “sneak” pictures just for blogging sake. Quality is not fantastic as it was taken on with a camera phone.

Champagne coloured strapless full gown with a mighty long train (absolutely gorgeous)

I call this a cake dress. Looks weird on the hanger but fits perfectly on the body.

Classic wedding dress with silver embroidery on the top. It’s pretty heavy too!

Simple dress, more suited for the bridesmaid though.

Off shoulder A-line dress with a tinge of pink ripples down the front – very sweet.

After our foretaste in SS2, we were full on to search out Bangkok. If you’re getting married (or know someone who’s about to tie the knot), I highly suggest a trip to Bangkok as things are relatively cheaper there and selection is plenty. Apart from the dress and suits, Chatuchak is also a great place to pile on the wedding favors and even some household items for the new home.

Back to our search, on Saturday morning we headed to Thong Lor station via BTS (Bangkok’s LRT) and scouted for Sukhumvit 55, the street a local dress maker suggested we go to. It’s a typical main road with wide walkways and huge trees for shade. Zig zagging right and left, we hopped from one shop to another along the entire street.

Some dresses were extremely gawdy with tons of beading and lace plastered all over, while some were just too ‘show biz’ to even have on your wedding day. We would enter each shop asking if they had simple wedding dresses. If their answer was no, we’d walk straight out. The irony of it is that in Bangkok, the outlook of the shop does not reflect the choice of dresses they carry. More often than not, we found pretty dresses in not so nice looking shops. Here’s one of them.

Heart shaped crinkled top with a free flowing skirt. Apparently some dresses were imported from Italy and this is one of them.

After 4 hours of getting in and out of gowns, alas! we set eyes on ‘the’ dress. As tradition goes, the groom isn’t suppose to see the bride on the day before the wedding – same goes for the dress, the guests aren’t suppose to see the dress before the day of the wedding. So you’d just have to wait All I can say is it’s a princess cut a-line dress with intricate hand beading painstakingly sewn and designed by a petite Thai lady.

Flying again!? YES! We’re up for an agenda packed weekend. Terence and I booked tickets to Bangkok earlier this year in hope to get our wedding attire at a much cheaper price. We got the scoop from some of Terence’s colleagues as they did the same for their wedding too.

Since we need an extra pair of hands (to lug around all our goodies) and an extra pair of eyes (not that I don’t trust Terence’s fashion opinions ), we’ve decided to thug Rachel along with us. It also saves us the problem of getting separate accommodation as with unmarried couples – 3 is thumbs up, 2 is no-no.

Since I’ve spent a week in Bangkok last year, I’ve offered to be tour guide and beeline the entire route for the weekend. Starting at Sukhumvit to Siam Square heading to MBK and then finally combing the famous Chatuchak.

Two weeks ago we went for some wedding browsing and even tried some gowns. They were gorgeous needless to say. There’s just something about the dress that makes you feel all elegant and graceful. I fell in love with 2 dresses. One with Victorian style embroidery that gently trims the ends of the skirt. The other is champagne off shoulder dress with a long train all held together in heavy satin.

Having browsed through some websites and contacted some suppliers in Bangkok, I sure hope we’d not have to sacrifice on design or material. Reviews are good from satisfied customers – so that’s a relief. Terence is a little more fortunate as Bangkok is known for their nice crisp manly suits. I’m sure we’d have no problem getting one ideally for him.

Signing off for now and will be back with exciting updates!

Side note 1: Hopefully Bangkok dresses and suits look a lot better than what this happy cartoons are wearing!
Side note 2: Doesn’t the guy look like Terence?! (It must be the hairstyle!:)

Seven days in Bangkok is more than enough to roam the city. The sounds of traffic, roaring of buses and taxis, tuk tuk’s weaving in and out, people, people and more people everywhere and not mention the inability to scout out flat grounds since 360 degrees are sky scrapers! I’m almost relieved to be back to suburbia lifestyle.

Day One:
Up early before dawn, a private van came to pick the Chan Clan up. Swinging our lightly packed backpacks (except for dad – he seemed to have brought his entire camera equipment), the journey to the airport was one of excitement and quiet anticipation.
I was expecting the flight to be delayed but to my surprise it was on the dot (Air Asia proved me wrong this time, I hope they’d apply the same timeliness for their domestic flights).

Camera’s started clicking away. Within a couple of hours we were in Bangkok. The airport was nice, new and sleek. My eyes were darting around for brochures, maps, guides etc. To my disappointment, Bangkok’s airport had not stocked up on important information like that.

Our first encounter with bargaining on prices started as we hunted for a taxi to the hotel. Locals tried to wince their way about with cut throat prices but we stood our ground and insisted on a lower price. Frankly I had no clue if it was expensive, affordable or cheap. But after a few encounters, I got used to it and the locals had to agree (since I didn’t budge).

The hotel was a disappointment, smacked right in the middle of Bangkok’s Chinatown, bright red neon lights everywhere, chaos of Chinese people buying and selling – thankfully our room was on the 10^th floor! Despite the displeasure, no time was to be wasted. We changed into comfy clothes and headed to Chatuchak (CTC) Weekend Market. (I’ve heard so much about it and I couldn’t wait to lay eyes on it – since I love love love bargains!)

There were stalls everywhere, back to back, side to side, left, right, center! Literally eveyrthing under the sun could be found there (not to mention fried grubs, crickets and cicadas too!) It was like a fun fair but without the ferris wheel and cotton candy. Everyone had a bag or two, foreigners and locals trod market. We had no clue where to begin! Soon enough we agreed on a time and place to meet back, the girls and the guys. Interesting but not surprising, that after the 2 hours, the guys (dad and bro) came back only with food stuff and TONS of pictures, whilst the girls had bags of clothes, slippers, accessories etc. We left the market to avoid the crowd when it closes.

Headed to Silom for a night exploration of that part of the city. There were a few night markets but figured we had enough shopping for a day. So we took it easy strolling down the streets watching that part of the city come alive with side stalls being set up, hawkers preparing bowls of steaming hot soup noodles, cars crawling with busy traffic. Finally we sat down for an authentic roadside Thai dinner – beef noodles! After that, Ray insisted on having a go at Bangkok Starbucks, so we retreated to the café’s comfy sofas while sipping on hot coffee and giving our tired feet much needed rest.

Day Two:

Morning mission to CTC again to finish scouting the entire market square (believe you me, I didn’t believe it when Lee Yen told me she couldn’t cover the whole market even in a day). It’s true, especially since everything was worth looking at even if not buying. They had everything under the sun from lingerie to pottery. And I just realized that I can’t shop at departmental shops anymore having gotten the prices I bargained for at the market.

We left slightly after lunch for Jim Thompson House and Museum on the west of the city. A recommendation by Mui Yoon, we found it a beautiful place to take pictures with perfectly manicured gardens and vast open spaces. Learned about the history of the building and how much Mr. Thompson has influenced the silk industry in South East Asia.

After the ‘nightmarish’ experience at our Chinatown hotel, we decided to scout around for a new place. I can’t imagine going back to Chinatown area for 5 days, just not my perception of a holiday. We combed Sukhumvit area (my recommendation) for possible accommodation. Traveling by foot to four hotels was no joke, at the end of our search we finally decided on Grand President just 2 mins from a BTS station.

Happy and contented that the next day we’d be bunking into a nicer place, we went looking for a dinner place for out New Year’s Eve dinner. Stumbling upon a German restaurant with a huge suckling pig being roasted in a huge oven at the corner of its entrance (what a welcome!) we agreed try it out. Though we didn’t have the suckling pig, the dishes were very scrumptious, a different flare to our usual western meals. Enjoying the meal and fellowship suddenly we heard a bomb blast which shook the floor. Startled but not anxious, I was actually waiting for people to run down the streets shrieking but a few seconds passed and nothing was heard. We continued with our meal (faster now) and left the restaurant. Only finding out later that there had been 7 bomb blast across Bangkok and New Year’s celebration was called off in the city. Thankfully we didn’t head to city center that night, but went back to the hotel to spend time with the Lord instead.

Dinner on New Year’s Eve

Expressions while on the ‘life threatening’ tuk tuk