Holiday to Bangkok

This June holiday was not too fulfilling as I left all homework and assignments until the last week.  However, I got a chance to visit a country, which is going for its elections soon, Thailand. I visited Bangkok this time. The holiday to Bangkok this time was a totally different experience from the previous time, as promised by my parents. My parents had to exhaust much of their persuasion skills this time to talk me into joining them in this trip to the capital of Thailand. I had not wanted to go on a holiday at first because of the unreasonably high CCA demands I had to fulfill. In my previous post I had talked about my teacher-in-charge of my CCA being unreasonable and upset with our performance during the National Schools Canoeing championships. This time he signed us up for another competition to test our commitment to the school and in the process of doing so, he stepped up the training requirements. Going for holiday meant that I would be missing many training sessions and my performance in the CCA will drop tremendously after missing many trainings and I will usually have to take some time to be back in form and the process of training hard again is not very pleasant. Another reason I did not want to go on this holiday to Bangkok was because of the lousy and painful experience I had when I was much younger, maybe when I was in Primary 2. That time, when we visited Bangkok, it was a family outing with my aunty and her family. My aunty and my mother were two very avid shoppers. After we checked into our hotels, bathed, settled down, the nightmare begun. It was a nightmare for me, but not for my mother or her sister. We went to one of the biggest and most popular malls in Bangkok and started shopping. My mother and her sister walked into almost every lady shop that sold ladies accessories or shops selling stuff that were much cheaper if they were to buy in Bangkok than in Singapore. I was still okay as I accompanied the ladies for the first hour of the shopping as I had entertainment from my father and cousins and my aunty’s humorous husband. For the second hour, it was getting boring as we waited outside the shops, standing, yawning then walking to use the escalator or the lift, just to reach the next level and continue shopping. My legs were starting to feel tired as the mall was very different from the malls here. It was as if each level of the mall was twice the size of Bugis Village. What made it worst was the prize of the goods sold were much cheaper than those sold in Singapore. I suspected that it was this point which gave my mother and her sister the determination to shop continuously for hours. The third hour spent in the mall was torturous as my legs were aching and I already felt very tired and bored. I was also quite frustrated with my mother as she will have to bargain with the shop owner no matter how cheap the goods. Sometimes I felt like shouting at my mum and my aunty when they spent so much time in the shop, and then walked out empty handed because the price was not right or they were unhappy with the shop owner’s attitude. I could only vent my anger by throwing my little fist at my father who would tickle me in response. I was in pain. The positive part of that holiday was that I slept almost immediately when I lay in bed at night. We did not return to Bangkok for the past 8 years, but the experience has always been etched in my mind. This was one reason why I always enjoyed going to countries which their currency will be stronger and their things more expensive. Minimum shopping was done when my family visited the UK, USA and Australia. However, this time round when I went to Bangkok, many things changed over this 8 years. The airport, the roads, the hygiene, but unfortunately, the jams were still as frequent, and the same mall was still intact in spite of all the unrests which happened in the city over the 8 years. This time, there was still shopping, and the experience was not much better, but I also got what I wanted and needed. I was allowed certain toys which would definitely be denied when I asked for it in Singapore. After all, visiting a country which has cheaper goods also have its advantages. Another entertainment I had when my mother was shopping, was identifying the Singaporeans in Bangkok. This was not too difficult, you don’t really need look at their faces and appearances, you just have to open your ears and listen to the way they speak.