Sunday, May 20, 2012

The Room @ Sukhumvit

On the second day in Thailand, a friend of my uncle came to fetch us from the hotel and helped us with house hunting. So finally we settled for this brand new apartment called The Room . It is a very convinient location as it is very near to the bts station (about 5 minutes walking distance), to Umair's kindergarten (around 3-4 minutes walking distance), Big C (used to be known as Carrefour) is just behind our place (3-4 minutes walking distance through the back gate), and Tesco on the other side of the bts. So considering all that, I just had to swallow the fact that the kitchen in this place is so very small!All in all, the floor space in the apartment is like a Japanese house. Looking on the bright side, less cleaning for me off-course!                                                     
What's important for Umair is that it has got a nice swimming pool . So after everyone agreed on the place, we moved in on the third day and daddy could finally heave a sigh of relief that he got us a place to call home! This is our humble abode...for your viewing pleasure..
                                                   The living room when it is not messy with Umair's toys!

                                                    My so romantic kitchen~so tell me, where do i bake and roll my dough?  Let alone do a fondant cake!!

                                                 What i have on my spice rack...which is not very much, since I still couldn't find the normal spices and sauces like we use back home in Malaysia. I have yet to find belacan, fish curry and such. Their chilly sauce is different. So I just have to make do with whatever is available!

                                                  This is our bedroom, of which I share with the little one. Daddy sleeps with Umair in the other room...so I get to turn on the aircond and choose whatever temperature I like! Hihi!!
So, that's about all I guess, it's not very big, but cozy enough for us. What's important is that it suits our budget and is very convinient..!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Bangkok

Now, first of all, i am having a huge headache just because i haven't been coming in in here for so long that i have forgotten my password and or username!! They kept giving me this link that i kept going round and round doing the same thing! I think the next time i log in, the same thing will happen! Sigh~!
Anyway, here I am in Bangkok at last! *jumping up and down*

It has been 17 days since we moved here. On the first day,which was on the 27/4/2012, we came out from Suvarnabhumi Airport at 4pm Bangkok time. Somehow, instead of going to the hotel first, Nizam decided to go straight to Bellevue Residence www.bellevue-thailand.com, a serviced apartment in Bangna (the place that we initially wanted to stay). When we got there, we were horrified by the surroundings...the area is not as pleasant as we thought. Looking out the window, the view was of old and lonely (read scarry!) dirty neighbourhood rooftops and shrubs of bushes. We had a guided tour by the manager and her daughter. Inside the Bellevue itself is nice and clean, but, another minus point was that they only had common coin slot washing machines at the back of the parking area! Now, we are just staying here for a year, we are not going to pinch out our money for a washing machine definitely! We were so very dissappointed, as they really had  big and spacious bedrooms and a nice kitchen in the unit that we wanted.. (we wanted to take the 98sqm room, since that unit has got a real kitchen counter, and the second room is as big as the master bedroom), the price offered was just right...but...I said no way am I going to drag my 2 kids along while carrying the laundry basket on my head!! By that time, (our airport limo had already unloaded our things) Nizam's face was panicky and about to fall apart. At 7pm, tired and hungry and saddled with 2 kids we were still undecided about the place. So finally we decided to go to a hotel, take a rest and review our options.
The manager helped us to get a cab, but with 4luggage bags and 7 boxes, no way we could fit all of us in in the same cab...so we had to go in another cab and this was where the adventure begins!
You see, somehow, we were sent to a wrong hotel, i don't know whether that was deliberately done by our cabbie or not, but we were sent to this hotel full with Arabs. I thought that was funny as I felt that as if we were in the middle east instead of Thailand! Anyway, he dropped us there and said that the other cab full with our things will arrive later. Thinking that was  the hotel meant by the Bellevue manager (as she was the one who directed the cabbies in Thai), Nizam proceeded to check in counter only to realize that we were at the wrong hotel! So then, quickly we dashed out again and 'rushed' in the Bangkok crazy traffic jam to this Grand President Hotel...When we got there, we found out that the other cab had arrived and waited for us and since we didn't turn up, gone to another hotel to find us! We were really panicky at this time! At 10pm, awfully tired and hungry, we still had no place to stay as that Grand President Hotel was full!! In the mean time, the concierge at the Grand President Hotel tried to locate the missing cab, after about 10 minutes of trying, we finally suceeded. The cab came to Grand President hotel with all our things safe and sound. This time, we were redirected to a Royal President Hotel where they were sure to have a room for us for 2 nights!! So at 10.30pm, at the Royal President Hotel, we finally could breathe a sigh of relief and happy to be reunited with our belongings again!! (In the mixed up however, I lost my favourite catterpillar that i got for Umair in Japan...sob sob!).
Nizam got us a nice room there. It was actually an apartment suite with a kitchen and a living room. Probably he wanted us to cheer up a bit after such a long day! Anyway, i never imagined that our first day in Bangkok would have gone that way! What an experience!! To be continued..!