Sunday, June 20

On Friday, I took the BTS to Silom to pick up some foodstuffs for the house.

On the walk from the BTS station to Soi Silom, just around the corner from the Myanmar embassy, I saw a parked van offering photocopies, passport copies, and printing services:

There was a guy in the van on a laptop:

And an umbrella provided shade at the open back of the van, where a woman helped customers:

I walked to Soi Prachum Market (the wet market we'd visited ages ago, when we took that cooking class), stopping to take a picture of the Indian temple, Sri Mahamariamman, that's across the street from the market.

I wandered around the stalls searching (in vain, as always) for fresh pandan and fresh coconut milk (no luck on that front either). I eyed the starfruit and dragonfruit but didn't feel like carrying them the long walk to the Silom BTS, so I left empty-handed.

I walked to a fancy bakery in Chong Nonsi to pick up a brioche with nutella frosting. When I met with Darren and the other musical theatre folks for tea a couple weeks ago, Mickey brought this brioche for us to share, and I've been scheming to pick one up for breakfast for me & Roman ever since.

Then I wandered Silom Soi 7, the narrow little market street, stopping to pick up a large bag of white peaches from a vendor. Peaches are something of a rarity here—especially from a street vendor (rather than a supermarket)—and someone once told me that if I see peaches for sale I should buy them. I don't know if they'll be any good (they aren't ripe yet), but walking down the street carrying a large plastic bag full of a single type of fruit made me feel like a real Thai. I constantly see Thai woman carrying big bags full of mangosteens or rambutan or mangos on the street or the metro or in the mall, so doing the same is like walking down the street in Paris with a baguette in your bag—it makes you feel, however superficially, like a local.

Then I stopped at the lunch carts near our first Bangkok airbnb, and picked up a green curry with rice (and a small vegetarian omelet on top of the rice). I've been wanting to eat more curries here—I feel like I haven't really given them a fair shake, since I don't love the sweet rich curries you often get in the US, but I think they're probably a good way to get more vegetables in your diet. This was was good—not too heavy or sweet, and full of—god, I don't know what that vegetable is—bitter melon?

Lunch, with brioche bag and bag of peaches in the background

After lunch, I went to another branch of a bakery I had visited in Chinatown (UFM), hoping to pick up some more of their Taiwanese sponge cake, but they didn't have it! So I went to a different bakery (this one was located inside the BTS station), where I picked up a different small cake and a little half-loaf of bread.

On the way home, I stopped at Foodland, where I picked up the last items I needed for breakfasts—yogurt, cottage cheese, oatmeal, peanuts, coconut chips, and a potato and bell pepper for another weekend breakfast hash.

I don't really know why I shared this. I could've just said, On Friday I went out to Silom and bought some groceries and ate lunch but aren't you happy to have learned all this??

On Saturday, we had a video chats with friends and family, ate street food meals and dim sum, and bought new pots and soil to repot the plants we bought at Chatuchak a few weeks ago (and man, Roman looked grossed out after he repotted everything—apparently the soil in the plants we'd bought was littered with sunflower seed shells and white larvae. Ick.).

We also picked up some moon-shaped lamps for our bedside tables. We've been looking for a couple lamps, and Roman negotiated a good price from a street vendor. They change colors up when you tap them, and they create a groovy kind of atmosphere in the bedroom. 

Wanna see some things we ate?

Roman's spicy tom yum

My mushroom larb with sticky rice

Dim sum: Roman with pork and shrimp bao, radish cakes, and crab wrapped in fried tofu skins

Me with short ribs in fermented black bean sauce

On Sunday, we headed out to Chatuchak to buy small plants to put in the now-empty smaller pots and to look for plant stands.

We wandered up and down the aisles, and found a few plant stands, but none were tall enough for our purposes and it was a particularly hot day, so we eventually gave up and headed home.

Roman did manage to get this picture of a row of urinals, each with their own sink

We had shawarma at one of the Arabic places near the house for dinner (I don't know if it's Lebanese or Syrian or Turkish or something else entirely. I only know that one of the cooks is from Syria). On the way home, we stopped at a 7-Eleven, and just as we were leaving, the sky split open and the downpour began. I had brought our crappiest, smallest umbrella and it kept us partially dry as we ran to the closest covered awning. Luckily, we had bought ice cream cones at the 7-Eleven, so we ate those while the rain drenched the streets all around us.