OMG shoes...

Since the getting-sick-in-a-hut episode, most of us have been laying low in Salaya and the greater Bangkok area. At first I steered away from Thai food on purpose, and that eventually led to a serious exploration of all the ethnic food here. I've made several trips to Sukhomvit, which is basically the ethnic region of Bangkok. Each street that crosses Sukhomvit road has a particular nationality as its theme, and of course the city is huge to begin with, so everything is very authentic. So far, I've been to the Korean and Arabic streets and to a hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant. My roommate and I tried to go to the Indian area last night, but we were dropped off on a sketchy part of the street and decided to get right back in another cab to a more familiar area.

Ironically enough, we're also making a habit of going to Khao San Road, the major tourist street in Bangkok. It reminds me a lot of Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Just off of Khao San are a spa that we're beginning to frequent, a cute coffee shop that is perfect for studying, an Italian restaurant, and an Indian restaurant with amazing food and ambiance. I had Indian food three times last week, and I have a feeling that the restaurant on Khao San is going to be our go-to dinner spot in the future.

Last Sunday, I went shopping with my roommate, Sara, to a mall called Platinum. It is a giant fashion mall with huge discounts. There were mobs of people and tons of cheap clothes - a paradise for some - but I was quite awkward there. I did buy a lot of crazy patterned clothes, but no shoes. The shoe stores were the craziest of all. As always, I countered this girly activity... this time by getting up at 6am the next morning to watch the Super Bowl. Only three people in our house got up to watch, I think mainly because we don't get commercials (we got the feed directly from NFL Network). I had recently been converted into a bandwagon Giants fan, so the ending was especially exciting.

On Tuesday, I went with some UNC friends to the aquarium in Bangkok, called Siam Ocean World. It turned out to be really cool and a lot of fun. On Wednesday a bunch of us went to Khao San to the spa, the coffee shop, AND the Indian restaurant. All in one trip! Chinese New Year is going on right now, but I've heard crazy stories about how congested Chinatown gets during this time, so I'm afraid to venture out there. Thursday morning was the UNC-Duke game, which we didn't get on TV here. We get several live ACC games on ESPN, but apparently Nathan's hot dog eating contest is more important here than the biggest rivalry in college basketball. Nevertheless, we all gathered at school at 9am and managed to stream it in on someone's laptop. We were so loud and spirited that our professor saw us and cancelled our 10am class.

Next weekend starts a series of crazy planned trips. As of now, the plan is to go to Cambodia and Angkor Wat next weekend, beaches in the south the following weekend, then Singapore for an Incubus concert at the beginning of March.