Bangkok, Day 4
i will be playing scrabble at king's cup for the next four days; so these entries will be short. king's cup this year is held in the siam paragon mall. the first two days of play is in the lifestyle hall, and the last two days will be in the royal paragon hall. there is no conference room; we play in the middle of the mall where shoppers can see us and music is piped through. i was sitting next to a particularly loud speaker during a couple of the announcements, and my ears have been ringing since then.
we had a late start. due to some error, i am now a representative of uae, which nigel deemed united american empire. we played one game, and then we broke for lunch for about 45 minutes. around 3 p.m., we had a coffee break. i had a pork sandwich, which was really just three pieces of bread with pork floss in between. for those unfamiliar with pork floss, this is it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rousong
the tiles are usually paper wedged between two plastic casings, which usually fall apart, and you end up drawing the tile but not the plastic parts that surround it. i missed the excitement of one of the wobbly tables tumbling down and having to pick up all the equipment again and hunt for a missing tile. there was a toddler with squeaky shoes that emitted a high squeaky sound; it drove me batty.
nigel and i had dinner at one of the restaurants on the first level, one that had an international fusion theme since i wanted thai food and nigel didn't care for spicy. while he had fish and chips, i had pad woon sen, fried glass noodles with shrimp. it's my favorite thai dish, but i didn't particularly care for this one. there was some flavor added to it that i wasn't fond of, but i ate it anyway.
after dinner, i continued my postcard shopping in one of the department stores. i found that in both taipei and bangkok, it was hard to find "traditional" postcards of picturesque sites. taipei postcards were mostly drawings, pop-ups, and unique see-through pics on card stock. in bangkok the closest thing i've found to postcards was pictures of various sites that i will never visit in the region, depicting scenes that are not "typical" thai. oh, well, those who get one will be glad.
we had a late start. due to some error, i am now a representative of uae, which nigel deemed united american empire. we played one game, and then we broke for lunch for about 45 minutes. around 3 p.m., we had a coffee break. i had a pork sandwich, which was really just three pieces of bread with pork floss in between. for those unfamiliar with pork floss, this is it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rousong
the tiles are usually paper wedged between two plastic casings, which usually fall apart, and you end up drawing the tile but not the plastic parts that surround it. i missed the excitement of one of the wobbly tables tumbling down and having to pick up all the equipment again and hunt for a missing tile. there was a toddler with squeaky shoes that emitted a high squeaky sound; it drove me batty.
nigel and i had dinner at one of the restaurants on the first level, one that had an international fusion theme since i wanted thai food and nigel didn't care for spicy. while he had fish and chips, i had pad woon sen, fried glass noodles with shrimp. it's my favorite thai dish, but i didn't particularly care for this one. there was some flavor added to it that i wasn't fond of, but i ate it anyway.
after dinner, i continued my postcard shopping in one of the department stores. i found that in both taipei and bangkok, it was hard to find "traditional" postcards of picturesque sites. taipei postcards were mostly drawings, pop-ups, and unique see-through pics on card stock. in bangkok the closest thing i've found to postcards was pictures of various sites that i will never visit in the region, depicting scenes that are not "typical" thai. oh, well, those who get one will be glad.