A Walk To Remember

A few pictures from a stroll around Bangkok. It is election season, and giant campaign posters are everywhere. Here are the ads from two main rivals. The woman in red is Yingluck Shinawatra, the sister of deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. In blue is the party in power now, led by Abhisit Vejjajiva.

While there is a high level of tension concerning the recent political history, it hasn't affected daily life too much and it appears the excesses will be avoided this time. Much like cricket and other products of Britain, parliamentary systems deeply confuse me.
Waiting for the SkyTrain. 

Spirit house outside of Central World mall. As this is a huge structure on a huge lot, the spirit house is correspondingly large.

A smaller spirit house in a park.

A coffee stall I visit every now and then.

And now, let me direct your attention to about the eighth product on this list. When I first passed this sign, I was baffled. What could a beauty treatment called "Pink Nipple" possibly mean? After I brought it up to some Thai friends, however,  I learned that Thai nipples tend to be more brownish, and pink nips are totally in right now. (We were at the beach, so I took the opportunity to strut around and prominently display my pinkness.) Basically, in a rough translation on Newton's third law, for every beauty treatment in the United States, there is an equal and inverse treatment here in Asia. Americans lie on the beach or in the tanning bed to brown up? Thais stay out of the sun and use creams that supposedly whiten. American female celebrities are expected to be rail thin, sinewy and bronze. But the Thai women that inhabit the pages of gossip rags have round faces and milky complexions.

Singapore

Took a short trip to Singapore. I was about to write that Singapore has a unique history and culture, but that's nothing more than a general truism because all Southeast Asian countries are more unique than I had understood before coming here. But the confluence of Southeast Asian, East Asian, European and Indian cultures have created a city-state more unlike its regional neighbors than similar to them. Singapore is famously clean and organized. I had expected this to translate into a sterility, but was delightfully proven wrong. Singapore has lots of character, and because it is organized in a western fashion, that character sometimes feels more accessible. Here's the Singapore River, and the central tourist area surrounding it.   

Singapore is also extremely expensive by Southeast Asian standards. This fellow below pretty much summarizes it.

Singapore is also a foodie destination. Most of the food I consumed was from Chinese hawker stalls. Here's a Hainanese chicken stall I tried. This is a dish with popular versions in Bangkok and Singapore. The rumor is that many Bangkok people travel to Singapore to try its superior version. I won't wade into this controversy, but will say that both cities' versions are delicious.

Also visited the Singapore Art Museum, the Asian Civilizations Museum, and the amazing Botanic Gardens.