Candy Making and Cultural Center (Nov. 26, 2014)

Today was another amazing day. It has gotten quite a bit warmer in the past few days, but nothing to complain about, especially just hearing the Winnipeg weather from Jon this morning. Yikes!!! Don’t miss that. Toronto seems a bit more reasonable at 2 degrees and holding for the next few days. It was 35 here yesterday and I’m sure fairly close to that today as well. It was pretty hot.

I started off my day going to Martin’s rooftop pool which is an amazing way to start the day. I pulled my lounge chair into the shade after stretching and doing a few laps in the pool. Cleo loves the water resistance and feels really good afterward. She is really doing so well, though and not bothering me much in the least. I walk a LOT and I think she is just gaining muscle and getting stronger as time goes on. Thank goodness for that. I am so happy that my new Cleo is working so well and pain free. Even my cranky ankle on the other foot has been doing well. Getting stronger daily, and with the Thai foot massages, all the kinks have been worked out.

I went with Martin to have something to eat before he had to go and teach soccer. We went to that same restaurant next door, and I had spicy fried noodles with pork. It was so yummy, and quite spicy. There were the coolest little mushrooms in it, along with some interesting little dark green things. I don’t know what they were, but they weren’t spicy, just yummy. I took a photo of them near the end of the meal, as you couldn’t really see them too well when the bowl was full. Mike, any ideas? Martin had Pad Thai with chicken. He said his was really good too. That restaurant, Petra, is delicious.

Lovely tree at Martin's complex

Spicy fried noodles with pork

Pad Thai with chicken

Little green veggies that were so yummy

After that, I went back to the hostel and had a little sit down, chatted with an interesting young French guy who is travelling for a year, then got my stuff together, and headed out for the Skytrain. 

Cool lady on the street with shirt

Guy that everyone calls 'Buddha'
who sits on the steps of 7/11 on the
way to the Sky Train

Martin had told me that there was free Muay Thai boxing matches in front of this large mall called MBK, that happened to be across from the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre, that was free to the public. These matches were every Wednesday at 6 pm for the month of November. As well, I wanted to go and see them make that candy which was at a mall just down the street from MBK. So I rolled up all of those ideas, into one outing.

Tree hanging from ceiling in
Centralworld Mall

Tree outside the mall

MBK Mall

Bangkok Arts and Cultural Center

First I went to see the candy being made. They were doing a custom order, and it had somebody’s name in the candy this time. It was the coolest thing to watch and I did get some video, Rachel and Mike, so we will have something to watch that you haven’t seen, when I return…..lol. Liviah, you have to watch it on Youtube or Facebook if you haven’t. They are really good at making that candy. It’s all different flavours as well. Today they were doing lime with the guys name in it.

Candy making #1

Candy making #2

Drawing they were working from

Sticks for candy for chopping

After that, I walked over to the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre to see what exhibitions they had on. It must be my week for missing stuff, or maybe the universe is making sure that I have some things to do when I come back to Bangkok. Why? The top two floors of the Arts and Cultural Center were closed because they were presently installing the new exhibitions and they weren’t ready to see yet. Oh well, that was ok because they had a black and white photo exhibit on the second floor done by a Thai photographer. It was really nice and depicted shots from Nepal, China, Thailand, and India from his travels. He had some stunning photos in the show. I took a pic of the entry banner so you could look him up, Jon. I don’t know if he is online, but the stuff was really nice and you’d like it.

Black and white photo show

Something I liked at the Cultural Center

Then, in the gallery next to it, was another Thai artist, who was outside the gallery room, painting. His stuff was super cool and done in an Isan traditional manner, using stucco and tempera paint. All the paintings were very textured and risen from the stucco. I really liked his stuff a lot, and the artist was so cute and very friendly, yet super shy. I took a few pics of the work and his name card. The art was really nice. He actually had two little galleries showing his work. One gallery showing older stuff, with white walls for hanging, and fairly muted colours in the art, for the most part. The second gallery had black walls for hanging and held paintings that seemed to be of a more recent time period, using a lot more bold colours and images. Both were super cool.

Painting from the first gallery

First gallery #2

My favourite....painted on July 27, 2014
This is your birthday painting Mom.
Beautiful isn't it?

Brochure for second artist

I left the cultural centre to go over to MBK to secure a front row spot for the Muay Thai match. I thought it a bit strange that they hadn’t set up the ring yet, considering they were to go on in less than an hour. I became suspicious and went over to ask one of the guys working there. He said that they had something else tonight, and that the Muay Thai was yesterday, instead. I pointed to the sign that said it was every Wednesday evening, as Martin had told me, and that today was Wednesday. He apologized and said, No boxing today. Next time. I laughed and thought that with all the other closures I had experienced in the past two days, it really wasn’t too surprising. Oh well, again, no worries as I saw the candy and some cool exhibitions, as well as a new area. Nothing at all lost, that’s for sure. Also, when I return, I can go back.

See, it says every Wednesday, but no such luck.

Then I decided to walk back to the hostel instead of taking the Sky Train. It was about an hour and a half walk back, but I saw so many neat things along the way. I stopped and bought some more of those rice cubes, which were not exactly like yesterdays, but were a mixture of green, white, and seaweed wrapped ones this time. They almost reminded me of dim sum treats, but they weren’t quite like that either. Super yummy, that’s for sure.

Once back, I just chilled, chatted again with Tomas, the French guy and got some tips on Cambodia as he’s already been there. Then I headed up to my room to blog and get ready for bed. Oh, I did some washing as well. That’s about it.

Have a great day or evening, depending on when you read this.