the next day I didn't feel like going anywhere by myself and I always kept saying to myself when aoife goes,I can sleep in all day. And I was looking forward to it. So I left and got food from the 7/11 and sat in my room all day reading and watching TV. But when it came to doing it, I wasn't really mad about it. I also got so lazy, I started getting ready to late to go meet ericko, a Japanese girl who lives in Bangkok now, from couchsurfing. I also chickened out of bring Sean along, so I left him in the hotel room.
I was originally going to walk to the skytrain station that she told me to met her at. But with time running short I had to get a tuk tuk. I first one I went to wanted 200 baht which was outrageous. So I left and went to down the road abit. I tried to get the next driver to 100 baht, but I ended up paying 150 baht, which was still alot but I was running out of time. And of course it was at rush hour. But we finally arrived at what looked like a train station and the driver told me that it was just ahead. Since I was a hurry I said thank you, paid the man and walked towards it. But as I got closer I noticed that the name of the station was the wrong one. I couldn't believe it. And it had just turned half 6, the time I was to meet ericko. So now I was late and I didn't know where I was.
I asked a school girl where I was on the map I had, so atleast I knew where I was. She was kind enough to show me. And when I started off walking the wrong way, she ran after me to tell me to go in the other direction. Ha ha.
I took me 15 mins to walk there. Luckily enough I had her phone number so I went to a payphone to let her know I was on the way. When I arrived to the station she had said to meet her at exit 2 at siam station. The directions she was giving me was really bad. They were directions for someone who knew where they were going. So I texted her from my phone and asked where she was. She writes back paragon! I had no idea what that was. I was a little panicky as even more frustrated than anything. As I was clueless of where I was to go. I showed the message to some lovely Thai guys and they pointed me to the other side of the street. When I get across I notice a big centre with paragon on it but it is huge. Where is she in the centre. Outside one of the many doors?
So I text her again where is she. I get back the paragon again, first floor. Where on the first floor? At this stage it wasn't funny anymore. So I just texted I'm at the front door beside hermes. Hoping she would find me. That's when I got a text back saying the Halloween shop first floor. Finally somewhere inparticular. Which just happened to be at the top of the escalator beside me. I get to the top and there she is. Phew!
And then its me who is apologizing because I'm late by a half an hour. Though her directions didn't help any. But I am there and I also met mari another Japanese girl that is surfing with ericko. So We go to find our Halloween costumes.
I found some white angel wings. I know not very original. And we go for some dinner. I get to know ericko and mari abit better as we eat. They are actually some really nice girls.
We were going to a couchsurfing party that had been organised by another couchsurfer at a place called gazebo. We wanted to be there before half eight cause if we did we would get in free. So after dinner we went to get the sky train as it was only a couple of stops. It was also great to use the skytrain for the first time with someone who knew how it worked. If you have been to Chicago its exactly like the L there, where the rail lines are on tracks above the road.
When we got to the bar we had to walk down a long hallway. It was really dark and as we were walking down every once in awhile someone would jump out behind the curtain to try and scare us. I just thought it was funny but mari and ericko really seemed to get scared and were hanging onto me. Then we had to get into the lift to go to the top and we could hear these spooky noises coming out of the speakers in the lift. It was kinda cool. When we got to the top, it was quite quiet. Well it was still early. We found out where the party was and introduced ourselves. Tom was the guy who organised the party but he wasn't much of a host. He kinda just sat in his corner most of the night from what I could tell. So we made our own fun. Ericko and I put on our costumes that we bought. I thought I just had wings but I ended up having a halo too. Which was the best part.
I met so many really nice people that night. But being a couchsurfing party, it was an expensive place to have it. I ended up going in with like 8 other people to buy a bottle of vodka to share between us. Tom happened to be one of them. And I'm a scrooge with my drink but I'll be fair. Originally I was pouring out the drinks trying to give everyone equal. But during the night I noticed that tom seemed to be topping up his drink abit too much. And when that drink was all gone surprise surprise tom wanted us to go in and buy another bottle between us. But I told him only if he didn't drink all of this one. He knew he was drinking too much. So he said he would put in nearly triple what he should pay this time round. So I said fine and I gathered the money and went and bought it. This time he knew I was watching him so he didn't top up as much and ended up dancing. So I made sure that everyone elses drink got top up enough. After awhile tom comes back and asks where the drink was. I just shrugged my shoulders and said it was all gone. Ha ha. I don't think he was very happy. Ha ha.
That night I met a girl from England called Charlie. We were talking away and she told me she was at a hostel that wasn't too far down the road from the bar and it was on the other side of Bangkok to khao san. Getting out of khao san sounded like a good idea. So she gave me her email address and the name of the hostel and told me to look it up online tomorrow. The rest of the night was spent dancing and chatting to the other surfers. I had a great time and I love the references they all left for me on couchsurfing which was I like to dance and I had a great laugh. See you don't have to know people very long for them to get to know you. Ha ha
I think I was the last to leave, and I had to get a taxi all the way back to khao san. And it made me realise how touristy the area was when I got back to it.
The next morning I awoke to a text message from ericko asking me if I wanted to meet up with them again for dinner that night. I was all for it. Then I was thinking it was all the way on the otherside of Bangkok and I would have to pay for all the taxis again. So I decided to go online and check out that hostel that Charlie had given me the night before. Checking it out it seemed really nice so I called them up to make sure they had a bed for mein a dorm room before I went all the way out that way. They did, so I packed up Sean and checked out. I wasn't too sure how I was going to get there, but looking on the map the hostel was on the bts (skytrain) line. So I decided to get the taxi boat down the river to the bts station and then the bts up to the hostel. It was abit of a trek and it took awhile but I finally made it and checked into my new home. It was actually really nice and sent my stuff down up on my bed leaving Sean incharge of them. I went online to let Charlie know I was there and asked if she was still around. Cause it would have been nice to meet up with her again.
So going to meet eriko this time was easy. I just had to hop on the bts. I met up with ericko and mari again and we were also meeting another couchsurfer called Trevor from England. We went to a restaurant not to far away where you order the food and it comes out raw and you cook it all in a big pot full of water yourself. It was interesting to see it but I wasn't very gone on the food. It all seemed abit bland to me. We also had a couple of other friends of ericko join us. Noon who was also at the party the night before but I never got to speak to her then. And guy who I forget his name, only cause we didn't get to talk much to each other that night. Noon was lovely Thai girl. It restaurant was funny while we were eating all the staff stopped working for about 5 mins while they all danced the same danced. I loved it.
After that we all hopped into noons car and she brought us to a bar, where their were some live music. It was really nice, Trevor and I ended up being the only white people there. So we ended up getting a few looks and laughs.
After that we were heading to another party that a friend of erickos was at, so noon drove us all there. But at this stage I was getting tired. I still had to catch up on sleep for the night before. Noon was leaving as she had to get up early the next morning and she offered to drop me to my hostel as it was only down the road. So I said good bye to everyone, especially ericko and thanked her for a great Halloween weekend.
