Sunshine after the storm. The last days of the MV Doulos. iPhone 3GS + SwankoLab
But in our minds, she is alive and animated, holding forth in a loud voice in the canteen on the merits of Madonna. She is rebellious. She is sassy and a natural leader. She is a school prefect with disdain for authority. She speaks her mind. She wears white-rimmed spectacles. She has brown floppy hair that she keeps pinned up with a clip. She has pale perfect skin.
She is laughing her cute laugh as she feeds a lamb from a bottle.
She takes the cats for walks on leashes.
She is just a long chatty phone-call away.
She loves her dog and smokes her ciggies with nonchalance.
She is no more. She walked out the window of her apartment. Her broken body lies within a closed coffin.
If time-travel were possible, if she were told how it would all end, she would have laughed. It could not be: she was strong, she had places to go and things to do. She would not have known there would be illnesses beyond the control of man.
Her husband's Facebook relationship status says: Single.
As we all too die off one by one, there will be no memory of her ever existing. Her careful handwriting in autograph books will fade, her photos deleted, her possessions in the Salvation Army bin. There will be no remembrance of the joy she brought to some, nor of the consequences of her strongly-articulated opinions. Her love and her hate and her envy have already perished, and forever she has no more share in all that is done under the sun (Ecclesiastes 9:6). It will be as she never was.
As it will be for us all.
Perhaps in mourning her, we mourn for ourselves. But it need not be.
...he who is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion. For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten. (Ecclesiastes 9:4-5)
Go, eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart, for God has already approved what you do.
Let your garments be always white. Let not oil be lacking on your head.
Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that he has given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. (Ecclesiastes 9:7-10)
Even though we are too shuffling along in the queue to the crematorium, we can enjoy life wholeheartedly, without bitter irony, because we know the One who has given us all these good things (cf Deuteronomy 8). He not only provides for us abundantly in the here and now, but he is the Eternal One - the only one who can and does remember us long after we are dust. Life is not meaningless and valueless; what we do and think and say counts because there will come a day when God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil (Ecclesiastes 12:14). And when we die, we die as ones with hope, going home to be with our Lord and our God, certain that He will raise us to life again never to die again (see 1 Corinthians 15), to enjoy his glory forever.
Mosaic Music Festival. Restaurant Week. Good times. Suffering and Death.
Perhaps one day, old and decrepit, immobile and blind and deaf, imprisoned within our own minds, we might remember these as halcyon days when we could come and go as we pleased, to bop along at concerts and cheer and whoop at the good bits, to enjoy good food and the company of friends:
Tickets to Au Revoir Simone at Mosaic Music Festival 2010 thanks to Heineken Green Room membership. The club lights and the soundman's enthusiasm for turning up the bass was a contrast to their online image of red xylophones, casiotones, pale pink balloons in bare cream apartments with charmingly peeling paint, scrapbooks of pressed wild flowers, The Virgin Suicides, drawing in notebooks, old typewriters, synths, vintage dresses, and nordic sensibilities...from Brooklyn.
Sad Song, The Bird of Music
Or more delicate though similarly incongruous, a pair of real Norwegians in the Esplanade Concert Hall: Kings of Convenience at Mosaic Music Festival 2010.
Erlend Øye during I'd Rather Dance doing his nerdy best in the non-mosh pit. His dance moves were even more aunty-ishly dorky (see vid evidence below).
Riot on an Empty Street, Homesick
Riot on an Empty Street, I'd Rather Dance
The Restaurant Week menu at Chiharu being a bit dismal, we went with the omakase course instead: Zensai (five kinds of appetisers of the day), Otsukuri (sashimi), Kurobata no wasabi shoyu yaki, Arani (chopped fish head in sweet sauce), Hiyashi tomato, Nigiri sushi, Vanilla ice-cream anzu soe (apricot syrup). The raw stuff was suitably fresh but nothing was terribly outstanding.
Well-executed menu during Restaurant Week at Absinthe: Tartare of Hokkaido Scallops, Wakame and Citrus Dressing; Braised Kurobuta Pork Belly, Star Aniseed Jus, Fennel Salad; French Duck Breast, Sauteed Potatoes; Grilled Pink Snapper, Salad of Baby Spinach and Spelt, Lobster Scented Hollandaise; Vanilla Creme Brulee, Raspberry Sorbet.
Surprisingly bad food at Ricciotti (China Square Central): the calamari rings on 5 out of 6 plates of antipasto were cold; 2 out of 3 people thought the spiciness of the red snapper overwhelmed any taste of the fish; 3 out of 3 people could not bear the saltiness of the tagliolini; 6 out of 6 people were greatly disappointed by the dry chocolate cake. Arguably, it was the 9 alcoholic units in one body and the paucity of Hokkien vocab in another that resulted in discussions about hanging bak kwa to fend off ghosts of Muslim and Jewish origin, the indignity of being mummified to be stared at by future generations, the time-zone FAIL of international IT support and the uses of vibrating mascara sticks and why such items were an essential part of one's gender-non-specific makeup collection.
Mostly tasty menu at The White Rabbit accompanied by a glass of Mumm champagne: Chestnut and sweet onion soup served with trumpette mushrooms and gruyere croutons; Roasted root winter vegetables served with poached egg and truffle vinaigrette (it took some time before any one could smell the truffle shaving); Grilled vegetable pasta sauteed with garlic and flambeed with vodka - the pasta itself was bland so each mouthful had to be accompanied by a slice of grilled veggie; Juicy tender chestnut stuffed farm chicken served with carrot puree, cabbage, bacon and thyme jus; good flavour pairing - white chocolate and coconut panna cotta served with a salad of pineapple and mangoes; Profiteroles with vanilla ice-cream and chocolate sauce. 100% of the people vowed to return with family and friends in tow, the mother of three lamented that it was too late to hold her wedding reception here.
More misses than hits again at The Prime Society: strangely bland truffled mushroom soup, 100% full blood Blackmore wagyu and yuzu carpaccio, tendon-y Gunpowered beef with a taste-edge of bak kwa, vanilla bavarois with strawberries and chocolate soil. A hunt for meal fulfilment and carbs had to be conducted after dinner.
Some of us needed to make a pitstop and refuel at shots. cafe after a leisurely afternoon on Ann Siang Hill checking out Style Nordic and Fred Perry, trawling through the massive closing down sale at Asylum, browsing Books Actually. The owner, a member of New Creation Church, was handing out a book by his pastor - Joseph Prince's Destined to Reign.
Discussions on motifs in current music and menus have been in heavy rotation these days - whether such repetition points to a lack of creativity or if it is a necessary center around which orbits a coherent universe.
Interestingly, it makes no difference to our relationship with God whether we are helplessly horizontal in bed waiting to be turned by the nurse or having a decent lie-in after a great night out with mates. In all circumstances we are meant to continually respond to him in repentance and trust and obedience.
In good times, all the good things we enjoy - the things that have been made by God, are meant to remind us of God's eternal power and his divine nature (Romans 1:20). But though we thus know God, we do not naturally honour him as God nor give thanks to him; instead we fools exchange the glory of the immortal God and instead worship the things he created (Romans 1:23). Though life is going swimmingly with no hint of God's judgement for our hard and impenitent heart, we are duly warned that if we continue to ignore God, we are storing up wrath for ourselves on the Last Day (Romans 2:5). Do we presume on the riches of God's kindness and forbearance and patience in not executing immediate judgement on us? God's kindness is meant to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4) and should not be taken as licence to continue in rebellious sin.
In times of suffering and illness and death, we ought to respond too in repentance and faith in God. This is not to say that a specific suffering or sickness is necessarily due to a specific sin which we are meant to repent of:
1. Suffering and death is a result of sin in general and the attendant fallenness of this world and the humans therein. Rebellion against God and how he designed the world and the innate evil in all humans has resulted in the wrong use of all creation by all people, and suffering and pain is a natural consequence of such incorrect use. Death came into the world because of the rebellion of man (Genesis 3) as a right and just consequence of sinning against God. So we all deserve to live out the results of our choice to deny God as our lord - suffering and then death. When we see a sick person, or when we are in pain or troubled, or when we offer our condolences to the relatives of someone recently departed, we are to remember that something is very wrong with us and the world and we need to turn back to God. But we find we cannot do this on our own and need a saviour to save us from this tragic mess.
2. God tells us that some suffering is meant for the good of those who love God - "God disciplines us for our good that we may share in his holiness" for "without holiness no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:10,14). Suffering is never good in itself but right response to calamitous evils will work for our good in maturing us in our relationship with God, for suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope, and hope does not disappoint (Romans 5:3-4).
This is not to say that we live in a dualistic universe where God the Good and Satan the Evil battle it out day after day and sometimes, God manages to turn a bad situation into something good. Rather the Bible's view is that God is completely and utterly sovereign over everything in his creation.
4. Ultimately, there are many things we will not understand because we are not God. And we are wrong to assume that God owes us an explanation for everything. God has already told us what he is more concerned about: to be worshipped and trusted. (See the Book of Job.)
3. In fact, trouble will specially attend God's people. There will be opposition and persecution of those who are the children of God just because they are his children. After all, we follow in the footsteps of his Son, the rejected and crucified Messiah. So he said "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul?" (Mark 8:34-38) and "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you...If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also." (John 15:18,20). And Paul warns us "...everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2 Timothy 3:12).
So there is no biblical evidence for the teaching that that a prosperous, healthy life means we have God's favour and vice versa. God did not create a mechanistic universe that is mere cause and effect, he created a universe in which he himself is the only sovereign God in control of all things.
And when Jesus himself walked on the earth, he did not care for a healing ministry even though he could heal an entire catalogue of illnesses and even raise the dead. Rather, he was concerned about teaching about himself and what he would do to save them rather than healing in the here-and-now (see eg. Mark 1:15,21,35-39; 2:2,13; 3:14,22-23; 4:1; 6:1-2,34; 7:14; 8:31,34; 9:30-31; 10:1; 12:1,35). In fact:
There were some present at that very time who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them,"Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish."
And he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, 'Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?' And he answered him, 'Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'" (Luke 13:1-9)
Jesus' point was not so much that those who suffered were any more wicked than those who escaped such a fate. The assumption was that all deserved to die and that it was only God's mercy that kept them alive to give them time to repent.*
Do we see suffering, illness, pain and death? Are we experiencing great troubles and difficulties? Let these be sufficient warning of our destination in the forever if we do not acknowledge him as God now that we have been given the opportunity to bear the fruit of repentance.
There will indeed be a time when there will be no more sadness and grieving. On this Last Day, all the consequences of our rebellion against God and our abuse of his creation will be reversed, because of Jesus' prior payment for our sins by his death on the cross. But for those who did not, while it was not yet the Last Day, repent and turn back to God, this Last Day will be the first day of eternal suffering and death forever.
So in the unmerited favour of this now-but-not-yet time, let us be put on high alert by God's judgement on Job's "comforters". Their reductivist view that Job's secret unconfessed sins must have caused his sufferings was a great insult to God and presented a great temptation to Job: to confess sins that weren't there in order to try to retrieve his prosperity. If Job had succumbed, it would have meant that Job cared more for prosperity than for his integrity or for the Lord himself; and the Lord would have lost his wager. Their counsel, if followed, would have actually led Job away from the Lord; Job would have been reduced to being yet one more person interested in seeking God for merely personal gain.*
We have ample evidence from human history as recorded in the Bible to know that God is good and trustworthy and rightly desires to be worshipped by his creatures, whatever the circumstances of life. So we are without excuse if we do not repent from our self-centered wants of health and wealth and worldly success (even more so if our quest for more faith or deeper knowledge of God or even our "repentance" is with the aim of addressing these wants) or from demanding answers for our situation, and turn towards God and his desires that have already been clearly revealed in his Word.
Good fun was had in Bangkok over the Lunar New Year weekend.
Already, on the way to check out the new Changi Airport Terminal 3, there was the Great Currency-Exchange Exchange:
Accountant: What's your method of converting from Thai Baht back to Singapore Dollars? Lawyer: Oh, I just divide by 20. Accountant (derisively): No! You should multiply by 0.5. Lawyer: ....
[1 minute later]
Accountant: See, I just got 1,000 Baht for S$50. If you divide 1,000 by 50, what do you get? Lawyer: .... Accountant: Oh.
[3 minutes later]
Accountant: No, you shouldn't divide by 20. That's too difficult. You should take away a zero then divide by 2. Lawyer: .... Accountant: Oh.
Lawyers 3 - Accountants 0
A few hours later, once past the iconic Bangkok traffic, we hit the ground eating. At Bed Supper Club, a spaceship designed by Orbit Design Studio docked in a disused lot on Sukhumvit Soi 11, the 5-course surprise menu meant that we were surprised to find that the noodles in our bell pepper soup were made of mozzarella and that our char siew was actually duck.
In honour of the Lunar New Year, there were waitresses with tight spacesuit cheongsams with slits waist-high climbing up ladders, a lion dance, tumbling acrobats, a fortune-teller with non-ethnic tarot cards, non-ethnic fortune cookies...
...and also a housekeeper rat dusting diners off. Restaurant not just as venue for imbibing cooked food but as stage, as packaged experience: comfort and surreality, identifiable tastes and unidentifiable ingredients, performance and audience participation. Oh sure Bed Supper Club's surreality and subversiveness is faddist and trendoid, but we had one of the best meals in Bangkok there.
The Orangery Restaurant at Siam Paragon was a pool of the kitchens of several culinary Bangkokian institutions, including Blue Elephant. At least the food at Bed Supper Club was yummy. Dishes from the Blue Elephant kitchen were either too bland or saltish.
Standards at the MBK Food Centre had gone the way of US subprime loans as well. Tasteless stewed pork. Sour mangoes in the mango and sticky rice. Next time, we'll hit the alleyways and plastic chairs.
Massage-wise however, things were good at the little boutique Ruen Naud Massage Studio on Soi Convent in Silom. Good, that is, for the masseurs since they weren't accidentally kicked in the teeth while their customers were in the throes of the uncontrollable tickles. Ok, good also for us that the masseurs were pretty thorough and took no prisoners.
Because holidays are the only times I bother to turn on the telly, there was quite a bit to catch up on: being educated that CSI had 2 spin-offs since I last watched an episode, dancing with death by eating peanuts while laughing hysterically at the loser-ness of the prehistoric squirrel in Ice Age 2,
attempting to watch Last Life In The Universe in bed while balancing a box of diabetes-inducing Dunkin Donuts and bottles of teeth-melting thai tea on the covers. ("Attempting" because after gasping in horror as the suicide-fetishistic Kenji swung from the ceiling, some of us fell asleep. Then after giggling as blood was splattered over Kenji's neatly stacked books, others of us fell asleep and soon the reception was ringing in the 5am wakeup call for the red-eyed dash back to the new Suvarnabhumi Airport.)
Woke from a short nap over southern Thailand enroute to Singapore to more laugh out loud moments with a visually spectacular and typically irreverent episode of Top Gear, the Polar Special, where the Jeremy-James-Hammond trio attempt a man+husky versus machine race to the magnetic north pole. The driving over international waters with a gin and tonic in hand was brilliant. And later, the bickering Jeremy Clarkson and James May, having painfully hacked their way out of a field of ice boulders (and Jeremy having gotten a bolt unstuck from between his lips), tried to rekindle some of the fun that seemed to have gone missing from their race to the North Pole:
James: I spy with my little eye something beginning with...'S'. Jeremy: Snow. James: Yes. Jeremy: I spy with my little eye something beginning with...'S'. James: Sky. Jeremy: Yes. James: I spy with my little eye... Jeremy: If it's something beginning with 'S', I'm going to kill you.
Watch it here:
Anyway, we'll never be able to do Amazing Race because we failed in all our stated Bangkokian missions:
No. 57 for the birthday boy and Mariage Freres tea for the lovely ladies who like Mariage Freres tea: fail. No. 57 was sold out in all of Bangkok. None of the MF leaves smelt any good. The Marco Polo we had with our afternoon tea at L'Espace de l’Oriental, an Oriental Hotel spin-off (nothing says Institution like spin-offs), tasted exactly like strawberry shisha.
Girdles for Geriatric Secretary: fail. Requested size too large for a shop catering to stick-thin Bangkokians.
Fill Used Love-letter Tin With Fried Insects and Bugs: fail. We spotted Bug Man on first 2 nights but thought we could score a fresher supply by going back on the last night. Of course, he'd scuttled away by then.
Oh plus our club-hopping plans failed too. Remembered the no shorts, no flipflops and ID (even if you're obviously over 20 years old and, in fact, geriatric) rule for Bed Supper Club on the first night. Then next night found us outside Club Culture and RCA (Royal City Avenue) in illegally sloppy clothes.
No matter. Flix/Slim was absurdly empty at 11pm on a Saturday night. RCA, we were told, was, like Madonna remixes, very yesterday. The downhill slide started in 2006 when the new government decided to enforce a 1-2am curfew on clubbing venues. Then the police, who had, apparently, before the coup, stayed about drinking with clubbers, started to raid clubs, suddenly shutting off the lights and the music and locking the doors and getting random people to pee in cups for drug tests.
So the popular Club Astra'd moved on from RCA to be reincarnated as Club Culture on Sri Ayudthaya Road. Unfortunately, it was goth night when we got there and in the deathly silence, all that could be heard were loud Americans complaining about the emptiness of the venue.
Club Culture, it was said, was also very remixes of John Digweed. The real happening places were private parties where people could drink and dance out of sight of the authorities. Those without invites apparently congregate at Soi Ari, home to all sorts of "creatives". But in Bangkok, something new and cool is always just across the road from the raided club.
And the Thais acknowledge their faddishness.
In 2005/2006, Siam Square, that trend-following little village of tiny record stores, indie boutiques, tutor schools, cute cafes and secondhand bookshops just off Rama I Road, was already considered too cheesily mainstream. The It place was Soi Thonglor (Sukhumvit Soi 55).
And along Soi Thonglor, the spotlight was on Playground!, a black-slate Colette-like self-proclaimed "novel art boutique" curating a selective collection of international magazines, indie music, glossy art books and edgy clothing, containing a Vanilla Industry Restaurant for graphic designers and other creatives to hobnob and hothouse fresh ideas.
Even then, the architects for Playground!, IAW Company Limited, when asked how long trends lasted in Bangkok, predicted "not more than one year". Playground! managed to bleed along for 3 years till early 2008. They were having a "moving out" sale when we visited.
Fads though, mean that instead of the 1980s modernist Robot Building by Sumet Jumsai on South Sathorn Road and the 1990s Elephant Building on Paholyothin and Ratchadaphisek Roads, the first decade of the new millennia gets Suvarnabhumi Airport (ท่าอากาศยานนานาชาติกรุงเทพ-สุวรรณภูม) by Helmet Jahn. Natural light-harvesting strategies involving glazed structures = very current.
Travelling, the visiting of foreign lands, is great for the opportunity to check out the zeitgeist of the place, to see how a different culture attempts to solve the common problems of our common humanity, to observe (if possible) the cross-flows of megatrends from one country to another. Shopping colonialism per se's just too boring.
With current opportunities for cheap travel and the increase in interconnectivity without even leaving home, the pace of crossfire of ideas and the ability to observe such cross-fertilisation and change wrought by the growth and mutation of its fruit has increased greatly.
The concept of impermanence is itself not new: Heraclitus had his flowing stream; anicca formed the basis of Buddha's teachings; the Qoholet lamented, in Ecclesiastes, the vanity of human toil in light of the temporariness of human life.
Change is all very exciting when it's about the newest fad in food, fashion, music or design. But there is also the change that has to do with ageing, with decline, with deterioration, that isn't so cool; the torturous twilight of Lord Tennyson's Tithonus, a grey shadow once a man, compounded by his suspension in cruel immortality, maimed and marred by age, longing for the rest death would bring; the evil days when men will say "I have no pleasure in them". When the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return after the rain, in the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look through the windows are dimmed, and the doors on the street are shut - when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low, when a grasshopper drags itself along, when desire fails, because men are going to their eternal home and the mourners go about the street (Ecclesiastes 12:1-5).
How should we live in this terminal condition brought about by birth? If life is short, shouldn't we hedonistically grab all we can before we are sucked, kicking and screaming, into the grave?
It is true, says the Qoholet, that nothing of lasting significance can be gained under the sun. All the toil that we put into getting money, objects, prestige, reputation and even the intangibles like happiness or love in this life are ultimately a vanity. Neither the fool nor the wise man can stop the inevitable march of death.
But.
There is a Creator who has created good things. Therefore remember your Creator in your days of youth. Let your heart cheer you. Enjoy the sweetness of light and the pleasure of being able to see the sun (Ecclesiastes 11:7-9). Eat, drink and work with joy. Be full of thanksgiving for your current situation. Life is unpredictable. We do not know what is waiting for us around the corner, but in the here and now, we can take pleasure in the good gifts of God.
The Creator is also the Judge who will judge all things on the Last Day. For death is not the end to all things. So even as we walk in the ways of our hearts and in the sight of our eyes, we should know that for all these things, God will bring us into judgement. So even as we enjoy our nubile youth with thanksgiving to God, we should also fear God and keep his commandments. For God will bring every deed into judgement. Nothing, none of the things we do under cover of darkness, secrecy and deception, none of the sins we continue to commit complacently because no one has caught us out and rebuked us, nothing can be kept secret from God. He will judge every deed, whether known to all or hidden. And not just the evil deeds but the good ones done behind closed doors as well. (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)[1]
Ruen Naud Massage Studio 42 Convent Road, Silom, Bangrak, Bangkok Do tip your masseur directly if you're pleased with her work.
[1] managed to catch only the last bit of a series of talks on Ecclesiastes that Richard Chin, National Director of Australia Fellowship of Evangelical Students, did for Project Timothy's Evening Expositions. Nice little round-up.
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Since someone asked, thought I'd put this here for future reference: Useful Information Accommodation Best to stay near a BTS station. This is important if you fancy spending half your time stuck in traffic jams. Near = 5 minutes' walk. 15 min is too far away because you have to keep avoiding traffic, puddles, touts. Streets not necessarily well-lit depending on where you are.
Transportation Avoiding the roads is best. If you have to take a cab, make sure they use the meter.
Shopping Centres Not very bothered about shopping so may not have comprehensive information. Pantip Plaza Cheap electronics, software. There's a fried insect seller outside the building.
Platinum Fashion Mall Warren of shops where you can buy things at wholesale prices. 1 piece = retail price. 3 pieces (normally) = wholesale price.
Popular with Singaporeans are department stores crowded round Siam BTS station. The malls are linked by a skybridge.
Central World Plaza Singaporean aunties flock to Zen/Isetan for underwear. Best not ask why.
Gaysorn Upmarket shops. Only possibly gay thing there is the gay men in Greyhound Cafe where there is fusion food and funny t-shirts on waitstaff. If Greyhound Cafe isn't there any more, there's another store on ground floor of Siam Paragon)
Have a look at the Erawan shrine on way to Siam Paragon. Very popular spirit house. A mad man who hacked head and body of statue off some years ago was killed by enraged streetsweepers who didn't seem to find it silly to be worshipping a hollow piece of metal that was unable to protect itself.
Siam Paragon Large shopping complex. An ocean world and nice foodhall in basement, luxury cars on 3rd/4th floor etc. Boots the chemist for all your OTC needs.
Siam Centre One of Bangkok's first shopping malls, so a bit dingy.
Siam Discovery Centre Habitat and some interior deco shops.
MBK Ground floor good for jeans. Buy titbits at TOPS supermarket unless can bargain well at shops on 3rd/4th storey. Fake watches, fake handbags, Bath and Bodyworks toiletries. There's a shop that sells cheap VCDs/DVDs of many movies, sitcoms, cable series that can only be collected the day after. Food court on 6th floor (more Thai food than international food court on 5th floor): buy tickets to purchase food. Remember to get refund on remaining tickets on same day.
Siam Square Not a mall. Not quite the "Harajuku of Thailand". A few roads of independent shops. Gives idea of youth culture and what's in fashion at the moment. Mango dessert store there not bad. Hard Rock Cafe somewhere in there.
The Emporium At Phrom Phong BTS. Another popular mallzzzz.
Chatuchak Weekend Market Another biggie. Must go if just to see it. It sells everything from live animals to designer leather furniture. Best arrive about 9am-ish and leave by lunch when the sun and crowd become unbearable.
Suan Lum Night Bazaar The authorities keep threatening to close this one. Not as massive as Chatuchak but loads of shops. Joe Louis Water Puppet show not bad if still there.
Patpong Shopping sux at Patpong but there's a cart at one end that sells all sorts of obscure CDs.
Food Somboon Seafood: worth it if you've got a group. There's a branch about 10 minutes from Patpong.
New York Times' street food recommendations here. Austin Bush takes nice pictures of Thai food.
