Bangkok's Sky Train

I feel like I did manage to understand and find my way around on the Sky Train. They call it the Sky Train or BTS.

This is one of the tickets you purchase to ride the Sky Train. The map came in very handy!!

Train is a-comin'!

Just this sign saying no food or drink makes me hungry/thirsty!

THIS is the stop that is closest to the B&B I stayed in... It was just a 3 or 4 minute walk to the BTS station... Instead of my getting off 3 stops too early upon arriving in the city!

Siam shopping area - Bangkok

The Siam area of the city is full of shopping malls! The MLB mall is great for touristy things and bargaining, while the others are progressively more upscale the further you go up the street.

There was a Krispy Kreme donut shop in one mall... And, goodness, they are getting fancy with their donuts!

the REAL Star Apple fruit...

The B&B served fresh fruit as part of breakfast each day!

Below is a picture of how you're supposed to cut a Star Apple (or Breast Fruit)... as you can see in my previous post [click here]... I have yet to learn how to do this...    :P

The breakfasts were odd... the first two mornings were rice with an egg on top,

...then pasta with a mushroom sauce (for breakfast?!),

...and my last day consisted of takeaway from McDonalds (seriously).   :P

...Thank goodness for the fresh fruit!

on Bangkok's streets...

I went to the Indian market and many of the women in that area are dressed like the woman below. The fabrics and colors are gorgeous...

More on colors... the taxis in Bangkok are super colorful! ...Bright pink, blue, and -of course- yellow...

Lunch break!

city dogs in Bangkok

Dogs are all over the city of Bangkok.

Below are two that I thought were particularly cute and I passed them many times on my way to and from the B&B and the conference's hotel...

EARCOS Teachers' Conference 2012 - Bangkok

The conference I attended was great. I found a lot of the sessions really beneficial and loved that there was a library-specific strand this year!

It was an odd sensation to be surrounded by other international teachers... most of whom have been doing it for years (living abroad is their life!)... and many of them know one another. Living and teaching abroad is not weird to them, it's just their life... and that was weird to me (even though I guess I'm doing it too).   :P

The photo below is from the keynote speaker Friday morning... Steve Layne (he was a great presenter and very inspiring... teachers do make a difference)...

The conference took place at the Snagrila Hotel - a gorgeous hotel right on the river!

Peggy Sharp was at the conference! She presents about new children's literature and she is one of my favorites from back home... below, she is showing an interactive way to read a poem aloud.   :)

arriving in Bangkok

There's my plane... getting ready to board and take off for Bangkok, Thailand! AirAsia is a great budget airline in this part of the world.

The sun was pretty cool at this point...

I sat next to a guy from Wales who has been living in Thailand for the past 12 years. He told me it'd be easy enough to not take a taxi from the airport, but to instead go for the metro and Sky Train. ...I went for it but perhaps was a bit too cocky - as a solo (female) traveler... in Bangkok of all places, I probably shouldn't have been walking around the city late at night... which is what ended up happening.

The information desk at the airport helped to give me directions on how to go about this... but... (come to find out), the guy didn't know where on North Sathon Road the B&B was that I wanted to get too...

I took the metro from the airport, transferring onto the SkyTrain... buuut then getting off the SkyTrain 3 stops too early (thanks airport information desk!). I ended up with an almost 2-hour walk to get to the Bed and Breakfast. Making things even more exciting... was how none of the buildings along the street have address numbers... I flagged down a taxi but (as I had read about this B&B ahead of time) he had no idea where to go from the address and basically told me to keep walking.

Below, is a common site - trash piled up along the side of the road waiting to be picked up...

I walked along this highway road for most of the journey... the B&B ended up being located at the end of this road.

The long, shaky start in Bangkok definitely added to my negative feelings of the city at first... but I am glad that I was able to turn it around a bit by the end of the visit. AND I'm happy to write that I feel as if I (somewhat) conquered the Sky Train as well! I ended up figuring it out and took the Sky Train most of the time to get around.