A Very Busy Week in Bangkok

The week leading up to my wedding in Bangkok (we had a small private Buddhist ceremony in the US a few years back, but thanks to COVID our church wedding in Thailand got delayed), was one of the busiest of my life!

 

The day after returning to the Big Mango from Malaysia, I arrived at Suvarnabhumi Airport around midnight to pick up my younger brother and best man, Kyle who had flown in from Boston.

I helped him get checked in at his hotel, and we enjoyed a late-night snack of steamed pork buns and Chang beer. 

The next morning we were up bright and early for a morning walk and some birding at the park. A little sunshine and fresh air early in the morning is a great way to help get over jet lag!

After visiting the park we stopped in at the Or Tor Kor Market (the Marketing Organization for Farmers) for breakfast.

It's a great place to have breakfast, because you can find pretty much any Thai dish you want. 

It's also just cool for visitors to Bangkok to explore the aisles and shops of the market to see all of the amazing fresh produce and food products on sale.

I introduced him to some traditional Thai snacks that he immediately took a liking to. He asked me what flavor they were, but didn't believe me when I said that these sweets, along with many traditional Thai sweets, were "candle flavored". In the past, a special scented candle was used to smoke traditional desserts to give them a sort of perfumed scent and flavor. Now, it's added as a flavorful extract.

The first day was spent helping Kyle beat jetlag by keeping him busy. After leaving the market, we walked around the local mall for a while.

We had our wedding rehearsal in the afternoon. Kyle and our maid of honor, Nun, were both able to be there as we did the walkthrough of our service.

After leaving the church we paid a brief visit to DonDonDonki, the fantastically overwhelming Japanese department store located just down the road from the church.

That night Kyle and I met our mom at the airport at midnight and booked a CABB (one of Bangkok's new, modern London-style taxis that offer a more comfortable ride than the normal cabs that drive up and down the streets of the city) to take her to her hotel. It was so nice to have my family in town. Even though I was totally exhausted from this week, I was just so excited to have visitors!

On Saturday we had to run more errands. First we went to pick up my suit from the tailor.

I've used Jhasper Fashion before, and I don't think I'll ever go to another tailor but them again! They do the most phenomenal job making wonderful bespoke suits! Kyle was so impressed by the attention to detail that Dave and Pinky (the tailors who made my suit for me) put into my order that he ordered a really cool custom shirt of his own on the spot!

In the afternoon we finally had a brief moment to relax. 

It may not seem like a ton from reading this post, but this week was really non-stop from the moment that I found out I needed to take a border hop. All in all, the entire month of August was just insane (in a good way)! A relaxing stop at my favorite secret coffee shop, however, was very much needed!

I am so happy to have family visiting! I've been looking forward to their visit for months, and was so happy that my mom and brother could be here in town for my wedding. We had a great time together in Thailand, and I'll be writing about it (with a few guest posts here and there) over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!