It's hot and humid. Very humid. I am told we are entering the winter, so I can only speculate as to what the middle of summer must feel like! But much like the southern US, I find that the indoors is over air conditioned, so I am freezing most of the time.
I am staying at what is called an "executive 
serviced apartment" called Emporium Suites. This is basically the equivalent of a 4 or 5 star hotel but for longer term stays. Some people actually live in these as permanent residences, but for Unilever it is the place where everyone stays initially - thus it has earned the nickname "the Temporium." While it is certainly posh, I am not keen on viewing the fire exit plan on the back of the door every time I go in the bathroom - a proper apartment would suit me more. And strangely, it smells very heavily of lemongrass. But I am enjoying the view from the 41st floor where I am staying.
serviced apartment" called Emporium Suites. This is basically the equivalent of a 4 or 5 star hotel but for longer term stays. Some people actually live in these as permanent residences, but for Unilever it is the place where everyone stays initially - thus it has earned the nickname "the Temporium." While it is certainly posh, I am not keen on viewing the fire exit plan on the back of the door every time I go in the bathroom - a proper apartment would suit me more. And strangely, it smells very heavily of lemongrass. But I am enjoying the view from the 41st floor where I am staying. 
My room is actually a 1BR suite which has a kitchen, see the living room at left. So I made my way to the market last night to buy a few items. It was in a fancy mall next door which also had Gucci, Prada, etc...I'm pretty certain I overpaid. (Considering that 2 bags of groceries were $40, and one can eat a lovely shrimp stirfry at a restaurant for $3). Not surprisingly 75% of the items I could not read because they were in Thai characters, however it did surprise me that I could not actually visually recognize a lot of foods. So, I stuck to the basics for now - fruit and yogurt and such. There were quite a lot of American and European foods, at a premium of course - I found my favorite cereal, Haagen Daaz and V8 juice. But it is so cheap to eat out that I really don't need to cook - it hardly seems worth the effort. I just wanted to have some snacks around so I would not be tempted by the sinister Toblerone candy bar and Pringles chips in the mini bar. 
My plans for the rest of the week include a lot of random meetings for drinks and coffee.....friends of friends who happen to be in Bangkok. I have never met these folks before, so I tell them to look for the tall American with the long brown hair. Believe it or not, that it a pretty distinctive description here. If I seemed tall in America, you can only imagine how large I seem here.
From my bird's eye view,
Joanna
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