Sue and I have just returned from Lanta Island, which I’ll talk about later. We arrived in Bangkok on the 27th for a few days to enjoy Christmas. Christmas has always been a big thing for Sue, and she cannot complete the holidays without hearing Christmas carols and seeing the decorations. Bangkok is a great place for that. All the stores are decorated, some extensively. Even a coffee shop or small restaurant will have a tree and tinsel draped along the ceiling.
We spent some time at the Paragon shopping center. The walkway decorated with the arches of lights with the luminous Christmas tree at the end is in front of that.
– Click here to view Bangkok Christmas Pictures –
We also went over to Central World Plaza. It and Paragon are the two largest shopping centers in Thailand. The plaza out in front here is very large and had an artificial tree maybe 100 feet tall. There was an outdoor ice rink somewhere on the plaza but I was unable to find it that night. Something the size of an ice rink could easily be lost here. Apparently the beer companies are working hard to capture Thai customers. There were five or six “beer gardens” set up on the plaza each with nearly a thousand patrons.
We did only a small amount of after Christmas shopping. The ground floor of the Paragon shopping center has more specialty food sellers of all types than I have ever seen in one place. Sue bought a large chocolate covered gingerbread cookie imported from Germany. She got a special after Christmas price.
