ZH’s first solo vacation in Thailand: Day 7 of 12

How time flies. ZH is halfway through her vacation already, and in no time she will be back in Malaysia with her family. Malaysia, no matter what, is a place we call home with people that love us dearly.

ZH woke up at 6.30am this morning. Watered Uncle Vich’s plants as usual, but she saved her breakfast till later.

Day Seven: Cycling at Suan Rot Fai (Rot Fai Park) and reading at TK Park 

ZH loves cycling; she was really looking forward to this outing. As I love cycling myself, it is an activity that I normally partake when there are like-minded soul in town. Thank you ZH. 

We took a taxi to Rot Fai Park, paid around 70 baht for the metered taxi ride. The taxi driver knows a little bit of Mandarin and he tried to make conversations with ZH, to no avail.

We rented a bicycle each at 20 baht. It’s super cheap and you can ride the bike as long as you want.  ZH chose her own 2-wheeler Hello Kitty bicycle.

 

20 minutes into cycling, she opted for a breakfast break ala picnic style. She had her usual fruits: rambutans and dokongs bought at Cha-Am market. 

 

Shortly after breakfast, we also went to Bangkok Butterfly Garden located in the park, free admission. She was hoping for the butterflies to land on her finger, like what happened to her elder’s sis few years back. We also used Hackle Bunny as a bait, but didn’t manage to attract them. Perhaps too many people today. Some local school girls were also taking ‘jumping’ photos.

ZH’s stamina was good, she managed to cycle around the park for two to three rounds. 

 

She had a great day amongst other cyclists, runners, butterflies, squirrels and big lizards. She also played in the playgrounds, and pointed out the swings that her elder sis played before with Uncle Vich (vivid memory of her sis’ trip from photos). 

We stayed in the park for two and a half hours, before calling it a day. 

From greenery, we head to ‘the land of books’.

As the weather was very hot, we took a cab from Rot Fai Park to CentralWorld. We were very lucky to be able to hail a cab near the park, and the driver turned on his meter without us asking. We paid 140 baht for the journey.

I brought her to eat lunch at Fuji Japanese restaurant for her zaru soba, before TK Park. She also had a chawan mushi. So she said, the only thing she doesn’t like about chawan mushi is the ginkgo, so she’ll keep it to the last. Interesting, as I normally keep the thing I like the most to the last.

 

 

 
I am back at TK Park (also known as Thailand Knowledge Park), but this time, with a book lover. What a different experience as my little bookworm looked forward to it so much.

Weekend is definitely so much noisier here with kids running and screaming around at the children’s library, and jumping down from the beehive. Err .. this is not a playground, you know. Tsk. Tsk. But the environment calmed down a bit later with more serious readers.

   

 
 

We stopped at Central Rama 9 (direct access link from MRT Rama 9) to check on ballet leotard for ZE, her elder sis. But there was a limited choice and expensive too.

 

We had pasta at Spaghetti Factory, Central Rama 9 for dinner. She wanted to order blue cheese spaghetti … uh-hu, which I talked her out of it, and she had her normal tomato based spaghetti.

I thought there was a lack of vegetables in her diet for two days. So we went to buy salad at Tops supermarket as dessert. The supermarkets here have great salad bar.

 

She was happy that we took the BTS and MRT home, even though she had to stand, or sit on the floor. Fare from BTS Chitlom to BTS Asok: 25 baht + MRT Sukhumvit to MRT Phra Ram 9 10 baht (50% discount still). And the last leg home only costs 16 baht for her. 

 

 

Continuing from Day Six, I reflect on the day and take time to marvel at the wonders of ZH:

• On Day Seven, she is still very prudent with money, that I’ve been rendered speechless. What?! 
• I prepared fruit breakfast for her. She didn’t even want to check on the many stalls at Rot Fai park. Just spent 20 baht on bicycle rental and ate fruits packed from home
• She was disappointed that she was not able to attract butterflies to her, but she bounced back from it. Such a resilient kid
• She dislikes the taste of ginkgo; she camouflaged the gingko from her chawan mushi and gobbled it down
• She can really focus on reading despite the madness around her with kids using the beehive as playground
• It was not easy climbing up to her usual reading spot on the beehive. After few helps from me, she decided to climb up by herself. She would put her books first, then looked for ways to climb up without stepping over other fellow readers
• She had her reading spot on the beehive, but was shortly occupied by another child. She was okay to move to another seat … but quickly moved back when she saw that it was vacant again
• Super duperdy fast reader: she read 20 books in 3 hours!
• She agreed to salad for dessert? That must be a first!
• Reading en route home, sitting onnthe MRT floor .. i assumed to conserve her energgy

Today is a very, very, very happy day for ZH as she cycled at Rot Fai Park and read 20 books at TK Park.

She was asleep by 8.30pm, for a food night rest for her adventure the next day.

Stay tuned for Day Eight, Dream World coming up next!