Skytrains and Seafood

Day two in Bangkok began with a lecture on 'the spiritual awakening of 2012' from a nice, but slighty mad new age bhudhist hybrid canadian as I sat eating sipping my ice tea at the train station this morning. I decided to take a real step into the future and catch the skytrain into the Bladerunneresque centre of town dominated by skyscrapers, mega malls and skytrain flyovers. A place quite different to the low sprawling district of China Town im staying in. I was there for the best of Thai contempoary art at the gugenheim like Bangkok cultural centre. If I thought I had seen enough images of the King, I was wrong, showing was a whole exhibition of artworks to celebrate his 84th birthday, and thats right, all were of him. Viewing the range of depictions of his majesty however, it was hard not to feel the love the Thais feel for their 'benevolent king'. Well at least amongst yellow shirt monarchists. Also of note was a photography exhibit on the recent Thai floods. It was somewhat shocking to see places I had visted just yesterday beneath torrents of water just a moth ago. Whilst the flood waters have receded there are still sandbags everywhere. For lunch I went into one of the huge mega malls for a slightly disasterous meal. What I thought was vegetarian was in fact a highly confronting collection of sea creatures that had me squirming in my seat and then runing to wash the memory out of my mouth with ice tea. It's not like im not an adventurous eater, but that was just a compleley unplesent seafood experience. The guidebook lies when it says vegetarian food is easy to find, unless they count sea sponge as a vegitable. Tomorow I will be on my way south to paradise to swim with sea creatures in the sea where they belong.