Officially out of quarantine! Here’s to freedom and seeing the outside world again. Is this when real life starts? No! This is when the vacation starts…vacation and job hunting that is. Before spending a low-key month in Chiang Mai, I’m hanging out in Bangkok. And no, I will not be cramming in all the sight-seeing in two days. I’m not even going to get any sight-seeing. I’m just hanging out in the city to hang out with my friend. It’s her birthday this weekend.

I met her through a language exchange app (HelloTalk) and we’d been chatting and such for the past month and some weeks. It’d be great to finally be able to meet her in person. It was her birthday weekend coincidentally when I got out of quarantine.

On Friday, they picked me up to go hang out at the mall. Well, they were going to the mall anyway and I just tagged along. It was a fun time and the mall was huge (not Mall of America huge, but still pretty big). I was happy to see some of the stores I loved there (Innisfree, Uniqlo and Muji). I refrained from buying anything though and just ate some food. My first post-quarantine meal was somtum (papaya salad), fried chicken wings and sticky rice. It was amazing.

On the way home, we stopped at 7-Eleven. She needed to pick up something for her mother and we both got snacks. Then she treated me to some street food for dinner. Can I call it “mystery” meat on a stick? I mean, I knew what some of it was…and it came with sweet chili dipping sauce. Most of it was delicious. The surprise cheese in the middle of my hot dog…that was a little weird.

The next day, she came to pick me up so we could probably celebrate her birthday. We went to a local coffee shop and had some lunch and of course, it’s not a birthday celebration without cake…so we got 3 kinds. I also got some fried rice. After that, we went to an area called LaSalle Avenue which is like an outdoor shopping area. It was fun…so many cute things. We bought some juices and then dinner for later.

And then it was my last day in town. I went to Zaza’s for lunch and to hang out for a bit before going to the airport. We did go to Chiang Mai Cafe before going to the airport. Pretty ironic, but it was good. I got an iced blended mocha and then we got some buttered toast (it’s a super big thing here). And then…off to the airport.

Which was I think the most entertaining experience for me. Zaza and her son Digi had never been to the Suvarnabhumi Airport. Apparently it’s fairly new and it’s big. This would be their first time (in fact, it might have been Digi’s first time at the airport. How crazy of me to think they were just going to drop me off. As we drove past the runway towards the drop off, Digi’s face was practically glued to the window watching as the planes took off and landed. Zaza wasn’t much different. She did say something fun. She said that her reaction was something similar to that of country folks coming into the city for the first time. This cracked me up because she’s actually from the city.

Zaza and I got off at the drop off area and her husband and Digi went to park the car. She insisted I take pictures everywhere (as if this was my first time in the airport or as if I was leaving forever). It was cute…I obliged. Then we walked around the airport a little bit and went up to the observation deck (not as cool as the observation deck at Narita) where you could see plans that were at their gates, but not the runways (too bad). After a couple more pictures, they dropped me off at security and I was one step closer to Chiang Mai.