Day 4 - Dec 18 - The Day We Met Jackie Chan

We had a plan.

Plans never last long.

We deviated from the plan...

Yet still we had fun.


We met Ghandi, Mao, and an English Queen,

Picasso, some poet dude, and Beethoven,

Serena Williams, Mohammad Ali,

Beiber, Chou, Madonna, Depp, and Bruce Lee,

Michael Jackson, Hopkins, Yeoh -- but understand,

This was the day we met Jackie Chan.

(He's big in Thailand or something.)

Plans go awry,
But it's not all bad -- ho!

Instead of temples,

'Twas Madame Tussaud's.

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Then we explored some malls, from the ritzy Siam Platinum and Paradigm to, uh, the non-ritzy places. This made everyone tired and irritable, as walking through crowds in the heat tends to do. Mia would like to devote this space to a couple cultural notes. First, there are skywalks. Lots of them. Tons of pedestrians going everywhere, and the traffic lights never change, so people go up and over. Note that begging and distributing flyers in public areas is prohibited. Second, there are lots of beggars and people distributing flyers and stuff (on the streets and the skywalks). The beggars are the depressing part. Lots of disfigured people missing eyes or with melting-off faces. Sometimes there are little kids slumped over on the sidewalk with a cup in front of them.

But on a lighter note, they seem to celebrate Christmas heartily. There are Christmas lights and decorations and music everywhere. They also like the New Year (of course) and for some reason we cannot yet fathom, 2013 is a lucky year.

And taxi cabs and lots of other things are pink and purple. :)

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Probably our favorite part of the wax museum was the 'making of', a whole display on the wax sitting, molding, and accessorizing process. It takes 150 kg of wax per sculpture. There are more than 100,000 hairs in a human head and each hair is attached by hand to the wax head. The figures must have their make-up touched up every so often. Madame Tussaud started in the 1800s(?). If you visit one of the museums in Thailand expect there to be many Thai figures you probably don't know. All in great detail, real enough it makes you think there is always someone standing behind you......