A Cultural Experience

Second day in Bangkok, started fairly sluggishly, long sleep in, some breakfast and then back to bed for a short while.
I decided to go for a wander around, packed my bag and caught a cab to the Royal Palace, leaving Jarrad in bed.
Jumped off the cab, looked at my map, and because EVERYTHING is in Thai, i had no idea where i was. So walked around the huge walls guarding the palace and Wat Phra Si Rattanasasadaram, generally called the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.
Before i went inside, i thought id grab something to eat, walked down to the water front, sat down in a little restaurant and noticed a girl sitting on her own on the other side of the room, so i offered for her to join me, which she did and after lunch, spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around a few of the amazing temples and china town, which was a sight.
We even sat in on a chinese funeral, which was very interesting. There is such a massive cultural difference here, its a very spiritual place and seems that the majority of the people living here follow one religion or another.
We walked through several monasteries and seen a load of monks, who's lifestyles and religious views are quite interesting.
China town was pretty crazy, the walkways were less then 2 meters wide, and still scooterists seen it as a 'shortcut' between streets. so we'd have to watch out for scooters down every walkway, there just isn't any law to stop them using what clearly is a walkway as their own micro-highway.
Was great to spend a day running around with my camera taking photos of the buildings and some of the temples, they're truly beautiful and inspiring, their architecture and creativity showing in the colours and designs of the Wats and the monasteries are really something special.
Had some dinner, and went back to the Hostel, joined Jarrad, who had news that one of our mates from Koh Samui, Gussie, was coming over to hang out with us. she arrived at around about 10pm, we went out for a late dinner and a few beers, watched the clock tick over to midnight for my 21st. went to bed preparing ourselves for a long day of birthday celebrations.