May fifth is coronation day here in Thailand. To commemorate the coronation of the present king. The longest reigning monarch in the world. 

We had planned to go to the Indonesian embassy today, but it’s closed. That means we won’t get the sixty days visa here. It’s a two day process and we leave Friday morning. Hopefully we’ll get it in Singapore.

We hang at the hotel and replan the days. It’s not polite nor OK to use toeless shoes when visiting the grand palace and the temples connected to it. I need new shoes before we can do that then. Another round in the malls to see if I can find running shoes I can use.

The hotel offers a free tuk-tuk ride to the sky train that we use. It’s so easy to navigate the ticketing system that we feel comfortable already.

We take the train up to Grand Central Mall and start walking around. I try on a lot of shoes before landing on a pair of Reebok zquick TR. Nothing wrong with the name. It’s the first pair of Reebok that I can remember owing, Adidas couldn’t come up with the model I wanted. I like the barefoot feeling and don’t want all that much cushioning in the heel. Hopefully these will be what I need, if not they can always be used when practicing Kali. Katja in a mall is of course an accident waiting to happen and she got herself a few new things as well.

We finally go home  and have about twenty minutes there before heading out for yoga.

We walk briskly down to Exchange tower and  True Fitness for yoga. The teacher is ten minutes late, which resonates quite bad with me.. Then I understood about every fifth word he said. After class I complained to Katja that I didn’t like him and that he was too stressed. Katja said she didn’t really see it that way and that made me think about it in the shower. WHY did I think he was stressed? Was he really? What I could figure out by repeatedly asking myself why? was that I got stressed from not being able to understand him correctly. He wasn’t stressed (I think), I was. And by projecting my stress towards him I didn’t like him. Hmm, food for thoughts.

The personal leadership thingy we did at Mandirigma pointed out the value of knowing WHY. I think I will use this technique in the future to see where it leads me.

Right next to the yoga is Soi Cowboy. The redlight district. We walked through it as the bars and clubs seemed to organize for the evening. Several of the girls were out in the street getting food from the street vendors. I’ve seen the same lost blank stare in the eyes of girls in Las Vegas and it only makes me sad.

After the tour of Soi Cowboy we took the train down to Soi 38, the street food street. We had a fabulous meal of salt baked and grilled sea bass and crabs. A bucket of greens to go with it and we munched happily away.

Afterwards I got a banana pancake that I ate walking toward home. When finished we hailed a taxi and got back to the hotel. Here we posted a couple of posts and got to bed. Yoga again at 6:30 tomorrow.

It all comes back to the basics. Serve customers the best-tasting food at a good value in a clean, comfortable restaurant, and they’ll keep coming back.