The Adventures of Nicole and Pyo

Pyo is one of the PTs, personal tutors, I work with and we have a lot of things in common especially pop culture, movies, and tv shows. We are always sending each other movie trailer links and links with spoilers for upcoming tv shows and movies. We like the same movies and tv shows which we are constantly trading with one another and suggesting to one another. A couple of months ago I saw an article on CNN.com about this Batcat Museum in Bangkok. It is a museum with a collection of superhero (from comics, cartoons, TV shows and movies) memorabilia. Pyo of course knew about the place but he wasn't sure how to get there, it was in a part of Bangkok he wasn't familiar with. He asked if I wanted to go and I said sure if he wanted to go. Our only problem at the time was we didn't have the same days off. That all changed in December so we, really Pyo, began plotting our journey to the Batcat. He had searched for it on the map and had made some phone calls, so he had a pretty good idea of how to get there. So the day finally came and we had decided to make a whole day of it. We would start at the Batcat and make our way down to Kao San Road for pizza and then go see The Hobbit.
We met at about 11 am at the Phaya Thai BTS station because we needed to take the airport link a little bit out of town. Once we got to our stop we had to catch a bus, which we rode for a good while. We got off at a busy intersection and Pyo had to go to his map to find which way we should walk.

A View of the room from the raised platform.

We walked a short distance and we finally made it. We first walked into this nice coffess shop with really cool furniture. We then walked into the gift store/ ticket office. Since I brought my work permit they charged me the Thai price, which I was grateful for. Once we got our ticket we walked towards this 6 foot tall Sculley from Monsters Inc. and we were off. The only thing I could say when I walked in was "Holy Toys Batman." The first room we went into was filled will multiple cases holding tons of comic book and movie heroes models/action figures. It was truly impressive. On the outer wall there was a case filled with Disney collectibles and a lot of McDonald's collectibles and pretty much anything related to pop culture and movies. There was also a section dedicated to Spiderman. There was also a life size Superman in the corner of the room, which Pyo was in love with. We spent a good while looking at this extensive collection. I had to look at cases two or three times to see everything in it. We then decided to move on to the next portion of the museum. We went up a ramp to lead to a platform that went around the top of the room and led us to a new room. In the cases leading up the ramp there was these Japanese action figures, which I had never heard of, but Pyo said were very popular. In the cases bordering the wall there was a whole section dedicated to collectible cars, cars from movies and just classic cars.

The next section was dedicated to Pez Dispensers. He had such an impressive collection of Pez Dispensers and the way he had it arranged had to have taken forever. One slight movement and they would all fall down like dominoes. As we continued we saw more of the McDonald's Happy Meal toys, lunch box sets, and classic comic books. At the end of the elevated walkway we were greeted with a life size Green Lantern, Ryan Reynold's version. Pyo again was in 7th heaven. After taking some pictures and a little groping we walked down the stairs to a dark hallway that led to the real reason this place was called "The Batcat." It was two rooms dedicated to everything Batman new and old. He had movie posters, costumes, toys, etc... pretty much anything and everything that ever had a Batman emblem on it he had it. He had all the Batman LEGOs built and put into a case. He had a cast signed "Batman Begins" poster. He had old Batman toys from decades ago to present day. He had NASCAR die casts with the Batman sponsorship. He had a Batman tent, hundreds upon hundreds of Batman action figures which he had on a wall above the cases 3 to 4 deep. He had a Batman Begins costume that looked pretty real. He had loads of movies: vhs, dvd, and blu ray versions. He had Batman games for all major gaming systems, he even had film trailers, which were legit because I had used these trailers before on a trailer packages. He did have a couple of non-batman items such as large promotional material of the Avengers which is usually used at movie theaters. I of course took a photo with my two favorite men: Ironman and Thor.

Who do I choose?

Once we thoroughly explored the Batman area we went out into another room with more cases of items which we later found out was part of the gift shop. We walked around the gift shop some more bought some stuff and then got directions from one of the ladies on how to get to Kao San Road. It looks like we were going to take the commuter boat.
Thank god that I had Pyo with me because I would have never used a commuter boat. I would have never known where to get off or how to get to where I needed to go. We had to transfer boats at one point so we followed the crowd and we were following this one girl who said she was going to the same place we were, but when she got off we were close to our offices and still very far from Kao San Road. So we went back to the boats and tried again. All we really needed to do was ride the boat all the way to the end. Once we got off the boat I kind of knew where we were. I saw the Golden Mount and said to Pyo that I had never been and had always wanted to go. He said he had never been either, so as we were walking trying to figure out where we were we passed the entrance to the Golden Mount and Pyo asked if I wanted to check out. Of course I did. It made it even better because he had never been before, I would never want to make him go somewhere he had been before, even though he would have gladly gone. I can see the Golden Mount from my office and it looks pretty big from my office so in person it was quite large. The Golden Mount is this white circular building with a Golden pagoda on top. At the bottom there is gorgeous landscaping and Chinese Zodiac statues. To get to the top you walk up these stairs that go around the outside of the building through a small forest filled with statues and a waterfall.

 It is kind of magical, like walking through a rain forest minus the bugs. The first level we got to had a lot of bells of all shapes and sizes, I believe you ring them as a religious tradition, we didn't ring any bells. We continued our walk to the top and as we were making our way up the sun was shining directly at us so it felt like we were seeing the light and going to heaven. Without the trees to protect us it was getting pretty hot and the stairs showed how out of shape I was. We finally made it to the top and walked into a temple filled with numerous Buddha statues and at the center was this beautiful gold and jewel encrusted pagoda. Once we finished up downstairs we made our way up a very narrow staircase to see the Golden Mount. It was impressive and very bright. Pyo and I walked around the mount a bit, took pictures of the city, and then we decided to make our way downstairs so we could go for pizza. When Pyo was at Thammasat University he used to go to this pizza place that made their pizzas in a proper wood oven.

I was so excited to have some paper pizza and Italian food. So once we finished with the Golden Mount we left the compound out the wrong exit so weren't sure where we were. Pyo flagged down a tuk-tuk to take us to the area where the pizza place was. We did almost die in this tuk-tuk as we were driving off we almost hit a truck and I almost flew right into the back of the driver's seat. After that incident I was definitely awake and couldn't wait to go get some pizza. The tuk-tuk driver dropped us off at the end of this road filled with Westerners, tuk-tuks, restaurants, shop stalls, and massage parlors. We walked down the street to the old location of the pizza place, which wasn't there, so we continued to walk down the road until we saw a sign stating that there was an Italian restaurant down this alley way. We walked down the alley way and we finally found the restaurant. By the time we got there I was starving we ordered a pizza, spaghetti, french fries, and garlic bread.

It was a lot of food and I couldn't believe we ate it all. Once we finished up I was thoroughly stuffed and we were on our way again. We walked back down the alley and the larger road we were previously on towards the tuk-tuks to get a ride back to the boats. This tuk-tuk driver charged us more than the first guy and when Pyo tried to talk him down he barely went down in price, but we just wanted to get to the boats so we could make it to the movie in time so we paid the price. We made it to the boat just in time to get on an outgoing boat, the boat ride was pretty fast and we got off the at the stop we accidentally got off at earlier in the day. We then walked down the main road to MBK to buy our tickets for The Hobbit.
We made it with plenty of time sat down in the cold cinema and relaxed after our day of exploring Bangkok. The Hobbit was a great movie, I had no idea it was a 3-part movie so when it ended I looked at Pyo and said "is there another movie?" He looks at me and was like "yeah, there are 2 more." That was a nice way to end our day. It was pretty jam packed and I rode almost all of Bangkok's transportation that day, I started off by taking a motorcycle to the BTS, rode the BTS, took the airport link, took a bus, then a boat, a tuk-tuk, and the previous night/ early morning I arrived at home in a taxi so had I flown and taken a van I pretty much would have hit all the major transportation Bangkok has to offer. I love days like this. It is nice to go out with Pyo, we like the same movies and seeing the same things. It is nice to have a person to spend time with, it also doesn't hurt that he speaks Thai. All in all it was a great day!

"Holy Toys Batman"