Challenged at the shopping challenge

The Bangkok Shopping Challenge had 20 teams from 11 Asian countries. Team Philippines (which I jokingly called “Team Yap”) was composed of Star columnist Tim Yap, wedding gown and shoe designer Solenn Heussaff and me — all professional shoppers. Sounds pretty easy enough to win, right?

Rules were simple. Each team would pick a route composing of five of the nine malls (Siam Discovery, Siam Paragon, Siam Center, Central World, Gaysorn, Amarin, Erawan, Zen and Central Chidlom) and had to buy at least one item in each of the malls. The team could buy any brand (one point) and a Thai brand (two points). Each team was given 30,000 baht to buy what its members wanted. The three of us could have bought something we wanted at 10,000 baht each and get three points or buy several useless things we didn’t want and accumulate a lot of points. We wanted to win the 100,000 baht prize and opted for the latter. Our liaison officer (who carried a credit card loaded with 30,000 baht) was in charge of paying for our purchases and taking our photos with the product we bought and the store signage. We were until around the second hour of the race. After several years of no exercise and running with athletic Solenn and Tim, my leg started to cramp and I couldn’t walk anymore (I actually couldn’t walk for two days!). Then our credit card stopped working. Apparently there was a glitch in the system. Well, just our luck. It was not our fault, we complained, but to no avail. Tallying came and sure enough, we would have won by points had we presented our purchases if the supplied credit card worked. Oh well, that’s life. We had fun anyway (and I got my dose of exercise for the next 10 years). We look forward to a re-match!

But Bangkok wasn’t all shopping. I just recently discovered that the Suan Lum night bazaar had a beer garden that served excellent (and cheap) Thai food and is pretty near my centrally located hotel, Centre Point (www.centrepoint.com/grandecentrepoint). Take your pick from a countless variety of food stalls! This is where I tried my new favorite Thai drink, Thai iced tea. Solenn made a non-iced tea lover like me shift from my regular pandan or lemongrass juice to this wonderful cold tea with milk drink. When Thai Airways general manager Nivat Chantarachoti went to Bangkok recently and asked if I wanted anything from there, I had asked for a pack of instant Thai iced tea — that’s how much I enjoyed it.

My favorite Bangkok-based couple Robbie and Angela Dinglasan also took me to this quaint Japanese restaurant Uemasa in Ekamai, which had fresh sushi flown in from Japan’s Tsukiji market at extremely reasonable prices. They also brought me and a common Filipino friend Hong Kong-based Ziggy Bautista to Long Table, a trendy bar; and the newly renovated Q Chill, the second floor of the then sleazy Q Bar.

Despite losing the shopping challenge, it was sheer fun as expected in one of my favorite cities in the world! The Amazing Thailand Grand Sale with up to 70 percent off runs until the end of August.