Thailand. Day 5. Monday.

Monday morning we got up and Melanie was feeling better. We got dressed and ready and went down to breakfast with the "normal people" on the Mezzanine floor. The selection was bigger on that floor. They had everything the Lounge had, but they also had a Noodle grill, a No-pork egg station, and things like baked beans, stir fry, Fish soups and "stone" waters.

They were waters that had been stored with certain rocks in them for different qualities- Amethyst, for example, was used to give people strength of heart and soundness of mind. So you basically drink water that has rocks in it. Some people are crazy.

After breakfast, we did our usual- get a green cab- go to the hospital- check on Eric. He had been improving since they started him on an IV Steroid. They had been speculating that what was causing his weakness and pain was an autoimmune response triggered by surgery that they were calling Immune Mediated Luticulitis, which meant that the Immune system was being hyper active and the excess antibodies were attacking the nerve bundle around the T-10 vertebrae, causing the pain in the hip and weakness of the intestines.

Not fun.

After we visited and struggled to get the Body Scan software downloaded, Eric got tired again, so Melanie and I decided to go on another outing. We walked down to Sukumvit road again, passing by the Pakistan Embassy again, and the same little girl was there with an elderly lady this time. She was sitting crosslegged on the ground in front of the lady, and was smiling this time. I saw her while I was walking so I grabbed the packet of Starbursts out of my purse so I wasn't digging through my purse right in front of them. She saw me coming and her eyes lit up, and I bent down to hand them to her. She put her head down and her hand out, so I bent over and looked her in the face and smiled when I handed them to her. She was so shy, and so happy- but she let out a little giggle and it completely broke my heart. I just wanted to pick her up and bath her and feed her and give her a warm bed to sleep in. She was darling.

 We found some change in our pockets to give to the toothless elderly woman and she sang to us as we walked the rest of the way up the street. Once we reached Sukumvit, we walked East this time, instead of West, like the day before. Eric had given us directions to a new shopping center called Terminal 21, so we decided to go check it out. We walked about 7 or 8 blocks before we found it.

Walking the streets of this city is just repugnant. The smells and transvesdites and crude cab drivers are just crazy. There were a few really fun and cute street vendors that had fun trinkets and toys that we had to stop and buy some. The little handicrafts were fun and the merchants are always wheeling-and-dealing you. From the second you walk in-- "Madame- 500 Baht/ no I give you 350 Baht- special price, just for you." They were fun.

We found our little trinkets and walked back out onto the street and walked past a tall Arab man who was "guarding" the entrance to his little shop. He saw us coming and just shook his head and kept saying "Very lucky ladies, Very lucky ladies." Almost like he wad disgusted at us.

We got to Terminal 21 and it was really neat. It was 9 stories tall and each floor was designed after different parts of the world. There was London, The Carribbean, San Francisco, Tokyo- etc. They had miniature light houses, a miniature version of  the Golden Gate bridge, Sumo Wrestlers, Trolley cars etc. It was really cool.

Melanie and I found a little grocery center on the ground floor and bought little brownies and sodas, and we bought some Red Velvet cake for Eric. The steroids made him cranky, and I love lifting peoples spirits with treats :D

We walked through a few more floors and found a little noodle shop and decided to stop for lunch. Melanie got a Carbonara Fettuccini and I got regular old Spaghetti with meat sauce. Ya can't go wrong with spaghetti in my opinion.

After lunch, we walked back down to the hospital, passing the same Arab man again, and he told us the same thing when we walked by "Very lucky ladies, Very lucky ladies." On the corner across from the road we had to turn North on to get back to the hospital, we spotted the Custom Tailor shop that  Eric and Monty use for their trousers and button up shirts. We decided to go in and talk to the man and order some shirts for Monty for his birthday. His name was Sonnee and he was an Arab man that wore a purple Turbin, but he had excellent English and he remembered Monty and Eric perfectly. He described Monty (Bless his heart) with his hands around his belly section to suggest Monty's belly.

I loved their shop becauses the walls were lined top to bottom on both walls with rolls and rolls of different fabrics. You got to walk around and choose the different fabrics for whatever it was you wanted made. They were measuring out a British Man while we were there and were so specific in their measurements, it was really cool to watch- down to the 1/4". They also had a lot of really neat Old fashioned wooden yard sticks on all the counters. They were triangle shaped and I wanted one so bad. I figured they would think I was crazy if I asked if I could buy their yard stick from them.

After we ordered the shirts, we passed back by the Embassy  and the little girl was gone this time. The same elderly woman was there and recognized us and sang to us again as we walked past.

When we got back to the hospital, a few of Erics friends had stopped by, so Melanie and I sat in the other room and visited with a few of them while the others sat in and talked to Eric.

We were still fighting to get the body scan to work. We had finally gotten the software to download, but now were having problems connecting to the Servers, so we had to wait until it was business hours in Utah to call the technichal help line, so we waited...

A little while later, we got hungry and decided to brave the food court on the Mezzanine floor, and found a neat little soup station. I got an Asian style (of course) chicken noodle soup, but it was made with the vermecelli noodles instead of larger- spaghetti sized noodles, and Melanie got a fish/sprouts soup. We brought Eric back a Green Tea Iced Latte', since he hadn't been able to eat much, and after we ate our dinner, we both crashed for an afternoon nap again. We woke up in time to go down to the Garden Floor with Eric in a wheel chair because he was going stir crazy. While we were there it started to drip a little rain on us, so we came back inside, and by the time we had gone up 5 floors to his room, it was a torrential downpour. I couldn't believe it.

We waited for the rain to stop, and visited a little bit, then we headed back to the hotel for the night.

Another day down in Bangkok Thailand.