We had a hard time deciding on a place. I mean, when you find a placed like “Mao Please” it’s kind of difficult not to be curious.

Some wall signage.

In one of the shopping arcades we found a small but noticeable Hobby Japan… with a liberal message:

Totally legal….right?!

Eventually we stumbled up on the Hutong Dumpling Bar, in an alleyway. Tired and sweating from the day’s walking, we were ready to give it a shot. It doesn’t hurt that the place was actually founded by the group who runs Din Tai Fung, a popular chain even back home.

We ate a bit.

The service was not so spot on, but the food was decent and we got our shot at having some of the ubiquitous “Victoria Bitter” beer, which I turned out to like quite a bit. Even if it might be the most mass-produced beer there, it’s still much better than a Bud Light…

On our off day, Andy and I explored downtown Melbourne.

We had no plan and just had breakfast. Broke out the city/tourist map and decided where to head off. Thanks to public transportation, getting around was easy by rail.

That particular day yielded heat in the 90′s and 100′s. We managed by going into plazas and shops with air conditioning throughout town.

Randomly, we approached the Eureka tower, which houses the Skydeck on the 88th floor. Supposedly the tallest in the southern hemisphere.

We also ran into the Victoria State Library. It was pretty packed, and our stop was brief.

Served with “Frozen Coke”. I’d have to say that Japan’s McDonalds still reign supreme, though.

That’s a stopover in Sydney. It was a 14 hour flight from Los Angeles, followed by a quick, one-hour flight from Sydney to Melbourne in the Australian state of Victoria.

Business aside (since I’m really not at liberty to discuss that), I did see things around St. Kilda, the beach area we were accomodated in.

A night market. I felt like the oldest person around.

I didn’t know, until I arrived, that kangaroo is served. Poor guy. Served like a steak. The meat is slightly chewy, like lamb or such?

St. Kilda pier doesn’t look like much, but I still got some beautiful shots at night. Note to self: just put the mini-tripod on the pocket no matter what. Everytime I’ve realized I was going to take evening shots, I always leave it behind. Never again.

Like something out of a film, Bangkok’s Chinatown has tiny alleyways with tons of shops that only mostly sell in bulk. Backpacks, shoes, clothes, eyeware, wallets… just about anything. This is probably where the (slightly) bigger stores in the city pick up their goods to turnaround for profit to tourists.

Motorcyclists try to make their way through the alleyway as well, giving almost no mercy to anyone in the way. I just had to go with the flow.

There was no shortage of food. Fruits, food, anything. It was there for the taking, and cheap of course.

To the left are juices or soda in plastic bags with ice. To the right are our standard sodas-in-a-bottle. Take your pick. When I was much younger, roaming through Bangkok, I’d be running around with a straw and plastic-bag-soda in hand.

I’ve been in Bangkok for three days.

It has been strange. Bits and pieces have changed but most of the experience is one big flashback. Nuay and cousins are doing alright, and the place reminds me of my stay ten years ago – I attended an interational school in 1992-1993 here.

Here’s Lynn taking care of Min, Lee’s daughter. She gets lots of love from all the family. It’s good to see her around so many people each day. One happy baby.

Good eats at home (breakfast, lunch and dinner).

Hachiban Ramen (“Number 8″ Ramen) is a popular ramen chain here. I had a small bowl of Chashu (pork) ramen, some shumai and a coke for somewhere under two dollars.

Japanese food has gained momentum with the Thai people. Other restaurants include “Oishi Sushi Bar” and “Fuji Japanese Cuisine”. I have yet to try them for myself.

The state of piracy in Thailand is still strong despite better efforts to curb vendors trying to sell illegal copies of games. It was easy for me to see that Game Boy Advance games were not what they seemed – the boxes are easily discernable as [high quality, but flawed] color copies. I’m sensing a strong shipment of HK game goods. It’s amazing how fast they get here from an “original” release.

Most Game Boy Advance games here cost anywhere from 10-20 bucks. The more expensive ones feature “116 games in 1″, but mostly consist of several GBA titles and a slew of very old (and classic) Famicom/NES titles like Contra, Stinger (Twin Bee in Japan) and so on and so forth.

PlayStation2 games cost about 40-80 Baht (USD $1-$2) per game. That’s considered “expensive” by some. Even though I lived here ten years ago to experience the boom of copied Super Famicom (Super NES) games via floppy copies, I still find myself astonished at how fast and abundant copied games are here. It’s like you could literally live off of a few dollars a day just to eat and buy software. From what I gather, most people’s PlayStation 2′s here are modified to play DVD copies.

This weekend I am off to Chiang Mai with my father’s friends.