From February 8th to February 11th, I visited Bangkok, Thailand with four other exchange students. Our Airbnb, located next to Victory Monument, cost roughly $60 USD per person for three nights. Bangkok was definitely not as cheap as Penang. Traffic in Bangkok is terrible; it is usually better to take the BTS Skytrain. For short distances, we used Grab or Uber. On the first night, we explored Victory Mall, Center One Shopping Plaza, and the night market around Victory Monument. On the second day, we ventured into the city core and visited the Grand Palace and the many temples in the area, including Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha), Wat Arun (Temple of Dawn), and Wat Pho (Temple of the Reclining Buddha). Afterwards, we walked to Chinatown, appreciating the calmer side streets of Bangkok along the way. By then, we were exhausted and decided to unwind and enjoy dinner and live jazz music at the Saxophone Pub near Victory Monument. The next day, we shared a van with strangers to Ayutthaya, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Ayutthaya was once the largest city in the world and the second capital of the Kingdom of Siam before the Burmese burned the city to the ground. We hired a tuk-tuk (auto rickshaw) driver for four hours to take us around the city, visiting Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon (Great Monastery of Auspicious Victory), an elephant village, and Wat Mahathat (Monastery of the Great Relic). We ended our time in Ayutthaya with a quick lunch at the Pae Teva’raj Restaurant before rushing off to catch the train back to Bangkok. We spent the rest of the night at the Chatuchak Weekend Market and enjoyed Coco JJ’s famed coconut ice cream. We took an early 9:05am flight back to Singapore the next day. Although we enjoyed our short ferry ride across the Chao Phraya River to reach Wat Arun, we didn’t get a chance to visit a floating market. We also didn’t have the time to visit Asiatique The Riverfront and the massive malls in Siam, or try more genuine, local foods. Our weekend in Bangkok only scratched the surface. In a group with three other students, I participated in the NUS Investment Society’s annual NUS-SGX Stock Pitch Competition. Out of one hundred stocks to choose from, we selected Thai Beverage PCL (SGX: Y92). Competing against over a hundred sign-ups for the eight finalist spots, we had an intense three days to complete our report. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it to the finals. Nonetheless, we attended the finals in the SGX Auditorium. Coincidentally, two of the eight finalists happened to also pitch ThaiBev, but with more optimistic projections. On Wednesday (Valentine’s Day), I visited Alto Partners Pte Ltd, a multi-family office, and learned from CEO and Co-Founder James Quismorio, as well as the SMU and NTU interns, about financial modeling, Bloomberg, and their business segments and projects. UTown was a ghost town during the Chinese New Year weekend, which began on Thursday. The local students all went home to their families. It was difficult to find food on campus, and all of the facilities in UTown were closed. However, this did allow me to find a new 2.4km running trail along Sungei Ulu Pandan whilst running aimlessly north of NUS. I spent the night of Chinese New Year’s Eve at a restaurant in Chinatown with six other exchange students before walking to The Float at Marina Bay for the River Hongbao 2018 festivities and fireworks. Looking forward, I will be spending recess week in India. Time is going by slowly, but coursework is picking up, and there doesn’t seem to be enough time to do everything.
Comments are closed.
|
ABOUT ME
Keng-Chia Chao BBA Candidate in Finance, Accounting, & Management Information Systems Shidler College of Business, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Archives
May 2018
|