Bangkok 2013: Don Mueang International Airport to Hua Lamphong

I felt the need to share the short but exhilarating solo trip I had from Don Mueang International Airport to Hua Lamphong MRT Station before meeting my friends in the hostel we were staying at. Scouring the internet for tips and train maps to get to the main city before the trip proved very helpful, but it took hours to do - so here's a shorter, more concise version. No one online seemed to have written anything comprehensive, so here I am!

While it might be a bit more of a hassle to get to the city center from this airport rather than from Suvarnabhumi International Airport (that's the one with the new Airport Link), it was still more efficient than, let's say, being a first-time tourist in Manila and your only decent option is to take a cab to your destination.

There are two ways to get from Don Mueang Airport to Hua Lamphong, at least, train-wise:

(1) Take a diesel train from Don Mueang Railway Station (right across the airport) all the way to Hua Lamphong Railway Station. This was my initial option, but as I've researched online, many travelers didn't recommend this route because the train arrival was erratic and it takes more or less an hour to finally get to Hua Lamphong. 

(2) Take the newest A1/A2 airport bus (operating since the early part of 2013), get down at Mo Chit BTS or Chatuchak Market MRT, then ride all the way until Hua Lamphong MRT Station (conveniently connected as well to Hua Lamphong Railway).  

(2) is what I did. 

Source

It's 30 baht a ride, and both of these routes like I said can take you to Mo Chit Station BTS/MRT station, the nearest BTS/MRT to the airport. It's quite useless to look for specific signs pointing you to where you're supposed to wait for the A1 or A2 buses, but follow the signs that say 'Shuttle' anyway and it'll eventually lead you to numerous exit doors that lead to the taxi bay and the main road.

I luckily found an A1 bus waiting at the exit near an airport security counter. It's an orange bus with A1 clearly readable by its door, and just to make sure, you can ask the nice security people that, indeed, A1 passes by Mo Chit BTS. I can't say for sure how often A1 and A2 buses come and go, but internet searches say that they frequent the terminal more than ten times. If you're unfortunate, you may have to wait up to an hour before the next one comes. It isn't a jam-packed ride, fortunately, and it takes about 30 minutes or so to reach Mo Chit BTS/Chatuchak MRT.

When the conductor finally tells you that you've reached your stop, walk down the sidewalk still in the direction of the bus route towards the pedestrian overpass, past some vendors and you'll eventually see the escalators leading down to Chatuchak Market MRT. It shouldn't be too hard to find!

Getting back to Don Mueang Airport is supposed to be easy as well (you basically do everything in reverse and wait at the opposite side of the road to catch an A1/A2 bus to the airport), but I took a cab instead for about 250-300 baht from Hua Lamphong MRT Exit 1 (using the meter, and including the toll fees).

I have no pictures, unfortunately, to guide you step by step, but hopefully this post helped anyway! :)

Saving Up: Tips for the Future

Let's just say today was a day of money-thinking - of planning and looking into the possibilities of investing and saving up for a rainy day and for the hopes of self-financed future travels. :D

Earlier this wonderful Wednesday, someone on Twitter linked me to Solitary Wanderer's post on building up one's own travel fund, which led me to thinking financially, so to speak, of the future and what to do once I begin earning. This then made me remember an article in the October 2011 issue of Reader's Digest that was entitled, "Investing 101", which aided me to seriously consider my financial plans when I get my hands on hard-earned moolah. 

And what did I learn? Seven things. Such helpful articles to fire up this desire in me to save and invest! (Hoho, I sometimes wonder why I didn't push through with taking economics, what with the way I'm engrossed in money matters, hoho!)

I suppose that, just like one is supposed to efficiently manage time to avoid cramming, one is also supposed to learn the works of efficient money management. This one quote is pretty powerful and inspiring, giving hope to my generation that, yes, nothing is impossible if you only know how to handle what you start with and if you've got a plan! If children learned this bit of advice early on, I think the world would be a teeny bit better.  

Simply put, your net worth is equal to your assets minus your liabilities, which helps you to gauge where you stand, financially-speaking. I learned that ideally, your personal net worth should have a positive outcome; if it comes out negative, your first step is to work to make your net worth a plus sign. Lessen your debts, your spending, increase your assets and whatnot. Once that's done and over with, you can start thinking about where to put your money, how many savings accounts to open and when you can do it, in a very concrete time frame. 

It's always good to have a back-up. Set up a rainy day fund or an emergency fund besides your salary/monthly expenses account, and make sure to always set aside a portion of your salary for this fund. Make it grow, forget that you have it, and to be on the safe side, reach a figure that's at least six times that of your monthly expenses. 

Take up the habit of saving early on, and you're good to go. "The younger you are when you begin, the more time you have to make your money grow." (Fogarty, 2011) There's nothing to lose - start now and read up on investing.

Start with knowing what you want to invest for, not what you want to invest in, says Mister Efren Cruz, so that you can establish your investment goals early on, when you want to accomplish them and know your action plan! :)

Knowledge is power. Knowledge is key. Gabriel Yap of Money Savvy says so. Learn the ropes of investing, and understand what you're getting into. "It helps you understand how much risk you are willing to take with your investment as well as identify opportunities." (Fogarty, 2011) Search the net, read up on company profiles and whatnot. Don't be too greedy or too afraid, but be careful and never go for leverage (i.e., according to Yap: when investors borrow money to make investments).

And last but not the least, save up. It's the most basic thing to begin with. Sacrifice a little, forego fancy restaurants and frequent nights out, as Solitary Wanderer puts it, and you'll be surprised with the turnout! And as Mark Twain also wisely says, "The secret to getting ahead is getting started." So get started.

The SG Itinerary

It's a couple of days away, and for the past month I've been coming up with the official itinerary for my trip to Singapore with my parents. I've researched, surveyed, printed out useful maps and jotted down useful notes for our three-day trip to the Garden City. In the excitement, I even came up with fun image and colour heavy itineraries:

We decided to forego the zoos and nature parks besides the Botanical Garden for now, and instead chose to be all tourist-y for our first trip to Singapore. And in my OC-ness that only truly appears in planning trips and dinners once I'm invested (I only wished that this trait of mine appeared consistently in college! Le sigh.), I've pasted all sorts of things onto the pages of this notebook designed by a friend, took note of those 'hawker centers' in the city, and wrote down cheap shopping places.

Three more days! If you've got suggestions on where to go and what to do in SG, do tell me! ;)

Quaint Desk Goodies

Just when the day couldn't get better last Sunday after graduation, I found out from Chai's blog that I won her Quaint Desk Giveaway! Quaint Desk's owner Grace soon emailed me confirming my details, and today Mr. Courier Man came by after lunch with the package! *happy dance*

I've probably joined over twenty or thirty giveaways online, never having won any of them. I'm so happy that this was my first! I love the fact that I won cute arts and crafts-y goodies from such a lovely store. :)

Such lovely packaging! It's a bit smooshed from the trip, but I love how decorated tape can make anything pretty!

Thank you so much! I can't wait to use 'em, heehee! :)

The goodies!

My favorite city is featured in that notebook. J'etaime!
And two new cute tapes to add to my tape collection!

I have to say I adore the stickers the most. They're perfect for cards, letters, notebooks and planners!
And the paper flowers? So, so lovely. :)

Thank you so, so much!

Drop by and shop at Quaint Desk here for cute stickers, paper flowers, cards and more! 

Cupcake Attempt #1

For a cupcake rookie, these sure did turn out well, even if the original plan was to make yummy red velvet cupcakes and the recipe we followed was for them. 

Instead, we made pinkish strawberry velvet cupcakes topped with frosting laced with maple extract in place of vanilla. The grocery and the nearby baking supplies store ran out of red food coloring and vanilla extract, and we had to make do with what was already in the kitchen. Le sigh.

These took the whole afternoon to make, and pictures had to be taken for documentation of the first time my mom and I attempted cupcakes! :) 

It isn't obvious in the pictures, but these are pinkish. Really. 

It was fun to put the frosting on top, and we sprinkled a bit of cinnamon on top of that to spice it up!

Le ingredients!

Catching Light in the Garden

Recesky DIY TLR, ISO 200 film. 

Test shots for the first roll of film developed. Snapshots of the garden, the sky and the almost-antique wooden chair in the verandah. :)

When I become a famous architect...

My timeless architect shot will look like this. 

This photo will be published in design books and catalogues, after the faces of Zaha Hadid and Renzo Piano. Oh, how lovely. :D

/architect shot for the yearbook, yaaaaay! thank you, tripod, afternoon sunlight and Duccio :-*/

Merri's Faux Fashion Spread

I think every girl has that innate, secret desire to have her own magazine spread. I do, definitely. (But I think my desire to be the one who shoots that spread burns greater!) 

In a burst of awesome non-academic inspiration and the special sort of freedom that Friday nights bring, I decided to make my good friend Merri, one of the fiercest (fashion-wise) and daring people I know, a mock fashion spread I imagine is worthy of at least gracing the pages of Preview. LOL. I even had the motivation to look up fashion magazine fonts, which led me to download at least ten very cool fonts. What started out as a mere favor for revving up her creative pic ended in four pages of Merri in an imaginary Preview-esque magazine. (Vogue would entail more honesty-in-processing photographs, so that shall be for another spread, LOL.)

Ahhhhhhhhhh, I suddenly remember what I'd written in my college application for Ateneo...back then one of the things I wanted to do was to work for a magazine, if I ended up there and took that design course. I may not do that for a living now, but this was immensely fun! *happy creative night*

Drizzle drizzle.

Today was quite the rainy afternoon. I was home alone for the bigger fraction of the day, wherein I decided to upload a new set of clothes to sell. I was supposed to model them, but the lazy daisy bug of this day had taken hold of me and I chose to hang the clothes up instead of having to go through the changing and the styling and the setting up of the tripod. *coughlookingformodelscough* 

Then it started to drizzle ever so slightly and as I sat waiting for the pictures to upload, the vine-covered wall of our backyard called out to me. It looked so inviting and so fresh, and I remembered that I brought home my plastic umbrella this week. The garden yearned for a spontaneous shoot, and I gave in. 

I am obviously not the best model in pictures, but fehhhhhh. I look kind of smooshed and spaced out in these shots, but ah, well. My only consolation is that I finally look somewhat Japanese in these pictures - that, and these remind me of movie stills, heee. I finally got to photograph myself with my favorite umbrella  while I wore my favorite striped sweater, and the whole setting was just perfect with the rain. YAAAAAY.

Off to go enjoy more of this cold and cozy rainy day, so I'm going to curl up in bed and read a book!

Meanwhile, let us pray for those who have been slain and for those who are unfortunately affected by the storm Sendong in the southern part of the Philippines. You can help and donate by reading the info here.

P.S. Please don't forget to join my store giveaway and check out the latest collection!

DIY Denim Shorts

Whaddaya know, I did a DIY project this sembreak! YAY. *productive* 

It wasn't so creative because all I did was cut out these long shorts I had (which, in the past, I had cut  already by the professional sastre (tailor), and yet today they still seemed very long) with heavy-duty scissors. I was planning on bleaching them, too, but then thought, "Mehhhh, I'm not one to wear bleachy-type clothing!", so I cancelled that plan and was content with this simple but fresh output. :) 

The first cut. I tried them on, thought they were kinda okay, buuuuuuuut I still wasn't satisfied.

The fringes aren't so distinct yet, but another blog I googled did say that they'd be better after the first wash.

The final length. Made the cut curve towards the outer side, and whaddaya know, they looked better when I tried them on.

These are the leftovers. I wonder what I can do with them - any suggestions? 

When worn. HIHI. YAAAAAAY.
Totally perfect for the beach, methinks. I should have done this a year ago during summer to bring to Bora! OR at least last summer to Palawan. Hay.

BTW, the loose feather shirt is from The Only Ukay Queen (it's my ultimate beach/weekend shirt) and that's the old pair of shorts revamped. Hihi. Gonna work on those fringes! 

I never thought DIY projects were so fulfilling; this certainly was, and all I did was shorten my shorts. Haha! I've been eyeing doing something related to Miu Miu's swallow silhouette patterns on an old shirt or skirt, but I don't want to paint the swallows in for fear of committing a mistake. I wanna print them and use transfer paper the way other girls do abroad on their blogs, but I don't know where to find such paper here. *sigh* But oh, well. :)

Tomorrow's officially enrollment for what is hopefully my last semester of university; I hope it goes well!