The Road to 40 Day 238/365: The Outlet And Shopping

For every trip that we go to, we feel that Vino levels up in some ways, and this trip to Thailand had him gaining another skill.

Since he was born, he’s been joining us for business or leisure trips overseas. For every trip, he comes back home with something new – whether it’s eating something new or doing something he never did before we left.

On this day, we were set to go to an outlet store a little outside the city. It was quite a drive that I wondered if there would be Grab drivers available to pick us up later when we’re done.

As we were going around, he asked if I could join him to look for something. He initially wanted to go to New Balance to look for shoes, but I told him we could go later instead, as Steph and James also wanted to check it out.

While we were in a store, he was checking out price tags, so I took it as a chance to teach him math. I said every 1,000 Baht is around 40 SGD, so we’ll round off prices to see how much things cost and give him an idea of how cheap or expensive something is.

From there, we went to look for a bag for him. He has bags, but mostly colorful backpacks that are maybe too colorful for his “drip” now. We looked for something he could carry around and bring his tablet in.

After going around a few shops, I figured he is most inclined to picking up a sling bag. Among the choices that we found, his favorite turned out to be the most expensive.

It was fine, but I felt that we could probably get something better elsewhere. He agreed, and we went for lunch first. Che got green curry and tom yum for us, and egg fried rice for Vino.

The tom yum was a bit too spicy for us, but the flavor was nice. We didn’t get to finish it all, owing to my heavy breakfast.

We went over to New Balance to check out a few things. Vino found a couple of shoes he said he liked. We tried it out and found the right size for him. But when asked if he liked it enough to buy it, he hesitated a bit and decided he wouldn’t get it, despite shoes being the first thing on his list when we arrived.

He usually takes what he’s given, but sometimes he wouldn’t use the things we buy for him. Over the course of this trip, he’s been finding his own style and voicing what he wants. And I appreciate that he’s actually assessing things and not just blindly buying things for the heck of it.

After our adventure, we took a ride back to the city. We went to Siam Saigon to check the place out.

We were just supposed to have a coffee break, but I saw that there was a SeaLife Aquarium in the basement. I wanted to check out if they had some Sea Look seals at their shop, but they didn’t have it. Vino wanted to check out the aquarium, so Che went with us.

It’s not our first aquarium, but it’s been a while since we were all together in one. It’s not the biggest, and definitely not the best (because there weren’t as much penguins compared to others), but it was fun because we all enjoyed it together. I didn’t get to take a lot of pictures since the one I would be reporting to is with us.

Vino was hungry after the aquarium, so we had him eat at Ippudo. Thankfully, it was half the price compared to Singapore. We followed Steph and James, who were on the other side of the street.

The place felt like Hongdae in some ways. It had a vibrant atmosphere and it was really bright with some food stalls along the way.

We ended up at a Thai restaurant. Vino didn’t eat much since he was still full, but we enjoyed the things that we ordered.

After dinner, we got a Grab ride and went back to the hotel for an early night. We freshened up and found a movie. I saw that The Replacements was on HBO Max, so I put that on. It was one of my favorite movies growing up, and I wanted Vino to check it out, since he does play Madden with me.

We weren’t able to finish it because we all fell asleep. We can always play the movie again, but we need the rest now. That’s a wrap for our last full day in Thailand!