Third Day in Bangkok

Today was our relaxing day (to catch up on sleep because I am majorly jet-lagged!). We woke up late-ish, around 10, ate breakfast at our hotel, then headed to a temple we were excited to see-- Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn). We took a riverboat across the Chao Phraya river to the temple. It consists of one massive tower with four smaller towers around it, with many steep steps to going up them. It was built out of stone, decorated with seashells and bits of porcelain. We loved how unique it was compared to other temples. We took the riverboat back across to the skytrain station, and went to lunch at the Siam Paragon mall in Central Bangkok. The mall was the "most awesome mall ever" haha. There were hundreds of stores, the large department store had sections dedicated to every store and brand I have ever heard of. It had a gourmet food market and tons of restaurants, and the sixth floor was dedicated to a huge cineplex. We decided to watch Avatar in 3D there. Our favorite part was at the very beginning (after the previews and before the movie), the screen says, "Please stand for our national anthem out of respect for our King." Then the national anthem played, with the words in Thai underneath in case we wanted to sing along, along with a video montage of amazing things the King has done. Afterwards we both commented on how we had the urge to laugh at certain parts but didn't want to get shot/arrested. Avatar was definitely an epic movie. I have never seen a 3D movie, and while watching it I found myself holding my breath if the characters were having trouble breathing and tensing my body during the fight scenes, because of how real it felt. The only thing was the Thai subtitles at the bottom, and when the natives in the movie spoke the subtitled what they were saying in Thai, so potentially we missed some good lines? After the movie we walked around the mall and had dinner. As we were walking back to our hotel, about a block away, we were passing a restaurant that had about 20 policemen surrounding it outside (we hadn't seen any cops up to this point). David asked one of them what happened, and he replied, "The King is inside, please keep walking." So that was pretty cool! Another great day. Tomorrow we are finishing up Bangkok by going to one of the largest outdoor markets in the world. Then we are off to Ayutthaya (the old capital of Siam/Thailand). Super excited for that, then tomorrow night we are taking an overnight train to Chaing Mai. Bangkok is awesome! Night Night!