Sunday and the ever growing Silom Carnival. The whole street was closed to traffic, so the Silom sky train station was the perfect entry point. I ended up going by myself, which I told myself, would be a perfect chance to take photos and 'enjoy the culture'. People filled the streets in an apropos carnival atmosphere. I walked a bit and quickly realized I was the tail end of the parade. I sped up to the last attraction-- the city's new double-decker tourist bus. Unfortunately it won't be used as planned because it stands to tall and will put the people on top in danger of being clotheslined by power wires. Thai planning. The solution: they ordered new, shorter ones.

Other displays included: two club floats loaded with scantily clad gay and 'lady-boy' dancers, area Harley riders, cowboys riding horses, a marching band, marching hotdogs and chopsticks, brides and grooms on motorcycles, and a Tourism of Malaysia rickshaw.

At 7, the dragon display (originally done at Sanam Luang for the Kings birthday) started. Before it's start everyone was handed a sparkler and a unifying that song was played as people lit their sparklers in the air. The sparklers sounded like the fizz of a Coke as they went off throughout the crowd. Then a beautiful Chinese style dragon, about 50 yards long, with brilliant yellow lights running its length, wound it's way up a man-manned pole where the head would look down on the crowd. The men on the top of the pole moved the dragon's head around as it spat smoke. Next to the dragon on bamboo pole was the protagonist, a man made to look like he was fighting the dragon. He swung a chain with a ball on the end in an attempt to subdue the dragon. He would swing back and forth from the crew guiding the pole at the bottom. The 30 foot pole would drop all the way to ground level, as the the crew in yellow lined up the length of the pole to break its fall; then they would shoot him back up into the face of the dragon like a big catapult, except he was strapped in.

I sat to take a break on the steps of McDonalds, were I met a cute girl named Suki. Part Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Thai. We talked for a few minutes when my Dan and friends arrived. We got ourselves to a old west style beer garden. Very fun. Suki turned out to be real interesting and we got along really well. We all tried to do some dancing, but that didn't happen. Dan felt the need for some chairs so he picked up a few Carlsberg branded ones-where they ended up I don't know.