The Grand Palace

Sorry I had to cut the day into two blogs but the blogger platform was being really annoying and I'm not techy enough to fix it.
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Anyways, we walked to the entrance of the Grand Palace. Bear in mind it's mid day by now and there are a bagillion people. The Grand Palace is the historic residence of the Thai royal family and ceremonial buildings. In a sense, it's like the Thai version of Buckingham Palace, but the similarities end there. At Buckingham, there's still a ton of people but you're all stuck behind a huge fence and you can stare longingly at the palace from a safe 500 yards away. If my memory serves me right there as also a huge garden behind the palace, but it's not like you got to go there or anything, someone just mentioned it. But here in Thailand, you walk into the inner compound and the place is chocker block full of opulent buildings, statues and murals and you are right in there with them. There's no gardens or anything to spread things out, just you craning your neck up to see the tops of all these really beautiful structures. There was, however, a dress code and Jared's knees were showing (scandal), so he had to rent/buy a pair of elephant print harem pants at the entrance. I unfortunately did not get a picture. The buildings were so jammed in there it was hard to appreciate each one for its beauty and detail. They were each so intricate, thousands of tiles the size of a loonie making up an entire Wat. These pictures don't really do it justice but please use your imagination!

 These guard off evil spirits

Some history on the Grand Palace: Construction began in 1782 when King Rama I took the throne and moved the royal palace to the current site from the previous site of Thonburi across the Chao Phraya River. The Grand Palace includes the historical royal residence, throne halls, some government buildings and the renowned Temple of the Emerald Buddha. The whole compound is on 53 acres but the inner compound with all the really beautiful buildings is about 1/4 of that.
So back to this Emerald Buddha character. His temple is one of the most venerated sites in Thailand for the faithful. He was carved from a block of green jade and is a whopping 30 inches tall. He sits on top of a huge throne of gilded carved wood. When you go into his temple there is no photography allowed, so my apologies. He was first discovered in 1434 in a stupa in Chiang Rai. At the time, he was covered in plaster and it wasn't until a piece chipped off the nose that revealed the jade beneath! He had been covered in plaster to protect him from looters so they would just think he was a ordinary Buddha image. Once his value was known, he was moved by the reigning king to Lampang and then to Chiang Mai. He did a short stint in Laos until 1778 when King Rama I led an army into Vientiane and recaptured him. He's been in Thailand ever since.

After all that traipsing around we took a tuk tuk back. They're kind of a ripoff compared to the cost of a taxi but had to try it once.

Later that evening, we went to Thip Samai pad Thai shop. It was right across from our hostel and there was always a huge line so we decided to see what all the fuss was about. When we finally got our food it was definitely yummy, and got a cool video of the guy coating each dish in an 'egg sack' before serving it. Sounds gross but it was good!