Day two of the bathroom tile work is underway.  Tawn, the handyman, and I spent ten minutes discussing the different options for how best to arrange the tile.  It is kind of hard to explain, and I’ll post pictures about the whole process once it is done, but the challenge is in how the shower glass and tile floor come together.  For some reason, building a lip like you have in western-style showers is just beyond comprehension here.  Plus, it would require us to replace the glass we currently have.

Anyhow, while I wait for that project to come to a (hopefully satisfactory) conclusion, I want to share a picture that I took of some new year’s decorations at Siam Center mall.  This was one of the first malls in Bangkok, dating back to 1973.  It has undergone countless rennovations (two in the five years since I moved here) to keep it fresh for the young crowd and it has managed to remain popular.

Siam Center as it looked shortly after its opening in 1973.  On the right is Rama 1 Road (which becomes Sukhumvit further east).  The space on the left is what today is Siam Discovery Center and a multistory car park is back behind (to the left in this picture) of the malls today.  Siam Paragon, which was built on the site of the former Intercontinental Hotel, now sits down the street (to the right in this picture) of Siam Center.

From another angle looking towards Rama I Road and Siam Square on the far side.  This picture is taken from roughly where the large LED video screens are in the plaza between Siam Center and Siam Paragon.

The same side of the Siam Center mall today, with the Siam BTS Skytrain Station in the background.  Amazing how young and fresh Siam Center looks.  Must be the availability of inexpensive, high quality face-lifts here in Thailand!

The mall has three four-story atrium areas and these are currently decorated with these large signs as well as smaller shapes.  At first they didn’t catch my attention.  But as I looked more closely I started to wonder what they were made of.  It looks like color pencils.

Turns out, they are constructed of plastic straws!  At first I thought they were solid objects but eventually I figured out that the shapes are formed of plastic sheets with straws glued on top.  The sides, though, are made of thousands of straws.  Tedious work to make, I’d imagine…