THEY'RE JUST DOUGHNUTS PEOPLE....

I went over to Siam Paragon again today.

A week since my first blog about it and the Krispy Kreme Doughnut frenzy is ongoing. Look at today's queue! There are rumours that they are being resold in MBK for twice the price.Yesterday there was a sale in school: the doughnuts went to the highest bidders. The last doughnut went for 400 Thai Baht (a bit over £8 or $13.) The only redeeming fact about this is that the money was raised for charity.

(Sorry about the dodgy photoshopping job - I can't get the staff. They must all be queuing for doughnuts.)

For anyone that didn't see in my comments I did find out why there was a queue on the first day. I googled it and found this promise:


- 1st customer gets 1 year supply of a dozen donuts per week
- 2nd customer gets 6 months supply of a dozen donuts per week
- 3rd customer gets 3 months supply of a dozen donuts per week
- 4th-100th customers get 1 month supply of a dozen donuts per week
- 101th-200th customers get 1 dozen free donuts 


There are no more free doughnuts to be had people.

Feeling foreign and in a perpetual state of confusion

If I'm not in my apartment but you know I'm working, you can usually find me in my other, unofficial office: Starbucks on the third floor in Siam Paragon mall.

That's where I was heading this morning, a bit later than planned, when I saw the first sign of a queue; its end tapered out at the edge of the mall. The traffic was heavier than normal for 11am on a week day; it's a common sign that the traffic has been held up for someone Very Important.

The queue was solid, not straggly, and stretched the entire front of Siam Paragon. There must have been a couple of hundred people in it. The last time I saw something like this was when a famous pop group made a public appearance but this queue wasn't behaving quite right for that. It was too orderly. They weren't here to see someone; they wanted something. Eventually my taxi crept around the corner and dropped me near the door and the head of the line. A hiso (high society) Thai had a big arrangement of pink flowers to present. There must be a celebrity....

Crowds and queuing always reminds me of my foreignness. There's a fuss about something or someone that I don't understand. I am excluded. Usually when I arrive somewhere I don't even know the event was happening because I haven't been able to read the notices in the media and if I do happen upon it I don't recognize the celeb. I can't read the signs (if there are any) so I am there with all these fans who are in a state of excitement and anticipation but I'm quite cut off from the experience.

The queue used the far right hand door and those not interested - or oblivious in my case - used the normal door where the security people check bags. Nobody stopped us from entering thinking we might jump the queue. I really couldn't think what they were all here for....

I know that I can normally be relied upon to take photos to illustrate my blog but this time I needed both my hands to pick my chin up at the anti-climax of it...

This big line of people were queuing to go to a newly opened branch of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts.

What. Is. That. All. About?