We tried to sleep in this morning, but after seeing the sun and feeling the warmth from our balcony we had to get up to a breakfast of fresh pineapple! We decided to head to the Grand Palace, which was a lovely walk away, giving us a chance to get a feel for the city streets, and chat to the friendly Thai people. We walked past monastries and temples, and lovely big parks, and saw huge portrait photographs of the King up all over the buildings and roads, they love their king! We arrived at the Grand Palace, boiling in our respectful clothing, and were absolutely amazed with what we saw. None of us were prepared for the beautiful decoration, a completely different style from what we had seen in India. The walls were all covered in bright mosaics, mirrors and gold, and whole buildings were made out of solid gold. Buddha statues towered over us in beautiful decoration and the sun shimmered off the golden roofs. Firstly we walked through the temple of the Emerald Buddha, a fantastic temple which housed a pure jade Buddha, the most sacred of Thailand. It had 4 different outfits for the different seasons, so was currently shrouded in a gold winter outfit. The Grand Palace itself was surrounded by guards, and we saw the King's various thrones. There was also a museum in the grand rooms of the palace, housing hundreds of statues and artefacts. Outside the palace complex we stopped for a fresh coconut which we drank then had chopped up for us, before jumping in a tuk tuk to take us to another temple (wat) which was famous for it's enormous standing Buddha made from gold. It stood many feet high and was really impressive. We picked up some pork skewers for lunch and some waffles, which we thought would be sweet but Hannahs had a frankfurter inside and Livs was filled with sweetcorn, something which has disturbed us deeply since! We walked to the Thewet boat stop past buckets of eels, crabs and fish, and once we figured out how the water taxis worked we jumped on a boat bound for Chinatown! It was a brilliant way of seeing the city, we passed skyscrapers next to small wooden shacks, and jungle foliage growing in between. We were told off for standing in the 'space for monks' who have the best views from the side of the boat. In Chinatown we visited the Thieve's market which was full of beads, stationary, designer gear, and people were excitedly getting ready for Chinese New Year's Eve which was the next evening. It was very bustling and there was so much to see and do. We got the boat back to the hotel and got ready to go out for a meal in a recommended duck restaurant called Poonsin. It took us a while to walk there but we had a lovely meal, before heading back to Kao San road for a night out! We went to the Irish pub there and met people from many different countries including a great group of girls from Melbourne and some Scottish lads they were with. We had brilliant fun, watching the Ladyboy waiters (or waitresses), who kept serving people enormous beer towers (which sit on the tables so you have beer on tap!) into the early hours of the morning. Not sure how much they bribed the police!