The Three E's: Emsphere, Emporium & Emquartier

S&R arrived back at the apartment late last night, and by all accounts, they had a fab time in Phuket.

Our son (A) had two University course assignments to complete and submit once he arrived in Thailand. He had started both back home and had hoped to have them both done before coming here, but a group project took a lot more time than expected, so he was going to need to finish these off from here. He completed one of them the day after he arrived, but the other one required a bit more work. So to give him peace and quiet, we decided to take his girlfriend (also A) out with us for some more of an introduction to Bangkok. We planned that we could show A (girlfriend) and then she could show A (son) these areas at a future date once he was finished with his assignment.

So, after breakfast, we headed off to check out the EM District, which is found along a small stretch of Sukhumvit Road near the Phrong Phong area. I should also add that this was near where we stayed for the first two weeks of our time in Bangkok, so it was on our doorstep. Now that we are a little bit away, it is about a 40-minute walk to get there. We could have hopped onto the BTS, of course, which would have been a lot quicker, but we wanted A to be able to get her bearings by walking and with us pointing out areas or places of interest (or to avoid) to her.

A nice and handy little perk of staying where we are is that there is a free shuttle bus to and from the Phloen Chit BTS station. It’s not a long walk, but we have used it on occasions. We decided to show this to A, and once off the shuttle bus, we started to walk towards the EM district. We quickly came across the Phloen Chit Market, which is a morning market. We had a little stroll around here and planned to come back another time. Then we passed the Nana area, which is a little sleazy looking if I’m honest. I think this is often the area that farang guys head to when they come to Bangkok.

EMsphere

The first mall we went to was EMsphere. The main attraction in this mall is probably the number of food stalls, vendors and restaurants. It has a sort of inside Christmas market feel about it, especially with all the Christmas decorations up. There is also an Ikea located in this mall. We enjoyed walking about the various floors, and we even got a little surprise gift at the Penfolds wine section, which had a fun photobooth popup promotion thing going on. They were also doing a wine tasting, but it was a little early for me to partake in that, so I politely declined and said I would try and return.

Emporium

Next, we headed to the Emporium mall using the skywalk link from Emsphere to get there. Benjasiri Park sits between the Emsphere and Emporium malls. Again, we had a walk around the mall, starting on the upper levels as usual and making our way down. By this stage, we were getting a little hungry, but the food court area was just mobbed as it was still around lunchtime, so we decided we might have better luck if we tried the food court in the final mall.

Emquartier

Emquartier is easily reached from the skywalk and Phrom Phong BTS station. Now this is probably my favourite mall out of these three, and the main reason for that is the architecture and the garden areas. It is very well designed, and you can relax in the garden area at the top of the mall, which never seems to be very busy (well, not when we have been there). The adjoining building has more shops and restaurants, and there are several restaurants on the helix dining area, which is a spiral walkway covering levels 4-9, I think.

We managed to find a table in the food court here, and we all chose a duck and rice dish, which came with a clear soup for our lunch. The duck was delicious, but the soup was a little strange – I think it may have been a squid broth. R didn’t have his soup, but A and I finished ours. Last year, I didn’t really try any of the soups as I thought they were a bit ‘too warm’ to eat in this weather, but I have since changed my mind, and I really enjoy the soup dishes, especially the ones with Chinese port and wontons! I’m sure it must have something to do with replacing all the electrolytes that you lose through sweating in the heat, but soups are a great choice!

Apologies in advance for the selfie-hell gallery below, but if we don't have a photo, we will easily forget where we went!

After leaving Emquartier, we took A to experience ‘Custard Nakamara’ – R still has some more stamps to get on his loyalty card. We got a small selection of goodies and then walked back to the apartment, pointing out the Terminal 21 shopping mall to A on our way home again.

By the time we got home, Alex was still working on his laptop, and in fact, he was working on it for most of the evening too. Finally, he submitted it, and with that, he had a big sigh of relief as he could now relax properly, enjoy his holiday and make plans on where to go and what to see.

The rest of us mostly just chilled after a busy day of walking. S&R were cramming in some last-minute places to visit and shopping before R heads home again. I can’t believe it’s almost been a month since we arrived – the time has just flown by.

Our route today:

Day 24: 18 December 2025

Bangkok, Thailand