Cooking (Lots of pictures)

One month later... Not all the pics are here, but I'm posting it anyway.

So I've gone on and on about the food. ... The food that WE made.

Wow, was it ever good.

The school picked us up at the hotel. There were already two riders and we went on to pick up a few more. One of my favorite parts of travelling is meeting people and finding out thier stories. There were lots of them. Unfortunately for them, this blog is not about them...

It started with a trip to the market. This was really cool. There were obviously a lot of other schools there, but it was also obviously where the locals shop.

Once we got to the school, we took off our shoes and sat down at low tables and got a few introductions and instructions. We were told to put our names on name tags, but not take them off. When we got our name tags back, the teacher had written our names in Thai. That was pretty cool. A fellow student, Jay found out his name means "vegetarian" in Thai.

We were divided into groups, according to what we had already said we'd like to make. We went to tables where all the materials were laid out for us. All ingredients perfectly measured, all the right utencils. It was great.

First up, Pad Thai:

Then I think we made spring rolls. We made them, but didn't eat them yet.

Then to the soup. One of my fav's.

We were allowed to eat the soup and spring rolls together.

My favorite was the green curry. First we made paste and then the curry.

I still dream about it.

Finally we got to stir FRY some chicken and cashews. Not my favorite, but fun to make.

Come and gone

I'll still have tons to write and pictures to show, but in the mean time....

Left with: 3 pairs of shoes
Came back with: 7 (well, 6 and a pair of slippers from mom)

Left with: about 5 shirts
Came back with: about 9

Left with: one disk for my camera, almost totally empty
came back with: 2 almost completely full ones

Left with: 2 suitcases (1 each)
Came back with: 4 suitcases (2 each)

Left with: no visible tan lines
came back with: a slight one on my feet from my flip-flops

Left: having never made some amazing Thai food
came back: knowing how to make some amazing food, with a certificate to proove it

Left: not having touched many "wild" animals--or have them crawl, slither or hop on me
came back: 3 snakes, two different times; birds; elephants; monkeys

I won't even go into the foods, souvineers and memories....

I've travelled enough....

...to know that there are always delays, always changes. I'm just surprised it hasn't been until now that we've had our first one.

We'll be going to Tokyo instead of Hong Kong for the first leg. Oh, well.... We know that one; we were there a few hours 2 weeks ago.

It was hard leaving this morning.

And, yes, I did cry as the cab pulled away.

Can't wait to write more.

bird pic

Oh, and did you see (Grandma and Jan!), that I finally got the picture of me and Ryan with the birds all over us?

It's a few blogs down from here.

World Cup Fever

World Cup Fever is wild here. Maybe not as much as in Europe or South America, but it's pretty big.

The Chaing Mai (Thailand) market is lined with stall after stall of goods to sell. Once the Cup started, people would bring out TVs and huddle around them. (When the Cup wasn't on, they were all paying rapt attention to the King.) Right in the street there'd be TVs on. One gentleman was excited to tell us that "The Americans" were on TV at that moment. We were ashamed to admit we knew....that they were getting their butts kicked.

Last night Argentina and some other team played. We couldn't see the TV, but could just about figure out the score based on the yelling we could hear from the next bar over.

It's funny to me how different the Americans are. Most of them, on a whole, are not that into the World Cup. Yes, yes, I know the NBA finals are on now.
And the metric system. The rest of the world is on the metric system. Why aren't we? Then at least I could understand better when someone tells me they weigh 85 kilos or something is 12 kilometeres away or to cut a piece of fabric at 2 meters.

But that's another thing.

Right now I love watching people watch the World Cup. Overall, people in the same area seem to be rooting for the same team. At a bar watching the NBA finals, half could be for the Mavs, half for Shaq. But from what I've seen here, it's like they all rally around the same country. I think that's cool.

I've enjoyed watching a few bits of games here and there. You're right, I haven't sit and watched an entire game, nor do I have the desire to--there's too much else to see and do in my last days here.

Merely an observation.

Sad...

It's 11:30 a.m. Saturday. That means we leave tomorrow. It hardly seems real that we leave tomorrow. Our plane leaves--LEAVES at 6-something in the morning, so that means we'll be going to the airport all alone. Terrible, I know. (I guess Jan and Glen had to do the same).

It seems like I've been gone much longer than a week. Everyday has been wonderfully jam-packed full of new and exciting and different activities and food.

I didn't get the chance (desire?) to blog as much as I had anticipated. I imagine I'll have to blog some once I get home, almost to process it all.

I'd love to tell you more about the people, the food, the things...

Things I've never done before....

Things I had never done until I went to Thailand:

Made green curry paste.
Made green curry.
Made Pad Thai.
Made spring rolls.
Made Tom Kha soup.
Ridden an elephant.
Kissed a python.
Ridden in a tuk-tuk.

And for those who keep asking, here is a picture of me and Ryan on the tuk-tuk.

Spoken any form of Thai, besides food dishes. (I now know a few phrases.)
Drank Beer Chang.
Seen silk worms actually making silk.
Had a 30 minute foot massage in a market place.
Had a 1 hour foot massage in a private room and practically fall asleep.
Eaten dragon fruit.
Eaten mangosteen.
Bargained over the equivalent of about $ .02 USD.

I'm sure I'll have to add more to the list as I remember more....

Pedicures

Disclaimer: Some of these pictures may not be suitable for the squeamish.

Mom's and my toes before our pedicures:

And after:


We were glad to have them done before we went to Thailand becuase we often wore flip-flops and even had to take our shoes off several times.

Birds, snakes and aero-planes

It was like once I started, I had to keep going...

It started with a face off with an owl at the Night Safari:

Then it was the snakes. Two of them:


Then it was the birds at the Jurong Bird Park:


I then moved onto elephants:



Followed by a monkey. It's dark, but it was on my lap:




Finally I ended with a Burmese python:

SOO much to say

You know that Dave Matthews song, "So much to say, so much to say...." yeah, that's me.

We leave tomorrow afternoon.

Ate like a PIG today at the Thai cooking school. It was fabulous. Made all my favs. So good.

Of course lots of pictures and lots of stories.

If I weren't about to go spend a bunch of baht, I'd tell you the menu, but Ryan just said to me, "I thought we weren't blogging..." I couldn't resist. Had to say hi.

Thanks for the comments, all.

More to come soon.

Oh, and Ryan does exist...

To the "anonymous" reader who said that some f0lks in the family wanted to see pictures of Ryan, I have some. I have tons of pictures to share. Just can't put them up while here at the open-windowed internet cafe, with all the motos and tuk-tuks driving by.

Soon, though.

We're back in Singapore Tuesday night--late.

It's 22:31 here....

And we're in Chaing Mai. It's great here. Neither of the men brought his laptop (I'm okay with that), so Ryan and I are at an Internet cafe down the alley from our hotel. The folks went to bed, we came out to play. I was thinking it, but Ryan asked, "do you want to go in there?" motioning the internet place.

Mainly I wanted to let all my loyal readers know that I am in fact still alive--and loving Thailand.

We got here yesterday and made our way to our hotel. Yours truly had a few problems with the ATM, but thanks to mom's cell phone and probably a hefty call charge, hopefully I'll be able to get some baht out of the machine tonight. Guess my card was flagged because I withdrew some money in Singapore. I'm okay with them noting odd behvior, though.

Last night we had food. I'm sure it's just "food" here, since we're already in Thailand. They wouldn't go out and have "Thai food." It was good stuff, of course. Did you know they don't use chopsticks in Thailand? That surprised me to hear it and kinda makes me laugh now....you know we go to those Thai places and think we're cool cuz we're using chopsticks. Really we're just crazy Americans....

We did some shopping at the Night Bazaar last night. Talk about cheap stuff. And good stuff. And neat stuff. People all over the place.

As the pattern has been going, I woke up early this morning--close to 7:00 and didn't sleep much between then and 8-something or other when I got up.

Mom and Greg took us to a travel agent type of place--the same place they went to when they were here in November and our guides Durian and Nyun were very wonderful. A cute husband and wife team. Durian started us out and took us to a beautiful silk-making place. Next to it was a jade place.

The people here are so nice. So friendly.

After a few more shops and driving around, we went back for naps. It's suggested to take breaks during the day because of the heat. I'm okay with naps.

Dinner was quite an experience. Maybe a whole other blog in and of itself. I'll just say I danced on stage. Unfortunately, there were camera problems and it wasn't photographed, but it did happen.

Anyway....mainly a random, blathering blog to say hi and let you know I still love it over here. Thailand is great.

Cultures

I love all the cultures that are here. All over the place, all living together.

We've been to Little India, we've been to the Perahnaken places, we've been around the Singaporeans. We've heard Chinese, we've seen Malay, we've met all kinds of people.

In Little India, the Chinese are eating just like the Indians do, with their fingers of their right hand, just like they're "supposed to." I'll write more about Little India later. At the Chinese food places, Indians eat with their chopsticks. Oh, and this is cool. They don't use knives, nor do they use forks much. I've seen many use their chopsticks to put food on their deep, wide spoon to eat. Or they'll use the fork to put food on the spoon and eat from the spoon.

Every sign has at least 3 different languages on it--English, Chinese and Hindi. On the tours we've taken, at least 3 different languages are spoken. Everyone we have encountered speaks English. Some we understand better than others. Some of them no doubt feel the same way about us.

Us. We are are Ang Mo. That literally means red-haired. Anyone who is white, I think is the classification, is Ang Mo. We stick out. I hate that. I hate going to places and sticking out like we do. (Ang Mo Kio means tomato, by the way)

In my other travles, it's been much easier to blend--looks-wise--but no matter how we are, what we eat, or how we act, our forma de ser gives us away. We just take up more space, we're louder, we look different, we act different.

Watching the Indian children watch us at the resturant in Little India was quite funny. We can't help how we are, they can't help but giggle a bit at our "weird antics."

But we try. And the people here are very nice. At some places, customer service lacks a bit, but at other places, the people on a whole, are very nice.

Anyway, as I started off saying, I love that there are so many cultures here. So many varieties, from so many places, forming so many cultures. And they all live together harmoniously, or so it seems.

Things are great here. And I love it.

This afternoon, we're going to Thailand. I'm very excited about that.

Before we go, mom and I must prep by getting out toes done. We're getting pedicures at 11:00. If we're gonna be wearing sandals, we have to have pretty feet, right?!

Delicious Dinners

SUNDAY
Sunday night we went to Kim and Tang's for dinner. Mom and Greg brought back a smoker for Tang, so he smoked the entire meal. It was delicious. First of all, it was fun to meet some of mom and Greg's friends here. It was fun to be at an actual house--a Perahnakan. Now, I'm sure I've spelled that wrong, but I'll go more into that later.

At Kim and Tang's, we started with fresh bread that Tang had made. Also some good guac and chips. Great, huge carrots, and a wonderful salad. Tang started by smoking a duck. I think this was the favorite all around. It was almost creamy it was so good. Yes, the head was included. Well, it was on there at one point, before it was cut.

He also had smoked several different vegetables. These were pretty good, too.

For the next course, he had smoked a fish. Yes, skin and head included. Sorry, no pictures were taken at this meal.

For the next course, he had made porkchops with small slices of apple on top. Kim does not follow recipes, never has, never will. It was her idea (I think), to put the apples on top. The two of them together in the kitchen is a wonderful thing.

Needless to say, we were very full. Oh, but wait, there's more.

The last thing they had smoked was pineapple. I think this was one of my favorite things. I love pineapple anyway, and having it smoked was delicious, too.

For dessert, mom and Greg had brought a cake. For me. For my birthday. It was a good cake. With candles and everything.

Oh, there was also a lot of wine consumed. Several bottles were opened, but there were 9 of us there. The only one I remember the name of was the Muscat we had with dessert. Very tasty and paired quite well.

MONDAY
Monday night, we met at the Brewerkz, where Scott, who was at dinner Sunday night, is the Brew Master. I had the "tour" of beers--2 oz. of 6 different beers. Pictures to come later. It was actually quite good.

After "the gang" got there, we headed over to a Perahnaken place. Perahnaken is the name given to the combination of Chinese men and Malay women. Food-wise, think of Asian fusion. Delicious. We ate outside a health club, near a pool where people swam. We pigged out, they worked out.

The spices and flavors were unbelievable. So wonderful. Again we had duck, there was also chicken and some sort of prawn crispy spring roll type of thing. I'll have to find all the names of all the stuff we ate. We also ate otak. It's served in a banana leaf.

The waiter came around and dumped rice on our plates, from a banana leaf, and then brought the food, much like "Chinese style" in an American resturaunt. You just pick and take what you want. It was all very enjoyable.

TUESDAY
Tuesday night we ate at the night safari. For the record, I didn't ask for salsa. That's how it came. Burgers were alright, fries were alright. The experience was much cooler.

WEDNESDAY
Mom and Greg took us to the Hot Spot, one of their favorite places. The Tiger beer woman knows them quite well and teases them for always ordering the same thing. I guess last time, she begged them to try something new.

Once again, it was very good. Duh. Of course it was good. We had venison, frog legs, seafood hot pot, spicy green beans, and peanuts to start with. Peanuts were shelled, but mom and Greg had the rule that you had to use your chopsticks to eat them. There was also an order to eat them--the whole ones first, then the halves with stems on them, then the ones without.

The food was spicy, but good. The sort of spicy that stays in your mouth awhile. Not terrible-terrible hot, but hot enough to taste it, to feel it. I think I even sweat some. There are pictures of the peppers. The multitude of them.

We enjoyed it.
I enjoyed sitting outside, watching the people, watching the sunset, talking about the day behind and the day ahead.

I love it here. And that's only the dinners thus far....

All is quiet at the Ben Coolean....

So it's about 8:30 here. I woke up around 6:00, was able to fall back asleep, woke up around 7:00, finally got up about 7:50 or so. I just had some toast and coffee, and now I actually have some time to write. I won't be able to put any pictures up at this time, but I thought I could at least write a few posts.

Feeling Fruity

As promised, some pictures of the fruit of which we've partaken. Unfortunately, I don't remember the names of all of them.

I've tried them all.

The lady at the market opened one of these up for us and we got to try it there. One fruit fits in the palm of your hand:

I didn't take pictures of the actual fruit. It was squishy, but sweet, with a large pit in the middle. Here it is cracked open:

These are smaller, and tasted pretty similar, but it was a bit sweeter:

And here is the dragon fruit. Okay, as of posting, I still haven't tried it, but maybe tomorrow with breakfast.

Hot and thirsty our first day in the street, mom bought both Ryan and me a coconut. I asked what it was, and before I could say anything more, she offered to buy us one each. It was very cold and very sweet, and a little hard to finish. I think once done, people like to eat the sweet fruit inside.

And that's just the fruit.....

It actually rained here

Okay, I know I said I'd write about food and fruit, but I haven't had time to upload pictures yet. And talking about dragon fruit just isn't the same unless you can see the pictures.

Rain is not all that common here. Or maybe it is, but not extensively. Greg said if it rained, it'd only be for an hour or so and then stop. Not so today. But it's really cooled things off. It's just before 6:00 now and the sun is actually coming out.

This morning I went swimming--by myself--but the water felt wonderful and I enjoyed being outside, in water.

Oh, there is still so much to write about. I don't have much time now as we are leaving in a bit for the Night Safari .

So, I just wanted to say that, no, we haven't been caned yet, but I do have tons of stories, and it's only Tuesday. Tons of stories. And lots of pictures, too.

Not exactly sure when I'll be able to write about them all, but I will.

We're off to eat with the animals.

As they say here, okay, then see you.

Our Tour Guides

We landed late Saturday night. Tired and on the verge of cranky, we followed the crowds to the "Health and Immigration" lines. Apparently about 3 flights had flown in at the same time, so all 8 or 10 of the lines were pretty long. We anxiously awaited our next stamp in our passport books.

Jimmy Smitt's look-alike hardly looked up at us, but scanned our passports and gave us our stamps. I love the stamps. I love looking back on them.

After crossing that path, we went to the luggage area. My suitcase came around right away, and Ryan's was soon thereafter.

As we waited, I looked up to see our tour guides, anxiously awaiting our arrival:



They took us home, showed us how to opperate the air con, and we crashed. It was a wonderful rest.

It's hot and humid, but so far everything is wonderful.

Coming up: Fun Fruits and Fabulous Food.

First post from Tokyo

According to the clock on the laptop, it's 1:54 a.m. Saturday morning.
According to the clock near the moving walkway, it's 15:55 Saturday afternoon.
According to my body, it's 1:54 yesterday. Or something.

We've been up since 4:08 Friday morning. I was able to doze some on the first flight, from Austin to San Fran and then even less on the long stretch from San Fran to Tokyo. My body is out of sorts. I feel "just okay," but my head feels a little like it's swimming.

I tried to sleep, but they kept bringing food and snacks and stuff. And then I thought we were close to landing or close to another snack, so sleep was far off....

When we did get to our gate, I did not hesitate to take up as many chairs as I could:


I can't wait for the next leg of the flight. I'll be taking my Tylenol PM, putting on my eye mask and sticking in my ear plugs. I'm sure it won't be long before I'm in dreamland. We start boarding in a little less than an hour. The next leg is 7 hours. That'll be a piece of cake considering the 10 or so we just had.

Tired, restless and hungry (for "real" food), Ryan and I walked around, taking in some of the local culture. Well, as much of the culture you can pick up from the international terminal of the airport. We found a small bar to go into. All we heard was English, but they were able to fulfill our needs. I got some edamame and a small Sapporo. Imagine that--it was a speical on the menu. Perfect. It was exactly what I needed.

Anyway, as most of you are asleep, I wish I were, too. But soon enough, my friends, I too will be sleeping sitting up, leaning against Ryan, trying not to disturb the person on the other side of me.