sunday night, i was cooking for the week. i cooked several different dishes so there was some multi-tasking going on. first problem. i went to bed and was woken up in the middle of the night to a really annoying beeping sound. at first i thought it was outside because i had my balcony door open. good thing. i figured out it was coming from an unknown box in my laundry. i unplugged it and went to bed. the next morning, while at work, i got a call from my housing agency. they called to tell me that my gas had been shut off and that i needed to go home and see if i had left my oven or stove on before they could have the gas company turn it back on. here, if i have my oven on too long or forget to turn off the hot water heater, they shut off the gas. this is the first time this has happened to me though. i ran home at lunch to check the gas situation and as i was waiting for the elevator, checked my mail slot. i pulled out a letter from the gas company:
i read it and then re-read it and then gave up and called my housing agency. i had discovered that i had left a burner on. not just a little either. yikes. i shut off the burner and the gas company came and turned my gas back on. turns out the thing that i unplugged was the carbon monoxide detector. oops. good thing i had my balcony door open all night or i would have ended up like my plants.
i realize that i'm the world's worst blogger and this post is 3 months late. i hang my head in shame.
**disclaimer: this is going to be a long post. if you don't care about the details, enjoy the pictures!**
since i wasn't going to the states for christmas, a friend and i went to thailand for christmas and new year's. the first five days were spent in chiangmai, which is in northern thailand. i really liked chiangmai, it was really chill and we had a great hotel in a great location.
day 1: we spent the first day traveling. our flight left at 7:00am so i slept most of the flights. our flight from osaka to bangkok got delayed so we barely made our flight from bangkok to chiangmai. luckily, we made it with a few minutes to spare. we flew thai air. they were so cute, they gave an orchid corsage when we arrived in thailand.
we arrived in chiangmai and someone from our hotel was there to greet up with a sign that said "welcome mr. kate bradford!" off to a great start! we checked into our hotel and decided to go out and explore the area nearby. turns out we were less than a 10 minute walk from the night market. we headed to night market to check out the goods being sold and eat our first authentic thai meal. we ate at a sidewalk cafe and watched drag queens perform some half hearted dance routines. i got pad thai to ease myself into thai food. way better than americanized pad thai. and way more spicy.
day 2: we ate breakfast at our hotel. the breakfast buffet at our hotel was delicious. tons of fresh fruit and fruit juice. we then did a walking tour of some wats (temples). on our walk, we happened upon a restaurant that seemed hopping so we decided to eat there. it turned out to be a pretty popular restaurant specializing in northern thai food. i ordered a papaya salad that was amazing but so spicy i could barely taste it! we continued on the walking wat tour and then stopped to get a fresh fruit smoothie. everywhere we turned there was a cart with fresh fruit or fresh fruit juice. i was in heaven! we then took our first tuk tuk ride. not nearly as scary in chiangmai as it is in bangkok. we also came across a plus size store.
massages are crazy cheap in thailand. well, pretty much everything is crazy cheap in thailand but there are massage places every 10 feet. we took full advantage of the readily available massages. 11 massages in 11 days, heck yeah! we got our first foot massage. so relaxing...except for the last 5 minutes when they jam their knee in your back. we then headed over to the night market (again) and got some delicious pakistani food. we also did some serious bartering/shopping. good thing i packed fairly light!
on the way back to our hotel, we decided to get a nice relaxing thai massage. ha! thai massages are less than relaxing. it's like being a molded like silly putty. i cried out in pain and my massage therapist just smiled and carried on. needless to say, i only got one thai massage on this trip!
day 3: sunday, my friend and i went to church for the first hour and then went across the street to one of the top 10 spas in asia for a..four hand massage. that's right, two people massaging me at one time. can i just say, AMAZING! the most relaxing hour i think i've ever spent. i may have cried when it was over. we were so relaxed after our massage that we decided to continue the relaxation. we got some lunch and then laid out at our hotel pool for a bit. after we were all cleaned up, we decided to hit the sunday walking street. it's a 2 kilometer market packed full of people, shopping, street food, and street entertainers. oh, and of course, foot massages! we did some shopping and lots of walking and then got a foot massage on the side of the street. at 6pm the thailand national anthem played. everyone stopped in their tracks and stood completely still until it was over. it was pretty cool. i wish i could have gotten a picture of it.
we finished off the evening with dinner at our hotel. we got a free dinner for staying 5 nights. the hotel was all about customer service and showing their appreciation to use for choosing to stay there. after we ate, we were presented with dessert, then a rose by the waiter, who got down on one knee, then a candy bar, and then a necklace.
it was very sweet but a tad over the top.
day 4: christmas eve! i made sure to plan fun stuff for christmas eve and christmas. we started out christmas eve with a thai cooking class. our instructor picked up from the hotel and we went to the food market to learn about the different spices used in thai cooking. we also got to wonder the market and see a more local side of chiangmai. we then headed to the little cooking school farm. they had a great outdoor cooking set up. we learned how to make soup, noodles, and curry. it was all so delicious and our cooking teacher was hilarious. we also met some cool americans and brits. one of the american couples told us about a muy thai boxing match that evening and invited us to meet them.
after the cooking class we went to tiger kingdom. i went against my better judgment knowing that they likely drug the tigers. turns out they definitely drug them. most of the tigers were comatose and i felt terrible and guilty the whole time. the only ones that weren't drugged were the baby ones. the baby tigers were so so cute. they were really feisty and playful. while my friend was taking pictures with one baby tiger, another baby tiger bit her shoulder. thankfully, the bite didn't break the skin and only left a scratch. definitely a great story though! after we played with the baby tigers, we were watching some tigers that weren't the ones interacting with humans. in a matter of seconds, one of them jumped off a branch and charged straight for me. i fell of the bench i was sitting on. hilarious. i wish someone had gotten it on tape.
nearby tiger kindgom is the long neck village (http://www.sightseeingchiangmai.com/longneckkarenvillage.html) . i also wasn't sure about going there. we ended up getting there 15 minutes before it closed but we weren't aware of that at the time we paid to get it. most of the little booths were abandoned and there was only one woman there. we could barely hear her. apparently, they usually do a dance for visitors but we missed out on that.
after the long neck village we headed to dinner. we ate great italian food for our christmas eve dinner. then, we met up with the american couple from the cooking class and went to a muy thai boxing event. it was really fun!
they have people playing instruments during the matches and they play the same tune over and over and over and over... it was kind of torturous.
on our way home, we of course stopped and got a foot massage :)
day 5: christmas! elephant riding day! we got picked up in a jeep of sorts and were driven 1.5 hours into the jungle. we were with 4 other people. a couple from paris who lives in bangkok and a couple from sweden. when we arrived in the jungle we were met by 3 cute elephants. i knew elephants were big but i didn't realize how huge until i was standing right next to one. i also didn't know how bristley elephants are. they are covered in really short, coarse hair. we hiked up to a little tree house hut thing. we learned the commands for left, right, forward, backward, lay down, and lift leg. after we learned the commands, we each got to practice on the elephant. after everyone had practiced enough, we got to get on our elephants. our elephant was named tongan (sp?). he was the best behaved one of the bunch!
a trek through the jungle. my friend sat in front first. thankfully, because i was a little scared of going downhill bare back on an elephant. turns out, not so scary. after we took a trek through the jungle, we stopped for lunch. the sweet swedish couple ate their spring rolls with a fork and spoon.
once we were full and rehydrated, we got to take the elephants to the river to wash them. tongan walked right into to the river and then we slid off his back. the water was freezing! tongan just laid in the water and raised his trunk every now and then to breathe. we washed him off and posed. the guide/photographer keep having us pose so ridiculously but we were so excited to be hanging with elephants, we posed however he told us.
we rode back to home base and changed into our dry, clean clothes. we got back in the jeep thing and headed back to our hotel. on the home, my friend and i both started to feel sick so we attempted to sleep. when we got back to our hotel, we took a nap to see if that would help. it didn't really so we thought that a four hand massage would help. it did for a minute, until the fever hit. then i got the chills and couldn't really enjoy the rest. it was so sad. after our massages, instead of dinner, we went to the night market so i could get a picture that i had been wanting. by the time we got to our hotel, we both felt like death. it was a rough end to a great day.
day 6: flight to bangkok!
stay tuned for the next installation: bangkok!
