On long runs, fair rides and new friends

It’s kind of funny, the things that I miss the most are not the things that I expected to miss. About this time in the states, I would be looking forward to cooler weather and the fair. Jeff and I would ride “The Zipper” until we were sick, eat a funnel cake, walk around and try not to stare at all the weirdos that always seem to be at the fair. Then we would take a stroll through the buildings to admire the new cars, cows and pigs. One year we saw the Budweiser Clydesdales. Evenings are always the best time to be at the fair because of all the lights.

I miss waking up at 5:30am on Saturday mornings to run with some of the best people I have ever met. There is nothing like the feeling of the last ¼ mile of 12 or 14-mile run. The best was running when it was below 40 degrees.

The ironic thing is that when our time here is finished whether it be in 2 years or 20, I will miss all the memories that we are currently making. I will miss the mountains and the food. I probably won’t miss the traffic or the heat. But I will miss the people.

Thai people are welcoming and warm. They are quiet and shy on the outside. But warm and spirited on the inside. Their city is divided young and old. The young “western” ways have stretched a shadowy finger into everyday life but the old lifestyle still holds a firm grasp on many of the young. They are enthralled by my white baby and she loves them and they love her in return. Yes, I will miss the people most of all.

More Fun

The great thing about living here is that there are tons of cool places to visit for super cheap. Last Saturday, we visited the waterfalls and the Queen's Botanical Gardens.

Here are some pics.

I don't know why this pic is crooked and I don't know how to fix it. :)

p.s. I'm going to cook beef tonight- this should be interesting.

p.p.s we are going to visit the tallest mountain in the country this weekend. More pics to come.

p.p.p.s I tried to post a video of the traffic here but was unsuccesful. I'll get some pics and post later.

A Noodle in the Kitchen

Today, I made homemade chicken and noodles- successfully!! This is a really big accomplishment considering my kitchen consists of a two-burner hot plate and a microwave convection oven. Forget about a garbage disposal and dishwasher.

Anyways, I was really happy to discover that the big hypermarket store sells dead, pre-plucked whole chickens. It looked just like the kind you buy in the states. “Looked like” being the key word.

So, I unwrap the chicken and lay it out on the cutting board intending to untuck the nicely pinned legs, reach in and pull out the sack of giblets and the neck that would always already be removed in the states.

I unwrap one leg, only to find a giant claw waiting to attack me. (I know the chicken was dead but this is my story and it was ready to attack- trust me.) For those of you who don’t know me, I don’t really like dead chickens to start with. They kind of weird me out.

After taking a quick peek up the chicken’s pitooty, I realized that there was no nice little sack of innards waiting for me. So I quickly retucked the giant claw and decided to just cook the chicken claws, innards and all.

There was just one problem. I turned the chicken around and noticed something sticking out of the top end. I reached in and pulled thinking it was one of the wings. No, it was the head. I promptly reached for some rubber gloves. After about a 10 sec. staring contest, the chicken won and I threw a Styrofoam plate over the beast’s head.

A few deep breaths later, I convinced myself that the chicken was dead. I gave a few moments thought to just boiling the chicken with the head and all but decided against it. Reaching for the largest knife in the kitchen, I promptly removed the chicken’s head at the neck.

Psyching myself up to place the chicken in boiling water, in walked my hero. Jeff lovingly removed the chicken’s claws and disposed of the head and gawking eyes.

I went on to make some lovely chicken and noodles and brownies, too! And we all lived happily ever after (except the chicken- may he rest in peace).

Elephant Park

Today, we spent the day at an elephant park that is about 20 minutes from our new home. For less than $10 you can feed the elephants, play with the baby elephants and watch an elephant show. During the show, the elephants play soccer, have a dart-throwing contest and paint a picture. It's really impressive.

Here are a few highlights from our day:

Read the last post first

Here are some pics of our day at the temple. (Read the last post for more info)

Before we climbed the 300 steps to the temple, we decided to get some food. We had some super yummy chicken fried rice from this little restaurant.









Then, we were sidetracked by this Elephant that you could feed cucumbers.








After a potty break (where you have to pay a random guy and bring your own tissue and squat) and after a quick run through more shops at the base of the stairs, we headed for the top. It would have been nice if Chloe hadn't just been along for the ride. She could have offered to carry one of us for a change.

I think the dragons protect the temple or something.












Here is Chloe, Jeff and skinny, young Buddha (in the background). Many people were burning incense and walking around this gold pyramid thing. If we knew more of the language, I would have asked someone what they were doing.






The temple was quite beautiful and very well kept.









More pics to come later.

Pictures Finally

First of all, let me say thank you to all our friends and family for the patience you have given us while we get adjusted. We really, really, really, reeeeaaalllyyyy appreciate all the nice notes of encouragement and support that everyone has so readily given us. Special thanks from Chloe to aunt Debbie and cousin Zachy for the car seat that is on the way. You should see how these people drive. Maybe I'll get tech savy enough to add a video.

Anyways, the moment you have all been waiting for---PICTURES!!!!


This is Chloe in the Hong Kong airport. She had been awake for almost 30hours at this point. The poor child was so tired she was almost delirious. Except for about a 4 hour nap, she had been awake almost the entire trip. When we finally got settled into our apartment, we had been traveling for about 40 hours. I gave her a bath and she went to sleep. When I say sleep, I mean SLEEP. We absolutely could not get her to wake up despite all our attempts.



This is the lovely view from our apartment. I will take some more pics of our apt later but it's really not too interesting. Just your typical 2-bedroom apt. It's nicer than some of the places we have lived. We are on the 10th floor and the building has a pool. It gets quite expensive to run the AC and use the dryer but they're both available for those days I really need them.

As you can see from the pic., a storm is building and we can see the mountain called "Doi Suthep." We are just entering the monsoon season so it rains here a little each day. The temps are in the 80s and 90s but once you get used to the humidity it is surprisingly pleasant weather. I like the rain.

We went shopping at a store kind of like a Super Target (this one was much nicer than the Wal-Martesque store we went to last week). This store had a McDonald's inside with Ronald giving a Wai. Jeff decided to show his respect and Wai back. I felt a little silly taking the picture in the middle of everyone but Jeff insisted and it is a funny pic. By the way, the employees were the nicest EVER.

For my birthday, we decided to drive up Doi Suthep (the mountain you can see from our window). This is a lookout spot where you can see all of Chiang Mai.

They really like Elephants here. I think they hold some religious meaning but I am still checking on that. There is a (wat) almost at the top of the mountain. The legend is that some Monks decided to build a temple wherever some certain elephant laid down. It laid down almost near the top of the mountain. This pic shows a pretty statue that I think gives to tribute to the elephant that decided where the temple should be built. There are all kinds of shops and restaurants at the base of the temple. They sell all kinds of touristy items.

More pics of the temple next...

Tastes like Canadian Bacon

Sorry it's taken so long for an update. We arrived a few days ago and it has been such a whirlwind experience. The town is not quite as nice as I pictured it but I think I like it. We are living on the 10th floor of a mid-rise condo. I'm not in love with high-rise living as this is the second time we have done it and the first time with a kid. It just escalates the hassle but it's a nice apartment and it has air conditioning and a washer/dryer. I'll post pics later.

We had our first driving experience today. We have been assigned a car which is also a nice plus that we didn't think we would have but we didn't bring a car seat and to buy one here costs about two or three times the price of a car seat in the states. Driving here is not as bad as some places and it actually isn't much worse than Dallas at rush hour or downtwon Chicago. The main difference is all the motorcycles which do not obey any kind of driving rules and they expect you to yield to them. However, I have definitely seen worse drivers in OK. I'll post pics later.

Amazingly we have been here three days and have yet to eat any Thai food. There are tons of American food restaurants that our new friends have been taking us to. We even went shopping at a store with striking similarities to Wal-Mart. It even had the little smiley face roll-back stickers. No kidding!! Jeff and I won't be eating much American food or shopping at those Western-type stores very often because they are very pricey. I had to buy a new 220-volt hair dryer and it cost $15. It wasn't even a fancy salon-type one. I'll post pics later.

One of our new friends stocked our kitchen with a few groceries such as lunch meat, pb and j, milk, etc. It was nice of them to be so thoughtful. They even made banana bread for us!! I won't post pics because it's almost gone. :)

By the way, the ham tastes like canadian bacon.