Mia and Adam do Chiang Mai (Part 2, with Robin!)

Adam returned to Chiang Mai with his mom, Robin. We spent another week doing fun stuff. A few highlights:

Karaoke. Asian Karaoke is much more sensible. Instead of having one annoying person sing a bad early 90's song in front of an entire bar of people, you can have just a few select people singing in a small room, bothering only those who choose to join in on the fun. We rented a room and had a few brave souls come and meet us for some singing. The room was like a colorful cell with a TV, keyboard, and a couple of microphones. Two large books of song choices, most of them Thai, we browsed throughout the night, finding a few gems. I would never never perform karaoke in front of a room full of strangers, but I clearly had no problem singing to my friends when they didn't know the words. The next day they said I hogged the microphone, but don't believe them. They refused to take it when I passed it on. They must have loved my voice. My favorite song was Adam's choice: Beauty and the Beast. We sang the appropriate verses for each gender, ending with a nice duet.

More Rock Climbing. Spent a few days at the rocks and it never fails to be a nice day. I am impressed with Robin because she climbed a route like a champ. Not many moms can say they've climbed rocks in Thailand. I'm still learning, but being out there with great climbers is the best way to do it. I am continually impressed with my friends. I am completely spoiled to have this amazing climbing spot not far from home. Such a beautiful place, and it's that much more motivation to get to the top and look around at some incredible views. The views are always better when you have to work for it.

Cooking Class. I tagged along with Adam and Robin at a cooking class here in Chiang Mai. We started by going to a market in town where our teacher taught us about all the different ingredients we'd be using and what to look for to make these dishes at home. Then we went to the Thai style house where everything was set up for us. We were the only three students in the class that night, which made it that much more fun. We sat in a classroom that was set up like a cooking show. We watched our instructors prepare the dish first, and then we got to go outside to our own cooking stations and give it a try on our own. The beautiful part was eating our own dishes right after we made them. It was a five course meal. First we made Tom Yum Kun, which is a hot and sour soup with shrimp. Then we made hand made sping rolls, followed by green curry with chicken, pad thai, and a Thai pancake for desert. The instructors were great and everything was set up very nicely. We spent a lot of time eating, laughing and making messes. There are lots of good cooking pictures, including photos of each dish. Check them out and then go out for Thai food, because you'll be hungry.

Photo Shoot. There is not a whole lot to say about this, because the pictures speak volumes. Adam and I spotted a few of these Glamour Shots-style photography shops around town and based on their sample photos, knew that it was an opportunity not to pass up. We went to the one in the night bazaar, and Adam sprang the idea at his mom at the last minute, and then when I caught up with them, they coaxed me to be a part of the photo shoot too. We got to pick out our outfits from a big book, and then they did our makeup and hair for a good half hour. The photo shoot took all of about 10 minutes and I had to use my meditation practice to keep from laughing out loud at the absurdity of what we were doing. Thai people do this for weddings and other special occasions and here come in three foreigners dressing up like we're Thai royalty. They must have thought we were crazy, but at 10pm at night, their service was quite excellent. After the photo shoot, we had the pleasure of walking around the market in our makeup. Adam and Robin have a poster sized print of them that will likely be hung above their fireplace. Or made into Christmas cards. Or both. I've already blown up my photo and hung it above my headboard. Who wouldn't?

I want to be a traffic cop when I grow up.

Because that means I can do nothing but sit in the seats under the over-sized police helmet on the corner and smoke cigs and blow my whistle whenever I feel like it. That's what the real ones do. I'm in training. Someone get me my whistle and everyone pretend that I'm more important than you.

He Has Two Wives!

I met a rad gal with an equally rad name. We have odd things in common and I can only hope that I will be half as cool as her someday. Mia #2 appreciates funny t-shirts, large wild cats, street food, House of Male, and crappy cell phones (we have the same model). She knows Nye's and Bryant Lake Bowl. Enough said.

Adam was lucky enough to have his company graced by a couple of wives last night. The name thing never is less than entertaining, especially with meeting new Thai people. I got in trouble once when my American friend introduced me to his Thai girlfriend and to her Thai ears it sounded like, "This is my wife" and I smile and say, "Nice to meet you. I've heard so much about you!" A couple minutes later she was whispering to him angrily and punching him in the shoulder. I knew exactly what was going on and I had to clear things up. I said, "No my name is really Mia. I'm not his wife, don't worry." Now we're all friends and I don't look like the polygamist wife and she doesn't look like the mistress.

For the Princess

Princess Galyani Vadhana, the older sister of the King, died and Thailand paid respects to her for 15 days, 6 of which is the length of her funeral. She was 84 years old. The teachers at CMU had to wear black and white for the week, and many others around Thailand did the same. The photo above is a large billboard near Tae Pae Gate and hundreds if not thousands of yellow lanterns hung across the plaza. Quite the sight. Normally this plaza is packed with vendors on a Sunday night, so it was a little eerie standing in the open space with just a handful of people .

The photo above is from the inner walls inside a temple along the Sunday walking street. One of the most magical and mystical sights I've seen. Colorful lanterns were hung in the trees, and the entire temple was decorated with candles and incense. Makes your dessert from the market taste a little sweeter when you stumble upon something like this.

Loy Krathong

Loy means "to float" and Krathong is the name for a little boat made out of folded banana leaves, flowers and candles. Each year, this festival is held for a few days during the full moon. This is the time of year when fireworks fill the air with color and light, floating lanterns are puffing up into the sky over your head, and people are gathering near the river to let their Krathongs float away. Sounds peaceful? Not so much. Enter the battlefield of Loy Krathong. I have never in my life heard fireworks so loud. Just walking down the street where one would think to be moderately safe from harm, makes you think twice about what safety means to you. These unexpected explosions made me jump, yelp and grab my friends. If you know me well, I'm the kind of girl that leaps (with. out. fail.) when the toaster is done. I don't do well with jack-in-the-boxes. Imagine me. Luckily, the brain works in mysterious ways to make a person adapt to surroundings, so surprisingly I was getting more used to it as the night went on. Besides the loud fireworks, let me say something about where these fireworks were being let off. The answer? Anywhere there is a match to light it. Anywhere and everywhere. Especially where there are buildings, trees and people. My Thai friend says each year in the newspaper there is a list of people who lose fingers, limbs... I also heard that people make homemade fireworks by filling ping pong balls with gunpowder, sometimes coconuts too..? Scary. This is not to even mention the smaller fireworks. I saw a girl light a sparkler in a crowded place and held onto a string and whipped it around behind her, without even looking of course. You learn to duck or jump at times like these. Whipping tether balls of fire in crowded places looks like a good time until someone gets hurt. A friend of mine bought a large tube and lit it, pointed it to the sky like a good, safe citizen. A beautiful blast of color shot out. He thought there was only one explosion in the tube so he started to walk away (wishing he didn't spend so much on one little firework) but it kept shooting out quiet thumps of fire. It took him until #4 to realize he was blasting people. Admittedly hilarious to witness from a safe distance. My pictures didn't turn out so clear because of all the smoke in the air (see other photos on the Loy Krathong link under photo archive).

The floating lanterns are just as popular and a bit less dangerous. These giant bubbles made out of paper fabric can be bought anywhere and everywhere. Light the big piece of charcoal that sits in the center of the lower ring, and wait. The lantern collects the hot air and expands. It takes a few minutes until the air gets hot enough to rise, and it's fun to watch people discuss whether they are ready to let it go or not. Some let go of the ring and it just sits still in space, sometimes it drops. You have to be patient and hold it until just the right moment. Thousands of these lanterns getting ready to launch in the street along with the ones floating just overhead and the ones that are high in the sky definitely makes for a magical sight. Walking around with my eyes to the sky in awe doesn't help my chances for avoiding those darn fireworks going off everywhere. What a sight though, honestly. It really seemed like a child's painting of a night sky with 5,000 extra golden stars. Besides the magic, I had a motherly concern for the lanterns that got caught in the trees, or the ones stuck on the power lines, still aflame. Not a firetruck or a police car in sight. I did see one ambulance the whole night...almost comforting.

The Loy Krathongs was probably the safest activity you could partake in, which we did. We bought our favorite krathongs from vendors on the street. The vendors were frantically trying to make more for the growing demand of buyers. We lit small sparklers, the candles, and the incense sticks and walked to the river's edge. I was told to make a wish and say thank you to the river goddess for providing us with water. I couldn't think of anything that I would wish for, so I just said thanks over and over again. I guess that's a good sign. Hundreds of krathongs were floating along the river and ironically, these krathongs are also a way to say sorry for contributing to the pollution of the water over the last year. Hmmm. Irony is nothing new here.

Mia and Adam do Chiang Mai (Part 1)

Some highlights of Adam's first week in Chiang Mai...

Halloween. We spent two days thinking about and searching for costumes. Thai people don't celebrate Halloween so it was difficult to find anything good. In between my classes we motorbiked around the city trying to find a "Thai costume rental shop" on one of his maps. Turns out we found the place but it wasn't what we were hoping for. They were traditional Thai dresses and suits for rent. Damn. Off to the giant mall with more disappointment. I thought our best bet would be the giant department store called Robinsons. We were ascending the escalator to find some orange and black decorations. We're in luck! We come to the Halloween section which consisted of a white table the size of a small desk which had a couple of over-priced Halloween themed stuffed animals. We looked at each other and said, "Really? This is it?" I was discouraged and ready to resort to finding some 80's apparel (which is in style for Thai people, so it really wouldn't be a costume. It would be a lame attempt of a farang girl trying to look Asian-trendy). Luckily, Adam is good at making executive decisions in times like these. We stopped into a children's store and started discussing how well these polyester costumes could stretch (not sure if they were even costumes, they could have been kid's pajamas). When we were browsing through some princess dresses, the woman running the store asked "For a child how old?" I knew Adam wanted to say "mid-twenties." He picked out two outfits and said he could wear one and I could wear the other. Superman and a Disney Princess. There was really no discussion on which outfit was for whom. Needless to say, we were a hit at the party, especially the pretty pretty princess. We rode around on a motorbike in these outfits; I had to hold his skirt down while my cape was flying in the wind. We got some stares. The security guard at my apartment got a kick out of it.

German Micro-Brewery. I don't have photos of this place, and I wish I did. Video would be better. This giant micro-brewery in the outskirts of Chiang Mai can house around 1,000 people. They brew their own beer and provide live entertainment. We sat staring at the stage with our big beers in awe. Speechless. Could only look at each other and laugh. Young Thai women dancing in different outfits for their different song/dance numbers. One performance was of the ladies in traditional Northern Thai outfits with mortars and pestles acting out making somtam, a Thai food. We could tell who the coordinated dancers were and who the unfortunate awkward ones were. My personal favorite part of the performance was...and you will not believe me, nor will you ever know how funny and bizarre this is to see in person, especially when everyone sitting around you thinks it's normal and entertaining...but a guy was singing a song about being in the Thai military and he and he and his performance sidekick were in military uniforms acting out a battle. Then a medic comes out on stage wearing a white lab coat holding a giant (5 feet long) cardboard cut out of a syringe and sticks it into the injured soldier's ass. All during an upbeat pop song. Life can't get better than witnessing something like this. We went back the next night to enjoy the same performance for a second time.

Motorbiking day trip. We did a loop around the outside of Doi Suthep and through Mae Sa. We stopped and hiked the 10 waterfalls, motorbiked through the mountains on Adam's huge bike he rented for the week. He enjoyed driving and I enjoyed riding, so it worked out. Except when he popped a wheelie. I could have gone without that part. The drive was beautiful; it's supposedly one of the best motorbike loops to do in SE Asia. The views were unbelievable. We cruised through rice paddies and got lost in a village, drove through other little towns. So nice to get out of the city and see the different lifestyles that live just on the other side of the mountain from me. Luckily, we could see rain in every direction throughout the day but never got caught in it the whole day. Came back to scrape the bugs off Adam's shirt and face.

Rock climbing. Went out to Crazy Horse to do some climbing. This place is huge; people spend months going to these rocks and never do the same climb twice. We spent the morning outside in one quiet climbing wall corner. I'm a new climber so I learned a lot and I'm excited about doing more. Adam and Charlie are more seasoned climbers so it was fun to watch them. Pictures speak louder than words in this case, but I must add two things. The Superman outfit made an encore performance on the rocks (naturally, next time we will bring the princess dress). Also, we hiked into a giant cave to find more climbing areas that were lit by holes in the ceiling. The photo to the left is inside the cave. There was actually a lot of light coming in from above, but it was much cooler inside. Kind of a magical place.

Cannonballing to America

My last glimpse of Asia was a sweet one. During my layover, preparing to leave Taipei for LA, I stumbled upon a gate that would only make sense in Asia. Hello Kitty. This was even more hysterical when I was sleep deprived and couldn't decide which time zone I was supposed to be in. I thought I was dreaming or hallucinating. I imagine business class travelers in the pink seats listening to teeny bop music. What a trip.

The week in America was nonstop fun. The wedding was beautiful, and I got to see my whole family in one place. My family is so good-looking. I look through all the wedding pictures and everyone is beautiful, handsome. Must be because everyone couldn't stop smiling. I got to meet the in-law family as well, some of whom have more dancing endurance than anyone I know. Believe it or not, the happy couple postponed their honeymoon so they could hang out with me while I was in town. They were the best hosts a crazy old sister crashing their post-wedding romance could ask for!

I got to surprise two good friends in one afternoon. Neither of them knew I was in the States, and in their disbelief or confusion, they were almost rude. One of them walked away and the other pushed me when I was going in for a hug. After everything was cleared up, I was enamored with good company, wine, and Lisa's couch that I'd been missing all those Friday nights when I just wanted to sit around and chat. (Lisa I just got your card today - thank you!!)

I also got to see friends that joined me for everything from El Loro margs, Punch pizza, hot tubbing, late-night tea parties, sunny lunches, chili contests, haunted hay rides, Russian dinner with vodka toasts, zombie pub crawling...

The strangest thing was that it felt like I never left in the first place. At the same time, I was dreading another round of goodbyes. Of course the question comes up, where am I happiest? I can't say I'm happier in one place or the other; they are like oranges and apples. I'm just the lucky one who gets to have an orange and an apple to call "home." My goal is to make a whole fruit basket of home.

I love the analogy my uncle Doug told me. Moving to Asia is like standing on a dock overlooking a cold lake in northern Minnesota. You try to look beyond the surface of the water, but you can't see anything below. The only way you can find out what it's like is to just jump in. So you do. It's cold, uncomfortable, and it shocks you to the bone. Your first instinct is to get out of there - back to the dock where it's warm. But wait a second...or two...it's not so bad, not so scary. In fact it's actually kind of pleasant and becomes more comfortable with each passing moment. Now the reality is, the lake is where you want to be to stay warm. Getting back on the dock will be colder than before you left it. So in terms of my week of excitement and emotional hellos and goodbyes, I just like to think I had the opportunity to get back on the dock a few times and do a couple of flips and cannon balls off the edge. What are the heart strings there for if not to be tugged every once in awhile?

Mrs. Torres Parisian, I'd go 'round the world for you.

If there is ever a thing closer to maternal instinct than sisterly instinct, I'd be darned. If there was ever a better opportunity to surprise her sister on her wedding day, I'd be double darned. I arrived in the States the day before her wedding and it was the best impulse decision I ever made. It's the kind of story that was meant to be told over a home cooked meal or before a lazy afternoon nap, so I will reserve the tale for special times like those. Love you, beaner.

Hong Kong Revisited

Since I'm really good at time travel, I am going back to (over) a month ago to when I was in Hong Kong. I need to tell things in order and get caught up in the blogging world.

My last full day in Hong Kong was a full one. Mare and I got up early to do some Tai Chi on the boardwalk. It was a small group that gets together in the morning and they do an instructional class. I was excited about this because I completed my Tai Chi class in Thailand not too long ago. The instructor was a perfect cross between an oompa loompa and the wizard of Oz. He did some demonstrations with a woman twice his size and by the end of it, I was convinced that they were a couple and she was the dominant figure in the relationship. The best part about Tai Chi was the view. Who gets to do Tai Chi overlooking the most awesome, busiest, bustling skyline in the world? Kind of a paradox, but a great way to start the day.

After Tai Chi I got my haircut by Edward Scissorhands, or at least the Asian version of him. He was a cute and skinny Chinese boy who was extremely polite and extra gentle, just like Edward. He also had amazing hair. I love getting my haircut and washed. I almost opted for the Asian mullet, maybe next time.

We walked around the markets and art galleries in Soho. I loved seeing the HK markets and how they resemble something like NYC or San Francisco Chinatown. The fruit is extra colorful and the fish are huge. The most exciting thing that I saw was a "China-man with his shirt tucked above his belly." This was one of the items on my Hong Kong Scavenger Hunt. I needed to spot all sorts of fun things during my time there, and Mare and Doug made a Bingo card for me to complete. I don't think I made a Bingo, but it was a personal mission to see this t-shirt tuckage. It was awesome. These old men on the back of a truck pull up their shirts and roll them up above their big bellies to keep cool. I was satisfied. I wanted to give them high fives. Or rub their Buddha bellies.

We then went to afternoon tea at The Peninsula Hotel, which is the place to have a proper tea. Really lovely. There was a live orchestra in the balcony above and they serve you your own silver tea pot as well as a three-tiered array of deserts and snacks. Afterwards we went upstairs to look at the diamond shops - not really something that I've ever done before, but I must say, the things were huge. Probably some of the biggest diamonds I've ever seen in my life. We laughed at the glass casings that had previous gawkers' greasy nose and chin prints blotched all over. Gross.

That evening we went to dinner at a really nice and trendy restaurant on the top floor of a building overlooking the island. It had an incredible view and food that will make you be happy to be alive. The light show went off right after dinner. I took endless pictures trying to get the best lasers in the shot. One of the best dinners I've had in a long time.

The next morning it was hard to believe it was already time to go. I felt so at home and spending just a few days with my aunt and uncle helped me realize that I've got the best family in the world. Traveling on your own can be tough and lonely, but weeks like this are like steady rocks to hold on to in your crazy life storm.