Chiang Mai Take 55

We went to Chiang Mai with the volunteers the second weekend this month.

Thursday:

It hasn't really been 55 times, but it has been quite a few times! I seriously love this city!!! It has such a good feel to it. It's a lot bigger than Phichit and has so many more eating and shopping options. It's WAY smaller than Bangkok though. It's just the right size.  It's charming, that's what it is.  

There wasn't school Thursday or Friday. That made for a 4 day weekend. We rented a van and left the school at 3:00am. I slept a lot better in the van than I usually do (and more than I expected).  We got to the city around 8:30. We stopped by the bus station and got our tickets for the way home. Then we got dropped from at our hotel.  We are staying somewhere new this time since our normal place was full. Its a small little place, but the owner is really helpful.and friendly. It's called Nine House and I like it. The beds are on the firm side, but the blankets are INCREDIBLE! So soft and just the perfect thickness.  I want to ask the owner where they got them.  Or I want to pay the and take them! When we got to the hotel they said we couldn't check in for an hour. So we left our bags and walked around. We found the CUTEST little cafe! I seriously can get over how much I love it.  The most charming cafe I the most charming city :)  it was called the Fern Forest Cafe. The outside was so green and lush with a coy pad and little waterfall. The weather was just perfect, so that helped too. We ate outside, but the inside was really cute too. Tanner got a pancake breakfast than had pancakes (obviously), eggs and bacon. I know he really love me, because he shared his bacon with me :). I got French toast with fruit. I also got a tropical smoothie (fresh passion fruit, mango and peach) it was delicious and beautifully presented. After we ate we put more money on our cell phone and got checked in. We got settled in and promptly took nice, long naps straight away! Know what I dreamt about? The breakfast cafe and the hotel blankets! Haha! 

I adore the wall of folding window doors!

When we got up from our naps it was about 3:30. We called the volunteers and planned to meet up with them at 5:00 for dinner at Salsa Kitchen. Since we'd skipped lunch we snacked a little but while watching tv and killing time on our technology devices. We thought we might walk to dinner since it wasn't too far. We left around 4:40. We started walking but we didn't cross the river/city moat.  So we kept walking hoping to find the next opportunity to cross. We found some really cool abandoned buildings.  One was really detailed and looks like it was amazing when it was in operation! After looking around that for a few minutes we realized that we'd need to catch a ride to be able to get to dinner on time. We caught a ride and made our way to the restaurant. The girls got there shortly after we did. They told us about the zoo while we waited for our food. You guys! My food was SO SO GOOD!!! The food there is always great,  it it was even more excellent than normal. Tanner also shared some of his guacamole with me! (Bacon and guacamole on me day! He loves me so much!). We love food so much! I've mentioned this before, but we never realized how much we loved food until we came here and couldn't get a lot of the food we took for granted before.  We also realized how happy good food make us.  

After dinner we went to the night market. We did a lot of shopping. Tanner bought ties, shirts and pants (some for him and some to take home for family).  I bought a passport holder.  We also bought a few paintings. We've looked at some in the past and today we got a few. We got a really big one of an elephant from the front. We also got two elephant head profiles. They go together facing each other.  I feel like they'll be a fun pop of color in our home and we'll love them for a long time. We got some gelato to finish the night (dark chocolate for me, cookies and cream and caramel for Tanner).  That night I got to relax and listen to some new music (I didn't get to listen to it in the van since I slept so much!). It really felt like a perfect day!  

Cotton candy art

Friday:

We got a late start on Friday.  Tanner doesn't sleep well and was up most of the night.  He only went to sleep a couple hours before I got up.  So while he slept I went down and ate the free mediocre breakfast our hotel offered (I should have gone back to the Fern Forest Cafe!) Then I read for a while.  By the time Tanner woke up I was feeling a bit stir crazy and was ready to get out!  

We stumbled upon a ceramics shops ages ago while in Chiang Mai.  I mentioned to Tanner that I would love if we found it again.  Turns out we were staying a block away and walked right by it on the way to lunch!  They had a lot of fun stuff, but nothing I couldn't live without.  All I got was this one random pictures.  They had better stuff than that though, I promise!

We ate at our favorite Italian restaurant.  Once again it was really, really good!  While we were there Geppetto came to eat!  I couldn't stop looking at him!  I took this picture all sneaky like.  You can't see his pants, but they are black knickerbockers.

Tanner and I have talked about getting some suits made while we were here.  A few doors down from the restaurant there was a tailor.  We stopped in and ended up getting some suits made!  They measured us and we chose our fabric and suit styles.  We went back later that evening for a fitting (they work really fast!), then again on Saturday and picked them up on Sunday right before we left.

Then we walked around for a little while.  We went down a couple streets we've never been down before!  We found a frozen yogurt shop! WE also walked by a shop selling this outfit:

After a short nap and relaxing we had dinner at a new place.  We've walked past this burger place called "Rock Me" (It sort of had the feel of a Hard Rock Cafe) multiple times and always say "we should try that place some time...  We got a chocolate milk shake, burgers and fries.  We ordered exrta pickles since we were so excited to see them.  They looked really good!  We were expecting dill pickles, but they turned out to be bread and butter pickles.  The food was okay, but I expected it to be better.  I'm glad we went, but I don't see us going back. 

 That evening we met up with the girls again and went to the market yet again.  We got a couple more ties and I got a shirt. 

Saturday we went to our favorite cooking class YET AGAIN!  I think this was the 7th time or so.  He told us to come back one more time before we leave Thailand.  We told him that we would if we could do it for free and get extra mango sticky rice for dessert.  He agreed! :)  4 of the 7 girls were there with us and we had a lot of fun.  And as always, the food did not disappoint!  Last time we were there Tanner said, "Next time we come I'll make the jungle curry" (thinking we wouldn't be back).  True to his word he made it!  It uses 40 chilis in the curry paste!  I use 2 in my curry and thaty is spicy to me!  When he was cooking it all the oils from the chilis went in the air.  We were all coughing and our eyes were burning!  I didn't eat any (remember, 2 chilis is spicy to me...) but Tanner did.  He said it was really hot, but not AS hot as he'd expected. 

Tanner's finished jungle curry.

I also made a new curry.  I make Koh Soy.  It's eaten with noodles instead of rice.  It has a lot of the same ingredients as yellow curry which I really like.  It was good.

That evening we went back to the tailor for a fitting.  Then we napped again (can you see a pattern...? eat, nap, eat, nap, eat, sleep for the night, repeat.  That's how we vacation!)  Later that night we met us with half of the girls for dinner.  We were a little bit late.  The traffic was really terrible for some reason.  It usually only takes about 10 minutes to get there and it took about 30.  On the ride over we saw this little food cart.  Watch out KFC, you've got competition!  Haha!

Sunday we went to church, had lunch, then headed home.  It was a really, really fun trip!  Like I said, I love that city!  It's sad to think that we will probably only be back one more time before we return to the states.