Shabu Shabu Partay (And Other Fun Bits)

Olivia and I keep quibbling about who has to do this post because we are both so tired we just wanna go to sleep, but since the arguing wasn't getting us anywhere we decided to try a combined post.  So I'll do a paragraph or two, then Olivia will do some. Hahaha.  You, our lovely, followers can turn it into a game! Try and guess which twin wrote which paragraph.  I'll give you a hint.  The better ones will be by me ;P.  So, I guess I should start by talking about Olivia and I's first ever office party!  Friday afternoon Khun Well, Bernice, and Thor left work early to go pick up some food from the markets.  After work, Khun Tom picked Olivia, Bernice, Michelle and I up from the apartment and we headed off to Khun Well's house.  Turning down one of the smallest streets in all of Chiang Mai we were greeted by Khun Tin holding a leash, at the end of which was a very feisty chihuahua.  On closer inspection, Olivia and I realized there were actually 4 other small rather irritating yapping dogs locked up in a wire cage in the corner of Khun Well's yard.  I guess she decided to go for 5 small guard dogs as opposed to one average sized one.  Khun Well also has two little girls.  I can't remember their names....but they were SUPER energetic.  They ran around screaming and jumping up and down for at least the first 3 hours we were there! They would have made any varsity athlete jealous of their endless stamina.  Well, I like Khun Well's part a lot because we got to help her cook! First Olivia and I decided that it would be best to learn how to make desert.  So we helped Khun Tin as he made his famous pumpkin custard.  It's delicious! And we took notes, so hopefully next year I can make it for people to try! Only if I can get a hold of some of the ingredients....But, I'll tell you guys the basics.  Firstly, you acquire a ripe pumpkin.  Cut the top off, and scoop out all of the filling and seeds.  These can either be discarded, or used for another recipe, but they are not needed for the custard.  Next mix 4 eggs (we used duck eggs cause they are richer) a cup of coconut milk, three pandanus leaves, and 200g of sugar.  Oh, and a pinch of salt.  Mix all this together, and pour it into the pumpkin.  Then you steam it for an hour.  Viola! After the pumpkin has cooled, you slice it up, and eat the delicious custard insides.  Quite simple, really, and yet oh-so-tasty!

Behold, the great pumpkin steamer!

After we finished helping Khun Tin, we helped Bernice chop vegetables.  Not nearly as fun as making a custard....but the baby corn did provide a cuteness factor that the custard-making didn't really have.  Oh, yes, and there's the fact that a super old karaoke machine was playing in the background.  Khun Well LOVES singing.  Eating was more fun that eating usually is, too! Which is saying something, because eating is truly one of my favorite pastimes! But, at Khun Well's we had Thai-style Korean BBQ.  Olivia and I sat on these TINY stools, that were about half an inch off of the ground.  Everyone gathered around this little hot plate.  There was a simple soup of diced vegetables in a bowl in the center of the hot plate, and all around it we placed raw meat.  It was super fatty meat, kinda like bacon...except even fattier.  But not quite as fatty as pork belly.  If you left it on the grill long enough it got super crunchy, and went quit nicely with the soup.  We all had to be careful though because the fat kept popping and exploding all over us.  We'd be in the middle of a conversation, and all of a sudden someone would scream and clutch their neck, or arm, or whatever exposed skin had just been hit by the scalding fat blobs!

Khun Tin, Thor, Khun Tom, and Khun Annop grilling the enormous mound o' meat from the market.

Bernice, Charlotte and Khun Well's dad, who was super cute and kept dancing and tapping a tambourine to the karaoke music.

Michelle, Khun Tin, and Thor preparing to chow down on shabu shabu!

Thor looks displeased that we interrupted him mid-bite!

By the time everyone was done eating it was quite late, and I was thinking how nice it would be curl up for a nice long sleep.  Little did I know the party was just getting started! Khun Well, quite tipsy by this point, insisted that we all sing a million karaoke songs each! Olivia and I jammed out to ABBA for quite some time (hooray for "Dancing Queen!"), but after Khun Tom had a few more beers it was hard to get the mike away from him! Well, Thor managed to wrestle it away from him a few times, and belted out Maroon 5's "She Will Be Loved."  These Thai people sure do like their karaoke....but they like the slower songs.  No Lagy Gaga for them! NO WAY!  HAHAHA! Khun Tom sang Michael Buble and Simon and Garfunkle.

Crankin' out some tunes.

Ok, switching over to Olivia's portion now! We spent Saturday lounging about and relaxing in between our Muay Thai lessons, and we even managed to buy some Tintin shirts from the night bazaar. Score!

Charlotte and Kob after practice (with super tall and skinny Tom in the background).

Check out the gun show!

After a scrumptious brekky at Smile Coffee on Sunday morning, we hit up the Chiang Mai National Museum with Michelle and Bernice. There were some interesting bits and bobs here and there, but I think Michelle summed it up pretty well when she remarked, "My favorite part was the water jug at the end." The museum was quite simple and had a few nice pieces of Lanna art, including this one enormous, bronze Buddha head. Unfortunately, they didn't allow us to take any pics, so I can't show you the lumps of silver that used to be used as currency or mannequins that had a strinking resemblence to Gollum. While I was getting that dusty museum drowsiness by the end, I was soon revived by a quick motorbike ride over to Nimanheimen Road, which is near Chiang Mai University. The area has a Thai-style college town vibe to it, complete with hipsters, cute coffee shops, and tiny boutiques. A perfect place to dink around in!

Michelle and Bernice are experts at driving along the crazy Chiang Mai streets.

Our first stop was Mont, where we munched on tart, creamy yogurt, buttered toast with custard, and a green tea latte. Sooo good! The toast was ridiculously yummy, but I suppose anything slathered in butter and covered in egg custard would taste pretty darn good. Strolling around afterwards, we came across a tiny mochi ice cream shop called Kane Mochi. Since Michelle had never had mochi before, we naturally had to get some for her to try.

Michelle was quite pleased with her toast!

Oops! I forgot to take a picture of my scrumptious toast before I began devouring it.

I don't really know who this is (maybe the guy who started Mont?), but he looks just like the principal at the school we teach at.

We walked around for a bit "waiting to get hungry again," as Michelle put it. You have to understand that I've been having these ridiculous pasta cravings since I've been in Thailand, which isn't altogether too surprising since I have pasta at least once a day back home. So when Michelle and Bernice said there was a yummy pasta shop in the area, I couldn't pass up the opportunity! And I must say, it was certainly worth the wait!

Pasta carbonara, Thai-style (note the small, roasted chilies poking out).

From Nimanheimen, Michelle and Bernice dropped Charlotte and I off at the Sunday Walking Street Market where we poked around for a bit. One of the interesting finds for the night: dried longans. Fresh longans are juicy and sweet (kind of like lychees), but the dried ones had a slightly more savory taste, almost like beef jerky. Sounds funky, but they were pretty tasty.

Ferocious, Highly Poisonous, Man-Eating Leeches

There are lots of exciting things to talk about! But I think this might have to be a short post because Olivia just turned on the TV and is watching Sean of the Dead. HAHAHAHA! Man, Simon Pegg is hilarious.  But enough of that.  As far as Thailand is concerned, I'll get started with the activities of last night.  So, Olivia has developed this super depressing theory about Kob, our friend from Muay Thai.  He's one of those kids that got shipped off when he was 8 to a training center to learn the art of Thai kickboxing.  This naturally means he doesn't  have time to go to school.  Olivia has now convinced herself...and me, that since Kob has never been to school, and most of the Muay Thai people are foreigners, he has no friends.  That's why he's so excited every time Olivia and I get to the gym...and he always says "You my friend! My friend!"  So, Olivia has decided that it's our job to befriend him.  I agreed that this was a noble goal, and so we invited him and Sean to the night market! After Muay Thai we all took a tuk tuk across the Nawarat bridge into the "touristy" part of the city to the Bazaar.

Me about to hog all to food from poor skinny Sean.

I bought 2 pairs of knock-off Ray Bans to replace my super cool ones that I sat on the other night.  I don't think Sean bought anything, but I thought it was funny that he loved to look at the Batman-shaped throwing blades, and Captain America t-shirts.  What a nerd!  Kob was falling asleep by 8 o'clock, and I don't think he could afford anything at the market anyway.  He really wanted a pair of these Nike shoes, but when Olivia told him to get them he just said "no money."  I wanted to by them for him cause they were only like $15, but I wasn't sure if that would be offensive....  Anyway, it started to rain and rather than brave the elements, in the proper Thai fashion, we found refuge in a restaurant.  The food was alright.

Disappointingly small serving of duck noodles.

 But the portions were pretty small, and it was kinda pricey.  My guess is because it's kind of a touristy area.  Luckily, Sean and Kob, both as skinny as bean poles,  didn't eat too much, which meant there was plenty for Olivia and I.  We ate family style where we all just picked one entree each and then shared.  Oh, and just as a side note, there are tons of drag queens at the night bazaar.  Which I don't really get.  Kob just thinks they are really gross.  But I guess that's where the Muay Thai instructors get the term "Lady Boy".  That's what they call all the foreign guys that obviously haven't renewed their gym memberships in a few years.  Anyway, we all had a lot of fun looking at all the nifty stuff together, but Kob was wiped, so we had a pretty early night.  Either way, Olivia and I were very pleased with how things turned out, because now I think we are officially friends with Sean and Kob. 

Olivia being...I dunno....Japaneseish.  And a sleepy Kob.

Super cool bug I found.  It's like a giant roly-polly, but it felt like a marble. 

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see them today because we couldn't make it to Muay Thai.  We went on a hike through the jungle instead! Michelle (from the office) invited us to go up to Pang Soon lodge today and help her remark the trails.  Olivia and I couldn't refuse such an exciting invitation, and so today we found ourselves hiking through several miles of "trails" in the jungle.  Aunty C (super cute old lady that does all the cooking at the office) packed us a lunch of rice, chicken and basil, which we loaded up into the truck, along with some leech-proof socks and trail cameras.  After one last look-around, we decided we hadn't forgotten anything, and so we hit the road.  I don't know if Olivia has introduced Thor in a previous post, so I'll just put my 2 cents in.  He's possibly one of the goofiest people I have ever met.  We were sitting under a lamb-yai tree (type of fruit) the other day.  He peels the skin off of one to reveal the soft, juicy interior.  "Mmmm...eyeball" he says, as he pops it into his mouth. "You want some?"  What a goof!  Anyway, Thor was driving.  Michelle was in the front passenger seat, and Olivia and I rode in the back.  As we were making the long drive up to Pang Soon (it's  just over an hour drive from Chiang Mai), she told us what we were going to be doing.  Pretty much all we had to do was replace the existing trail markers with the newer ones.  And when I say trail markers, think 2x3 inch rectangles of aluminum nailed to a tree.  Also, don't think nicely groomed trails.  We often got lost in the jungle because the trails aren't exactly what you'd call defined paths.  It was super fun though!  We saw SO many cool bugs, and plants, and mushrooms.  We were up marking the "trail" for about 5 hours.  Around 1ish Olivia and Michelle were about to collapse from hunger, so we stopped on a little ridge and ate our tasty Thai cuisine overlooking the misty mountains.  It was really a beautiful place...even if I did leave covered in leeches and ticks! We also had to set up the camera, in order to do some wildlife surveys.  Unfortunately, Michelle bought a really crummy padlock for it.  I pointed out the fact that if the lock rusted she wouldn't be able to get the camera out of the anti-theft case to see the pictures.  So, we didn't get to set the camera up...but maybe that just means we will get to go up to the lodge again!  We did manage to survey some staked-off quadrants and identify some plant species, though. That was pretty cool.  Oh, and it also started pouring during lunch, and lasted the rest of the trek.  But I didn't mind.  I like the rain much better than the constant sweating!  Okay, I apologize for the poor organization of this post...but Simon Pegg shooting zombies can be a bit distracting!

Thor, Olivia, Me, and Michelle after a day in the jungle

A Visit to Muang Gorn

Charlotte and I just spent a lovely day and a half in Muang Gorn, the village where Khun Annop (from the office) lives. Khun Annop invited us to join him and Thor for a short visit to his village, since Whitney, a 5th grade teacher from Colorado, was coming to do a home-stay with him and to teach local students for a few hours (just to "see what the culture's like"). Naturally, Charlotte and I were eager to do a bit more exploring, and happily accepted the invitation. After we picked Whitney up from the airport yesterday, we stopped by a local restaurant for some killer kow soi--the curry-ish egg noodle soup that I'm hopelessly addicted to. (I really need to learn how to make some before I leave Thailand, since I'm going to crave some when I get home!)

When we arrived at Khun Annop's house, his wife and some of the village elders greeted us and performed a welcoming ceremony for all of us. (Ooh, and they also gave us each these heavenly-smelling, Thai-style jasmine leis. They smelled sooo good!) A Bai Sri Soo Kwan ceremony is a traditional Isaan ceremony that's conducted on important occasions like welcoming visitors, celebrating marriages, and for deaths. Only the village elders can conduct a Bai Sri, and the special tradition is passed on from one generation to the next. During the ceremony, the women tie strings onto participants' left wrists and the men tie strings onto participants' right wrists. As they tied the strings onto our wrists, the elders prayed for our spirit/soul (Kwun) to bring goodness and protection to us. An older woman also dragged a piece of string across the palms of our hands to remove any bad things from our lives and welcome good things. Many Thais believe that each person has a protective Kwun that looks after them and their family throughout their lifetime. Your Kwun brings happiness, and it must be regained if it is lost (or else there will be serious problems!). For now, we're supposed to keep our string bracelets on for at least three days for good luck. Hopefully, mine will make it longer! It was quite incredible that they shared their ceremony with us, and I felt honored to be a part of it. It was such a cool experience, and all of the village elders were very sweet.

Me, Charlotte, Thor, the village elders, Whitney, and Khun Annop at the start of the ceremony.

The Bai Sri tree that served as the centerpiece was meant to represent  the universe.

Tying the knot.

We then refueled with fresh coconut water (right from freshly picked coconuts from Khun Annop's garden) before going for exploring the village. We pedaled around on these adorable, candy-apple-red vintage bicycles that used to belong to the Japanese postal service. They proved to be an ideal method of touring the area! After stopping over for a quick visit to the local temple (every village has its own temple), we paid a visit to the local handicraft center. The village is know for its carpenters, and I quickly learned why. They made these incredibly intricate wood carvings that had so many detailed layers of woodwork. In one little patch of the wood carving, there would be misty mountains, twisting trees, blossoming flowers, and leaping deer all carefully carved around one another. I can't imagine how you'd go about making something like that out of a huge hunk of wood! And think how patient they must be to gently tap away each little piece of wood! I wish I could bring some of them home (I bet Charlotte would put the wooden dragon in the entryway to our house if she could), but I know they'd get smashed to bits.

Look at all of those wood shavings!

Later that afternoon, we met some of the local children that we'd be teaching the next day. As we played soccer with them, I realized that they are much more advanced than our students (near the elephant camp). I'm not sure why this is, since they don't have any foreign English teachers at their school, but it certainly was much more fun playing with them when I could communicate properly! There were longan trees everywhere, too, so we had fun picking and munching on them throughout the afternoon.

Longans!

Khun Annop and his neighbors went all-out for dinner, though! They made us an incredible feast with lemongrass pork sausage, tasty pork bits, this yummy soup, some sort of hevenly veggie, and the world's best curry. Everything was so yummy, Charlotte and I had a hard time eating it all, although I did manage to get fourfthsies! For dessert, we munched on mangosteens, longans, and this fruit that looks like a small, tan fig but tastes like a grapefruit. A most curious fruit! When I was so stuffed I couldn't even wiggle (to pack the food down), I drafted a quick lesson plan before turning in for the night. Oooh, but I forgot to mention one of the the wonderful luxuries Charlotte and I had at Khun Annop's house--full sized towels! Ever since we've been in Thailand, we've only used these tiny, quick-dry camping towels that are slightly larger than a wash cloth (since we didn't have room to pack big ones and we don't want to buy big ones since they'll never dry in this humidity). I guess I hadn't realized it before, but there's nothing like burying your face in a nice, fluffy towel (especially if you've been deprived of one for a bit).

This morning, we woke up early to visit the village temple, where they allowed us to participate in their daily rituals. Everyone was given plates with incense, flowers, leaves, and puffed rice (of all things!) to donate and place in four larger bowls. Then we sat in the temple during their prayers and chanting, which were sometimes led by the monk. At one point in the ceremony, everyone was given a small bottle of water and a glass. When the monk blessed the water, we bowed three times (nearly touching our heads to the floor) and slowly poured the water into the glasses. We then took the water, and poured it over some of the plants outside the temple. It was a most relaxing ceremony, even if I didn't understand what they were saying! Following the ceremony, we all lined up and gave food donations to the monk (although we had to place them in his bag, since we weren't allowed to hand it directly to him). Most people donated rice, pork rinds, perhaps some fruit, and/or a few baht, although I saw one lady donate a chocolate bar, too! There was this super cute old lady there, who was very eager to tell us all about her tradtions and customs (but in Thai). She was so sweet, and showed us how to rub the gong to make it ring, rather than hitting it with a gong-hitter thingy. While we rubbed the gong, we were supposed to think of a message or wish for Buddha, so that he would hear it. It was pretty cool how loud the gong would ring just from us rubbing it with the palms of our hands.

Khun Annop making his donation.

Rub rub rub!

After a brekky of tea and toast (hooray!), we broke into our English-teaching groups. Since Whitney teaches 5th graders in the US, she took the youngest kids while Charlotte and Thor taught two high school students. Meanwhile, I worked with three adults from the village who wanted to work on their speaking skills. I was quite impressed by how much they already knew, and they were worked very hard for our 3.5-4 hours of lessons. They even tried teaching me the Thai translation for some of the words I introduced, but I didn't retain any of them! After a lunch of pork fried rice and pig's blood noodle soup (that tasted surprisingly normal, despite my previous misgivings), we strolled through the neighborhood, pointing out things in English and asking our students simple questions. I enjoyed talking to them and trying to pick up Thai words and phrases. As we strolled about, the villagers and Thor showed us all the incredible fruits and veggies that grow there. Honestly, I don't see how you'd ever need to buy produce if you lived in a village like that, since there's so much! On our walk, we encountered: green papaya, mangoes, guavas (that were hard as a rock and tasted pretty funky....I'm pretty sure they weren't ripe!), pomegranates, lemons, limes, pommellos, longans (of course! Pretty much every other tree was a longan tree), bananas, custard apples, dragon-fruit, Thai basil, two types of beans, and a number of other mystery herbs/fruit/veg. That's quite a mix, I'd say! And the nice thing was, we had a chance to sample many of the tropical fruits. One of the villagers even gave us a pommello to take home! (It's about the size of my head, so it should make for a nice brekky tomorrow for Charlotte and I.)

Dragon-fruit!

Mysterious thingamabob.

Enormous pommello!

Sour/bitter thingy.

Charlotte and Pai, one of her students.

Later this afternoon, we chatted with some of the villagers, one of whom was this hysterical Thai man, who is a retired teacher from the local school. He kept giggling at everything, which I found quite entertaining, since he had a very goofy laugh to begin with. When he found our Thai-English phrasebook, he flipped through it, looking for words and erupting in little fits of laughter every so often. He'd repeat many of the things we'd say (a good way to practice his English, I suppose!), but his glass of wine certainly didn't help with his giggling! Finally, after pouring over our phrasebook for quite some time, he triumphantly looked up, and with a gleeful laugh pointed to the phrase, "What a babe!" Everyone at the table busted out laughing, especially the Thai man. He thought it was the funniest thing! Haha!

Pai, Charlotte, funny Thai villager, and Thor.

After a day and a half of exploring, teaching, and eating, it was time to bid farewell to the Muang Gorn village and return to Chiang Mai.

Buddha Day and More!

Khun Well with the candle-tea-ramen package for the monks. Note how the gold cellophane matches their robes!

Hello, all! Just wanted to do a quick post to fill you in on our week. Friday was Buddha Day, where everyone goes to the temple to pray and donate (food items, candles, etc.) to the monks. Apparently, the monks have to stay at the temple for three months following Buddha Day. Back in the olden days, monks would trample rice paddies while walking to their temples. So, they decided they must stay in the temples to allow the rice to grow properly. At least that's part of the holiday, anyways! We went to our neighborhood temple with everyone from the office, and donated two giant candles and a food package (since the monks only live off of donations during this period). The head monk at the temple was very sweet, but he had this crazy chihuahua that kept yapping at us every few seconds. She was really quite irritating, and wouldn't stop prancing about with her little pink bell jingling the entire time. The worst part was, though, was she ran up onto a cushy pillow that was situated atop a Buddhist alter during the monk's prayer. I just about died I was laughing so hard! It looked as if everyone in the temple was praying to that stupid chihuahua, which I'm convinced was posing for her adoring fans. Meanwhile, the monk was still chanting away with Charlotte and I just about rolling around on the floor in silent laughter in the back of the temple. We also found this really cool (and humungous) stag beetle at the temple. Check out those pincers!

All hail stag god!

Last night, we went to see the new Harry Potter movie with Michelle and Khun Tin from the office and Sean from Muay Thai. Charlotte and I were of course very excited, and enjoyed checking out the Thai movie theater. It was quite civilized, since we could pick our seats when we purchased the tickets. That meant no waiting for hours in line just to get into the movie! In many other ways, it was pretty similar to any other movie theater, except that they played the national anthem at the start and  everyone had to stand up respectfully. (On a side note, it truly is incredible how respected and well-loved the king is. Pictures of him are everywhere, including on giant billboards and in all of the classrooms at the school. The students all bow to him whenever they leave the room.) Strangely enough, the theater wasn't even crowded even though it was opening night! And I only saw two or so people dressed up in Harry Potter regalia. Incredible!

Oooh, and we have some exciting news! We found a new favorite restaurant!! We've known about it for quite some time now, since we always see it on our way to the restaurant that has the world's best Thai iced tea and kow soi. It's where all of the Muay Thai people go after practice, but Charlotte and I just tried it for the first time today. And what a find! There's only one table there, but the lady who runs it is super cute, very friendly, and can't get over how much we eat. (This seems like a common reaction among Thais that we've met.) We went there for both lunch and dinner today, and pigged out both times. At first, she laughed when we ordered our third entrée but then seemed somewhat appalled when we ordered our fourth. I had a batch of yummy squid fried rice, while Charlotte had squid stir fried with Thai basil. Yumm! For dessert, we had the world's best banana pancake. It must've been at least 1.5 inches thick, and we drenched it in golden honey. I do believe this will be a new addition to our Thai diets. :)

Hooray for tasty food!

Yummy squid fried rice!

Aside from our restraunt discovery, we had a pretty lazy day today. We lounged about in between our Muay Thai lessons, playing pictionary and generally just relaxing. I managed to take some pics of Chay Yai gym though! Hooray! I felt bad that I haven't taken any more, since we go there just about every day, so I made an effort today and have some to share with you. Hopfully, there'll be more to come, as I only managed to get A in the picture. I'll try to get some with everyone next time! For now, you can see what the homey gym and super-intense-but-really-sweet A look like. Oh, and here's a picture of the roosters, too! The Muay Thai guys LOVE their roosters, and are always cleaning them and brushing their feathers after lessons. They use them for cock fights, which I don't really agree with. I haven't actually seen them fighting, but everyone always says they fight in the afternoons. I would feel bad for the roosters, but they get paid more than the Muay Thai fighters do, and they are treated like royalty. Well, except when A picks his rooster up by the tail....Haha! Some of the old Thai guys even talk about the roosters having "good form" and suchlike. It's quite funny!

Our stinky but beloved gym.

Me and A!

Until next time!