Welcome once again to our sporadically updated blorg!
Only a couple more months and we'll be back home in the good ol' U.S. and A.! It's pretty unbelievable how fast the time has gone.
The only new news is that we're planning a trip to China in January. A friend of mine at the climbing gym just got back from a 6 week trip to Yangshuo, China where he was teaching little kids how to climb. He showed me his pictures, and the area looks really, really neat! Not only for climbing, but for sight-seeing as well. The entire area looks so beautiful. You'll have to do a google image search for now, but we'll be sure to post pictures of our trip there when we get back.
We just celebrated Loi Krathon in Thailand. It was an awesome experience. It looks like Christmas over here with the way they decorate the streets and river with lights and candles. We were actually here last year for the festivities as well while we were on vacation. We floated rice-paper lanterns into the sky, and floated banana-leaf lanterns down the river. Really a pretty time to be in Chiang Mai. But as with most Thai holidays, it dragged out for too long. It was difficult to drive anywhere for almost a week because of the crowds and parades, and the fireworks made sure we didn't get a wink of sleep all night long. But all in all it was really fun. A few girls at EFL (where we work) made banana-leaf lanterns with Kat.
They've recently added an aquarium section to the Chiang Mai Zoo. We checked it out the other day, and it was really cool! They had smaller aquariums with some of the weirdest fish I've ever seen. They also had large tanks of different varieties of fresh and salt-water fish. But the coolest part was an enormous tunnel that was surrounded on all sides by water. They had really big groupers and eels, and even a bunch of medium-sized sharks. Nifty!
Most of you have already heard about the riots in Bangkok. We haven't seen any of the action up here in Chiang Mai yet, but some radio stations have been trying to encourage anti-government protesters to shut down the Chiang Mai airport. Hasn't happened yet, so we'll keep our fingers crossed! Chiang Mai is very supportive of the current administration so most likely we won't see anything up here anyway. But one problem is that we haven't decided if we want to risk flying out of Bangkok to China yet, or if we want to fly out of Chiang Mai (which is double the price).
Other than that, the weather has been pretty cold lately. We already bought a second blanket for our bed, and now that's not enough. Still, in the daytime you can wear a T-shirt and be pretty much OK. Hoody in the evening and you're good.
Anywho, I've added a few more pictures from Halloween. Most of these were taken by a girl we work with at EFL named Beau. Thanks again to the fam for all the sweet decorations.
Ugh. I actually have a bunch of photos of the aquarium and of Loi Krathon, and a bunch more of Halloween, but computers and I don't get along very well I guess. Maybe next time. Or we'll be home soon.
Pad khee mao (drunkard's noodles)
We made sooo much food, we couldn't even finish it all.
Yay...Jeff made a springroll!!!
Be nice or Jeff will spank you. :)
Tom Yum Gai (Spicy Chicken Soup)
Fresh herbs at the market (I'm not sure how to find these back home)
