One point Thailand

Last night Matt and I went to a seafood restaurant that had been recommended to us... and we accidentally ate the absolute spiciest meal of our entire lives. Oh man. I was suffering. We ordered things that sounded delicious and harmless: papaya salad (which we expected to be spicy), fried rice (which was fine), grilled fish in tom yum sauce (delicious, and only semi-spicy) and curried fish soup with bamboo shoots (HOLY MOLY. God Bless America, this thing was daaaang spicy. I'm not kidding, even my mom would have been sweating.) Unfortunately, I made the mistake of eating the soup first, and then proceeded to hiccup, sweat, sniffle, and hold back tears for the next 15 minutes as my lips burned and I fumbled around for anything that would mitigate the inferno in my mouth. At one point I think Matt was even blotting the inside of his lips with napkins. (Don't think that was too successful.)

We paid as fast as possible, ran out of their and straight into the first dairy  haven we could find... mmm gelato. A life saver.

Needless to say, this meal didn't leave us feeling too great the next day either... just as I was starting to convince myself that we certainly wouldn't need all that pepto bismol we brought because we were "practically locals" as it has been 4 weeks and we haven't gotten sick once yet... guess you should never get too cocky. Lesson learned. You win this round, Bangkok.

On a completely unrelated note... Kate and are I currently sitting in investments class, enjoying delicious Thai snacks - an afternoon ritual. (Don't worry, Dad. We learn finance too... sometimes.)  Typically pocky is on the menu... either chocolate covered or the "roast" flavor (which I think is supposed to be "toast" because the front pictures a loaf of bread... and tastes nothing like meat.)  Today, however, we are enjoying some "Koala's March". Tiny little koala bears with melty chocolate in their belly's. Wonderful. Thank you, 7Eleven.

We just discovered that the surface (which I'm typing on because my laptop is completely busted... very sad.) has a camera on it. So we felt the need to document.

Island hopping

This weekend Matt and I escaped the hustle and bustle of Bangkok for a bit of beach time on the islands. While it was only a short trip (Friday night through Sunday night) it still felt wonderful to get away and spend some time in the sun (or - let's be honest - under the shade of an umbrella or gigantic hat in my case).

We stayed at a great hotel in Phuket (on points of course - we are way too cheap to pay for anything like this with real dollars) and spent one of our days just relaxing by the pool and beach. The other day we did a full-day boat trip out to the Phi Phi islands. These are a cluster of islands, mid-way between Phuket and Krabi (a ~1 hour boat ride from each side) that are the classic photos you often see and think of when you think Thailand. They are giant rock formations that literally look like they were just plopped right in the middle of the ocean - sheer rock faces, really clear turquoise water, and tons of fish and coral to scope out.

Phi Phi Ley islands

Parked at a cove for a swim break

Matt getting his snorkel on.

Whitest stomach in Thailand, perhaps?

One of many awesome little wooden boats dotting the islands

Hanging at the hotel

Hotel - lots of little individual huts all built into the cliffs

Celebrating Birthdays and Kicking Butts

*Note - post updated to include hilarious video of Katie beating the crap out of her instructor - see bottom*

It's hard to believe it has already been three full weeks since we arrived in Thailand... time flies!



Jen's birthday "cake" - boxes of brownies from this amazing
French café/bakery we found called Vanilla Industry

A few fun things going on this week... Wednesday was Jen's birthday, so we did a group dinner at an awesome restaurant called "Soul Food" (some of the best Thai food we have had yet). We then went to a very strange, but very awesome, jazz bar called "Iron Fairies". Super dark inside, random stuff hanging everywhere, mult-level and an incredible band playing. Oh, and wooden jewelry boxes full of peanuts on all the tables - score! Great find.



The highlight of the week, however, was Muy Thai class Thursday night! Holy smokes... might have been one of the best work-outs I've ever had. We didn't really know what to expect, and probably all assumed it would be an hour of doing thai-bo Billy Blanks style... but were pleasantly surprised by the overall ass-whooping we each received.

One of the Thai students in our class, Pimpan, had asked us a couple of weeks ago if we would like to try a Muy Thai class. She set it all up (and came with us which was a blast). The class was legit... and sweat was flying everywhere.

The class began with stretching, and then 5 straight minutes of jump rope to warm up. (My calves are still sore.) Then, our instructor (one of many!) walked us all through the fundamentals of punching, elbows, knees and kicks, making sure we all knew how to do them in proper form and got in lots of practice. I sorta thought this would be the gist of the class... flailing around, punching the air, similar to kick-boxing classes at my gym back home. But boy was I wrong... after that, the real fun started. They wrapped all of our hands, gave us boxing gloves, and threw us in the ring. Each of us was paired with an instructor (who was wearing pads) and basically was just instructed to beat the crap out of them. It was awesome! We did 6 or 8 rotations in total, each time rotating between sparring with the instructor in the ring, and then practicing on the punching bags. In between each rotation we all had to do the requisite set of sit-ups and/or push-ups. Totally whooped by the end, but it was an incredibly fun couple of hours.  



Getting the form down in the beginning of class



Getting our hands wrapped

Pimpan, our thai classmate who set
this whole lesson up 

Mandatory sit-ups in between each round of sparring...
 these guys weren't letting us slack off!

I must say, I think the highlight (for me) was watching Ms. Pyle scream like a banchee every time she threw a punch at her instructor. That girl is fierce. Please see video below... (Don't worry, I have her permission to post this.)

Chiang Mai Day 2: Critters!

Our second day in Chiang Mai was probably my favorite day of our whole trip so far. We spent the morning playing with tigers... and the afternoon hanging out with elephants. SO FUN!

First came the Tigers... 

This little guy was about 2-3 months old... snoozing the day away....

Until he suddenly woke up. Why, hello there!
Was not expecting that... and it might have scared me just a little bit.

this little guy was getting a lot of lovin'

Matt, looking like he is about to pounce on this guy

This guy was huge.

Just a lazy Sunday afternoon nap...

And then came the elephants... the baby elephant was my absolute favorite. So many sloppy kisses.

nom nom nom... bananas... 

Best part of the whole day. Playful little guy. 

Out on a trail ride through the jungle

Matt had one of the oldest elephants...
a 40-something year old Grandma named Capo

Mine was just a teenager. She did what she wanted.

Bath time!!

Nick's elephant was gigantic!!

Chiang Mai Day 1 - "What it is!"

This post will probably be the first of three about our weekend in Chiang Mai... what can I say, either I'm really bad at writing concisely (probably true) or we (think we) have a lot of exciting stuff to share.  Maybe some of both.

Buddhist sign

On Saturday we wandered around Chiang Mai during the day, checking out some of the many wats (temples) and getting a feel for the town. Despite being the second largest city in Thailand, Chiang Mai actually feels very small because it is very sprawling, so no one area feels too dense. We were staying primarily in the old city, which is a small square in the heart of the city (probably ~2 square miles) which was built hundreds of years ago and has a moat and a wall around it. Two friends from Kellogg - Nick and Gabby - were there with us for the weekend, which was a blast.

Near one of the wats was a Buddhist school, and all of the trees had these little signs hanging in them with different sayings on them. I thought they were pretty cool.

Add the market, admiring the lemongrass and Thai basil

The highlight of the day, however, was thai cooking school!! We got picked up around 4pm and were driven to the market where local people and restaurants buy a lot of their food and ingredients. We were given a lesson on the 4 basic ingredients that give almost all thai dishes their flavor (kafir lime leaves, lemongrass, ginger, and tumeric). This lesson came in the form of a game, where our Thai instructor would pick up a leaf/root/veggie and yell out "WHAT IT IS!" (I think she thought she was saying "What is it?") and we would all answer with ridiculously inaccurate guesses.

We had a few minutes to wander around the market... checking out many other "delicacies"...

Fried chicken heads. Yep, you can even see the little beaks. 

Giant rolls of sausage, served with deep fried pork fat.
Matt  couldn't resist, and bought some for the ride back.

 Then, we were taken to the cooking school where we each got to select one dish from each of 4 different categories: a curry, a stir-fry, a noodle dish, and a soup. Then we went on a cooking spree! So awesome and fun and delicious. We were completely stuffed by the end, and quite proud of ourselves. They gave us recipe books to take home... now if only we can retain some of this skill and make a Thai feast for everyone when we get back to Evanston...

Second course - panang curry
and stir-fried sweet-and-sour veggies

Group shot, soup time (Jen, Nick, Gabby, and us)

Aren't these aprons awesome?
I bought one to take home... it cost a whopping $3. 

Thoughts on Thailand: Part 1

Today and tomorrow we are actually doing a lot of homework (it's true!) in order to be able to head out to Chiang Mai this weekend without having to lug heavy books with us... therefore, we don't have any new exciting stories to share. However, I wanted to list out a few things I've noticed about this place.. and I've named it "Part 1" because I have a feeling the list will continue to grow:

1) Thais are tiny!
This is a no-brainer.. obviously y'all know that Thai people are smaller than Americans. But did you know that they are tiny as in... so tiny I'm struggling to find dresses and skirts here that aren't SUPER short. And so tiny that yesterday in class one of our fellow exchange students literally broke a chair. Kaboom! Right in the middle of class. And he is not a big guy, by US standards! Certainly not heavy in anyway. We are just sitting in class, and then suddenly 2 of the chair legs crack in half and he goes tumbling.

Will, holding up the 2 legs that just snapped right off his chair

2) Thai folks know how to shop
Seriously... the malls in this country are out of control. Gigantic (~8 stories high and spanning multiple city blocks) and everywhere (4 huge malls within a mile of our school).. I'm not sure who actually keeps these places in business. And that is just the malls! The markets and pop up street vendors and little shops tucked here and there and everywhere are just as numerous. This weekend we went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market, which must be one of the largest markets in the world... it was about the size and shape of an NFL stadium with rows and rows and rows of vendors. Naturally, we picked up a few souveniers  a couple of big hand bags for me ($6 each) and an etched map of ~1830s IndoChina for Matt. (yes, they sell EVERYTHING there.) Final point to hammer home how much they shop... I asked one of the Thai students "How big is Chiang Mai?" (a city in Northern Thailand), thinking he would respond with either an answer in terms of population or square kilometers... but instead the response was "Not too big actually.. I think they only have about 4 or 5 malls there." Go figure.

3) Stray. Dogs. Everywhere.
Having been here 1.5 weeks now, we are starting to no longer notice the stray dogs laying all over the streets... which is why I feel compelled to post about it now, while it still seems at least a little weird to me. There is not much to say about this, other than the fact that they are all about the same size (~50 lbs maybe?) and all just lay around in the sun in the middle of parking lots and sidewalks. None seem particularly threatening (they are probably all ill and starving and therefore lethargic). It's like the US equivalent of squirrels I guess... or ants or something.

a few dogs on the sidewalk outside our school

BLOODSPORT!

The girls have all been asking to do something "cultural" so I reserved tickets for everyone tonight at the cultural event of the year...a Muay Thai kickboxing match at Thailand's oldest and most authentic Muay Thai stadium: Ratchadamneon Stadium!

Thanks to some help from our doorman at the Sasa House, we were able to get 1st row, ringside seats where the blood & sweat were literally landing on us with every blow!



The card for the night had 9 fights in total with weight classes ranging from 86 pounds (yeah...these kids looked like they were 12 years old!) to ~140 pounds.  We had a blast betting 20-40 baht on each fight and cheering on every fighter in our "red" corner of the ring. 

The "main event" (fight #7) ended dramatically when the underdog (left, in red) landed a bruising blow to his opponents shin.  We're not sure if he broke his leg but suffice to say, the match was stopped immediately and medics came out to carry off the fighter on a stretcher...wicked.



Carlyn and some of the girls are taking a Muay Thai kickboxing workout class next week...let the training begin.

Lately.

We haven't posted in a few days, so this post is going to be a random compilation of things from the last couple of days.

Having a beer at school before heading out to dinner... Sasin's version of TG !

One of the entrees at group dinner...
fish/egg cakes, with a texture similar to a hot dog. 

First - Friday night we went out with a few of the Thai kids in our class. They have been very warm and welcoming, and organized a dinner / night out for our group. It was a great time! We got to know a few of them better, and learned alllll sorts of interesting things about the Thai culture... At dinner, some of the Thai students just ordered a bunch of stuff for the table to share, so we tried a bunch of random stuff we probably wouldn't have otherwise ordered.

Pastry shop we walked by called
"Mr. Jones' Orphanage Milk  Bar"
Looked Amazing! Need to come back!

Kate and Jen at girls dinner Mon night
Curries served over a flame

Kristina and me, dinner Mon night

Sweet Texas find on the streets of Bangkok!

Yesterday (Tuesday) another group of Kellogg folks showed up - woohoo! They are all starting the Hong Kong study abroad program in a few weeks, so made a stop-over in Thailand during their travels. We started the night with a big group dinner at a very "low-key" (e.g. folding tables set up outside) Thai restaurant - cheap and good.

Group shot at dinner

Then, naturally, we thought we would head out for a "crazy night in Bangkok" and go "rage" at some clubs... We were feeling pretty good about this as we walked up to the "Bed Supper Club", a very sceney club that looked like a space ship. Oh man, we thought, this will be sweet. 

However...Not ten seconds later we were promptly rejected. "No flip-flops!! No shorts!!" (E.g. "no sorry-looking-American-students allowed.") 

This was a bit of an ego-bruise... but we rebounded quickly and headed directly across the street to a Karaoke bar which looked promising. 

Matt and Mike led the way, striding in confidently... only to be promptly rejected (again!). Ouch. 2nd rejection in a span of 5 minutes. "Only Korean men allowed here! You NOT Korean!!". 

Wah -wah. Roach looking pitiful, getting rejected by 2nd bar

Luckily, all hope was not lost! Within less than a block we found a "bar" more our style...

An old VW bus, gutted and transformed into a bar, parked on the side of the street, with tables set up outside... so we essentially hung out and drank in the gutter of the street. Oh we so classy.

Regardless, it was a great night!

thrilled with our new find - "yes, this will do!"

Third time is a charm