play!

besides work, there has been lots of playtime as well! im currently writing this entry from my uncle's apartment in Bangkok, where we're spending some time with Chris's parents who are in town for a few days. (more on bangkok later)

in the past week, chris and i have been pseudo-party animals. this for us means meeting up with people almost everyday (and night). we usually have a much more laidback existence, but for some reason, we kept getting invited out. here are some highlights:

last weekend, we spent a lot of time with my fellow co-worker lara, her husband (and really great artist) rung (pronounced roong) , and her son (aged 7), raksin. it was awesome to be in a 'family' setting again (ie with a house, kids running around, etc.) and chris noted the different kind of energy he felt while we were visiting. it reminded me of being in college and getting invited over to your prof's house and being like, 'wow, a real house (with real food)', interacting with people of different ages than you outside of a work/school setting, reminding yourself that there's a world outside your own. i know that there are lots of different kinds of families (im not trying to be heterosexist or kid-centered here) but in thailand, we mostly hang out with people around our age/in our studio and it's a treat to be invited over to a house or on a road trip (in a car) since we just have a motorcycle here.

in any case, we spent a bunch of time at lara and rung's place over the weekend. chris was jealous that rung had his own little house/studio next to their main house and we got to see some of his works-in-progress (he is doing a major exhibition on the Thai King next month in Bangkok). as a typical first-grader, raksin was running around everywhere, and had his toys/books spread out in the garden area. saturday morning, lara made us yummy banana pancakes and coffee for breakfast and we chatted until lunch, when we headed over to a neighborhood laotian restaurant. the owner is apparently a famous pop singer in luang prabang (where chris and i just returned from) and we had some really great lao-style pho noodles, laab isaan (minced pork/spicy salad), and sweet peanut dip. rung also introduced chris to a new moo ping (marinated-pork-on-a-stick) stand in their neighborhood.

on sunday, lara called up in the afternoon and asked if we were interested in going to Mae Sa with them (about 45 mins away, in the mountains). she warned us that it would be a kidfest with her friend caroline and her two kids coming along. we didn't mind, so joined them for a road trip up to their friend's resort (Proud Phu Fa). on the way to the resort, we stopped at a small waterfall for the kids to play in and had some snacks. the resort was really beautiful and designed by the owner himself ( he was a classmate of rung's when they studied art together at CMU). we hung out by the pool, watched the kids run around in the large garden, ate some delicious vegetarian thai food, and enjoyed the full moon over the mountains. chris and i were most entertained by the fact that lila, caroline's daughter who just turned 4, switched back in forth between perfect thai and british english. language acquisition among children is really intriguing and amazing to me. it's also interesting to hear about how kids navigate between different languages (and different worlds). raksin is sometimes confused when people don't match his expectations of what language they should speak - for example, when we were out a local restaurant/pub named sudsanan the other night, his dad was speaking thai to a swedish dude joe. raksin asked his dad, "is joe thai or farang (foreigner)?" and his dad tried to explain that joe was a foreigner, but that he spoke thai. raksin was also originally confused by me (and chris) but after a few days decided we were cool and just spoke whatever language he wanted to us.

more family stuff: since chi (our next door neighbor) and family are going on vacation to the tibet/china border for a few weeks, we were worried that we wouldn't be able to hang out with them before chris headed back to the states. things were pretty hectic with their schedule, but wednesday night they ended up being free so we hung out at their place and ate these yummilicious hamburgers that chi made. i also split a bottle of singha beer with chi (chris refused to drink) and hung out/chatted with chi while chris played legos with jasmine (their daughter, also seven). later, we watched disney's high school musical with jasmine and ate homemade chocolate chip cookies before heading off to bed.

non-family stuff. one of the ma staff who moved to bangkok to be with her bf returned to CM for a few days because her bf was having his commencement ceremonies. (note: a member of the royal family has to be the one handing you your diploma at graduation, so commencement ceremonies are held year-round in Thailand). we went out drinking with some of the ma staff at the same bar we had pae's birthday celebrations at months ago (i think october, before chris came). the dudes were really funny (esp this one guy, yai,) because they were really drunk and wanted to talk to chris (in english). basically what this amounted to was ying sitting next to thai dude (yai or noom), who asked her how to say stuff in english, then the thai dudes trying to speak in thai (or english) to chris, then me half-listening and trying to translate and then chris responding. after awhile, they cut out the middlemen and started speaking thai-glish among themselves. i was actually very impressed with chris's thai.

two bottles of whisky later, people were pretty drunk. a carnival/fair was set up nearby and chris, kae, and ying tried their hand at darts (you must break seven balloons with your darts to win a prize - otherwise you get really crappy consolation prizes). chris and ying both popped six balloons, and kae popped five. disappointed with the results, we ended up going to eat rice porridge (kao tom) at a streetside stall before heading home for the night (this was tuesday, mind you!).

celebrating chris's birthday:

chris turned 28 on thursday, which was also the day libby came into town. i went to clinic in the morning (and saw a cool case of herpes zoster) but chris picked me up for lunch. we went to the big mall here, central airport plaza (yay air conditioning!), ate at fuji (one of our fave japanese restaurants), took sticker pictures, and played basketball. at night, we met up with ben and libby, hung out at ben's house for a little bit, and then went to House, a fancy CM restaurant, for dinner. my fave part of the meal was chocolate almond cake (chris's too)!

the next day, we had a lazy friday brunch at bake 'n bite with libby and ben which was super nice, stopped in at wawee coffee, and then headed to kad suan kaew to meet up with ying and kae. there, we stuffed ourselves with pizza, and went shopping for a bit. when we got home, we packed a bunch of stuff for our overnight bus trip to bangkok. ben and libby stopped by briefly again, and then p'nui (poo's fiancee) picked us up to take us to the bus station. nine hours later, we arrived in bangkok. more updates on bangkok later!

ps echoing a sentiment from james hudspeth's blog: im also looking forward to going home..just not looking forward to leaving. we heart chiang mai :)