Drinking in KFC

I was just hanging in the hostel room complaining to Raven about some of extremely irritating other guests (3 girls from sweden, here is a list of the annoying things they did: made phone calls at night in the dorm, had food in the dorm, took up 100% of the shared counter space, had all of their laundry strewn across the floor, and talked at full volume in the morning) Overall they were very inconsiderate of the other guests. I said hi and one of them said it back and the other just completely ignored me! While they were inches from my bed throwing their clothes everywhere too lol. Anyways i heard someone else get checked into the room and i introduced myself to her (Daisey) and she was actually from the states (NYC) also! We got to talking and i asked her if she wanted to go get something to eat. we ended up going to the food market at One Nimmon , kind of an indoor/outdoor mall. It was nice to talk to someone from USA, i havent met a lot of them. The food was really good and there was a live band playing. Paul ended up being there too and joined up with us for some drinking. We had a beer there.. got a soju at the 7/11 and came back to drink more and enjoy the music.. then we decided to go to warm up cafe, which i heard from Tide (pauls friend from chiang mai) is the happening spot. However, while we were trying to enter, Daisey had forgotten to bring any form of ID so she couldnt get in. I went in and used the restroom and the vibe struck me as sort of fancy, with a lot of people sitting down, so i suggested we get her ID at the hostel and go somewhere else. We ended up going to a club called zoe in yellow, which was extremely busy and touristy but it was fun. They were playing techno remixed pop songs from like the 2010's and a lot of people were dancing. We drank several more sojus. The bars close at midnight in thailand but we stayed a little later than that.. then we somehow ended up at a 24 hour KFC. I think paul overheard me and the american girl gushinng about how much we miss chicken biscuit sandwiches from kfc hahaha. After a bit surprisingly Tide showed up with two biggg beers for us all to share. We were openly drinking and eating fried chicken in the KFC it was so fun hahaha. They dont have biscuit btw, we got a huge basket to get the side of mashed potatoes which was small and overly sweet and a little mid. We were talking about whataver dumb shit lol. Eventually i think the KFC did close, at least the lobby, so we had to leave. It was a very fun night. I really enjoyed myself.

cooking class

Today i went to a cooking class. They picked up me and a bunch of other people in a shuttle bus and took us to a market first to talk about traditional thai ingredients. I picked up a potato and okra for myself on the side while we were there. After that we were driven to a huge, resort-esque yard with a bunch of kitchens attached. It was a pretty cool experience, we had our option of things we could make for each course and i ended up making coconut soup, curry and pad thai. Mango sticky rice was served to us at the end. All in all it was a very fun and delicious experience, even if a little touristy. From what i gather it is not super common for a thai person to invite you into their home, and my dream would be to learn how someone cooks in their home kitchen.. I gotta temper my expectations though , so im glad i took the class for the experience. They had a garden as well where they talked to us about different herbs and vegetables common in thai cooking. The most interesting ones i learned about was thai parsely (which smells like cilantro) and mini eggplant (which wasnt technically an eggplant i dont think; it grew on a bush). I even learned how to make the green curry with eggplants that james and paul served at the hostel in bangkok. After u got home i got another matcha at the same cafe i went yesterday and watched an episode of mushishi, a show me and raven are watching together. It was also thanksgiving day for all my USA friends and i did feel a little lonely in the evening. I ended up going to a supermarket and getting a couple things for dinner, my first time in a supermarket here and my first time cooking a real meal on this trip. I had madhed potatoes and gravy, a sirloin steak, stir fried okra and fried thyme. It hit the spotttt. I was gonna just go to bed and be lazy until i fell asleep, but paul who is in chiang mai invited to pick me uo and go to the night market on campus with me. It was perfect because i desperately needed socks lol. It was very cute. After that we just walked around the campus for awhile, chatting. It was peaceful. He told me how he used to raise giant beetles to sell as a kid as a side hustle. I was pretty tired, so i just went to sleep right after he took me back to my hostel.

Thanksgiving, i guess

woke up extremely hungover. I had originally planned to go to Pai for tonight and tomorrow, but the busses were all completely sold out. I thought i would be in the clear booking day of since last night there was still a bunch and they leave every hour. Oppsi :p I took it as a sign to stay in chiang mai, honestly once i learned the bus takes 4 hours to get to pai, going for two nights seemed kinda rushed. I had already booked my accommodation for the weekend over in the nimmon neighborhood, so i just decided to stay here tonight and tomorrow night as well :) luckily they had availability, but ill have to move from the female dorm to the mixed dorm tomorrow :p i think the person who runs this hostel is korean. There are a few koreans, one Japanese girl erika, and one person from the UK, anya. Korean decor is always so cute. It reminds me of a cafe i used to go to all the time in portland, soro soro. I was hungover so i didnt do a lot today, but i did take the hostels bicycle and take myself out to a nice dinner. Oh man .. it was the best salmon don ive everrrr had.. for $5. I got edamame as well and the meal was $7 in total, the most expensive meal yet on this trip. I cannot emphasize how delicious the salmon was haha. Also earlier in the day, like right when i checked in, i went for a matcha and ended up at the cutest most serene yet adorable tea house. Like, it was insane.. i will definitely go again.

Nimmon

I decided today was gonna be a chill day and i wasnt gonna load on loads of pressure to do lots. I went to the nimmon neighborhood and wandered a little. It was really embarrassing, there are a lot of japanese shops and restaurants in that area and when i got dropped off at the matcha place this morning, i was like aw damn the sign says they dont open til eleven!! ( in japanese font except the numbers of course) So i killed an hour just walking. I came back and sat outside for like 10 minutes before they opened, they greeted me and let me in... and it was a ramen shop ORZ the matcha place was actually behind it , and it opens at 9 every day. I had to excuse myself. Many such awkward encounters T_T i felt soo bad.. & the matcha i got was just ok.. I went into a mall and bought some knock off crocs, hopefully will be a good shoe for me:) then i came back to the hostel, grabbed the bicycle and went to a restaurant in the old town. Bicycling is pretty fun here, but i wish there was less traffic. Tomorrow im going to Pai, which is a much smaller town about 4 hours away. Kind of excited to be away from all the bustle, the big city. I am a girl of small places for the most part i think... i am considering renting a scooter and getting some practice in a smaller town. Ive been getting used to the left side of the road thing bit by bit on bicycle. I ended up going out at night with Paul and his friend Ty in the Nimmon neighborhood. My first time getting bottle service :0 we drank a lot...

Arriving in Chiang Mai

The bus wasnt very comfortable, but it wasn't as uncomfortable as it could be. The person next to me was friendly so that helped a lot. We arrived in Chiang mai about 6:30am. I took a grab to the hostel im staying at and discovered that theyres like 17 different hostels in a row here. I came straight here even though reception hours are not until 9 because i was hoping to stow my bag, which i ended up being able to. My room actually wasnt available until 1pm so i laid around in the hammock outside. The sun moved and woke me up from the deepest nap, i felt like i was being fried alive. Walked around and got the worst matcha on my trip so far. The area Im in is very touristy and that killed my vibe a little for a sec. I think i was pretty grouchy still from sleeping on the bus. I paid to get my laundry done, i took a shower, and then later i took one of the bicycles the hostel provides for free and biked around the old city which did hold a great deal of magic.. as soon as i crossed inside the old city walls the road was cobblestone with pretty little lights and shops and temples. I came home and stuck up a conversation with some more people from the UK and went to a night food market with them. I split off to buy new shoes.. haggled the seller down from 800thb to 200thb but im still not sure how i feel about them. Im hoping hoping hoping this problem doesnt persist T_T next time i would definitely drop $50 on some tevas before coming!!!

Leaving Bangkok

My actual last day in Bangkok after that fakeout last night. This time my bus is scheduled for 8pm-6am. I didnt get a personal dropoff to the bus stop this time, but i made it with the perfect amount of time anyway. Not that i wasnt stressing the whole time on my train.. I dont know if ill ever conquer my irrational fear of "missing my stop" on busses and trains LOL. Busses are worse no matter where you are cuz sometimes you have to pull the string thing to indicate you are getting off or else otherwise they dont stop. My internal monologue is like, "when do i pull it... now ? now? now? ...DID I MISS IT!? no.. didnt miss it.. NOW?" Dont even get me started on transfers. I specifically took a slightly longer trainride because there was no transfer. (Just so you know, i did a transfer coming home from chatuchak yesterday.. thats why its an irrational fear after all haha) but anyways all i had to do was take the train then take a grab. Im now so comfortable with the whole scooter taxi thing. Its so convenient and fun and you get to see a lot that way. I had a bit of time before my bus today but i didnt do anything that crazy. My new shoes were giving me a blister and i desperately needed to get socks to relieve the discomfort.. i tried to go to the same market as yesterday by the university and it was closed.. i ended up going to MBK again but it lost some of the dazzle it had on me the first time. Mostly because my feet were hurting and i just didnt feel like browsing at all. It would have been nice to get slides as well as the single pair of socks i got but oh well. The listed prices were about 3x higher than what i wanted to pay and i just didnt have the energy for haggling right then. After that i took a train to Lumphini park, which was really beautiful. Talked to the attendant about the monitor lizards and if theyre mean or not. He demonstrated with arms extended the closest i should get without fear of getting bit (he did a biting motion.. it was funny haha). I got some great footage of one!! The strap on one of my my new sandals already broke T_T so i need slides more than ever now. But getting them in Chiang Mai shouldnt be too much of a problem i hope.. on the bus i sat next two three redhead triplets from the UK. They said , i dont know why, but we have been very popular with the thai people and i said uhhh maybe bc youre redhead triplets?? Thats pretty wild lol. Theyre names were Eden, Blaze and Cam. And they were very friendly!

Chatuchak market & bus fiasco

James' friend Paul lives about an hour away (still in Bangkok) but he ended up staying the night at the hostel last night. When I came downstairs Paul and James asked me what my plan was for today and i said "i dunno , my bus is later at 7, until then didnt have a plan" and James said, "Paul would you wanna take her to chatuchak market?" James explained that he had to do admin work for the hostel until 3. He seemed a little bummed lol. Of course I happily agreed to go to the market with Paul and it exceeded my expectations definitely. After a 45 minute train ride, we got off a chatuchak park and walked around a bit. We decided to stop for food before going into the market to get our energy up. Paul and I shared a pork fried rice, which was really good. They gave us a chili fish sauce to have on it which was really salty and savory. Paul said he had never seen a farang (foreigner) eat fish sauce and that made me sad a little.. Its literally in every pad thai, stir fry, soup and etc. I would say it is as foundational to cooking here as butter or olive oil in the states. (Obv the ingredients serve different purposes but you get my drift) Just because the fish sauce was served on the side instead of stir fried in I see no difference. It was tasty. We crossed a street and walked into the market, which was bigger than you could ever concieve.. Look it up if you want to get some idea of the scale. There's storefront after storefront, some are airconditioned, others are more in the sun and open air. There was even a fancy art gallery section.. We walked around awhile, i picked up some things i needed (shoes, coinpurse, long skirt) and then we decided to go to a mall on the adjacent street. It was all consignment, and it was interesting to see what kind of vintage thai people like. We noticed that there was a door to some sort of balcony (we were about 3 stories up) and went outside to see food vendors and an awesome view. Paul was soo stoked he was like, "i never knew this was here!" I wasnt very hungry but paul got a quesadilla and I tried a bite out of curiosity. I would say tortillas are one of the only breads i see thai people here eating. It was some kind of shreaded beef and cheese, with sriracha on top. It was not spiced at all which i was really surprised since people here looove their spicy food. Ill be keeping my eye out for more though, Im definitely curious about mexican thai fusion food. I was looking for something with Tom and Jerry to get for James to express my gratitude for all his help, but there was only a couple shirts and they were too big or too small. After we got to the train platform, Paul and I split ways. He said his place was only two stops away so I came back to the hostel. I didn't have a ton of time, so i ran to 7-eleven and got a few snacks for my 10 hour bus journey. James and I took his scooter to get a dinner before I left. We went to the nearby university campus Chulalongkorn and there was an open air market with food vendors and clothes. He got some kind of spicy soup and i got a fried potato on a skewer. He also picked up about half a dozen of some kind of cream filled pastry treat and gave them to me. Some were filled with pandan cream. He offered to give me a ride to the bus stop which I accepted, since the train wouldve taken like an hour or more as opposed to 15 minutes. Got there and said goodbye. Got to the bus. Got on the bus. Got into my cozy bus set up. Thought, "maybe I should see what area the bus terminal is in Chiang Mai.." Entered the address on my booking into google maps..... AND THE BUS WAS GONNA TAKE ME TO A TOTAL DIFFERENT CITY!!! Omg!! Running! Grabbing all my stuff! Stuffinng it in my bag!! Walk down to the first level of the bus , the bus starts moving!!! Im talking to the attendant, like sorry, please let me off, I dont speak thai but she doesnt speak english, but i get my point across and get off. I went back inside to the ticket office to see if there are any busses left for Chiang Mai, and learn, northbound busses dont even depart here, or even near here. Omg. I was talking to two thai gentlemen who were trying to explain things to me. They were using the google talk to translate app which was kinda sick. I dont know why they were trying so hard to be helpful but it was nice.. I tried asking them if i could take transit to the other bus station and the conversation kinda went nowhere. They tried to help me a lot, they offered to call me a cab but i said i got it.. and then I took a scooter ride back to the hostel and said, "you cant get rid of me that easy!" LOL. while it was a little jarring, experiences like that help me remember that Im capable of handling a lot.. If I can handle that situation in a foreign country where I dont speak the language, it gives me confidence that I can handle a lot more adversity in my home country than i give myself credit for.. It all turned out fine in the end.

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