Thailand Part I: Food

Hi everyone,

We're back in Singapore for a few days before we head off to Cambodia and Laos, so hopefully we'll have time to throw up a few blog posts that are more interesting/story-like than the piecemeal entry I put up on Hong Kong. To that end, I will now regale you with a tale of the delicious food that we ate at every turn in Thailand. We spent most of our time in Thailand in Chiang Mai, which is known primarily for two things: hill trekking and food. Those of you who know us well can easily guess why Kaelin and I went there.

Me as a happy little housewife

On our first full day in Thailand, my birthday, we took an all day cooking course at the A Lot of Thai cooking school in Chiang Mai, and it was absolutely fantastic. I have never eaten so much good food in my life, and the best part was that I actually cooked it... with a liberal amount of help from Yui, the owner of the school and our teacher. Yui was amazing, both as a cook and as a teacher. She's even been featured on "Chef Abroad" with Michael Smith and will be on the second series of Gordon Ramsay's "Gordon's Great Escape". It was really neat cooking in a kitchen where there were pictures of our teacher with Gordon Ramsay on the wall. 

Our cooking class, minus the only guy

Who knew there were so many kinds of eggplant?

Anyhow, we started our day by cooking Pad Thai and it was honestly the best Pad Thai that I've ever had. We got a cookbook as part of the course fee and Kaelin and I are going to attempt to make it for Cynthia and Neil tonight, so we'll see how that turns out *fingers crossed*. After we made and ate our Pad Thai we went on a trip to the local fresh market where Yui showed us all the local produce, rice, noodles, and meat. Both of us were absolutely amazed at the sheer amount of fruits and vegetables on offer that we had never even heard of. 

You can tell that chili peppers play an important role in Thai cuisine

The red things are banana flowers. Did not know those could be eaten.

A soup kit with all the vegetables prepared for you

Any guesses as to what the white things are? Hint: not a fruit or a vegetable

Our Pad Thai place of choice in Sukhothai: it was delicious and cost about $1.

After we got back from the market we spent the day cooking up an incredible variety of delicious Thai dishes. Both of us have now made tom yum (a kind of hot and sour prawn soup), stir fried chicken with cashew nuts, green curry with chicken, stir fried glass noodles with vegetables, spring rolls, and sweet sticky rice with mango. For the rest of the trip both Kaelin and I were craving Pad Thai and sweet sticky rice with mango. Thankfully we were able to find Pad Thai everywhere for incredibly cheap, though we had a harder time finding sweet sticky rice with mango. We're making that for dessert tonight, so hopefully it turns out. 

Who wouldn't want to eat there?

We were told by Yui that while we didn't make it, we couldn't leave Chiang Mai without eating Khao Soi. Khao Soi is a sort of soup made with crispy noodles, a bunch of different vegetables and meat in a curry-like sauce with coconut milk. We found an amazing restaurant in Chiang Mai that was owned by a British fellow in partnership with an incredible Thai cook, and it made fantastic Khao Soi (and Pad Thai). There was also a little garden out back that provided lovely ambiance. It was an "expensive" place at about $4 CAD for an entree and a fresh mango smoothie. It's mind-boggling what you can get for your money in Thailand. I can definitely see why a lot of British people have retired there; the weather is lovely, the food is fantastic, the people are friendly, and everything is dirt cheap compared to western countries.

Delicious Khao Soi

Equally delicious Pad Thai

That's all that I have to say about Thai food, but Kaelin may very well have something to add later, since we both loved it so much. I am now off to help Kaelin prepare dinner in the hopes that we can replicate the Pad Thai and sweet sticky rice with mango that we made in Thailand. Wish us luck!

Hong Kong Part 2

Hanging out on the waterfront

We arrived back in Singapore a few days ago, so felt it was about time we let you all know what we've been up to the last few weeks! I just wanted to add a few more pictures from our time in Hong Kong, and we'll write a new post for our time in Thailand. 

Avenue of Stars

Symphony of Lights

On the far side of Hong Kong Island, Stanley offered us beautiful views and amazing shopping

 

We managed to find a some what large hostel room in Hong Kong. We were amazed that we were unable to touch both walls at the same time!

Naturally, we had to go to the track and place a few bets. Best part, Erica came out ahead! 

Just wanted to let you know that we were not effected by the tsunami as we're in the north of Thailand. Our thoughts are with those in Japan.

Hong Kong Part I

Hello everyone!

Kaelin and I have returned from Hong Kong for a very short stop over in Singapore before we are off to Thailand tomorrow evening. We had a good time in Hong Kong despite the "cold" weather: it was around 20C and we had to wear pants and everything.

This is going to be mostly a photo dump, with promises of interesting stories to come tomorrow (or later) from myself and Kaelin.

First of all, the rooms in Hong Kong are tiny. There is a proper picture showing one of us as a scale measure, but since I neglected to upload it, I shall instead give you Kaelin in her bed in one of the first hostels we stayed in:

So much room!

While in Hong Kong we went to a bunch of street markets, including the night market on Temple Street and they were all quite cool. It really is an amazing experience, and if any of you ever get the chance then I highly suggest checking out a street market. The prices are dead cheap and there's always something interesting to see.

Crowd of people at the night market

Anyone want a spiky backpack?

So many colours absolutely everywhere.

There were also some specialty markets, including a flower market that I will let Kaelin talk about, but of which I will show you teaser picture

So many flowers for so little money!

There was also a goldfish market, which I thought was totally random. It was quite intriguing and far more popular than I thought it would be.

I felt bad for the fish in their little plastic bags

I dragged Kaelin to an antique market that sold a wide variety of things:

From "antiques"...

...to dinosaur eggs.

 We also made a point of checking out Giant Buddha and the 10,000 Buddhas Monastery. Both were very cool, but required climbing a lot of steps: 268 to the Giant Buddha and 431 to the monastery.

"That doesn't look so bad..."

It really does tower over you at the top.

No Canadian landmarks, but it is 12968km from the Statue of Liberty

Had to go down a sketchy back alley to find the base of the steps

So many Buddhas and that's not even at the top

After all that culture we decided we needed some fun and so went to Happy Valley Racecourse on a Wednesday night. Horse racing is insanely popular in Hong Kong with masses of people gathering at not only the racecourse, but also at Jockey Club buildings all over town to watch the races. Kaelin and I bet on three races and both of us won money on two of the three. I even won back all my money and entrance fee on one horse. Go Diamond Rainbow, go! And yes, I might just pick my horses based on their names...

Horsey go zoom!

We also went Ocean Park where we saw pandas! Real, live pandas! I was in heaven and took a million pictures, but will limit what I post here to one picture of a giant panda and one of a red panda

"Om nom nom, bamboo"

"Om nom nom, leaves that are also quite possibly bamboo"

And finally, since they bring me such joy I present to you pictures of Kaelin with statues, a tradition we continued while in Hong Kong, mostly at Ocean Park.

"Pretend like it's going to chop you head off!"

"Be one with the weird plant."

"Pretend like he's going to eat you!" Slapp

 

 

"Love that seal!"

"Tadah!"

"Play hopscotch!"

"Pretend that he's pushing the box onto you!"

And finally,

Me with the cutest little zebras ever. I just love their little hooves.

There was so much more to Hong Kong and one or other or both of us will hopefully update you on it tomorrow before we're off to Thailand for the next leg of our adventure, but if not then we'll be sure to put something up after we're back from that.

Hey guys,

Kaelin and I are off to Hong Kong tomorrow morning until March 8th, and I don't think we'll have a chance to update until after we're back.

To tide everyone over (because I know that you people have absolutely nothing better to do than compulsively check our blog every minute of every day) I thought I would post about a bunch of stuff that hasn't really merited a post of its own, but is still cool. That being said, I now introduce you to the post of random Singapore stuff!

1) Cynthia and Neil (Kaelin's aunt and uncle) are super cool

Joss - looking cool on the tiles

Cynthia and Neil are who we've been staying with in Singapore and they have been super awesome to us. We've been introduced to all sorts of cool food including $2 cafeteria food that is delicious (take that Guelph!) and pizzas with all sorts of crazy toppings. We've had some very nice food as well, but it's nowhere near as interesting to write about as cafeteria food that costs pennies, is delicious and that there it far too much of to finish in one sitting. We also had the most hilarious experience of phoning up a pizza place on a Friday night only to be told that we could not, in fact, order pizzas because "We are overwhelming". Any one else ever tried to order pizzas only to be told that the pizza place was too busy?

Cynthia and Neil also have four cats, which is excellent for me since it means that I get my cat fix while I'm away from Lola. Cynthia and Neil are camera shy, but since their cats aren't, and know that they are meant to be famous and adored by everyone, you will instead get pictures of them.

Jade - She has no tail, but is super awesome

Nikki - sleeping in his favourite spot

Ripley - being the indelicate girl that she is

2) I force Kaelin to be attacked by statues far too often
Exhibit A:

"Stick your hand in the fountain and look like you're in pain!"

Exhibit B:

"Climb on that statue and be scared!"

I love that she does, but I'm not entirely sure why she does...

3) There is a lot of random stuff in Singapore
This should really be divided up into multiple categories, but it is getting late and that will be my excuse for laziness.

They have buildings with spikes

People use odd means to trim tree branches

They have indoor skating rinks made of plastic. Also, Singaporeans cannot skate.

They sell meat squares and medallions

There is a "football pitch" "floating" in the water. Why? Because they can!

4) We make fools of ourselves everywhere and maybe do stuff that we shouldn't
Exhibit A:
(Also filed under weird stuff in Singapore since these are British phone booths)

"Oh yeah!"

Trying to do a "sexy" pose, but laughing at myself instead

Exhibit B:

Me climbing a water fountain staircase that I probably shouldn't be

Not really sure about this...

Doing it anyhow

Exhibit C:

"Grr! We too are merlions!"

Exhibit D:

Feet eaten by fish!

Kaelin was the flavour of the month!

Awesome!

This technically shouldn't be here since it's not something that we shouldn't do, and Kaelin put up a video of it, but it's still super cool!

5) We sometimes look like we've been photoshopped into pictures

6) Singapore has an amazing skyline

There you have it! A collection of random things about Singapore that expanded far beyond my original intent; I guess Singapore is just that cool.

I hope that all of you have a lovely week. Kaelin and I will be back on or around the 8th with tales of our travels to Hong Kong!