Dalama Adventures Tale of two corporate types ditching their jobs and traveling the world for 14 months... check out all photos, blogs & interesting tid bits at http://www.dalama.net

We're using this trip to open our minds to new career possibilities.  Being away from the traditional office grind environment has allowed us the chance to listen to our creative sides and explore old and new passions.  Darrin has always been super creative and artsy.  While he's been able to "create" and "innovate" in the high tech environment at home, he's not had time for his artwork and music.  Today I think he's found his new calling.  He's one talented vegetable carver!  We took a full day Thai cooking class today, with our favorite cooking school - A Lot of Thai.  We took a class from Yui over a year ago during our last vacation to Chiang Mai.  Lucky for us, it's low season, and we were the only two people in class, so we got to customize the menu the night before, to dishes we really wanted to learn.  We made stir fried noodles with thick gravy, chicken in hot and sour soup with coconut milk (my personal favorite), chicken satay cooked up on a tiny portable grill like the street vendors use, steamed prawn with curry custard coked up in a banana leaf bowl (yep, we even assembled the banana leave bowl), stir fried sweet and sour veggies and to top it all off, steamed banana cake which was also cooked up in a little banana leaf cup.  The banana cake was to die for.  I could eat those all day long.  After cooking up all the meals, we then busted out the carving knives and took to carving flowers out of pumpkin, and decorative leaves out of cucumber.  Darrin's were quite impressive, and I think he has a real natural artistic talent here.  Another amazing day, eating our way through Thai culture, this time all prepared by ourselves.  We left the class much more confident in our Thai cooking capabilities and ready for when we return home, to serve up some fine cooked meals.