Merry Christmas!!! It's an unusual feeling waking up in a foreign country on a holiday morning, especially when it is 12 hours ahead of our normal time. It was only Christmas Eve back home, so calling to give season's greetings would have been premature. It's not our first time away from home at Christmas, and I can say it is not our favourite part of travelling; probably the hardest part. But we think it is okay to sacrifice one important day every couple years in-order-to pursue other interests.
We had planned a special cooking class for the holiday so we wouldn't be moping around. We got up early to get the blog done, however, the internet in the hotel was down. We got it prepared so we could just post it later in the day. The shuttle arrived basically on time and we travelled around the city picking up 8 other people: 2 couples from New York City, a young guy from Hong Kong, a young girl from Germany, a young girl from Los Angles, and an older lady from San Francisco. The funny part was when we all introduced ourselves, everyone except the Americans identified the country they were from. The Americans all said the city they lived in...
The bubbly hostess, Pern, was wearing a Montreal Quebec sweater. She first walked us through a local market, explained a few of the ingredients including rice and sugarcane. She talked about fish sauce, bean and rice noodles; and the different types of curry paste we would be making. Because of globalization, we have many of the products that she talked about; but because of shipping, many are dried.
The drive to the Cooking school, Thai Cooking Farm, was about 15 minutes and we talked about our experiences so far in Thailand. Everyone on the course had just arrived in Thailand and Chiang Mai was their first stop outside Bangkok. Almost everyone was heading south after 1 or 2 more days in the area. We explained our experiences on the east and west coast of the beaches and exclaimed that they would all be happy with the beaches they chose. Everywhere was beautiful, it just depended on your tolerance with being bombarded with sales tactics.
The cooking farm is very cute, with 3 open air buildings that housed the classes. Beside each class there was a wash area where a couple old ladies cleaned all the dishes as we messed them up. We all said we were hungry, so Pern changed our itinerary to skip the tour of the garden and get right into cooking. We started by reviewing the ingredient, then using a mortar and pestle, we pounded out curry paste; some thought it was quite the workout. Tim and I picked different items to prepare to widen our experience; for Tim it was Red Curry, Shrimp Tom Yam Soup, Chicken with Basil, Fried Noodles, and mango sticky rice. For me it was Green Curry, Chicken Coconut Soup, Chicken with Cashew stir fir, Fresh Spring Rolls and Sweet bananas (soup). Additionally we learned to make sticky rice, normal rice and papaya salad.
The day was an amazing experience! Not only was it a group mainly consisting of our ages, we got along with almost everyone. Particularly, we spent most of the talk to one couple from Manhattan, Alex (a Lawyer) and Stacey (a teacher). Everyone shared stories of their life experiences and how they came to be travelling in Thailand. Many were interested in life in Canada and our jobs in the military. We all complained the the course simply had too much food to enjoy; however, they allowed us to package our main dish to take back to our hotels.
When we arrived back to our hotel, the internet was working and we set to task to get the blog up. Following this, we made our initial Face Time call home for Christmas morning. We gave wished to everyone and let them go to open their presents. Calling home and hearing the normal excitements (and complaints) made us miss everyone so much. It truly hit home that it was Christmas and we were missing the morning ritual of enjoying family sharing :-(
We decided that moping around was no solution to anything, so we composed ourselves and set out for the special Holiday night Bazaar. We enjoyed the holiday music being played from a variety of sources and shopped. We secured a few more souvenirs before finding a pub with a gent singing great American song and playing the guitar. The beer was reality cheap and tasted great on tap.
We walked back to our hotel, enjoying a delicious rottee filled with bananas and nutella, still missing the PB. When we got back to the hotel it was about 11pm, so we made another call back home to see how the festivities were making out. Everyone was happy and thankful. Our final call of the night was to my Aunt Debbie, Uncle Edwin and cousin Ryan. It was great to see everyone. Today, we were especially grateful of the technology that allowed us to still be able to see each other smile, even from around the world...
