Our final days in Chiang Mai were spent walking the city, finding parks and pools to play in, touring the traditional paper parasol making area and getting over to the night market.  Scott doesn’t like a big busy crowd, so we avoided it when it was likely to be a max capacity.  These were nice, slow days.

Evie wanted one of each.  So did I.  But the ladies assured me that no one in their right mind would buy one of the paper fans for a kid (let alone, 2 kids).   The fans and the parasols were something spectacular to see.

The kids also got a lesson in the art of traditional paper making.  We mashed up some bark, watched as water was strained out of pulp and large screens of a fake mashed potato-like substance was dried it in the sun.  On a side note, Uncle Rick is also going to show us how U.S. paper mills make paper (and what that pulp looks like) so we’ve set ourselves up for a whole long-term paper making unit.  We also have some papyrus from Egypt that we might have to dedicate to the cause to really give this one some educational legs.  Worldschooling win.

Dinner out one night, Evie discovered this Thai game.  She loves it.   (As far as I know, Connect Four is as American as Monopoly and Quest for the Antidote, but she’s not convinced. Otherwise “she would have seen it in the US.  Duh.”)  After she beat me several times in a row, I play to win now.  Beating a 5-year-old is not as satisfying as… say… Scott, but she was getting cocky and that just won’t do.

More Khao soy because… Chiang Mai.  This soup is really great.

And I got my dessert.  According to everyone else in the family rice and coconut are not, repeat not, dessert.  Fine by me.  I ate the whole thing.

Because we aren’t totally cruel and unusual, we also stopped to get the 3 of them a “normal” dessert that evening.

Despite all the desserts, Scott and I are still very mindful of eating as healthy as we can.  We’re finding time to work out (not regularly, but enough).

And… I’m still losing weight.  They have these Pay To Weigh machines all over town.  I can’t imagine why.  No Thai person could need this. I am literally a giant compared to them.  Gullivers Travels IRL.  Anyway, I got on and I’m down to 192 lbs.  I’m closing in on having lost 40 pounds.  Twenty more to go before I get taken off the remedial pay-extra plan!  Yay!!

The Night Market – almost completely empty.  Pretty but kinda boring (because half the fun is people watching).

The artists in this place were legit.  I’m not sure if pictures were technically allowed, but…  I could have watched him work all day.  Those are elephants in the eyes.

The place was really rockin’ at 7 pm on Sunday night.  Wall to wall people.  Prime time.

I’m generally not motivated to take pictures in public toilets.  However, I couldn’t do this justice with words.  On what planet… in what disgusting world… would you ever touch the inside of a public toilet with any part of your body unless you are threatened with terrible things?  Who? Why? What?! Come on, this is personal hygiene 101.  If you have to post this sign, I’m gonna have to stick with hermetically sealed foods from here on out.

And… then I lost my resolve.  The food court was yummy.  I know it looks empty, but it actually wasn’t.  That’s how I convinced myself it was ok to eat there.  No one willingly gets Montezuma’s Revenge.

This was my dinner – chicken pad thai.  It cost less than $2 and is entirely cooked in a hot wok.  It was filling and delicious and I walked away happy.  #LikeALocal

The next 3 pictures go together.  Sergeant Security can sometimes be a super buzzkill.  However, he has a point when he says I’m zero help.  I roll around foreign cities almost completely in the white – aware of absolutely nothing, focused only on our kids and all the pretty things to buy.  Ying and yang.

What heaven looks like to Jack at age 3:

Took this picture for Brit.  Thought you’d like all the stones.

After we walked around, we went to “Other Dinner”.

On principle, I had to recuse myself from eating Other Dinner.  Let the record reflect I didn’t interfere with anyone else eating it.  To each their own.  Far be it for me to suggest we take this once in a lifetime opportunity to expand our narrow New England palettes.

So what’s my problem exactly?  Looks like a nice restaurant?!

My family…. mutinied… and decided to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe.  It was a successful ambush.

Scott hadn’t had meat since he thought he found a tooth in a burger in Ayutthaya.  (It wasn’t a tooth. It was a small bone fragment. Admittedly not ideal but his reaction is a little extreme.)  He basically lived on fried rice and veggie pad thai for the remainder of the trip.  He saw the Hard Rock sign and I swear his eyes started to water.  Then he began to drool.  He didn’t utter a word and he sucked in a sharp breath.  A look came over him.  Caveman, “Mmmmmmm….  Fooooood.”

Grandmom, your brainwashing was successful.  Nate, I hope you’re proud.  Thailand is famous as something of a culinary safari.  But not for us, baby.  Oh no.  We became a live ballistic missile.  Destination: HRC.

{I don’t hate the food.  In fact, I really like it.  It’s just something I eat in the US, not when we’re on an exotic foreign adventure.}