Birthday #34

Today was my birthday!! Yay!

I worked for the first part of the day. In the early afternoon, I decided to go for a run. Because it's my birthday and I felt like running. Also because we learned that our scale has been off by 5 pounds and I fixed it last night so now I want to lose 5 pounds to get back to where I thought I was.

I ran for about 6 miles, from our apartment down through the rambles across the bow bridge down the mall all the way to the pond and gapstow bridge. And back up the east side and around the reservoir. I wanted to go to places that might have pretty colors for Fall. I found some.

The rambles (just south of the castle and above the lake) were ridiculous. Every direction you turned was picturesque.

Patong Beach and Bangla Road

Our plan today was to go to the beach and hang out on Bangla Road. That's it. Needless to say, we rocked it.

We had heard bad things about Patong Beach, but we found all the negative things to be completely wrong. We heard it was full of trash, but we'll let you be the judge of that.

The sand was actually really nice. And we loved these little butterfly shells.

The reviews say this beach is super crowded, but we didn't think it was that bad. There were a lot of people, but there was a lot of space too.

And we even had a cruise ship in town this day, so at least a few of these people are from the ship.

There's lots of activities on the beach, from the jetskis you saw earlier to parasailing and anything else you want to do.

We went for lunch on the beach. I can't tell you how much we love eating food on the beach. It's seriously one of our favorite things ever.

After our beach times, we went home to change and then headed back out to Bangla Road.

Bangla Road is the naughty part of town. It's basically one long block of debauchery. Night clubs, peep shows, ping pong shows, pole dancing, strip shows, bars, and (everyone's favorite spectacle) ladyboys. Some people swear you can tell which ones are ladyboys and which are actual girls, based on their adam's apple or their hands, but I can't. Some of them are crazy hot, but they're dudes. Or at least used to be. It's a trippy thing to wrap your head around. They're also pretty strong and forceful (again, because they're actually guys), and they don't like people taking their pictures without paying. So here are some screengrabs from when I was shooting in incognito mode.

As you can see in both pictures, they're not shy. The guys often get more than just a picture.

You know we're not quite the party type, so you're not going to get any sketchy details since we walked straight down the middle of the street and declined all salacious offers. Except for one thing that we just couldn't reject.

Has anybody ever heard of Swensen's? They have signs up all over that say, "America's Favorite Ice Cream." We thought it was a good ploy because Asians love American stuff, even if it's not actually in America. But then there we are, two American's eating their ice cream, so all the Asians must be thinking, "It's true! This must be America's favorite ice cream if they're eating it!" In Swensen's defense though, it's pretty darn good.

But here's something that's undeniably American:

Respect.

Thai Cooking Class

We love to cook, and we love thai food. So we wanted to learn how to cook thai food. All the guide books said to take a cooking class in Chiang Mai, so that's what we did today. That and laundry. But you don't care about laundry. So let's cook!

We did a half day class through Asia Scenic. They picked us up from our hotel around 4pm in a songthaew they had hired. We picked up a few other couples and made our way into town to the school. They're located about a block in and a block up from Tha Phae Gate, so in a nice location that's really easy to get to.

We met our guide/chef named Proud and after figuring out what we wanted to make tonight (which we'll get into in a second), she led us over to an open market to show us various Thai ingredients. She explained the differences in rice and pointed out various herbs and spices used in different dishes.

When we came back to the cooking school, they showed us around their backyard garden and we got to smell and taste various herbs. We really liked the smell of the lemon basil. You should go find some and smell it. It's smells exactly like you'd want it to: lemons and basil. Mmmm.

When we came back inside, we were treated to an appetizer (we didn't make this one) called miang kham (เมี่ยงคำ). They had put out lettuce, peanuts, toasted coconut meat and some sort of sweet sauce that was delicious. You put it all together like this and nom, nom, nom.

That sauce was ridiculously good. So I ate as much as there was lettuce. And then on to the cooking.

The way they work it is we have a group of 8 people (9 if you include the husband that was just hanging out taking pictures). Everyone makes curry paste and a curry dish, and then you have to choose (as a group) two other categories between appetizers, soups, entrees, and desserts. Of course everyone wanted to learn entrees, so it was the fourth category that we had to decide. Thai desserts aren't good, so no takers there. And honestly I think the soups are pretty bad too, although that's debatable. Isa and I really wanted to make spring rolls (appetizers), but one pair of friends hijacked the group and basically said the whole reason they came to Thailand was to learn how to make coconut milk soup (which is awful and if that's why they came to Thailand I feel sorry for them because Thailand has a lot better things to offer than that) so we conceded and agreed on entrees and soups.

Our stations were already set for us when we came back from the market.

Basically, we just had to put it all together in the right order. Proud started us off by showing us how to make pad thai.

Then we started on our dishes. I made pad thai, Isa made pad see ew, and the other couples made whatever dish they chose from the entrees (there were 5 or 6 different choices).

Oh my gosh my pad thai was soo good!

Once our entrees were done, we moved over to the table with all the knives and spices.

Depending on which curry we had chosen, there was a different plate of ingredients to make the paste. I chose panang curry (it's a non-spicy peanut curry because I'm a pansy and can't eat spicy food), Isa chose massaman curry (has a little more kick, but not much).

Isa, about to chop her garlic

Brian, mashing red curry paste

Once our pastes were finished, we went back to our stations to make the rest of the dish. Again, masterpieces.

Isa's Massaman Curry

Panang Curry - I put extra peanuts in the paste and it was sooo good!

Last things last, on to the soups. I was content with the curry and the pad thai, so I could have stopped there, but we made our coconut milk soup.

Finally, we got to feast on it all. And it was all delicious. Except for the soups.

And then they gave us a cookbook for all the dishes - including the spring rolls we didn't get to make. Yay! So we'll just have to make them at home.

Overall, it was a great class and a wonderfully fun and informative evening. After taking pictures, saying goodbyes, and waiting out the torrential downpour outside, we jumped in the minibus they had waiting to take us back to the hotel.

Thank you Proud and Asia Scenic Thai Cooking School for a great evening full of fun and food!

We Like to Eat: Lucky's Famous Burgers

Don't tell Shake Shack that we're cheating on them.

Thanks to Groupon, Isa and I went down to the Lucky's on 23rd Street. We tried a month ago, but it was too busy and we ended up going to Dallas BBQ across the street instead (also very good). Lucky's is really fun - the inside is super colorful and bright, and (my favorite part) they were playing the Yankee game on the flatscreens throughout the store.

Today was a little less busy, to say the least.

I got the Famous Cheddar Burger and Isa had the Mini Cheddars. She thinks they're better than In-N-Out, to which I whole-heartedly disagree, but they are tasty. And the crinkle-cut fries were fantastic. Isa tried their "Lucky Special Sauce" with her fries and she loved it (I'm too cowardly to try anything but ketchup).

As yummy as the burgers and fries were, we were not quite prepared for the deliciousness that is their "Famous Chocolate Chip Cookie Shake." Holy wow! Like, good enough to steal from a baby without a second thought good. My taste buds haven't had that much fun since they were in Thailand. MMMmmm, Thai food. :)

But overall, our hearts (and stomachs) are still true to Shake Shack.

Hello San Diego

We’re in San Diego!!

We woke up early. (apparently my internal clock has been set to wake up for work now, so I crawled out of bed at 6:40am. On vacation. Blarg.) But somehow we managed to not get on road until after 11am. The drive from Vegas to San Diego isn’t that bad. We made a stop in Barstow, which was annihilated in Chuck after Chevy Chase tried to upload the Intersect at their drive-in theater. (What? we’re nerds, ok?) But anyway, we were excited, so we stopped and found some food, something I’ve been craving for quite some time and Isa’s taste buds have never enjoyed:

I love In-N-Out, and Isa would have enjoyed it more if it weren’t for Shake Shack. But Shake Shack’s burgers are so dang delicious that she thought In-N-Out’s were just good, not “blow-the-competition-away” excellent. Whatever. I was happy. :)

We checked into our hotel (Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn on Shelter Island) which falls somewhere in the middle of a Tahitian bungalow and a fancy log cabin. It was really nice. It's right on the Marina:

Here’s a night picture of the main building:

It also had a classy restaurant (we get free breakfast every morning), an open-air concert stage (they host summer concerts with big name stars), and a nice pool, although we probably won’t go swimming while we’re here – too much to do.

We only had the afternoon to see San Diego, so we went to the one place I’ve always wanted to go: Belmont Park on Mission Beach. I didn’t get to ride the roller coaster last time I was here and I’ve always wanted to do it. The coaster, much like Coney Island’s Cyclone but less bumpy/painful and with much better views, is situated right on the beach.

The Giant Dipper

The view coming around the second turn is amazing! I wasn’t ready with the camera; it kinda surprised both of us and took our breath away. We toyed with the idea of paying another $6 each to go on it again just to see that view one more time, but we figured we’d be back again.

So on we went to Old Town. This was a cute little section of town with antique-y buildings with old architecture and lots of flowers. It was fun to roam around in there. Oh, by the way, everyone is SO NICE in San Diego. That’s all. Just nice people here.

As we were leaving to go watch the sunset, Isa spotted our church logo on the side of a building. Turns out it’s the Mormon Battalion Historical Site. We went back there after sunset, and when you’re done looking at the picture below, click here to read more about this place. It was SO COOL! It’s like a Harry Potter version of an interactive museum. Yeah. Click.

We shot down to Sunset Cliffs, but the sunset wasn’t that amazing tonight. Oh well, it’s hard to compete with some of the sunsets we’ve seen.

Appe-dinner

We couldn't decide what to make last night, so we made everything. Like a dinner full of appetizers. :)

And while we ate it all, we watched Black Swan.