Wats and Woks

Greetings from sweltering, cacophonic, high-strung Bangkok! I'd heard this place is nuts, and they weren't kidding. It's a melting pot (and we're all literally melting) of culture, consumerism, and chaos, but I find it strangely endearing. Perhaps because it is slightly reminiscent of Shanghai to me. 

While I'm relieved that we're not staying here long, I'm glad we stopped by - if only because I got to smell Auntie Anne's Pretzels, Starbucks coffee, Famous Amos Cookies, Subway subs ... Today we basked, gloried, reveled in the modernity of this city. As is easy to do when you've been away from those old favorites for awhile, we walked around the food court of a very classy mall, completely open-jawed and looking absolutely ridiculous in our sweaty, dirty, frumpy clothes that have traveled so many miles but will forever cease to look truly cute. But so it goes when you've worn the same three shirts for the last two months. (I can't wait to toss all these rags at the earliest opportunity.) 

After we had had our fill of free smells and a few select treats, we noticed that there was a cineplex in this mall as well - with everyone's Oscar favorites playing just in time for Hollywood's big event. Seizing the opportunity to continue to evade the 95-ish degrees outside, we bought crazy cheap tickets for the 3:30 show of Up In the Air, which I loved and found to be fitting for this time in American history and even my own life, a little bit. Sometimes I wish for 10,000,000 miles, too. :) 

So, I enjoyed my first day in Bangkok and am excited to explore a bit more tomorrow before taking the train off to our beach paradise destinations. That being said, our previous city, Chiang Mai, didn't live up to expectations and I was eager to hit the road after those days were up. It's a nice city for the culture and the thousands of temples (wats) therein, but I'm pretty much wat-ed out for a good long time. However, there was a definite highlight, which was attending a Thai cooking class with Katrina. We had hands on experience learning about some wonderfully fresh ingredients, and got to try our hand frying up yummy things like spring rolls, pad thai, the best coconut-mango sticky rice in the WORLD, and even some fire-stir fry ... in a huge flaming wok. The most memorable moment? When my enormous fire lit up in my wok, I got nervous, stepped back, and the pan fell to the ground. Luckily it extinguished itself immediately, but it did leave me feeling pretty shaky and grateful that everything turned out okay!

Well, I should get going and make some phone calls, but thanks for reading. And don't worry, I won't cook for you anytime soon.