We bought a car!
Sawadekaaa!! Hope everyone at home is enjoying all of the fall activities - I love seeing the pumpkin patch photos - looking forward to seeing the leaves change! There is a restaurant in town called "The Pancake House" and they had pumpkin pie for sale!! I almost cried...but instead bought two slices. It was my first taste of pumpkin in Thailand and it felt like home.
Last Friday, there was a Rotary Club event called "Night at the Museum". Our neighbors across the hall are members of the Rotary Club and invited the staff at our school to their fundraiser. The Rotary Club have fundraising events and 100% of their proceeds go to children's charities. Their current service projects include Children’s Water Safety (Drown Proofing) project with the goal of reducing the drownings of young Thai children, Children’s Sight Project, providing eye examinations and spectacles to poor children in Chiang Mai province. A lot of staff from our school loved the chance to support them so we were excited to attend. The event was at "Art in Paradise" located near the Night Bazaar and is an exhibit all about Illusion Art. The art was also interactive as you can see below! There was a scavenger hunt we tried to do but once you start taking pictures we forgot all about it. (First up are pictures of our guest house for the weekend. We stay somewhere different every time we go to town!)
As you know, we have been looking at cars and just not having any luck. So last weekend we rented a scooter and decided to look at the local second hand lots. We knew it was going to be difficult because the owners wouldn't speak English, but we had some friends on stand by that were ready to translate for us over the phone. Nothing seemed to be in our price range and the cars that were, I think were older than me. Even those cars were maybe $2,000 USD, we were determined to find something more reliable and able to do road trips with out the chance of breaking down. We arrived at our last lot and headed to the back (where our price range was) and the owner approached us saying to follow him. He shows us a 2003 Mazda whose price had been reduced to slightly over our budget. The price included the owner transferring all of the paper work for us. This car had also just been back from the dealership for its yearly check up and everything was in great condition. So Ben and I said we were interested, and would come back later that week to sign the papers. It was so easy and took maybe a total of an hour! The transfer office however took half a day but Ben was so patient and handled all of that! And naturally, we drove it everywhere this past weekend! Also - this past weeks, friends from our college (JMU) came to visit Chaing Mai on their trip around the world and they reached out to us to see if we were available for a few nights to meet up! It was SO good seeing familiar faces from home and sharing traveling stories. They took a year off from work to travel all over the world together - so exciting! We hope to meet up with them again on their way back from Burma this weekend.
Before I share with you our adventures of this past weekend, Ill share with you our past week at school. This coming Thursday marks the end of the 1st quarter and everyone goes on holiday for a week (our fall break). Normally in the states you have a final assessment and wrap things up this week. However, we quickly learned all of our plans were going to be changed because a lot of the kids fly out on vacation, or back home, the week before. So some of the kids take 2 week vacations (and of course some return to school late). So some students miss finals and will take them whenever they return (which I'm sure they are going to remember everything they've learned ;) There isn't an attendance policy, and it's a private school, so in the international school culture, this is normal. So we lose two weeks of instruction really because the kids aren't here the week before break or after. Now we know for next quarter to plan accordingly!
After the stress of realizing all of our end of quarter plans were ruined, we "let it go" and went for an adventure in our "new" car. The hill we live on is part of the "Mae Rim" loop. It is a very steep and windy road (which kind of reminded me of the road behind my house at home that goes to the Homestead Resort). Our friend Calvin came with us on his bike and the scenery was stunning! Of course I was hanging out the window trying to take pictures and wishing it was like the Blue Ridge Parkway where you they have scenic pull offs to take pictures. We ended up stopping at the Queen's Gardens for a little hike. In true Thai fashion, the map was very difficult to read and the trails were not marked. We parked at the bottom and started to follow a path the clearly hadn't been walked on in forever because there were huge cobwebs we kept walking into. We saw a lot of Banana spiders which were the size of my hand! So we took a palm leaf to clear the way and wandered for about 45 minutes when we decided to walk back to the car. The map was useless but we knew we could drive to the top of the park. When we got to the top, that's where all of the people were! That's were the main attraction was-Canopy bridge trail. It was pretty scenery and worth all of the hiking confusion.
Next we decided to finish the loop which takes you through town, then back up the hill to school. On the way back we stopped at "Royal Park" and realized it was much closer to our place than expected. We didn't get to go inside the park (because we had to pay a fee and it was close to closing time), but the outside was just as pretty and will go back another time.
On Sunday we went to a Tea Time at Anantara Chiang Mai Resort. The building used to be the British Embassy and one of the dining areas still has that theme. It reminded me to the movie "The Kingsman". Our friends had sat through a random 90 minute information session in the airport about a timeshare with this resort and got vouchers to eat there! They were so sweet to invite us and it was a beautiful afternoon! The resort was beautiful and located on the Mae Ping river. The food was really good. However, at home, my mom and I would visit Hillcrest Bed and Breakfast up the street from our house for Tea time and it would be a close call who did it best! :)
Next week, we are off on holiday and heading to the Krabi Province! We will be at Koh Lanta for four nights and then Railey Beach for three nights. Sidenote: We have a GoPro and are still figuring it out - but Ben made a YouTube channel! We have 4 videos posted and they will only get better now that we know how to use it! Look to the top right of the screen and click on Ben's name to take you there :)
