RING- ing in the New Year

Well, a lot has happened since our last blog. Flying home from Buenos Aires to Vancouver, turned out to be the biggest headache imaginable. Despite delays and cancellations we arrived in YVR 17 hours late to celebrate Christmas with family and friends. Off again, we headed to New York for New Years. Figuring out our way from JFK airport to our hostel was surprisingly easy. Our first and lasting impressions . . . New York is as elegant, alive and sophisticated in real life as it is in the tv shows. Dec 31 we bundled up and headed to Times Square to celebrate New Years Eve. We got there by 430 in the afternoon, were herded into the block off streets and left to wait until midnight. No access to food, drinks, entertainment or washrooms. The street blocks were completely closed. Its not like you see on tv with constant performances and cheering. We heard Kanye West sing one song and heard a couple other songs we couldnt even make out who was singing. Carson Daly never made an appearance and the sky cameras barely made it our way. We made it until about 930 and then really started questioning what we were doing standing in the freezing cold, waiting and waiting for midnight to come. Ryan convinced me to stay, and I found out why later. We decided to risk leaving our semi close position to the ball and headed for warnth inside the nearby pizza shop. Seems like a lot of other people had the same idea as us cuz the entire restaurant was pcked, a 45 mintue wait for the ladies room! But, we grabbed some wine and found a corner and waited. 11 00 we layered on the clothing and made our way outside again. We managed to make it even closer to the ball than our original spot and waited for the ball to drop. 3 . 2 . 1 the balls drops, people cheer and confetti falls from the sky. Ryan pulls me to the side of the road, gets down on one knee and asks me to marry him!
Of course I said yes and people all around us cheered and some even took our photo. The rest of our time in New York flew by celebrating our engagement and seeing lots of touristy sites.
Then it was off to Bangkok. For the first few nights we booked in at the Ramada. Bangkok took a bit of getting use to as there werent many places close by to eat, except dodgy food stalls, and it was incredibly busy. We took a day trip to the floating markets about an hour outside of Bangkok. We tried to do it cheaply but wound up paying even more than we would have if we had booked through our hotel. Oh well, it was worth it. Heaps of wooden canoes loaded with fruits, meats, souveniors and almost anything esle you can think of floating down the canels manouvering around each other. Crowded and quite touristy but really neat to see. Next we were off to Chiang Mai, in Northern Thailand. Completely different from Bangkok, Chiang Mai is laid back and full of many amazign places to eat and a huge night market perfect for cheap shopping. We took a day trip to an elephant refuge where we were able to ride the elephants. Their incentive to keep going, bananas. And lots of them, seems the elephant knew quite well that if he took a couple steps then stopped he would get another banana. And if you didnt feed him, he would take a deep breath, hold his trunk towards you and blow thereby covering you in elephant saliva! Good times.
Also included inour day trip was a trek to a couple local mountain villages and a trip down the river in a bamboo raft. The 4 of us on our raft decided to stand while going down the river. It was only a few moments before our guide was tipping the boat and we were all in the water. Oh well, it was hot and we were covered in elephant spit so a quick dip was ok. We are leaving tonight for Laos where our adventures continue.

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