January 7th — Day Two

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Wow what another crazy fun yet exhaustion day. I feel like these journal entries are going to be funny to go back over and read later on since I have been so tired when writing. To bounce back to this morning, I started off my day with fried chicken and rice, and may I dare to say it was the best fried chicken I have ever had? And to top it off there was authentic sweet and sour sauce to dip the chicken in. How could it get any better?! After breakfast we met up with our buddies and headed to Doi Sutep, a Buddhist temple. The road was windy and our buddies made us panic a little as they described the windy road to the top. Many of them had vomited from car sickness before. We piled into our vans and headed to the top of the mountain in Chiang Mai. It was beautiful, fog and all. On our road, I continued to learn more Thai and communicate more with my buddies. I could tell that they were starting to open towards me, and we both started getting more risky with our speaking, saying words and phrases we weren’t sure were correct. We giggled and laughed over Thai words that sound like English curse words and showed the thai students how to dance to party music. I think Mork, Nan, and I share similar humor. We are a very good match, and we have learned to make each other laugh just by our intonations, facial expressions, and sometimes even charades.



Going to the temple was an interesting experience for me. I had to quickly decide what I did and did not want to participate in. Nan and Mork wanted to participate in some of the rituals so while i followed them in circles around the temple, I said my own prayers. The Lord showed me how present He was in that place. I could feel Him on the breeze on my face. He was gentle and kind. I felt oddly at peace as I looked around, and experienced the calm, peaceful values of the Thai culture. Despite lots of people and shared sweat drops, the atmosphere maintained calm and peaceful. This carried throughout my experience at the temple. The vendors were not aggressive but calm and kind. I simply talked to them and enjoyed my experience looking at their beautiful cultural art, clothing, jewelry, and so forth. I had yet another Thai favorite - thai tea! It was funny because I originally bought my buddies chocolate waffles, so then they bought me thai tea. Then at lunch, I bought them smoothies. I made a joke that we had begun a food/gift battle. As soon I finished making this joke, Mork showed up with mango sticky rice. She knew it was my favorite because well we all love food and talk about it way too much! I lost the battle from then on out because next thing we knew, all our buddies were presenting us with an array of foods to try. I had a full out buffet for lunch starting with waffles (less than a dollar), thai tea (only about a dollar as well), and then food at the market including mama noodles (like Ramen), passion fruit and mango smoothie (my favorite fruits), mango sticky rice, potatoes with coconut, fried bananas, green bubble tea, and water ice with jello. I was so full, yet my buddies bought more food at our next stop: Ratchapreuk - Royal Gardens. I joked with Mork that she had an endless stomach as we ate strawberries covered with salt and spicy chili powder - quite a surprise when expecting a sweet fruit. I also had my first coconut drink straight from the coconut itself. I think I’m going to gain 20 pounds on this trip!




To keep this short, the gardens were absolutely stunning. I loved every moment of it, and we must have taken over 100 silly photos. Our laughter continued onward from the gardens to our evening adventures at the Winter festival sponsored by the Red Cross. We all tried to keep ourselves awake, but we were all majorly dragging at this point. Usually fairs such as this one would exhaust me and be way too overstimulating but I actually really enjoyed it. In fact my mouth is aching a little bit from smiling so much! The loud noises sounded like white noise since I did not understand what they were saying which helped calm my experience. We began by playing bingo, which was hilarious to say the least. I had no idea what the lady was saying, and the round was quickly over. Mork looked up and with the most serious face I’ve seen her express said, “game over.” She knew she was being silly, and we all cracked up. We explored the fair, and I took in the lights, crazy amounts of people, fair games, and merchandise. We ventured onto a crazy bumping and spinning ride, which was absolutely hilarious. I pondered how a ride such as this one would probably be illegal in America, breaking a lot of safety rules, but yet it was so fun. My throat is so sore now from laughing so hard. We walked to the bus like zombies. I tried to people watch and absorb the culture as we trekked back. The fashion was an interesting aspect for me to observe. Gauges, tattoos, chains, ripped jeans — a kind of fashion that we might judge in the US as “angsty,” but for these people in Chiang Mai, it was the normal fashion. It is not correlated with anger or rebellions but rather the norms of their peers and friends. Finally, we jumped into the truck and drove home, allowing the warm breeze to flow over our faces. It’s safe to say we are all exhausted to begin our week. Usually the weekend is used to help regain energy for the week, but we’ll be sleepy Monday morning. It was well worth it.

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