Surprises

Chiang Mai never ceases to surprise me. Yesterday, we went to the Sunday walking street with our British friends. The Sunday walking street is a huge market that invades a couple of the major streets in Chiang Mai every Sunday afternoon and evening. It stretches on for blocks and blocks and goes off on most side streets as well. They have crafts, jewelry, clothing, and every kind of food imaginable. There are small concerts and big dance shows. I think it would be possible to come every Sunday for a year and still not see everything there is to see.

One of the best surprises of the night was finding this French bread stand. The lady who bakes the bread lived in Paris for a while, and we were able to speak French with her! Who would have thought?!! We had to buy a small loaf of bread to eat for breakfast today, and it was wonderful! You don't realize how much bread we eat at home until you go somewhere you can't get it.

Another fun thing was this potato on a stick. It don't know where they found the potato, because those don't exist here either, but it satisfied another craving. They somehow unraveled the potato so it was one long curlicue, and covered in paprika and (of course) lots of sugar. Have I mentioned that they are addicted to sugar here? Seriously addicted? Those that know us know that we have sweet teeth (??), but some of the stuff here, we can't even swallow.

One of our favorite things about the markets here is the selection of hilarious T-Shirts. They take any English word they can think of, put it on a shirt, and people love it. We could make a fortune if we opened up a T-Shirt shop! One of the first shirts we saw when we landed simple said "Dentistry." Another thing they love is matching his and her t-shirts. One set said "I am Tarzan" and "Jane am I." Here are a few more we liked.

And finally, as we were walking along at the end of the evening, it started to pour, monsoon-style. We ran into the first cafe/restaurant we could find, just to escape the rain. As it turns out, we had found a chocolate cafe, completely by chance. Everything on the menu was chocolate, chocolate drinks, chocolate cakes, a chocolate lover's dream. We looked over at the family next to us: they were having chocolate fondue!!! We pointed to them and told the waitress, "We'll have one of those!" It was amazing!! Mom, we've got to add mango to our list of fruit for this Christmas' fondue. It was so good.

And you'll all be happy to know that John is feeling much better. Thanks for the prayers.