Exploring the Neighborhood

At the beginning of the month we moved into our long-term house. The container arrived, and after battling to get the Landlord's furniture out before all of ours came in, the trucks delivered our stuff. The movers brought the boxes into the house and our stuff exploded all over. I keep telling myself that it takes a few weeks to get a new house unpacked and organized but in the meantime the chaos and disorganization is killing me! It short-circuits my brain. Where did all this stuff come from? And where is it all going to go?

In an effort to get a break from the unpacking and give Ginger her minimum required exercise, I have been exploring the neighborhood a bit. There are great little coffee shops all over Chiang Mai; at least 4 of them are within walking distance of our house. The other day Ginger and I took a walk to Doi Chaang, the closest one. Shortly after arriving last month, Heinz and I had stopped by there on the way home from dropping the kids off at school and posted this picture on Facebook.

For under 6 dollars, we can have a great 1 egg, toast and bacon breakfast with a lovely iced mocha. (Half that price if I just have a regular old cup'o joe.) Now that we are permanently in the neighborhood, it's just a 15 minute walk (probably not even long enough to burn off the calorie intake!)
To get there, I walk down this six-lane divided highway with a beautiful view of the foothills beyond.

 We have arrived at our destination.

        

The wait staff is very pleasant and, although it is never crowded, there is always a steady stream of customers. Plus the wifi is free and they play a great selection of music.

The walk back home provides me with a view of this arch, with it's pictures of the King and Queen, well-loved and smiling benevolently, spanning our street.

We won't go all the way down to it though, we'll turn off into our complex instead. Here is the entrance to Lanna Thara so you will recognize it when you come to visit us.

Just inside the entrance is this cute little fountain. I wish they would turn it on. I would love to see the elephants spraying water.

When we get home we will say hello to our backdoor neighbors, if they are around, usually mowing their lawn: the Brahma bull and the 5 brown cows, keeping the rice field tidy.

These guys are often the only neighbors I see for days! Everyone seems to be tucked up fairly tightly in their houses in the April heat.

I have come to love my morning walks with Ginger. Once the house is finished (and I've made a lot of progress!) I'll be able to enjoy the coffee shop run on a more regular basis. I just need to be sure to walk off all the calories I'm taking in from these delicious iced mochas! It will literally need to become a coffee "run"! Maybe when it cools down a little more...

A little further down the street from Doi Chaang is another great place that we just discovered. It's a bit too far to walk but just a 5 minute ride to Nic's Restaurant and Playground. The food is great and there is an awesome pirate ship play area for the kids in the back.

You may notice Conrad hanging out in the rafters in the picture below, although he wasn't brave enough to go up to the Crow's nest in the picture above (which, truth be told, is perfectly fine with Mom!

"Spider" pizza and french fries for the kiddos;

Tapas and a margarita for Momma. As this is Heinz's two weeks (plus 4 extra days this time!) in China, this lone Momma needed that little pick me up! Conrad loved it and could have stayed there all night. He made the short ride home endless, insisting that we had to go back there for dinner every night. The irony of course is that he never actually ATE anything for dinner this time! Oh well, at least he had fun and burned off a lot of energy.
Noise with dirt on it, as the saying goes:

(By the way, Aunt Jenny and Aunt Fran, do you recognize the shirt? It is getting difficult for him to take it off as it is getting tight. I said to him "Perhaps it is time to stop wearing it if it is getting too small?" Predictably, a look of sheer horror crossed his face!)
The humidity seems to have arrived with the rainy season. The breeze seems a bit less strong and a tad less consistent but it is still not unbearable. Or maybe we are still just in the Honeymoon phase! Either way, I often do not use the air con during the day. It usually rains once a day for about an hour or so and then everything dries off pretty quickly. It is a refreshing change from the Plum Rains of China where it seemed to rain every day, all day, for about 3 weeks straight last year.
There are so many aspects of our life here that I can't wait to share with you all. Slowly, slowly we are getting the house in order and then my brain will follow. Maybe, eventually, I will get around to updating that profile!

Come join us for a coffee. A hug to you all~

Hiking Chiang Mai: Chapter 2; (with a little Night Safari thrown in for fun)

When Conrad heard me telling Heinz about my hiking adventure with Ginger, he decided that he really wanted to go hiking too. I was really excited that he seemed to be taking such an interest. There are various hiking groups around town that post their weekend itineraries online and anyone is free to join them. Heinz and I are interested in attending some but the hikes posted for this weekend looked a bit long for some newbies with short legs. As this is Heinz's 2 weeks abroad and I am the lone parent on duty, I felt confident that we could at least do the trail that I had done earlier with Jamie and his dogs. Luckily for Ginger we are currently renting a small station wagon so we could put her in the back and bring her with us. Luckily for me too, as then she also got the much needed exercise that she often doesn't get when I am alone with the kids in a house with a very small yard.

We started out a little later than I had planned so admittedly the day had was getting warm. We were about 5 minutes on the trail when Vivienne decided that she did not like hiking at all and wanted to just go home! I hadn't really noticed the first time around how steep the beginning of the trail is and Conrad's "I want to go hiking, too!" quickly started fading into "I want to go home, too!" Oy! He kept saying "I don't like going up hills." We discussed that perhaps what he really likes, then, is walking, not hiking. But we kept talking and we kept going, we sang some hiking songs and eventually we had made it more than halfway up to the Wat.

  We saw some interesting trees as we walked .

We took a number of water breaks, made the very popular Oreo stop and eventually smiles and happy attitudes returned.

With a renewed burst of energy, Vivienne took charge and forged ahead of everyone.

My fellow hikers decided that they really wanted to make it to the Wat so they could tell Daddy "We did it!" It didn't take us long to get there. I had forgotten that just below the Wat is a log bridge that Ginger had struggled with. Last time Jamie had to carry her back across, on the way down. It's not very deep but the downhill side is too steep for her to climb back out if she goes into the little valley instead of across. But my trekkers had come this far, they wanted to see it all, even if they had to do the last few meters alone. I stayed with Ginger and they went on up the trail.

My good little Hansel helped his sweet sister Gretel back and forth across the bridge and they were so excited to have made it all the way. As promised, the walk back was much easier. In the end I think the positives outweighed the negatives. They are so excited to tell Daddy all about it and they are looking forward to going hiking again soon.
It was quite a busy weekend for my kiddos. Friday night we went to the Night Safari. We had gone in December, when we made our first visit to Chiang Mai, but it is good enough to warrant multiple visits.

Feeding elephants in the guest reception area.

Deer roam freely in the grounds near the entrance area. We had some grasses left over from feeding the elephant and wanted to feed them to the deer but apparently the deer have had enough of people. Every time  Conrad tried to give his grass to one of them, it tried to headbutt him!

My little Thai cowpokes go for a pony ride.

Playing in the Kids' Zone while we wait for night to fall.

Riding the pink dolphin and the green tiger on the two-story Carousel.

Stopping for a snack between trams.

Playing with the turtles.

I apologize that we don't have pictures of the animals but my camera does not take nice night photos and flash is not allowed. My favorite part of the evening was when the giraffe stuck his big head into Conrad's lap as we rode through on the tram and stole all of his carrots and bananas! We had a great time. I highly recommend you experience the Safari when you come visit us. Shall we make a date for it?

Toto, We're Not in Kansas (Ginger, We're Not in China) Anymore!

Two days ago was the 3 week anniversary of our arrival in Chiang Mai. I celebrated in a fairly unique way: by taking Ginger for a hike in the woods. 

I have found it very difficult to walk her in our neighborhood. Our compound is very small and does not lend itself to more than about a 10 minute circuit on concrete streets with nothing to see and little more for a dog to sniff. As it is on a very busy street, there is little space to go off the property either, and when you do "leave the reservation", the neighborhood or "Soi" (street) dogs are another problem. I have found myself really missing our walks on the beautiful pathways of San Marino Bridge! It will be better once we move to the other house next month but in the meantime, desperate for a solution to help Ginger get more physical and mental exercise, I Googled "hike with your dog in Chiang Mai" and found a website by an expat, inviting others to meet him with his dogs for some hikes in the surrounding hills. It sounded really wonderful so I contacted him and we made a "date" to meet for a hike.

After a 20 minute drive, I met Jamie and his dogs at the base of Doi Suthep, the mountain where one finds Wat Prathat Doi Suthep, one of the best known temples in Thailand and the largest Wat, or temple in Chiang Mai. We started up The Pilgrimage Trail which leads to Wat Doi Suthep, our destination being halfway up at the Buddhist temple of Wat Pha Lat, which in northern Thai means "monastery at the sloping rock".
Very early on, we came across this: buddha statues stuck into a termite hill.

My new friend could offer no explanation for that. 

We saw some very unusual plants as we walked:

Jamie mentioned that occasionally you will see the orange robed monks on the trail, making their pilgrimage. Along the way, a number of trees had orange sashes tied around their trunks. My understanding is that some of it is to mark the trail, but some of it is in the interest of conservation: the orange sashes indicate that a tree has been "ordained", is sort of an honorary monk and the tree is to be left alone (read: not cut down for fire wood).

Ginger on the trail - off leash! She was such a good girl and was so happy!

Close to the top.

It only took us about 25 minutes to reach the 650 year old temple grounds of Wat Pha Lat. It is still a functioning monastery and as I am yet unsure of the protocol for when one should or should not photograph religious sites here, I kept my picture taking to a minimum.

There are numerous buildings on the site, including the cave containing the nine stone Buddhas. The statues within are about 1 1/2 times life size, robed in the traditional orange. 

According to www.chiangmaitouristguide.com, this cave "is said to have provided refuge for those fleeing Burmese forces. Plans for renovating this structure are underway. And one of these relics within apparently continues providing protection from flocking crows, viewed in Thai culture as omens of bad karma. Folklore also has it that if you bring meat to Wat Palad while venturing to Doi Suthep, your innards will become plagued with discomfort. Yikes!"
Another shrine on the site:

The view back down to Chiang Mai and the valley was really beautiful. 

A tired dog is a good dog: Ginger slept quietly in a corner for the rest of the day and evening after our little outing! Jamie has a few more trails that he regularly hikes with his dogs and he has offered to share them with us. We are really looking forward to it. Many people have asked me about the heat here and I, in turn, asked Jamie if this, April, truly is the hottest month. Will July and August be cooler? He said that yes it is; the rainy season will start soon and it will be cooler for the rest of the summer. I was so happy to hear that because if this is the worst it gets, then this is great! Now, don't get me wrong, it gets to 37C often (104F), but it is that all so important dry heat. It is nothing like a humid Shanghai summer, or Kuala Lumpur, or Singapore. In my opinion, truly hot is when you want to change your clothes by noon because they are drenched with sweat, but all you've done is gotten in and out of the car a few times, doing errands. Often I don't even have the air conditioning on in the house all day. It's even better than I expected.  

So many good things to find in The Land of Smiles. Go ahead, make your reservations to visit us because it's not too hot. And bring your hiking boots when you come and we will share these wonderful trails with you as well! Hugs to you all~

Willkommen in der Christlichen Deutschen Schule Chiang Mai

On April 8th, 2013, one of the most important goals of our move to Chiang Mai was achieved: Conrad and Vivienne started conventional school.

Lunches packed, backpacks on, we headed off. The entry drive to their new school is lovely,

a tree-lined grove blooming with beautiful lilac-like flowers. "You have arrived at your destination":

Christliche Deutsche Schule Chiang Mai

In the picture below, the kindergarten building is on the left and the playground is on the right. Behind the playground the covered, open-air gymnasium building can be seen.

This is the path we walk every morning and afternoon, from the carpark up to the Kindergarten, between the gymnasium and the playground. 

The school has a lovely system for helping the children organize themselves and their things throughout the day: each child is assigned an animal and their places in the circle, at the lunch table, for their toothbrush, backpack and shoes, are labeled with their animal. I can't help but think of it as their avatar.

Vivienne is the parrot, "der Papagai".

Conrad is the bee, "die Biene".

The school shares photos of the week's activities with the parents. Some shots from Conrad and Vivi's first week:

 

The playground is naturally one of their favorite parts of their new school. Vivienne loves to dig in the sand and Conrad loves, well, all of it: running, jumping and shouting with his friends.

 The boys have an informal lesson in balancing weights:

Time to go home and hose off The Bee.

Life is funny. Days before, my children were walking among skyscrapers. Now they will spend their days in the countryside idyll of a rural school. Big city, small town; close to family, foreign country. Trade some things for others; weigh the pros and cons. How do you ever know what is best for your children? I think we were so lucky to find Miss Rebecca in China, given our situation with the wait list at the German school there, and their language skills really flourished under her tutelage but I am so happy that the kids are finally in school now. Conrad is so social; he came home the first day telling us all about his new friends. Frau Haller, their teacher, laughed when she told me Vivienne seemed to seek out other English speaking children, that she seemed to test the waters: with whom can I get away with speaking English? In just 2 weeks, though, she seems to have made the switch. At pick up and drop off I now hear her speaking more German than English.

For now, I feel confident that we have found the best situation for them, given the options. We are settling in and finding our way. Our shipment is expected to arrive in Bangkok tomorrow, so hopefully we will have our container within the next 2 weeks. Yea!! Then I'm looking forward to some new adventures. I've started a list...watch this space!