Traveling alone transition time in Chiang Mai

The first couple of days I stayed in my room a lot.  Watched a lot of movies, and slowly went out for short amounts of time and internet.

I never knew how much I liked to poop in a crouch position.

Gotta have some food shots.  In a lot of the curry dishes there was a vegetable that I wasn't familiar with. It was really reminiscent of a tomatillo but not as acidic. I found out that it is an eggplant, and it comes in multiple different sizes (which explains why I thought it was a tomatillo,  they are both in the nightshade family).  The green circle to the bottom left of my fork is the vegetable I'm talking about.

Lounging in my during the hot part of the day.  Later I found out that it was close to 100 degrees. Yowsa.

Arty things creeping into my daily routine.

(See the small three green circles to the bottom right of the rice?  Those are baby eggplants.  I much prefer these forms of eggplant over the big purple sponge-y eggplant you get in the US)

Skype date with Shai <3<3<3.  He says hi and misses traveling.

While I was on the internet one day I met this guy, we briefly chatted and when I saw him later in the evening I followed my intuition and asked him if he'd like to have lunch.  I am SO glad I did.  We got a long so well and had very similar views and politics. We would find ourselves having conversations that would last hours and we wouldn't even realize that hours had past.  I feel so incredibly lucky to have meet him.  John is his name, and I believe that we knew each other in a past life.  After our first lunch together, we meet for breakfast everyday, biked around town (generally would retreat during the hot part of the day), then meet back up for dinner.

John started traveling when he was my age, in his thirties, and has been traveling and living part-time in different countries since.  He had the most wonderful stories. He had, over the course of many years lived off and on in Chiang Mai, and knew all these wonderful spots.  This is a picture of the very first 7-11 in Chiang Mai.  I thought it was amazing because 7-11 is comparative to the US Starbucks.  They are everywhere, literally across the street from one another and on each block.

Another place, and one of my fav places in Chaing Mai.  It is essentially the China town mall of Chiang Mai.  Anything you could possibly want or need you find it here. From clothes, accessories, make-up (that I tried to not get sucked into) to meat, veggies, shoes, gold, silver, anything...

I want to paint this.

After the mall we went and spent a couple of hours talking like we do in this back alley drinking iced coffee and eating dumplings.  This truck is filled with dried fish, which I found out later is a privilege to buy because it is expensive by Thai standards, and it's good to buy because it lasts along time.

The day before my first traveling friend had to leave, we decided to track down the movie theater.  I was looking for places to be during the hot part of the day, and movies (not only being my absolute favorite past time) generally are very air-conditioned.

You know you're at a mall when you see Sizzlers, pizza, iThings and of course.....you guessed it...Starbucks.

A twelve story mall. Woahs

Why is it that universally "old Egyptian" designs are in movie theaters?  What is that about?

While we waited for our movie we found a cute lunch place down an alley/street.  John also introduced me to my new favorite Thai dish (which I found out later is a regional dish of Chiang Mai) called Khao Soi. OMG so yummy (and now I know how to make it, those pictures will come soon)!

I guess Khao Soi means either "cut rice", which is kind of funny because the noodles served in the soup are egg/wheat noodles instead of the standard rice noodles.  You can read about Khao Soi here.

When we got out of the movie the heat had finally cooled and it was raining.  It only lasted about 20 minutes, and felt amazing to ride in.  I found out later that it is the beginning of an early rainy season, which usually comes in April.  At this time (I'm behind on posting, sorry folks) It was the 3rd of March. Hello signs of climate change.

Sending love! xoxo