Laurie's World

The Da Lat Plaza hotel and restaurant are just generally much busier today than previous days. Breakfast was really quite busy as there appears to be a huge HUGE group of German tourists staying now? They are a feisty bunch to say the least! The day’s agenda involves a place we heard about called the ‘Crazy House’ here in Da Lat as well as a palace that was built in the 1930s for a now abdicated royal family. Given that we are here with a Brit I am going to say the standard for ‘Palaces’ is pretty high. More on that later…..

The Crazy House is just that. It’s like someone who was on a bad Ganga Trip decided to build a hotel. You can actually rent a room here, assuming that it doesn’t bother you to have hundreds of tourists, who paid 50,000 dong ($2.50 usd), walking through all day long! It has high narrow stairways that lead to bridges several stories up in the sky. 

The view of Da Lat from the top was quite spectacular!

There was an ‘undersea’ room?? Quite well done and might be a fun place to rent your a function??

After that experience, we stopped at a bakery stand across the street and I had a really delicious piece of coconut cake and Troy had a brownie. Ritchie = Apple pie, Alice had ice cream and Vanna had banana cake. So we did right by them. Nothing was more than 39,000 dong so really delicious treats for $1.95 usd each. I really should have taken a photo! 

Bao Dai Palace was next on our self guided walking tour. This is technically a royal palace despite the fact that it looks barely more than an American DOL from the outside.

It hasn’t really been used in the last 70 years as far as I can tell from reading up on it and by evaluating the current condition. I guess when the emperor abdicated his throne in 1945 it didn’t really get much use after that.

We had to put on booties over our shoes and a lot of areas were roped off, but it was pretty much open access to wander throughout. There is no effort put into upkeep at all. It’s covered in dust and dirt and clearly taking a beating from the elements (sun, humidity etc). It cost 30,000 dong to get in ($1.50 usd) and despite the massive throngs of Chinese tourists we had to battle to get in and out, at that price, they aren’t probably generating enough income to really preserve the place! Plus it’s not really ‘palacey’ to say the least, but I guess compared to how the average Vietnamese person was living in 1935 when this was built, it was probably fairly posh?! 

This is the “waiting room”

Displays of Royal linens and dishes

This is the ‘family room’ the queen and king used the couch, the two sons got the armchairs and the daughters got the “other chairs” 🙄🙄

The princess’s bedroom (I guess they shared!)

The queen’s bedroom

The stove…..😳😳

The kitchen!

The weather here changes quicker than you can imagine. We wake up and notice during breakfast it’s pouring. We are planning an outing to ride a train that goes out of a local station here in Da Lat to Trai Mat. By the tine we get organized it’s not raining, so we skip the cab, and start walking. We put on and take off rain ponchos three times on the walk to the train station, but this is SO much better than yesterday when I got cold, wet and miserable walking in the rain.

This pineapple thing is actually a mall. The mall is all underground and the top is a large tiled public use space where vendors gather to sell food (and squeaking chicken toys and selfie sticks). The green thing is a cafe….peculiar architecture to say the least.

There’s some history going back to early 1900s on this railway, but it was heavily damaged and became unused during the Vietnam war. In 1991 a short 7km stretch was rebuilt and is now used as a tourist attraction. As we see with trains here, you have a choice of “seats”, hard seat, soft seat, VIP 1 and VIP 2. We select soft seats for 125,000 dong to be told that there aren’t any. So we opt for VIP 1, which is 50 cents more each and costs 135,000 dong ($6.75 usd) round trip.

There’s no shortage of Vietnamese and Chinese tourists that appear to be here exclusively to get glamour selfies in every location they can. VIP 1 is a nice padded bench in the middle car and perhaps the free water is a VIP perk!

The trip was smooth sailing, took about 25 minutes one way and they even brought us each a water. At the end in Trai Mat, we got off and I am not 100% sure, but it sounded to me like the girl said “you have 35 minutes which is time for one beer.” Sounds about right i guess. There’s a pagoda that we decide we to go see, it’s about 450 meters from the train, so seems reasonable. We get down there and it looks to be a Chinese Buddhist temple? Not sure, maybe I should look it up. It’s called Linh Phuoc Pagoda.

I did have the privilege of using one of the scariest washrooms I’ve been to in 10 years coming to SE Asia. Not necessarily because of the condition of the facilities itself, but more because of the women I had to battle to actually gain access to a stall. I had forgotten how pushy Vietnamese people are. It is however coming back to me as I spend more days here.

It was your basic tiny, wet, stinky squatty potty but I travel with my own TP, baby wipes and hand sanitizer, so that’s not such a big deal. I got wedged out of a stall multiple times before I realized that they don’t seem to subscribe to the civilized notion of a queue here, when waiting for a stall (or at all). You basically all jam in, pick a stall (‘call it’), get as close as you can, then when the door cracks, barge in to be the first through, thereby securing your access. So I’m getting better at this, as at some point, I get annoyed and am really only trying to get in because it is a true emergency, otherwise, let me just say…..I WOULD WAIT.  The same thing happened to me two hours later at the Big C washroom.  But I wised up a lot faster and got back in some old lady’s face and uh nuh’d her with my finger after I’d been cut by someone else. It just happens really fast, so you can’t let your guard down. When I opened the stall door, the old lady was right there and almost mowed me over coming in before I’d even exited the stall. I gave her the ‘arm’ and told her with my body language to wait for me to leave. She (AND a second lady) scuttled in right behind me and closed and locked the stall. There’s barely room for one woman can’t imagine taking your bestie in there with you! But maybe that’s how they were going to know FOR SURE that they were next!  Going to the washroom is a competitive sport here, where winner takes all!

WOW, so I’ve never quite seen anything like the night market in Da Lat. It is not nearly as well organized as the markets in Chiang Mai. And who would have thought you could ever describe the markets in Chiang Mai as “organized”??  The garbage created is just tossed in a pile in the middle of the street, no worries, it all gets cleaned up after apparently??  No need for a bin or anything…..There is raw fruits and vegetables in the same stand as shoes and parkas, many vendors over ghetto like charcoal barrels making ‘Da Lat pizza’ (which looks like eggs fried on a tortilla with pieces of chicken hot dog and green onions?) I don’t think I got a pic of that tonight, but I’ll go back tomorrow and either buy one to try or take a pic. We will see! About half the stands sell coats and toques and no kidding!! At these temps it’s a must have! I am literally the only person in this town wearing sleeveless dress. But it’s all I have. I was completely unprepared for this weather.  I could buy a coat for $2-$3 and if tomorrow doesn’t go well temp wise, I’ll be back down there tomorrow night getting a new “north face” 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I had an avocado shake – who knew??? It was actually good and I am going to try to replicate this at home.

The people sure sure come out at night here. It reminds me of Sappa last year. The days are relatively quiet and what I would consider normal amounts of people. Then as soon as the sun sets, literally thousands of people come out and walk and sit all over the benches, walls stairs and sidewalks. I tried to capture it in photos. The young people are just hanging out, visiting, laughing, flirting I suppose. Older people chatting drinking beer smoking…..

I’m not sure it shows in the pics…..but I tried. Also there are no other Caucasian people here other than Troy, Ritchie and I. I’m pretty sure. There were older two French men in the resto we went to for supper, but those are the only non Asian people I’ve seen since we got to Vietnam. 100s of thousands of people in Da Lat most tourists and no one looks like me. Speaking of supper, Ritchie picked a place off google maps and we found our way to the nearest little restaurant down a dark alley called Artist Alley. It was filled with oil paintings and run by three very attentive people, one of whom must have been an owner.

Here we are making our way down the ‘alley’. In a million years I would never have found and/or ventured to this place without knowing about it.

Here’s the main floor (very quaint) but we were ushered up these very steep stairs to second floor. I feel like this was a house remodeled into a restaurant? Just because of the way there were all the rooms with tables in each

The chairs had white fun fur covers on them and it was quite comfortable in fact. An acoustical guitar player came into our room and sat and serenaded us for our entire meal.

I had ginger chicken with rice and Troy had carmelized pork in a hot pot and rice. Both absolutely delicious we had a pop and a beer on our tab and it still came to 200,000 dong ($10 usd)

That is all for now! We will see what adventures await us tomorrow🎉

Hmmmmm! Not all Asian countries are created equal. I’m trying hard to go with the flow! Da Lat is busier than I expected. And colder…..

The honking just never stops! The view from our room is spectacular. I wish we had a balcony, but I will make do with opening the windows and pulling my chair over by it.

We got up and had breakfast and decided to head out to explore the area. It was kind of spotty rain (despite the weather app saying ‘cloudy’) but we decided to persevere and it promptly started to pour. So we ducked into a coffee shop and ordered up some white coffee (me) and white tea (Troy). No idea why the ‘white’ other than it uses sweetened condensed milk? My coffee was about the size of a shot glass worth of liquid but the caffeine of at least 2 typical xl coffees (maybe more?) that’s Vietnamese coffee for ya!

We headed out to walk around the lake that the city is built around. There seems to be a discrepancy online whether the loop around the lake is 5km or 7 km. Weather not withstanding it was a really nice walk and we enjoyed just walking, looking at flowers, and chatting.

 They have ‘horse drawn carriages’ similar to NYC I suppose. But while some of the horses looked healthy and strong, others looked tired, thin and sad. I’m not sure what to make of this  as I’ve never seen horses here before! It seems sad but maybe it’s not too bad? I guess they will take you around the lake. I did not see a single one being hired. So maybe the horses don’t have to work too hard. At least it’s not hot here 🤣🤣

We felt we had earned some food after the 2 hour walk so we stopped at a local restaurant. Not much English to say the least. About the first half of the menu had translated menu items. The rest-nope. Richie knew some words though and recommended an egg/rice dish that ended up being really good! Saving the photo so I can order again! Com trung chien thit, 50,000 dong ($2.10 usd)

Well all good things must come to an end. As must my time in Chiang Mai. Our flight to Ho Chi Min leaves at 2:25pm. Vietjet though, so who really knows right?? I think their on time record is about 10%. For us it doesn’t really matter other than Vanna and Ritchie will be sitting and waiting for us at airport. But I’m more concerned about Rachael and Anna’s 10:50pm flight being late as they must be on a 4am flight back to Vancouver (via Hong Kong). We had enough time after arriving at airport for a bit of lunch with a character from back home. Not super proud of this meal choice, but I do love a good corn pie!

Sure enough, our flight is ‘delayed 30 minutes’. We board at 2:40pm (yes that’s more than 30 minutes) but they manage to get us in the air by 3:00. So that’s undoubtably some kind of record. I am LUCKY enough to be sitting next to a man from Atlanta who CLEARLY is craving someone to talk to. He just retired, gave away and sold all his crap and is referring to himself as a ‘vagabond retiree’. He has been traveling for a grand total of 7 days, so it would be interesting to see what he’s like with a few months of this under his belt. I now know stuff about this guy (a perfect stranger) I shouldn’t know, like about his brother’s death at 63 from prostrate cancer with no will, and how he owed IRS $600,000 so they had to sell all the equipment from his chiropractic clinic to pay the debt.  His nasty divorce from his ungrateful wife who was a middle school teacher that decided one day to be a lawyer so he put her through law school then she decided she didn’t like it so went back to teaching right before she walked out on him, his fat cat that he wrote into the sales agreement with the 24 year old ‘Mexican girl’ he sold his house to (but his daughter will take food to every so often). That he wears size 13 shoes and that his son lives in Denver and even though he gave him his car, he only wants to see him once a year. The 32 year old Philippino girl  with a five year old son that he thinks he will marry that he met online last fall and has visited one time. Anyway, you get the idea-2 longest hours of my life. You meet all types on airplanes…..

Arrived in one piece to Ho Chi Min and the visa process went smoothly, immigration went smoothly, MY BAG ARRIVED, Ritchie there to pick us up. Heard from Rachael and they were ready to head to airport. 

I was expecting the minivan ride to Da Lat  to be ~5 hours. It ended up being 7 😳. But at least we had private van, it was comfortable, seats reclined and I had my little travel blankets (thank you Hong Kong airlines) so that around 10pm, we laid back, curled up and rested. It cost $150 total for the driver and van. Flights for 5 would have been more than twice that, so all in all a good deal, plus we could go straight from airport  on our own schedule.

Heard from Rachael when we arrived at hotel at 1:15am, they arrived in Bangkok! All checked in and at gate for their next leg! They’re doing great getting home 👍👍

We are staying at a nice hotel but the down side is our room faces the main street, (which is a MAIN street) so I got a sum total of maybe 3 hours sleep as i couldn’t fall asleep until close to 2:30am and the horns and trucks and nonsense started by about 5am. Not sure if I’ll ask for another room? It’s really loud. Breakfast 100% Asian food other than an egg station. It’s 64 degrees here this morning. I noticed right away last night there’s no air con. But If it’s temps like that, we won’t need one. I’m going to need a sweater in fact. (Which I don’t have)

I’m remembering the differences between Thailand and Vietnam now 🤣

Always a tough call to know what to do on your last day in your favourite place. Looks like we need to hit Wararot Market for dried Thai tea and the rest of the country’s dried mangos that Rachael and Anna have not already bought🤣. Sure hoping they can get all these mangoes back into the country. It started to pour rain about halfway to the market, but we persevere. We are from the Pacific Northwest after all. And it’s 87 degrees. So no one is cold. We are on a mission. 

We visited my favourite mango sticky rice vendor (it is tradition) found the tea, dried mangos and curry paste. It has stopped raining but in order to preserve energy for later in the day (and for massage 😉) we got a Tuk Tuk back to Baan Ratchiangsen. 120 baht. Well spent. The girls got a massage from Et and Troy and I chillaxed at hotel. I’m still recovering from the shower incident so no way I can get a massage yet and Troy is standing in solidarity with me 😁

We went to DooDee for supper to replenish ourselves as the girls really want to go to the night market, which means a 30 minute trek back over to that area. Pad see ewe, chicken with cashew nut, padThai and Penang make a great last meal. 

The night market was insanely huge. Bigger than I remember! But mostly set up to be under cover as it did decide to spit rain most of the way there. But mission accomplished. All money spent 🤣🤣🤣

I’m sitting here waiting for my laundry to finish spinning…..reflecting on yesterday.

What a great day we had with Tee and Ian. Any day that starts off with a trip to the Baan Bakery has to be a good day right???? I’ve never had a pastry I didn’t love from here.

Everything is between 40 and 90 cents! Unfortunately there are no gluten free options for Rachael but she seems to enjoy watching me eat stuff from there😂

After a quick stop at Baan Bakery, we head straight over to Chiang Mai Gate Hotel where the minivan driver that Tee arranged for us us waiting to pick us and Ian up at 10am. Tee left earlier with the car, and we will meet her at Pansawan, then carry on with our plans for the day. By 10:45, we have picked up Tee and are on our way.

First stop is Wat Ban Den. http://www.watbanden.com/frontend/web/index.php

I have not been here before, but it truly is one of the more spectacular temples here! Troy came out last year with Ian (when he came to SE Asia without me!) and while it is still under construction, apparently it has had a lot more accomplished in the last 15 months. The Thai people (maybe it’s a Bhuddist thing?) have two important dates to know. What day of the week you were born and what ‘animal year’ you are. I was born in 1970, so I was born in the year of the dog, Troy was born in the year of the horse, Rachael and Anna, year of the rat.

Each one of the 12 years/animals is honoured here by being associated with a temple. Mine happens to be in Chiang Mai and I’m going to try to find it today, everyone else’s is somewhere else in Thailand. There are replicas built here at Wat Ban Den though, so we go on a hunt to find them. 

The construction of all buildings here is spectacular. Lots of full log team timber in every temple (illegal to harvest teak in Thailand – so this indicates that it was done illegally and someone was paid a LOT of money to look the other way, or it was logged in Burma and someone was paid a LOT of money to look the other way). Gold everywhere and brightly colored tiles. Tee thinks up to 2 million dollars for each of the larger temples. Pictures don’t even do it justice! Us gals had to cover our shoulders and knees, so pardon our accessories. 😂😂😂the lady who outfitted me put together a pretty coordinated outfit all things considered. 

Stop #2 Bua Tong waterfalls – AKA Sticky Falls. http://www.tielandtothailand.com/bua-tong-sticky-waterfalls-chiang-mai/

Another hidden gem to explore! We ate a huge delicious lunch (which felt a lot like a Thai picnic) as soon as we got there.

And then the girls headed over to the falls. We followed about 15 minutes later and as we arrived at the top, we see a large crew of 7-8 Thai guys hauling someone up the falls on a stretcher. So now I start to panic because I can’t see the girls. You can go up and down the falls by climbing directly in the waterfall or you can use the stairs on the side. I’m praying the girls used the stairs, but if not, then hopefully they are using the rope that I can see there. Anxious waiting, then I see two cute girls I recognize pop up over the top.

My understanding is that the minerals in the water in this waterfall accumulate like calcium deposits and cause the surface to be rough and non slippery. There are a few places where algae has grown and it is slippery but for the most part it is not slippery and is a ‘safe’ surface to climb. “White is right, green is mean”. Words to live by at the sticky falls. 

After a quick stop at the local market for ingredients, our Final destination is Pansawan. Rachael and Anna have asked Tee to teach them how to make their newest favourite drink Chi yen (Thai iced tea) and then they also got involved in the cooking of our supper. Given their new skills acquired in their cooking class a couple days ago, they dig right in with Jane and get cooking. 

About 8:25pm when we simply can not eat anymore and are starting to felt like a bed is the best thing, we load back up in our minivan with our driver and he takes us home to Baan Ratchiangsen. The driver and van for 11 hours cost us 2,600 baht ~$75 usd. What a great day! 

I did biff it in the shower and completed some involuntary splits tonight. Banged up the knee too! But no head injury and it didn’t seem to make my back go out again, so that happened. I got a text from Rachael next door saying “are you alright?”. I say “haha did you hear that?” And she was like “YA!” Somehow the accidents just keep rolling in this year…..

Finally the big day has arrived. The day the girls have been looking forward to for months. The trip to the elephant sanctuary. I must say that the vibe here in Thailand had shifted greatly over the last 10 years since we have been coming here as it relates to the ethical treatment of all animals but especially elephants. We have visited Mae Tang Elephant Park a couple times, maybe even three times. The first time we went there in 2009, it was considered one of the best for animal conditions. They got to live in the jungle (vs concrete like in Phuket or other islands), were not visibly abused with hooks by the mahouts (as was openly done at many other camps), but they were taught tricks (kicking balls and painting etc) and were ridden by people. Those two things are now considered unethical. I think it is because of the inhumane methods that the Trainers use behind the scenes to teach them tricks. I think Mae Tang gets maybe a mid range rating now and the best places tourists like to go (is they are aware of these issues) are sanctuaries where the elephants are never chained, do not do tricks, are not ridden etc. When you go there you get to play with, feed, bathe, walk with etc the elephants. They sell out very quickly so the girls had to book this excursion months ago. It cost $161 for the two of them, but I am assured it is worth every dime! I had some tiny reservation that the minivan wouldn’t show up to get them since it was booked online with a company we had not heard of. But no problem. They were picked up promptly at 8:30 am and were off! 

They had the time of their life!

I think this was the #1 adventure of the trip so far. The guides were funny and explained everything to them all along the way. There was a baby rescue monkey there (3 months old) and while touching monkeys is generally a huge no no here (as they bite) this one is tame so they had fun playing with it and letting it crawl on them.

There was also a tiny chihuahua that they had some fun with.  But the Highlite was of course, the elephants. They weigh 10-12 tonnes and eat 1/4 of their body weight each day.  So imagine trying to keep up with that?? There were four elephants there. One is pregnant with twins (she’s been pregnant for over 2 years now) so babies could come any day they say. The youngest of the four elephants is 3 years old. And the oldest ~52. All rescued from bad abusive situations Elephants live for up to 80 years so a huge commitment! 

They fed the girls a yummy lunch and they were home by 4pm.  Just in time for a massage before we met up with Tee and Ian for supper. 

Ian was craving Farang food. That’s us. We are called Farang. So we went to Dukes. We had nachos to share, the girls ordered blue cheese burgers, Troy and I split a meat lovers pizza and Tee and Ian had ribs and salad. It was AMAZING and the pizza was huge. Never seen a pizza so big. Definitely a ‘to share’ thing! The girls grabbed a Tuk Tuk back to hotel as they were quite exhausted and a while later, the rest of us walked back to our hotel. We did walk past the ex Ginny Cafe for old times. 

Slow day for some of us! Rachael and Anna were up, had eaten breakfast and waiting for their pick up for cooking class by 8:20am. Troy and I were not nearly as quick moving however. I was up shortly after 6:25 am but I did get myself down to breakfast until closer to 8:30. That coffee on the balcony was just too tempting today. 

Troy and I did walk over to my favourite Thai iced coffee vendor by the silver palace. Saw the cutest little black terrier (that desperately needed a fur cut). Got a 20 baht coffee! And Troy got a Thai iced tea.

Lazed around until about 12:45 then Troy and I decided to go check on the cooking class girls.

We found them right as they finished their session at 2pm and had apparently eaten the spoils of their work. Not a plate to be licked. Hmmmmmm

So given that we were very hungry, we left the girls to catch their ride back to hotel and we wing off in search of mango sticky rice and KaoSoi Gai! No problem. We got the mango sticky rice from the temple that Riam works at and the KaoSoi from BeeBeez. (Tee said it’s the next best after hers-which we can’t get in the city anymore bcz they moved out to MaeRim). We will have access to Tee’s cooking on Tuesday when we go out to their place and eat at Pansawan. 

Troy reports it was really good! I had PadSeeEwe gai. Welcome to ChiangMai. It was 140 baht ($4.75 usd) for both dishes! Yum and Woot! 

It was 2:45 now and a plan needed to be formed for the rest of the day. We decided to go back to hotel and maybe rest/siesta to prepare mentally and physically for the Sunday Market. Since we had all eaten a lot of food ‘mid afternoonish’, we figured we would head over to market around 6pm, have a street massage, eat market food after that, then realistically dismiss Troy from duty and the girls and I would carry on with the SHOPPING!! Plan went without a hitch. There are some happy vendors, Our bags will he a little heavier and some waffles were eaten! Go team!!!

PS. I wrote this whole blog Post, but for the last couple lines, while getting my footie 😍😏

The girls were up early(ish) and ready for their 9:30am pick up for zip lining. They chose Dragon Flight. All set up by Tee. They had a lot of fun, even though it went slow because they got caught behind a large group (24). So every platform had quite a long wait. There were 49 platforms apparently, or that is what the souvenir T-shirt said 😁.

It cost 2,400 baht for two, so about $40 usd each and included lunch which was quite tasty apparently! 

They were gone until almost 4 pm and during their day away, I managed to talk Troy into walking the moat with me. At 12:45pm, I saw on my Fitbit I had a grand total of 787 steps, so that just isn’t acceptable even by vacation standards, so a 4 mile walk around the Old City’s 1 mile square moat is just what could take care of that. Troy had missed the boat on securing toast and jam at the hotel in the morning (it is only available until 10am – no judgement 😳) so we stopped at the Baan Bakery, knowing full well that by 1 pm, the pickings are slim! True to form, this was the case, so we decided to carry on and see what we could find that appealed to us on our walk. We stopped at Loco Elvis which is kind of a big bumping place over by the Thapae Gate.

We have not eaten there before, but they claim to have exceptionally good authentic Mexican food (if one is to believe the signage). So we are on the hunt for nachos. We also decide to try their 99 baht margaritas. I had a classic and Troy had a mango margarita. Once you get past the first sip or two it grows on you. Alcohol just has a really nasty aftertaste here and I assume for 99 baht they are just using the cheap stuff. They were drinkable however, so I pushed through. We also found the nachos! They were good, not really what we were expecting (as usually is the case here) the chips where very thick and crunchy (vs thin crispy as we are accustomed to).

They had ‘sour cream’ drizzled on the top and some sort of cheese? Some beans. Anyway. They met the need. We also stopped at 7-11 and secured a magnum and cornet ice cream chaser 😉😉

Our timing was off however. When we left the hotel, it was sunny and hot, by the time we were done at Loco Elvis, the rain was starting. Didn’t seem too bad, more like a drizzle, so we (and when I say “we”, I mean “I made Troy”) carry on our trek around the moat, we had barely done 1/2 of one side before stopping for snacks. It did drizzle for another 1 mile maybe, then the clouds moved on, the sun came out and it was full sun and some nice bumped up humidity again. See, if you don’t like the weather, you just wait a few minutes and it will change. JUST LIKE HOME. The great news is by the time the walk was compete, we had secured our steps up to just shy of 13,000. So no guilt over anything now. Not that I have guilt anyway! Plus we knew we had the Saturday night market ahead of us still. When we got back to hotel, we got right into the pool while we waited for the girls to return from their adventure. 

Once they did, they got themselves ice cream, because WHY NOT? Then rested up for a bit. We headed down to the market around 6pm and ate our way through the market. Not much we didn’t have…bbq chicken, mojito mocktail, chicken gyoza, French fries, chicken on a stick, kiwi & mango shake, corn and banana waffles, mango and sticky rice, other things I just can’t remember…..

Wrapped up the night around 7:30pm. The girls have their cooking school in the morning with an 8:20-8:50 am pick up.