things I'll miss (in other words, goodbye Phoenix)

Family. (who else can you call to come pick you up at the Salt River in freaking Mesa?! thank you Fridad. & thank you for getting us the 'Best of Phoenix' two years in a row! I devoured it.)

Fry Bread House. Fry Bread House, why didn't I just eat at your place once a week and tack on an extra workout to make up for being such a piggy? Really, why didn't I? I'll never be able to have the fair food crap version of fry bread again.

Being able to say that I live in the same city as Chris Bianco & yes, his pizzas Fing ROCK and are worth every second spent in line, or at the bar next door, or wherever. (& goodbye homemade mozzarella--y'hear, he makes his own mozzarella--& basil sandwiches from pane bianco. I have loved you many a Saturday.) Chris Bianco is a genius for what he does with pizza dough & a wood-fired oven.

The intersection of E. Cholla and N. Tatum. If you turn your head east at the stoplight as you're heading towards Cactus it looks like a scene out of a Super Mario Bros. video game, what with the rolling green golf course hills against the blue sky. It almost looks fake it's so purdy.

...Because there is nearly always a blue sky here. Monsoons? What monsoons? You mean the heavy rain that happened, like, three times in the year we were here? Puh-leaze. Come to Florida and we'll show you what severe thunderstorms look like.

Phoenix Ranch Market. Oh how I'll miss being able to go to Mexico for 30 minutes whenever I feel like it! I was just telling Steve tonight, how can you not be happy when shopping or eating in that place?

The way the cacti wake up come springtime and bloom their little thorny hearts out, but only in the morning. Made the drive to work so much nicer.

My old job--not the one in Sun City, hells no, but my second assignment in Scottsdale. So it's true, looking forward to work is not an urban legend but actually does happen from time to time. Huh. Unfortch I'm sure my next assignment will be hideous.

We leave our hearts at the sight of our first-ever geocaching spot, Stovie's Trip to the Mall...and since then we've geocached in Laos and Cambodia and -- and it all started in the parking lot at Paradise Valley mall. Weird.

There's more but I have to dismantle our computer now -- Arizona, you are so much more than just the Grand Canyon and Phoenix, you are not a character-less city with "absolutely nothing to do"--silly, silly people on fodors.com boards. You just have to look a little harder to find all the great things.

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....more...

The Saturday morning farmer's market at Vincent's on Camelback, what with the crepes and lobster burgers made to order by the chefs there. & getting to feel all grown up saying "yes, chef" and "thank you, chef" to kind Vincent and the rest of his staff. Saturdays when Steve worked meant I was either at Vincent's or at Pane Bianco.

Driving up to Dobbins Lookout on top of South Mountain to watch the sunset, then lingering to see the gazillion lights of the valley "turn on" below us.

Squinting up while driving south on Tatum to try and make out the Praying Monk rock formation on Camelback Mountain. I never could see it until the very last second before veering off--but when I did I'd always giggle/squeal/combo of the two like a happy degenerate.

Steve mentioned this one and I wholeheartedly agree: the triumvirate of the bestest Mexican food in the valley: Barrio Cafe, Asi es la Vida and Los Sombreros. We've been so spoiled with rocking Mexican food here. Not to mention his co-worker's incredible homemade tamales, second to none. A new tradition for us, tamales for the 12 days of Christmas.

Matt's Big Breakfast in downtown Phoenix. One word: bacon. No, two more words: honey lemonade.

Another of Steve's-- Richardson's, for New Mexican food. But we wouldn't even consider getting anything but the carne adovada. Oh what a wonderful thing is their carne adovada.

Listening to John Jay & Rich on 104.7. They're hilarious all by themselves, but between 7:00-7:20 in the am they feature a segment called "Remember the Time" and play this montage of song/movie/tv clips, all released in the same year at which point the caller attempts to guess which one. I bloody loved this game! How satisfying is it to dig up subconscious associations with songs & movies & the like in order to establish a time frame? For a totally random, wacky example--the song No More Drama by Mary J. Blige was playing in the car on the way home from my friend Janel's graduation from college. I remember she started being silly and belting it out at the top of her lungs, windows down, so giddy to be done with exams, stress and bullshizz that goes with those last few weeks. And Janel graduated a semester after me, so 2002. Brilliant! Is there some kind of board game out there like this? Must google to find out.

& I've veered way off track by now, but one last thing--being able to take off to Sedona at a moment's notice and recharge with an incredible hike and all that amazing scenery . I'll miss Sedona too. Sigh.

Let's be joyful

Yes, let's.

Despite having one (or more?) extremely unwanted visitors the last few days, there's still that wonderful Christmas feeling 'round here. We put a Vietnamese conical hat at the tippity top of our beautiful, albeit Charlie Brown-ish, tree. On Christmas Eve we picnicked underneath said tree on Alaskan king crab legs with lots of melted butter to slurp up. Slurp slurp slurp. We went to midnight mass, got seats, and I sang my arse off. I took my first stab at making homemade trofie pasta and they tasted a-ma-zing (actually I can't take all the credit; Steve helped to make their adorable twists). I finally got around to making no-knead bread (2nd loaf is rising right now). Tonight we're going to a restaurant which I've been dying to go to since, oh I don't know, two weeks after moving to Phoenix last year. I finally got to show Steve what all the fuss over the movie The Namesake is about. And late at night when our dear old biddy neighbors are safely tucked in, we sneak downstairs and get in the jacuzzi to warm up. We have to. I don't think they have hot tubs where we're going.

There's still the tiny little baby hiccup of my getting a job (but we have a place to live! let me not jinx it just yet though), but I'm still taking the official 'not panicking' stance. After all, it's a tough week for getting a job, right? Just nod your head 'yes' for my sake. Thank you.

Happy new year beautiful ones!

(just a few) Faces of China

It's the end of an era

*originally posted 10 December 2007

So so sad. And to top it all off, we’re both sick again–we never get sick!–maybe it’s our bodies’ way of saying go home to your Ikea bed and your three boys–enough wandering…at any rate, I think we got sick from our bare-bones bungalow in Ko Phi Phi, an island in southern Thailand. You know you’re running out of money when you forego taking a $12 longtail boat ride to your bungalow and instead decide to hike over a mountain–at 9 pm–to get there. What should have been a 45-minute hike took us nearly 2 1/2 hours that had us tripping over tree roots, walking on rocks halfway submerged in the water (some Thai guy said to us, “Not now, wait until low tide”–as if we’re going to wait around until midnight! dumbass…). When we finally found the place the only lights glowing on the beach were at the bar, where we found the acting manager, an American expat–he couldn’t stop saying in disbelief, “fuck…you’re the latest arrivals we’ve ever had. fuck, man. couldn’t you have gotten a boat? fuck, man.”

But we really, really loved this place. The whole next day we did absolutely nothing. A whole lotta nothing–I had a scrumptious banana pancake with nutella slathered on for breakfast, we laid on the gorgeous beach (our beach in our minds since there was just one other couple there)….some smoothies throughout the day, a teeny bit of snorkeling offshore as the sun was setting, blah blah blah drool drool drool. I couldn’t have cared less that the bathrooms had no hot water (okay maybe I cared a little) or that the toilet flushing involved dumping a bucket of water in. It was our heaven.

I still think the previous occupants of our bungalow had been sick though, since Steve and I literally started sniffling within 5 minutes of each other the next day. It was almost comical.

Anyhoo. Goodbye Thailand (pound for pound, one of the best countries you could ever travel to), & hello Luang Prabang, Laos, which is–& this is agreed on by Steve so no I’m not being all lovey-dovey without good reason–the most enchanting city we’ve been in on this trip. It’s the city that time forgot–or rather, the French came & ”protected” it, and now luckily it’s the city that time forgot with all the preservation do-goodedness from Unesco. We’ve been staying in a bungalow on the Nam Khan river, a tributary of the Mekong, which is–again, this is echoed by my hubby (!!) lest I constantly speak in exaggeration–now on our top 5 list of favorite places we’ve stayed at. ever. Each night we’ll write our breakfast orders on a whitewash board at the reception desk, and what time we’d like it at…the next morning some gentle soul appears on our bungalow’s veranda at the arranged time with our tray of food. I love that! And in the afternoons we love to sit outside and watch the kids play in the river down below. The way they’re shrieking and laughing and carrying on with each other, you’d think there was nothing better than having the Nam Khan in your backyard. Right now I’d have to agree.

At sunrise each morning a procession–hundreds–of barefoot monks come down the main street from north to south for Tak Bat. Each carries a basket and townspeople (& inevitably tourists) kneeling up and down the street place offerings of sticky rice, tangerines, candy, etc. for them as alms in thanksgiving and respect.

Now it’s probably incredibly childlike of me to say this but I adore monks. I do, I can’t help it! I see their saffron-colored robes and start squealing. My right hand is now trained to reach down for the camera so fast whenever I spot one that we’ve got umpteen-thousand pictures of them: monk on a scooter! monk on a cell phone! monk holding an umbrella! monk buying spices at the market! monks on a water taxi! monk with sunglasses! monk with a cane! and on and on. So now here we are in Luang Prabang, and not only do monks go with LP like peanut butter goes with jelly, but I get to, in a tiny (and probably incredibly insignificant to them) way interact with them? I was so nervous about doing it the ‘right’ way (I very nearly chickened out and Steve talked me off the ledge so to speak)…women can’t make eye contact with the monks when doing this (heaven forbid you touch them–I read they’ll wash for days to get rid of the impurity otherwise), your feet cannot be pointing towards them, shoulders and knees covered, head bowed…but I managed it without an international incident.


Anyhoo. I should write more but we’ve only got a few more hours in this heaven of a town before our evening flight to Vientiane. So we’ve got to get out there and in the thick of it before it’s too late.

In just 36 hours–no, I can’t bring myself to say it! So I won’t.

7 elements to a beautiful afternoon and evening

*originally posted 1 December 2007

1. Narrow water caves so claustrophobic you have to lay flat down in your sea canoe (I’m a human hot dog!)to get through.

2. Stunning little coves and lagoons with blue blue water directly on the other side of these caves.

3. Drifting quietly in the water on your boat until you spot the monkeys scampering on the tall rocks surrounding the lagoons.

4. Seeing (& smelling) hundreds of insect bats hanging upside down, all sound asleep, inside one of the caves as you float through.

5. Learning how to make a krathong–see last entry–and setting it afloat in the water of the bat cave. (I have no excuse not to continue this yearly tradition now!)

6. Seeing bioluminescent plankton for the first time. Like fireflies trapped in the water.

7. Sitting on the starlit boat deck and talking to my hubby during the trip back to shore. About this trip, about the year to come.

All is well with the world….

Night night!

There are new loves in our lives

*originally posted 30 November 2007

And their names are Sri Siam and Prachuab. But I’ll get to that.

Our time in Thailand has been wonderful! The Thai–”such a playful people”–just kidding, I’m only repeating a joke I heard an Aussie say yesterday at how some travelers/guidebooks manage to sum up an entire population. Nah–some are crooked (Bangkok tuk-tuk drivers), some are kind and kinder–like in any country. Besides, what kind of guidebook would describe a country as having jerks for citizens? Of course they’re gonna say it’s lovely & beautiful and yadda yadda yadda.

(but really, Thailand rocks the casbah!)

Happy belated Loi Krathong…it’s a Thai holiday which we were damn lucky to find ourselves in Bangkok for, held every year on a full moon in November. This year it was on November 24th. On this day walking down any street you’ll see makeshift sidewalk stands set up with these little…boats, the krathongs. They’re made of banana leaves in the shape of a lotus flower, are filled with flowers (marigolds, orchids), and perched upright in it is a candle and several sticks of incense. And variations of such–some get truly elaborate with teeny white flowertips on each banana leaf, some have meringue cookies in them (good luck?); I saw one in the shape of a turtle (again, good luck??) made of bread.

You buy your krathong. Then come nightfall you’ll head down to the river with everyone else, light your candle and incense–mentally put all the negativity and sadness you’ve been holding in your heart the last year (since last loi krathong) into your powerful little boat and set it afloat (we set ours in the Chao Praya River and some of its quieter canals) with a prayer and new hope for the coming one. We went a little overboard (I know, as always marmousch) and bought 6 krathongs–setting some off in honor of our families, our cats (what, you didn’t see that coming?), us, and other sappy stuff. I think I got a little carried away from all the candlelight and reverence. Another new tradition started.

Back to Sri Siam and Prachuab. For the last three days we’ve been in Lampang, northern Thailand, at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center enrolled in a mahout training course with 7 other people– Aussies, Americans and one Japanese feller. Mahout = elephant caretaker. Our days went something like this: wake up at 6 am–hike into the jungle with the real mahouts, your mahout guru, if you will, to retrieve your elephant where it’s spent the night–ride your elephant out of the jungle–bathe your elephant. And by bathing I mean you’re on the elephant’s back the entire time, up by the neck with your knees straddling their floppy adorable ears, and are therefore getting in the water with them, sometimes submerged to your chest. Bathing time for the elephants means lots of water fights for us using their trunks as our own personal & very powerful watergun, and since Steve has that wonderful way of taking everything to a whole different level, dung fights initiated by–guess who. Then breakfast–more bathing, this time for an audience–then a “parade” to the showgrounds. This was led by Steve’s elephant, Prachuab, holding a flag, then a trio of which my elephant, Sri Siam, stood on the left holding one end of a long pole on which hung a drum. Another elephant’s job was to bang the drum holding the stick in her trunk. Then a slew of other elephants–maybe 12 or 13 holding up the rear. It was cute at first but by this morning it felt half funeral procession, half royalty event (as in, here comes the queen!) since the whole time we’re still perched atop our elephants, the proud mahouts. After the parade we’d jump right into a show where we demonstrated to the audience (trust me, we’re not talking sold-out crowds here) our good–in some cases–or shitty (in my case) mahout skills. Jumping on the elephant (always needed a good shove on me bum to get up that last little bit), sliding down their trunk, having them pick up a stick, having them kneel, lie down, etc. etc. Two elephants would always do a painting during each show, paintbrush in trunk (their trunks are amazing! like wormy alien limbs with a mind of their own). After the show–lunch–then another training session to work on my crappy inability to master the Thai commands–another bath, another show–hike ‘em back into the jungle and hike back out without the poor little (big) dears. Tough life, two parades and shows a day…

My elephant, Sri Siam, was the tiniest of the bunch. The center will accept mahout trainees as young as 4 years old–he’s the one they put the 4 year-olds on. Or the 28 year-olds, I guess. He was just 6 years old himself, had the most heartbreakingly big light-brown eyes, was the only one of the elephants who needed a Hansel-&-Gretel trail of sugarcane as incentives during the jungle treks (so not a hiker), would give off a long, throaty squeal every so often just to remind you that someday he’d be much, much bigger. I love this little (big) guy.

I’ll let Steve love up on Prachuab in his own words:
She’s 27 years old, one of the oldest elephants there; is one of the sweetest and happiest elephants around…always happy…ears always flopping…with a great big smile. She’s not the most talented of the elephants, but what she lacks in talent she makes up for in her great big heart. She loves to eat and is quite a large lady as a result–first in line, last to leave, and she knows where the food is: she smells it, feels it if someone places sugarcane in the groove above her head and will furiously shake her head from side to side until it falls down within reach of her trunk. She’s a very independent lady and does what she likes but occasionally she’d let me feel like I was in control. Imposing at first, but we warmed to each other and I knew she wouldn’t hurt me. We love each other.

Wooooooooooooo, so Steve’s gone off the deep end a little bit. Hopefully soon he’ll recover from his heartache at having to say goodbye to her this morning. But seriously, it was just a joy, one of those times that I’ll have to draw upon when I’m having an especially shitty day at work in order to remind myself why it is that I work. To do amazing stuff like this.

The lead mahout at the center has put some photos he’s taken of us and our group having the time of our lives on the center’s website, http://www.changthai.com/ – look under 28-30 November and as usual my name is misspelled Tanya. But I’d gladly be Tanya if I could do this all day!

& more Vietnam

I'll finish where I left off....

Three days of kayaking in Ha Long bay and Cat Ba Nat’l Park

…ended up being not so much about kayaking as about relaxing on the deck of our junk (finally! this is a vacation after all)), meeting some cool peeps (as our Vietnamese guide sweetly put it, “learning new culturals”) and the highlight–our 3-hour karaoke bender the second night with our new buds. The adorable duo of Pook and Bean collaborated on ‘Manic Monday’, ‘Hotel California’, and ‘Octopus's Garden’ to name a few…then it was as if my husband discovered (or re-discovered? we all know he’s a ham.) his inner performance artist taking songs like ‘Shebop’, the Laverne & Shirley theme (we’re gonna make your dreams come true…doin’ it our way) and ‘Sledgehammer’ (God I hate that song) to new levels.

Ha Long bay–in the running for being added to the Natural Wonders of the World list–was beautiful, but honestly? I wasn’t as blown away by it as I thought I’d be. Maybe because I’d seen pictures and advertisements galore for tours all over the place in Hanoi. So when finally laying eyes on it for real, it was like, oh….nice. Just like the picture. Steve says we’re jaded by other wonderful stuff we’ve seen over the last few years; I hope not and like to think the best is yet to come. And enjoy the here and now, of course. Sometimes it goes against every fiber in my body to not attempt comparisons but to see things in their own right.

Ninh Binh

Here we took a wonderful boat ride through the Tam Coc (translated as three caves) in this small town southeast of Hanoi. The scenery was spectacular and here I was floored: huge limestone karsts rising up through rice paddies (I told you, there’s something about rice paddies with me), the occasional pagoda high up on a cliff, white billy goats even higher.

And our pseudo-paddler. You see, all the boats with non-whities (please don't be offended, it's a joke between Steve & I--if you are offended, then duh, stop reading!) had one solitary paddler rowing them through the 2-hour trip. But we had 2 rowers, as did other…westerners. Why? Were we that heavy compared to Asians? On the return boat trip, though, we discovered that our pseudo-paddler was really peddling in her hideaway trunk gazillions of embroidered…everything: tablecloths, pillowcases, drawstring bags, embroidery to end all embroidery. More than both my nonnas combined have ever owned in their life (and that is a bloody lot), all “hidden” in this little canoe. Polite refusal to a non-English speaking person only gets you so far–when she continued hawking we just started having fun with it, “So you’re not a yankees fan? How come you only smile when you want something, grandma?” She boldly asked us for a tip at the end, on the docks, where good cop-bad cop came into play--I helplessly pointed at Steve and the fact that he carried the money (he was already halfway towards to moto drivers). I’m sure karma will rear its ugly head for that one. But why should we tip the pseudo-paddler?!

Oh but there’s so much more. Our hideous Hell on Wheels I and Hell on Wheels II sleeper bus trips with disgustingtons. Just foul. And our homestay. But now we’ve got a looming plane to catch for Bangkok and Steve has to use the bawngkohn–betcha don’t need 3 guesses for that one!

Happy Thanksgiving and blessings all around!