Appreciation

Hi,
Our Thursday morning in Chiang Mai was interesting. As is the case with most of the hotels, we had 'Breakfast Vouchers" so we went down to check out the buffet. Remember, this is a new hotel for us. Older and a little 'funkier' than the previous two, but very nice. I had noticed when we arrived, that it had a Vietnamese restaurant. What we found at the buffet was a mix of Chinese and Vietnamese dishes. We weren't familiar with most of the presentation and settled for what we knew. I'll just say that the coffee was good and leave it at that.
The classics always bring out the closet players when it comes to the song thing. I got mail from people I rarely hear from. More?
"Beauty I'd always missed with these eyes before. Just what the truth is I can't say any more, 'Cause I love you Yes, I love you
Oh, how I love you" Clue: There's a shiny fabric in the title. Hmm
After breakfast, the plan was to go back to The Central and take my laptop to the Apple Store for a battery check. The front desk told us that the mall opened at 10, so we timed our morning based on that. We got a car and arrived a few minutes before, only to find out that it opened at 11. What? We could still do what we needed to do if we left the mall by 11:25, so we had a Tuk-Tuk driver take us to get some coffee. After a long trip through town, thinking he misunderstood, we ended up at a Starbucks and had coffee that was different (in a good way) than the Starbucks in the U.S. Another open-air ride back the the mall just as the doors opened. We raced up to the store only to find out that the tech wouldn't be in until 11:30. See how interesting our morning was?
Back in Chiang Rai now and we had a 5:30 appointment to meet Jen and her sons at the appliance store to discuss the air/cons. What a fun family to hang out with. We knew what we wanted, but they had to go on and on with the salesman, in Thai, about the attributes of this model versus that one. After the dust settled, the order was written up, directions drawn and the deal was closed.
Today is Nu's birthday and they invited us to dinner. How could we refuse? We met at The Family Bakery, the cowboy/western motif place, and had more fun. Nu's girlfriend Nan, who we'd never met, joined us. During dinner we told them about seeing everyone at the Chiang Mai NB watching what appeared to be a soap opera. All the merchants were glued to their screens. They explained that it was the last night of a very popular show. They also told us about a traditional Thai event tomorrow that intrigued us. It seems that there's a cow that is given a choice of things to eat. There's rice, corn, and several other things. If the cow eats the rice, the price of rice goes up and planting begins with a frenzy. If it eats the corn, the same thing. Third explained that it's a very old tradition that some take seriously. We're going to watch it on T.V. tomorrow morning and see what the cow eats. I'll report my findings. And you thought Groundhog Day was over the top.
We haven't seen the house in two days. Tomorrow's visit will probably be a major surprise. I can hardly wait to see. If you haven't been to the Flickr site in a while, drop by. I put up a ton of picks last night.
Have a Great Thursday.

Danny

"Appreciation is a wonderful thing;
it makes what is excellent in others,
belong to us as well."
~Voltaire

Gettin' Funky, Thai Style

www.flickr.com/photos/gratidudepics