And then a neighboring market exploded

Jet-lagged and sick, I went to bed at 8:10PM last night. I heard fireworks outside (along with the typical dog barking), which isn't super unusual for Laos. 

Then at 8:20PM, I got a phone call from one of our coworkers/ friends/ neighbors asking me to come outside. Where there was a major fire going on, about 2 miles away. 

My pictures are blurry, which is weird.  But needless to say the fire was ENORMOUS. And loud. There were firetrucks that arrived late, and then intermittently, to the scene of the fire. Fire hydrants aren't really a thing in Laos.

(From our neighbor/ coworker/ friend: "If the fire hits that tall building, we get in a car and we drive to Thailand.")

What's really weird is that every once in a while, fireworks would go off. Initially I thought the whole thing was a fireworks show gone wrong. 

And around 8:35PM, our power went out. So I did what I've learned is the most effective way of getting news in Laos: I posted on the Vientiane Facebook group. 

(This is a compilation of screen shots from my phone on the discussion that was had about the fire. The suggested cause of the fire is really sad, but not super surprising.)

New articles about the fire:

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/aec/Vientiane-market-destroyed-in-fire-30230209.html

http://jclao.com/explosions-rock-vientianes-biggest-marketplace/

Love letter to Seattle

Seattle is the shizznit. I am super incredibly biased, since I was born and raised in the "Greater Seattle Area", but I'm not the only person to think so. 

These people think so too:

Huffington's 36 Reasons Seattle Not Only Won the Superbowl, But Also Wins at Life

BuzzFeed's 28 Reasons You Know Seattle Is the Right Place For You

Movoto's The 10 Most Exciting Cities in America (we're #4)

Also we're # 7 on this list: 13 Best American Cities for Bacon Lovers

But those are other people's takes on Seattle. They see things that I don't (I never thought of Seahawks-love as one of the most distinguishing features of Seattle, and I have never been to the gum wall or the ferris wheel. Also, I love lattes and mochas, but I'm not a caffeine addict). 

There are a million one things that I love about Seattle, but I'm not going to list them all. (Plus, to do it justice, I would need about a hundred professional-quality photos.) So here are just some random shots/ thoughts I had about the Emerald City while I was home. For one week. In mid-March.

Any view where you can see the Space Needle is an awesome view. It's the Seattle symbol. Because it's awesome, and futuristic, and quirky, and it looks so freaking picturesque all the time. 

(I know that people go up the Space Needle to get a view of the city all the time, but I don't really get that. It's like climbing the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It's awesome, it's totally worth doing once, but when you get to the top, you're just looking at a city scape. You're standing inside the thing that makes the city so unique.) 

I love Seattle-ites. The hippies, the hipsters, the yuppies, the cool old people with tattooed sleeves, the academics and the geeks. (I use all of these terms with love.) I love the "normal" people, too, but it's the quirky people you remember. 

Also, everyone wears black. And I love wearing the color black.


The Pike Place Market. This place is crazy busy on the weekends, and even though it's a tourist hot-spot, I will still fight the crowds to get in. It has awesome vendors, it's next to the waterfront, and it has a crazy awesome energy I can't get enough of.

In Pike Place: Mick's Pepper Jelly. So much yes. I recognize that the mini-jars are crazy expensive (last I checked they were $8.50 each, but I wouldn't be surprised if they went up since.) But holy hell this is probably my second favorite food item, after chocolate. For Christmas my brother brought five jars of it. To LAOS. I put it on everything from chicken to cream cheese + crackers to salmon to pasta. Sometimes I just eat it out of the jar, with a spoon.

Also, the Daily Doughnut shop. I will wait in a line that wraps around the market to get a hold of these. (Personal favorite: if sharing, I get the assorted, which is 1/3rd chocolate sprinkles, 1/3rd cinnamon sugar, and 1/3rd powdered. But when I'm flying solo, or have the ability to make an executive decision, I get the cinnamon sugar every damn time. Why? Because the cinnamon sugar ones are really just plain ones, taken hot right out of the delicious oil vat, which are shaken in the paper bag with the cinnamon sugar. It's like eating a hot beignet, but one that's covered in cinnamon sugar.)

Also, the University of Washington campus is freaking spectacular. I visited my dad at work there, and it just happened to be during the two week period that the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. 

And in case the outside wasn't spectacular enough, there's the inside of the UW. Half of it is awesome stylized new-ness with shiny cool things, and the other half is beautifully maintained old-ness with Hogwarts-y touches. Like the Suzzallo Library. 

Views of Mt Rainier. I can never make it look as good on camera as it does in real life. This picture was taken on an overcast day... when we're taking the boat across the Sound to Vashon Island, and it's a summer day with no clouds, Mt. Rainier looks abso-freaking-lutely gorgeous. 

Seattle Graffiti. (This is kind of a joke; there's awful graffiti in a lot of places downtown. This should really be called "Canada Graffiti".)

Anyway, like I said, a million things I love about Seattle. But these are just some of the ones I thought of, as I was clicking through the photos I took when I was over there.

Dayum, Seattle, you's beautiful.

Wizarding World of Harry Potter

For the family event for our AGM in Orlando, we got to visit the "Wizarding World of Harry Potter" while it was closed to the public. Which, you could probably guess, was freaking awesome. 

We had the park to ourselves from 8:30PM to 11:30PM. Since the families with kids mostly left by 9:30PM, that meant that the park was practically empty. 

There was also beer and wine and butterbeer (which is non-alcoholic; it's pretty much butterscotch flavored cream soda with whipping cream on top). Very very risky, providing a bunch of joyous twenty-somethings unlimited alcohol and then letting them lose on some pretty intense roller-coasters.

Inside Ollivander's Wand Shop. Wands were $35 a pop, but a lot of people got them. A LOT of people.

Nick (not expecting the photo) in front of Dumbledore's office. The Hogwarts/ "Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey" ride had an incredible set-up for the waiting line. Of course, since there was practically no one in the park, we didn't have to wait for lines, so we just kind of flew by everything. But the details were so awesome! The Fat Lady in the painting! The sconces on the walls! The holograph of Dumbledore, lecturing the people in line about responsibility!

The Sorting Hat!

We left before the park closed, but we were still some of the last people in the park. It was super freaking cool. We didn't stay out too late (everyone who had just arrived from Laos was pretty jet lagged) but Harry Potter world at night was really magical :) (get it?! "Magical"?!)

Universal Studios will be opening a new part of the park, Diagon Alley, later this summer, and sometime I would love to go back to the park and see what they've added. 

Venetian Masquerade (Orlando)

Work formal night. Theme: Venetian Masquerade. 

My hair turned out weird. I had ordered a new curling iron to be sent to the hotel, and it was a very very weird curling iron, so my poor hair looked super weird. But the dress (from Light in the Box!) fit well :) 

Reunion with my college roommate! (who also works for the company)

Dancing

Best dressed guys at the event. Have no idea who they are, I just really, really like Star Wars.

AGM in Orlando

Hanging out in Orlando for the Annual General Meeting (AGM) with 500 work buddies and their families. 

Cool idea from the planning committee: we got to submit favorite recipes for the Welcome Reception. I submitted my recipe for bacon wrapped dates (stuffed with goat cheese), and they served them! (I have no idea where the nuts the warning refers to comes from...)

Spikeball (como siempre)

Fireworks

Overall a really beautiful time.

32 hours of travel

To get from Vientiane to the US takes a long time. We went to Orlando and that involved 3 flights- one Vientiane > Seoul/ Incheon, another Seoul > Detroit and a last one Detroit > Orlando. 

It felt like it took forever, especially since the first flight was 5.5 hours and left from Vientiane at 12:10 AM. And I had a middle seat between two strangers. And my seat was surrounded by people little kids, two of who are still at the "scream for pretty much no reason" stage. Which SUCKS at 3AM. 

But on the flight from Seoul to Detroit, I read the Sky magazine that Delta provides. It featured Seattle. So it was awesome :) 

Images from home

Famiglia

Lucky 

Space Needle

Sustainable sexiness

In the States

Currently in the States ! 

Our plane Seoul > Detroit 

Serendipitous magazine cover story 

In Orlando for Annual General Meeting !

Terminal 21 Shopping Mall

Typically when we've gone shopping in Bangkok, we go to the Siam malls. 

There are three main buildings

1. Siam Paragon- the "luxury" mall with an awesome food court and huge movie theater

2. Siam Center- Forever 21, clothing stores and the 3rd floor is mostly Thai designers. My new fave Thai store is "workshop" because they have cute clothes that fit and are reasonably priced ($50 / cute cocktail dress)

3. Siam Discovery- I don't go here often but Nick likes the athletic stores. They have an Outback Steakhouse, which is awesome, but the one time we tried to go was during the protests and they were closed

This weekend, however, we went to Terminal 21, mostly because it was adjacent to the Asok BTS station (which was the rail stop we took from the hotel). And I really liked it! It has different city themes for each level (like Tokyo, London, Paris). And the ladies' clothing level was made up of small storefronts for small-name designers, with lots of sales going on. 

By far my favorite part was the obvious attachment to California, in particular. The floors included Istanbul, Tokyo, Paris and London, but they also included San Francisco (Pier), San Francisco (City Street) and Hollywood. 

The "Golden Gate Bridge"

Hollywood floor made sense, though, because at the top floor, all it had was a movie theater, a spa and a gym

Also there was a store called "Pink Pussy"

Terrific lady day

International Women's Day took place on Saturday March 8th this year.  In the States, never really meant much (I didn't even know there was an International Women's Day), but Asia it's kind of a big deal. Which is great, because women here are still way worse off then men, in terms of rights and how society views them. It also meant that we got a holiday on Monday (it was supposed to be Friday but there's a lot of mis-communication here), which is why Nick and I got to go to Bangkok. 

Due to the holiday, Nick dubbed Saturday "Terrific Lady Day" (a reference to The League, which is one of the funniest TV shows airing right now), which meant that I got to choose the schedule and he had to grin and bear it. 

So we got a couple's massage at "Urban Retreat" (at Asok). I use the term "massage" loosely, because I got a "Fit and Firm" package (aimed at firming up skin) which was really more of a physical assault than it was a massage. 

For 2000 Baht (about $65) I had a 50-minute body scrub (using Matcha Green Tea, which the spa claims is skin-firming) and an hour long "Fit and Firm" massage. Nick signed up for an hour long Swedish massage. 

The body scrub was nice- it was the first one I've ever gotten, and while I liked it and my skin was noticeably softer afterwards, it didn't strike me as anything special (good or bad).

The massage was another story. 

When I initially signed up for a "Fit and Firm" massage, I thought it would be like an intensive sports/ deep tissue massage. It was not like that AT ALL. 

Nick and I started our massages at the same time, and the first five minutes were pretty much the same, with our ladies climbing up on top of the massage table and massaging our backs. 

The next 55 minutes were nothing like this. Apparently, the "Fit and Firm" massage involves vigorous slapping of the victim's back, stomach, thighs, calves and chest. So every few minutes or so, my masseuse would just go to TOWN on my poor, unexpected body, slapping in quick successions then massaging out my now incredibly tense body. Every time she did it, I had to fight the urge to laugh at how un-relaxing the massage was. 

Nick couldn't relax much, either, since the slapping drowned out the nice spa music they had pumping into the room. 

After the massage, we changed back into our clothes and I asked him how he liked his Swedish massage.

"It was good," he replied. "I mean, a couple parts she was really digging in, and it hurt."

"YOURS hurt?! You just heard my lady beat the sh*t out of me for the last hour!" 

"Yeah, I have no idea why you would sign up for that."

He had a point; I should have researched what a "Fit and Firm" massage was before agreeing to it. 

Before the massages (it's an awkward pic because (a) Nick didn't want to take it, and (b) I had to hurry before the lady got back in the room)

Follow up to "Fit and Firm" massage: It's supposed to tighten skin, but I didn't really notice a difference. I did notice that my legs were killing me for the next two days. Maybe the firm-ness really would have worked, but whenever I travel I usually replace my Insanity videos and workouts with delicious food. Bangkok is no exception.

But anyone who really knows me knows that my favorite thing is food. Specifically, chocolate. So Nick and I went to CHU's Chocolate Cafe and Restaurant, which was next to the Urban Retreat at Asok. The menu had some salads and sandwiches, but mostly consisted of sugar-y breakfasts and desserts, which is exactly how I want every menu to be. 

This is the Chocolate Lava cake, which I ordered with the Parisian hot chocolate. The hot chocolate was disappointing (I expected it to be thicker) but the lava cake was incredible.

(Side note: does anyone else remember the Chantico that Starbucks had? The "drinking chocolate"? They only had it for one season, in 2005, but it was still the most amazing thing in the world)

Chocolate desserts for daysssssssssss.

Goddess Tub Tim shrine

Nick and I went back to Bangkok for the umpteenth time this weekend. Vientiane is a cool city and all, but I love love love Bangkok. It's got so much going on ! Nick says that he struggles with it because it's "clustered and chaotic", but that's the exact reason I love it. 

When looking for cool new things to do this weekend I found the Bangkok list of "Top 10 Most Unusual Sights": http://www.bangkok.com/most-unusual-sights.htm 

#1 on this list is the "Phallic Shrine", or more delicately named "Goddess Tub Tim shrine". To get there we walked from our hotel to the Chidlom area, walked past a bunch of embassies the "Swissotel Nai Lert Park", and asked the guard for directions to the shrine. He pointed around the corner of the building, and we got a bit lost and ended up in the staff cafeteria area. I had expected the shrine to be in the middle of a courtyard, but instead, it was this sketchy 50 foot area between the parking lot and the river, beside the hotel's trash disposal area.

The shrine has developed into a fertility shrine, so supposedly it is visited by couples that are trying to conceive (please note that this is NOT the case for Nick and me)

There are all these creepy ceramic children at the entrance of the shrine

There are phalluses of every color and wrapped in ribbons. Lots of penises, everywhere. 

Some of the penises even had their own penises.

A lot of the penis/ phallic-shaped things are leaning up against trees. 

The actual shrine (which is pretty similar to the spirit houses that are everywhere in SE Asia)

Anyway, it wasn't the most amazing temple/ shrine ever, but it was close to Central World, and the river, so it was pretty easy to make this a quick side trip. I felt kind of immature, giggling at something that obviously had religious significance for some, but there was only one other person who walked by the shrine while we were there and he was a Swissotel employee on his way to work.