Asian HBO

Things to note about Asian HBO: 

1. The hosts who introduce the movies are hilarious. The chick who just announced 'Stealing Harvard' described it as 'a guy goes on a crime spree to pay for his niece's first year of college... It's not that bad'

2. The block out sex scenes or scenes that refer to homosexuality or scenes they think are inappropriate. You know the scene at the end of the Notebook where (spoiler!) the main couple dies ? They didn't show that scene when they put The Notebook on Asian HBO. Game of Thrones, with all it's perverse plot lines, seems to be untouched.

3. Everything here plays a week late. Not acceptable, esp with Game of Thrones, so illegal downloading it is. 

Go away party at Ban Gai

I love Ban Gai, the only Tex-Mex restaurant in Vientiane. Is it any surprise I chose it for my going-away dinner ?!

Best hostess ever: 'Normally I do not drink tequila. But then your group come, and then, lots of tequila!' (I can relate)

The best boyfriend in the world, trying to figure out the check. And then covering the remaining balance.

Also, UFO (unidentified fried object) plus four strawberry margaritas plus three shots tequila?! This girl is both stuffed and tipsy.

How I Spent My Last Weekend in Vientiane

I wish I could say my last weekend was spent doing awesome things, but really, it was mostly packing. Thrilling excitement.

But a little fun, thrown in. A lot of these things I'll miss :)

The rooftop pool:

The sunsets:

Riding on Nick's scooter:

Ridiculously cheap and fatty ice cream:

New flora / fauna outside on my balcony every day:

Book

Note to self, and everyone else: 

Read this book. It's the 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' of the 21st century.

(I'm packing up stuff for my move and am leaving all books in Vientiane- this is the one that is hardest to part with!)

Views from the office

Man doing electrical work

No safety harness or protection, not, as far as I can tell, any knowledge of electrical work

Sunset (you can kind of see the top of Patuxai, to the left)

Edge of Tomorrow in 4D

My favorite genre (book or movie) is dystopian sci-fi, so this weekend, my love of sci-fi outweighed my distaste for Tom Cruise. (Tom Cruise has done some INCREDIBLE sci-fi, from "Minority Report" to "Oblivion", and for that I love him, but outside of his movies I think he's a nutjob.)

Unfortunately the only movie times available on Sunday before our flight were either (a) totally full, or (b) 4D.

We didn't realize what the "4D" was, but we bought tickets anyway (at $13 each, it's a lot for an Asian movie theater... but then I bought popcorn and 2 sodas for less than $6 so it evens out)

My God. 4D. It's awful. 

There are rides at Disneyland that do 4D, like a Bug's Life, but they last 20 minutes, tops. And that's because "4D" means you are strapped to a roller coaster seat and get jostled around all the time, with wind/ water effects going the whole time. 

Which means every time Tom Cruise was in a machine, or a plane, or a car, our seats swerved and vibrated and moved from left to right. Every time Tom Cruise lands in water (which happens like 12 times in a certain part), there is a contraption in the seat in front of us that sprayed us with water. And whenever the aliens attacked, tiny little strings whipped at our ankles.

WHY WOULD ANYONE KNOWINGLY GO TO A MOVIE LIKE THAT?

All-You-Can-Eat Chocolate buffet!!!!

When we were in Sydney last month, I was trying to find a reasonably priced "High tea" to visit- unfortunately, high tea in Australia is ridiculously expensive. I really didn't want to spend $70- $100 for a couple of hours of snacking! But if we were going to spend that kind of money, I at least wanted to find a high tea with a lot- a LOT- of chocolate. So I googled "Chocolate high tea" and found something way closer to home: the Sukhothai Hotel in Bangkok has a weekly "Afternoon Tea and Chocolate Buffet". And $30 seemed much more reasonable price than $70! 

Despite the 90 degree (F) heat, we dressed up a bit. The Salon has a dress code- no tank tops, shorts or flip-flops. Considering that both Nick and I are usually wearing shorts and flip-flops, we had to take care to pack extra nice clothes. 

The "Afternoon Tea and Chocolate Buffet" runs from 2pm to 5pm on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, and we made reservations online a couple days ahead of time. We set our time for 2:30pm out of consideration for the other people- I figured I would be eating a LOT of chocolate. 

(They served us the iced tea on the left as soon as we arrived- the waiter said it was "lemongrass tea" but add a little simple syrup and it takes exactly like Fruit Loops. Not complaining.)

The tea included a pot of tea/ coffee, and the food was divided into two rooms:
One "Savory room", which included both Asian foods (like chicken satay and sushi) and traditional high tea savory treats like sandwiches and cheese. It was delicious, but I didn't come to the "Chocolate Buffet" for the smoked salmon. (Nick and Griffin both spent more time in this room than I did)
One "Chocolate room". An enormous table, covered in desserts, particularly of the chocolate variety. There was chocolate fondant cake, chocolate beignets, chocolate-covered mango, chocolate truffles, scones, tartlets... it went on and on.

Plus, there was this guy:

Chef Laurent. Our Swiss chef who has lived in Bangkok for something like 27 years, and who started the Chocolate buffet in 1991 (I think). He knows more about chocolate than anyone. It was impressive and fascinating.

At Chef Laurent's table, we could go and order "liquid chocolate" (or "drinking chocolate") whichever way we wanted, from the 22 varieties of chocolates available. The first one I had was made with two different kinds of chocolate, plus a bit of sea salt and black pepper, and it was heavenly. (I may have had multiple drinking chocolates)

Whipping cream on drinking chocolate

Marshmallows in chocolate fondue

For a chocolaholic like me, the "Chocolate Buffet" was better than Disneyland and Christmas combined. 

After we walked out of the hotel into a heavy rainstorm and took a cab back to our hotel, my body CRASHED. I was sleepy and in need of a nap from all the food, but at the same time hopped up on all the sugar. 

It was like a 24 hour period before my stomach recovered from the chocolate overload.

No regreats! 

BKK graffiti

We had to do a big city trip so- military coup in mind- we chose to do a Bangkok weekend. (Nick needed a dentist appointment, I needed tank tops that fit)

Bangkok has a curfew right now - any one out after midnight can be arrested. There are TONS of military officers floating around, esp. at the metro stops and shopping malls. 

There was also this graffiti on an alleyway near Chidlom :

'You're Next'

Intimidating stuffs.

Udon for X-Men

Any time we want to go to Udon Thani, there is a massive process to go through: 

1. We drive 15- 20 minutes from our apartment to the Lao Customs/ Friendship Bridge.

2. We spent about 30 minutes going through Lao Customs. This is an incredibly painful process, because (A) there is little to no organization on how this process is done, (B) you have to go to three different booths to get different documents signed/ verified/ paid for, and (C) Lao/ Thai people are really, really bad about cutting in line. It's freaking awful.  When someone cuts in front of me in line (and it's never a Westerner; always an Asian person), I will usually mutter under my breath and glare at them until they clear the line and are out of eye-sight. Nick gets more creative: he likes to give them "flat-tires", which means he scootches up to them, lightly stands on the heel of their shoe, and when they move forward, their shoes fall off. It's immature, but frankly, it's hilarious. 

3. We pay our 8,000kip/ $1 to cross the bridge 

4. We drive across the bridge. Because Laos drives on the right and Thai drives on the left, there is an intersection on the bridge where you switch sides of the road. It's cool. 

5. You get to the other side of the bridge and clear Thai Customs. This process is usually much shorter, since the Thai side is more organized and there are only 2 windows to visit, but there are still a lot of people cutting in line, and it still takes 20, 25 minutes. 

6. From the Friendship Bridge, you have to drive an hour to get to central Udon Thani, home of the Central Plaza Shopping Mall.

(To get back from Udon to Vientiane, the drives are just as long, but the Customs clearance processes don't take as much time- especially since we have work visas and don't have to do the lengthy Lao visa application process.)

Anyway, the point of all this is to demonstrate how freaking annoying it is to get to Udon. And there are only two reasons we go to Udon:

1. Shopping (especially for a white female above 130 lbs/ 5'5"- pretty much NOTHING in Laos fits me)

2. The movie theater.

So unlike in the States, where our default Friday date night activity is going to the movies and we end up seeing tons of movies, both good and bad, going to the movies here is a long, annoying, arduous process for us. 

But X-Men: Days of Future Past was a movie totally, 100% worth the trip. 

Love me some mutants. Love me some Wolverine. Love me some Professor X, Magneto, Mystique, Storm, Iceman, Kitty. 

Also, I bought the X-Men Mountain Dew Package, which was 239 baht/ $8 for an XL caramel popcorn, a shake tumbler (with a shaker ball so it can be used for really shakes!) and a Mountain Dew. Gotta love Thai concessions prices. 

In the Central Plaza mall, they also have Robinson's, which is an enormous upscale department store for Nick to buy some new towels and bedsheets. There are a bunch of Western brands like Mango, Body Glove and Esprit; there are two big athletic apparel stores where I got some new Merrell hiking shoes. 

For me, buying shoes in Asia is an awkward and complicated process. I'm a size 10.5 (womens)/ 9 (mens) and there are no stores in Udon that carry a woman's size 10.5. Buying professional or cute shoes is out of the question, unless I'm in Bangkok (where my chances are slightly higher, but not by much). Luckily I was looking for hiking shoes, so getting men's shoes weren't as big a deal. But still. 

This is the conversation I had to have at "Super Sports"-

Me: "Hi. I need shoes for backpacking."

Saleswoman: "Uh?"

Me: "You know... hiking?" (pantomiming hiking, pointing at the North Face ad on the wall)

Saleswoman: "Oh, okay" (shows me to the small selection of shoes)

Me: "Okay, these are good. Do you have big size? You know, BIG" (stretching my hands far apart)

Saleswoman: "For lady- big size, size 9."

Me: "Okay, I need to buy men shoes. Size 9."

Saleswoman: "No... lady size 9, men size 8."

Me: "Yeah, no, I get that, but I need men size 9."

Shows me to men's shoes. 

Me: "Yeah, these ones- can I try these ones?"

Saleswoman: "Okay but no size 9. Size 8 OK?"

Me: "No... only size 9."

Saleswoman: "You can try?"

Me: "No... let's just move on."

(This times eight) 

To be fair, when the saleswoman insisted on my trying other sizes, that might be a consequence of working with Asian brands. In the States, sizes can vary a bit, but here, a size 7 and a size 9 can be totally interchangeable- there are really no regulations/ standards. 

Also, this is what parking at Central Mall looks like: double-parking everywhere, but you're supposed to leave the car in neutral so that parking attendants can move the cars as needed. 

McDonald's Cafe menu: doesn't the purple gingko pie look delicious?!

1 Year Anniversary in Laos!!

A year ago Friday (May 30th), a group of 7 of us traveled from our development center in Denver to Vientiane, Laos. 

Long story short, due to some bad weather and some crappy management by American Airlines, the trip had to be rescheduled from a 27 hour journey (Denver> LAX> Seoul, S Korea > Vientiane) on May 29th to a 35 hour journey (Denver > LAX > Seoul, S Korea > Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam > Phnom Penh, Cambodia > Vientiane) on May 30th with United Airlines. It was quite the ordeal...

But Friday morning breakfast was Lotee/ Roti/ Paratha/ Pancake/ Crepe, depending on what you call it, and it was, as always, delicious. Almost all the Americans got the same thing: Chocolate banana with milk. ("Milk" = condensed milk and it goes on top of the deep fried deliciousness that is the Lotee.)

Frying up the sugariest greasiest breakfast ever. 

After work, Nick and I went to Xang Khoo, the French restaurant where we've eaten a lot over the last 12 months (also where we spent Christmas dinner with my family and our coworkers). As our meal ended, it started down-pouring outside. And of course, per Nick's insistence, we had taken the scooter. 

We ended up scootering home in the mini-typhoon. We were absolutely SOAKED by the time we got back to the apartment. 

In honor of one of our coworkers' last week in Vientiane, he hosted a poker game - 12 of us playing Texas Hold-Em. I'm terrible, particularly (a) I'm a horrible liar, and (b) I get really impatient, which does not a successful poker player make. Still, with a 200,000kip buy-in ($27) it was pretty fun and fairly competitive.

Plus I found root beer at one of the local grocery stores!

I left early (I think I was the first one to lose all my chips?) but it was a fun way to celebrate one year.