The Tiger Kingdom!!

So, as the title suggests we also went to the Tiger Kingdom in Chiang Mai. Well, I went...and dragged dean along with me :) I got to see and hang out with adult tigers and 4 month old baby tigers. For the baby tigers, we paid someone to snap a crapload of pics....I picked the best ones.

This is me behind the bars...eeek!!
Puuurrr big kitty :)
Just another day....chillin with tigers....me? I do it all the time ;)

How to piss of a tiger? They have a really good sense of smell....stick a flower near its nose when its trying to have its afternoon nap.

The results of a little play between tigers....doesn't look like fun to me....but hey


Tiger paw V.S. my hand.......although the tiger's paw is a little more dirty than mine...I have a thumb ;)
And now come the babies :)

They didn't want to do this...I kinda feel bad for the lil guys....they get pulled around all day by tourists and their trainers...poor lil guys.

Posed? Ofcourse...noooo the baby tigers are mauling me ?
When we were about to walk out of the tiger cages I decided to take a quick look at the two oldest tigers....while walking over there we caught a glimpse of some really really young baby cubs....I think they were about a month old or something....maybe less....still drinking out of a bottle and super duper cute!


That's the end of the tiger kingdom adventures :) Next post will be about Cambodia!!!

Finishing up the rest of ChiangMai

Just to finish up the pics of ChiangMai....

This is Dean's impression of a Zebra...I think. It's a fun camera game. Get the camera ready...tell someone that you are going to call out an animal name and they must act it out...at the same that you call out the animal name...snap a picture.

Chiang Mai by day...

and by night...

A really old wall which used to surround the city with a moat around it....now the city has grown past the walls of the old Chiang Mai.

I'm not really as pink as I look...

A shadow :)

Dean and I decided to be adventurous... well adventurous for us anyway.
We heard about this temple with 300 stairs and thought it might be fun to climb up it. These pics are of the largest number of the steps....went up a few and then stopped to take a few pics...in awe of the massive staircase ahead...

Giant Dragon and I just chillin.

I guess this is part of the temple being repaired.

Once we got into the temple we decided to take some pics inside. Dean was wearing shorts and figured that he probably shouldn't go inside of the temple because of the rules (even though I saw tonnes of tourists going in with shorts on).

Everything was gold. Gold statues, buildings, wall art....everything :) It was really amazing to see its too bad the pics don't do it justice.

I suppose you are wondering what the heck this is right? I wondered the same thing. Upon closer inspection I noticed that it was coins stuck on a board/stone/something. I think they use melted wax, dip a coin in it and stick it to the thingy....maybe its like a good luck thing or something....not too sure.

These guys were hard at work scraping old melted wax off one of the candle offering thingys....(I have great explanations right?)

Gonggggg?

And then I became hot...llike really hot....like my hanky was not enough to wipe off all the sweat hot...

All done and my cheeks are still shiny.

View from the temple down into ChiangMai.

And the walk down...

Met up with my friend Lez from Korea (she was doing a SE Asia stint before moving back to the US.) Miss her but it was awesome to see her there :)


Stay tuned for more....sorry that everything is from a long time ago...but nothing interesting is happening with my life right now.

Cooking Class in Chiangmai

So unfortunetly I made Dean end our Pai adventures early. Why you ask? I wanted to do a cooking class. I feel bad that the entire trip seemed to be "me" oriented...but then ya'll know me right?

Okay so the menu was: PadThai (which I totally burned), Hot and Sour Prawn Soup (Delish!!), awesome green curry, a trip to the market, chicken and cashew nuts, spring rolls and a dessert of sweet sticky rice and mangos. OMG I was full and completely happy by the end of the day....now if only i could replicate these recipies :(

This is the work area....it was really nice and airy, always important when cooking in a tropical climate!!! There were six students for the first half of the day. The second half of the day was just two of us :)

Our wonderful teacher!!!

the first menu item, Pad Thai....looks better than it tasted....I tried to make this once I got home...a complete failure. Dean was a real sweetheart about it...seriously I know he was trying to make me feel better. "Well it's not Phad Thai Annie, but it tastes like really good noodles". Well bless him, he's such a sweetheart. It reminds my of that country song where the guy eats a bunch of burned meals so that he doesn't hurt his wife's feelings....well I tried anyway. :(

Next up, Tom Yam Soup....absolutely splendid. I have a bunch of packs and I intend to make this for dean at some point. Hey maybe I'll make it this week!
Ingredients for Green Curry. Who'd a thunk that there were different kinds of egg plant....The bulb like think and the little pea shaped things are actually different kinds of egg plant. Cool huh?

MMMM splendid!

A quick break to check out the stinky local market. It reminds me of the markets I took my family to in Guatemala. Remember mom? The one where Grandma threw up into a garbage can after eating something funny?

Chicken and Cashew Nuts- ingredients all chopped and prepared.

Result? Divine!

Also Divine!

And words can't describe how friggin good this was....I'm drooling just thinking about it!!!!!

Pai randomness

Just a few random pics for ya'll to enjoy.

Can you see the moth????

The View from our awesome room!

Me after a crazy shot of Sambuca!!!

Touring around Pai/Hotsprings

So, after getting our tattoos, Dean and I decided to go for a lil scooter ride around Pai. These are a few of the pics of the area and specifically a few pics of the hot springs that we hung out in.

Area near Pai...really pretty, really green!
Again...but you can see Pai from this pic....for a while we drove around and then we had to stop and ask someone where to go....NO...we weren't lost ;)

Sportin my Sexay! helmet....it is right? Seriously though, I don't think that helmet had ever been cleaned. It was the most stinky and nasty dirty helmet ever....I'm surprised I didn't pick up some creepy hair fungus or somethin.

A little hut on our way to the hot springs.

My baby Dean lookin all sexy in his sexiness!!

The beginning of the hot springs. Apparently this water is about 80 degrees celcius (HOT) and during busy hours you can see lil old ladies boiling eggs for people to buy. I dunno if I'd buy an egg boiled in this water...it'd probably smell even more like sulphur than eggs already do.

Picture time!

It's important to test the water before you get in....I mean, you wouldn't wanna jump into water thats like 80 degrees right? That doesn't sound like it'd be much fun.

I am woman hear me roar!!!

Time for my weekly bath. I was wondering when I was gunna be able to find a public bathing pool...I was starting to collect a film of dirt on my skin.... ;)

Smile for the camera happy couple!

Another point where the hot water had flown downstream and created a pool.

After our adventures, we decided that we should go for something to eat. So we didn't eat the plants...just hung out near em.

This is my dirty, sweaty, I'm hungry, why is it raining, serious face :)

MY TATTOO!!!

Thing that everyone has been waiting for...drum roll please....ok shut up Annie...be honest does anyone really wanna see my new tattoo? Well maybe a few but whatever, if you don't, that's okay too. I love it and that's all that matters to me. It's really personalized. I got my parents' two favorite songs tattooed on my back...Dad's is Auld Lang Syne and mom's is Amazing grace. I was able to combine the two songs together, for the most part to make one cohesive piece of music. There is only one spot I'm still considering putting a quarter note but its nothing that I can't change later. I hummed and hawed about it for the longest while and decided to just keep it the way it is. Have a look and let me know what ya'll think.

Don't mind the bra and whatnot...that's just my attempt at being sexy...hehe.

This is the outline drawn and traced onto my back.

When Korn is doing my tattoo, he needs an assistant to hold the skin tightso that the tattoo is better quality.

This is what the needle looks like as it is going into my skin. Nice huh? That is basically all his tools. He used three different sticks each with a different number of needles for the different styles of inking.

Wiping it off for a check over by me!!

After a touch up here and there I decided that it looked great and I was a super happy customer. Now however, it looks sad and lonely on my back. I want something else to join it so it doesn't look so alone. Any ideas?

Deans Video tattoos part Two!!!

This last video is Dean getting his hand tattoo. It's the whole process from start to finish. Since it was just a small tattoo, Korn didn't get anyone to hold the skin tight. The whole process took about 7 minutes. And it looks really good :) Argh its taking FOREVER to upload onto this darn website!!!