Dinner

Anyone looking for restaurant recommendations in Thailand? Good, I've got just the place. May I suggest Aroon Rai in Chiang Mai?

Here's what we ate. We started with their locally made sausage. A little too spicy for me, but Jim enjoyed them.

Our hotel proprietor insisted that we try kow soi gai while in Chiang Mai. It didn't disappoint. It's a delicious curried egg noodle and chicken soup.

We were having a bit of trouble finding a place that served kow soi gai, so we asked a nice English-speaking gentleman working at a bookstore we visited. He suggested Aroon Rai and insisted we try their gang garee gai, a yellow curry with chicken and potatoes. Good recommendation, bookstore guy. Delicious.

You can kind of see in the photos that we also had a beer with dinner. I can't remember exactly how much our bill was, but it was probably about eight U.S. dollars.

And so it begins ...

The adventure has begun.

We're a little over a week in and up to this point we've spent A LOT of time traveling. At my count, 41 hours on a plane or train ... and that doesn't include the time we waited at the airport or train station.

That said, the travel has been mostly fun. While I was worried about spending 14 hours on a plane, it was, in reality, uninterrupted time to read. It was great. I finished my book.

We spent a few days in Bangkok, our first stop. Bangkok, for me, was busy, noisy, dirty, full of annoying tourists, in other words not my favorite. We did go to the Grand Palace (click for photos), which I very much enjoyed.

On the overnight train North to Chiang Mai we met two Swedes who made great company.

Chiang Mai is my heaven on earth. The weather's more comfortable (80s instead of the 90s we experienced in Bangkok, and cooler at night), the people are friendly and the food is amazing.

Also there's a bookstore on every corner. Speaking of which, I better get back to it. Stay tuned ... more to come!

Life List

Mighty Girl is one of my favorite blogs. Not long after I decided to start planning for my upcoming trip (now a mere 31 days away, but who's counting?), I became a huge fan of Maggie and her life list. Thanks to her inspiration I've started a list of my own. It's fun to get all things you've always wanted to do down on paper. Here's what I've got so far.

Ladies Who Lunch

Some of my co-workers started this great little group that we call Healthy Hallways. Each week one of us cooks lunch for the whole group. It breaks up the day, introduces us to new recipes and gives us an opportunity to chat.

I was in charge of lunch today. Here's what I made:

Squash and Chickpea Salad via the Smitten Kitchen, CSA greens with lemon vinaigrette and molasses cookies.

I also picked up a loaf of bread from a local bakery.

Yum.

It was a hit.

Sia - Soon We'll Be Found

I saw Sia on Saturday night. She ended her encore with this song. It's been haunting me ever since. So beautiful.

Exercise or Be Active?

I have gone through various phases regarding the regularity at which I exercise. For many of my adult years, I had a gym membership and either took classes or worked out on my own fairly regularly. Paying a monthly membership fee proved a pretty reliable incentive to get my butt to the gym. But sometime in the last year I decided to cancel my membership. The act of driving my car somewhere for the sole purpose of working out and then driving home no longer made much sense to me. I would just work activity into my daily routine, I told myself. Unfortunately I haven't been as good at that as I had hoped.

So much of what I read about exercise offers conflicting information when it comes to the recommended intensity and duration of work outs. My most recent reading on the subject, from the New York Times, Weighing the Evidence on Exercise, caught (and held) my attention. It explains that exercise might not help people lose weight (especially women), but that it could help people maintain a healthy weight. The last paragraph outlines a study that found significantly more energy is expended when people stand as opposed to sit. I keep thinking about this study and the implications it could have for our workplaces and the obesity problem in this country. I envision redesigned work stations that allow users to stand as they do their work. Everyone wins when the health of workers' improves. Employees receive the obvious benefits of better health and lower medical bills. And employers reap the rewards of increased productivity and lower health insurance premiums.

I also find the simplicity appealing. Our bodies were not made to sit at a desk all day long and then make up for it by spending our precious non-work hours at the gym. I'm convinced there's an easier way. David Damron thinks so too. His recent post on Zen Habits points out how many people living in Japan walk and bike as their means of transportation. People get where they need to go in a manner that costs far less then driving, makes a lighter environmental footprint, all the while moving their body and increasing their health. Maybe we could learn something from the Japanese.

Ready ... GO!

Hi, I'm Jen. I live in Minneapolis and work for the Minnesota Legislature until December 31st, after which I won't have a job or an address. I'll be traveling the globe with this guy.

I hope to use this space as a home for some of the constant chatter in my head. And to document my impending trip.

Thanks for stopping by!