Xmas dinner 2013

For this year's Xmas dinner, we chose to go to Chicago at 1U as Jas said that their BBQ ribs are super good!

This is Urs trying to figure out how to use their high tech menu, hehee....

The usual picture of the 4 of us before the food came.

Cheese nachos~ Love this, would definitely order it again!

Beer-battered mushrooms....too bad the ones we had were covered with a super thick layer of batter.

Grilled chicken with mash and beer-battered fries as sides. Quite disappointed with the fries, but the chicken and mash were good!

BBQ ribs with mash and baked potato as sides. The star of the night!! Yummy ribs paired with yummy mash! :D

Some goodies brought back by Jas from Taiwan.

Lovely foldable handbag holder from Tham.

We took this chance to celebrate Jas's and Ursula's birthday too~

hehe....caught them in the action!

Great post Xmas dinner. Unfortunately, 1U took down the Xmas decos a little tooo soon!!! It was only a day after Xmas and there was literally no more Xmas deco left!!

Wat Rong Khun in Chiang Rai

On this day, we booked back the same tour guide who brought us to the elephant camp to go to Chiang Rai.

It was a looooong journey........and along the way, we see nothing but a lot of greens.

Stopped for breakfast at a Roong Aroon hot spring area.

I seriously had no idea what to order....I just took whatever the guide took! lol.....

Two rows of shops before the hot spring area.

Parents had the pork noodle soup.

I guess this must be a common rest area as many buses stopped by this area too as we were about to leave. Funny thing was that other tour guide asked our guide which part of Thailand did his guests come from!!

 Er.....do we look like Thai?

Hot water gushing out from this little hole.

Free leg spa anyone?

After that it was more greens with sign boards showing various tourists attractions along the way.

Finally, after almost 3 hours....we arrived at Wat Rong Khun, the famous white temple of Chiang Rai!

This is Chalermchai Kositpipat, the man who designed the temple in 1997.

Truly a work of art~ just look at all the details~

Love how every minute thing is designed so intricately.

Yikes~!!!

  

Looks totally real~

This golden one is not the temple....this is actually the toilet!!!

This looks like it came from a set of some Hollywood movie.

Highly recommend this temple to anyone who is going to Chiang Mai. It's beautifully designed and took years to complete. Even so, the entry is free! You will get a small little surprise as you enter the temple.....you might find some familiar anime characters or Marvel comic characters! hehehe...... 

Night Bazaar Chiang Mai

Back to the old city we go to hunt for some food in the local night market -Night Bazaar!

There's seriously so many temples in the old city. From where the taxi dropped us off till the market, we already passed by a few. Well since we have no guide, I don't know what are the names of the temples.

Donald duck eating ramen in front of the temple???

Finally at the night market area which was packed with both tourists and locals.

Some interesting dolls for sale.

More temples along the market!

Inside Phan-Ohn Temple's grounds there were many food stalls......

So cute~

I really love the fact that you can get ice-cold fruit juices easily on the streets. This here is mango with strawberries.

At the Tha Pae gate~

I love gyouza! Looks decent so I bought some and they were good!

Had a bowl of their local noodle soup~ not bad!

This is super yummy but at the same time super spicy!

Some street performance~

I highly recommend the night market as it is a great way to scout for local food and relatively cheap prices and there's so much to see along the way!

Promenada Chiang Mai

Promenada is probably one of the newest shopping mall in Chiang Mai when I visited. Many of the tuk-tuk drivers have not even heard of the place when asked.

After asking around for directions a few times, the driver finally managed to get us there!

Promenada~

Cows were everywhere!

Toms n Toms coffee, a Korean coffee cafe, was having a pre-opening promotion where they gave everyone a small piece of toast and coffee for free!!

So I joined the queue too!

hehee.....

The mall was still relatively new and empty.

We were in luck as there were some performance to celebrate the opening of the new mall.

The actual parade~

Besides that, there was also some food promotions going to before the opening of the new hypermarket in the mall and there were so many free food around!

Here's one that's super yummy! Premium frozen pork cooked shabu-shabu style!

Look at the yummy broth~

More cows~

As we walked over to the other side of the mall, there were more performances by the same group earlier!

As it wasn't that crowded, we managed to enjoy the show!

Spotted a food court area down below.....

Saw a lot of people having this fish maw noodle soup....and so I decided to try it too. Bad move~ didn't like it at all!

A refreshing berry smoothie drink on a hot day~

Transformers?

As the mall was still new when we went, there weren't much shops, maybe when all the shops are opened the mall will be more crowded. But it's a nice place to hang and escape the hot weather!