1/23 Chinese New Year Monday

Today we are greeted with firecracker explosions all day long in celebration of the Chinese New Year.  Whole blocks of firecrackers (small explosions like machine gun fire, then a huge explosion – think M80’s only bigger – at the end!) keep going off around us – as we sit on our balcony and read and relax.  We’re just hanging out today – after taking our laundry to the cleaners – 184b ($5.84US) for 4 kg of laundry.  You can’t beat that!

Later in the afternoon, we head up to the market for some oranges.  On our way we stop to watch a Chinese dance with the long pole they climb in dragon costume and then “spit” firecrackers (year of the dragon -  it’s all about fire breathing dragons!).  Once we hit the market, we are treated to an unexpected surprise:  a huge walking market for the Chinese New Year.  Food everywhere- and stalls of crafts and gadgets – and we don’t have the camera!  Darn!  We were just walking to the market – so who knew?

We’re not the least bit hungry – but still the food stalls are making us drool.  So much – seafood, sausages, noodles, stir fry, pork, chicken, you name it – just an awesome selection of stuff for everyone’s tastes.  We meander through, buy our little oranges, and then hit the sausage stall for chicken sausage and the traditional Chiang Mai sausage, Sai ua.  Both are very good and we munch on them at a table in the middle of the street “food court”.

On our way home, we grab some pineapple off the street.  It is the yummiest stuff.  Just refreshing and sweet – almost juice and fruit at the same time.  Nice little treat to cool you off and give you some sweets after the spicy sausage.  We continue to thread our way past the night market street vendors already setting up!  The transformation is amazing. Will have to try to get some pictures before we leave.

Tonight we are splurging – going to Casa Antonio – an Italian restaurant (duh – the name sort of gave it away) in a house a couple of blocks away.  It is the second restaurant of Chef Giorgio, a chef from Vicenza Italy who has a good reputation here.  Before we go however, as we sit on our balcony watching the sunset, we hear the Chinese drum beat from the dragon dance early. It’s loud and we can’t quite pin point it’s location, until we look through the palm trees to the Shangri-la hotel next door and realize they are doing the dance right in the entrance way there.  From our vantage point, we can’t see much, but we can hear it. And then we can see the dragon climb the pole.  Wow! He is up there really high! 

  The pictures are pretty lousy – but you can get the basic idea.  We were going to go down and watch, but figured it would be over before we could get there. Boy – were we wrong! It went on forever!  Oh well – maybe next year!

So – after that excitement, we headed to Casa Antonio’s, where we sat outside and had a wonderful (if pricey) Italian meal.  When we arrived, everyone was seated inside.  We preferred outside, so we stayed in the courtyard under the portico (it was a beautiful cool evening).  One after one, dinner parties would come up and go inside.  We started to think that maybe we were doing something wrong – like some cultural faux pas?  Don’t know – but finally others started coming up and sitting outside too, whether by design or necessity because they couldn’t fit inside – but whatever!

We sat outside and had an awesome meal:  an excellent antipasto starter, good soup for Ed and tender as butter osso bucco plus light and delicious mushroom ravioli.  Most we’ve spent for dinner so far on the whole trip, and it was still only about $40US!