Eat What?!

Just found this crazy article on all the fabulous things I can look forward to eating....or trying to get Boston to eat while I take a picture. The half formed bird fetus seems to be the worst. Give me a deep fried grasshopper over that any day!

http://matadornights.com/dog-meat-and-rooster-balls-the-10-most-exotic-asian-foods/

Roller Derby Gentlewomen

I survived my first Roller Derby experience (only as a spectator), but still a little harrowing. These ladies (using the term loosely) were quite a tough bunch, and I had front row action at Dad's Skateland for the Flat Rink event and their lack of proper pants. This is the ONLY place I have ever seen a ref essentially in just panties.

I did have an old roommate who was quite the exhibitionist and cooked my dad and brother pancakes while wearing no pants before I could get home, but this was a whole room of ladies who frankly, needed more clothes. This place did bring back some sweet memories of 5th grade in TN when Friday afternoon roller skating was all the rage and of my high school Chandelle after party but I digress...

Apparently the thing to do is to build a beer can pyramid (a beer-amid, if you will) and hope and pray that one of the skaters will fall into it. I thought the goal was just to see if this happened accidentally, but apparently they do this as part of show. All in all - I don't think I'll be here every month with the regulars, but for a random event (and apparently Adam's lifelong dream) it was fairly entertaining and not as aggressive as I would have thought. (Also any place that is BYOB is looking good these days as I'm trying to save money for the trip!)

They Say It's My Birthday!

Whew....that was a lot of eatin'! We got to Austin a bit late, but to start our food odyssey off right we had Fuel City tacos from downtown Dallas. Then had Chez Nous around 10 pm that night. It was pretty good, but not just amazing. I ended up getting a salad with a poached egg on it. It wasn't terrible but a little strange. Also had a really good steak and some chocolate mousse that was delicious! We then proceeded to walk west down 6th to get to the new area of bars on west side of Guadalupe. As we walked, I was a little nostalgic for all old places, but they looked pretty seedy now. It reminded me of lower Greenville where I don't ever go. We found the recommended bars, Ranch and Moltov. Both had a nice upstairs patio. Fun night!The next day we continued our taco quest at Taqueria Chapala on East 1st - very good and cheap! It's a small yellow building with very good tacos. Next we headed to the Capital since I had never actually been there. I played with my new camera quite a bit, and then we headed to South Congress for some window shopping. After a couple hours we were ready to eat again at the Salt Lick. Now that is some good food! I had forgotten it was BYOB, so we didn't get a beer with our meat, but maybe that's for the best (more room for cobbler).

Kavita threatened to have them sing "Happy Birthday", but she knew that would just be too awkward since there was only 2 of us there. After stuffing ourselves with ribs and sausage (I'm quite the lady), we headed to Zilker Botanical Garden so I could play with my camera some more. Kavita was quite relieved I didn't make her pose too often. She starts to just look away and not smile if you take more than one photo an hour.

We tried to hit up Hulu Hut after this for drinks, but it was just too crowded. So we opted for Guerro's back on South Congress with its excellent people watching! Also, Turkey the dog was at the table next to ours.

We should have just stayed home that night as we were stuffed and tired, but we thought we'd give Red Fez a try - this place used to be great! It was really good music, but the crowd didn't really dance, and maybe we're just getting too old for this. Anyhoo - we were both ready to go home the next morning but made one last stop for food in Austin at Texas French Bread - Best Sandwiches Ever! Ok - we also stopped for a kolache in West. Then I didn't eat for a long, long time.

Here's the link to the rest of the pics:

Austin 5/10/09

Chiang Mai - by elephant or by zipline

Since my soccer game was rained out and I refuse to really work this week, I thought I'd play around with the blog some more. I've been doing tons of research (common theme) including checking out Chiang Mai trips/treks such as these:

Flight of the Gibbon

Elephant Trek

Boston found the first one, Flight of the Gibbons (he enjoys a good zipline), but it's real stamp of approval for me was just now noticing that it was on The Amazing Race - Asia. I think that one is a must! The second one is the elephant trek with some of them having village trips to take you to see the long neck ladies. Although, I'm reading that a lot of these are more like side shows.

Chiang Mai also has a great night market there that I'll have to see. I have high hopes of seeing the market along with trying out at least a foot massage in every city. (more research - I'll let you know my findings.)

I noticed on the map how close Chiang Mai is to Laos, but seriously, I cannot add one more place.