NTM Part 13 - FINAL

13 entries - to close this NTM chapter....I hope!!!!

Alright, after the adventure we had on 24 oct, our night was spent eating and shopping. My friend, Tai, also Warunee's friend, brought us to Carrefour shopping complex to have our dinner, thereafter to shop in a nearby night bazaar which is for locals mostly and so pretty cheap stuff.

I bought some personalised key chain here. There was one particular keychain with the word Jesus on it. It was really pretty and unique. I urged Eld John to buy for his wife. He hesitated coz he is very gu hon.....cantonese word for stingy. Call him frugal to be a polite, k? Anyhow, i challenged him to buy something and so he said he will buy if the keychain is 70 baht or less. Hahaaha..... we asked the shopkeeper for the price and she quoted 75 baht. I asked for discount and voila.....she granted. So he finally bought something during this trip and probably his first time buying things back! lolz!

The rest of the NTM team disappeared after dinner and we werent sure where they went. It rained all of a sudden and so we decided to go to a nearby coffee outlet and take a sip while waiting for rain to stop. We had a good time of fellowship, Tai, Warunee, Eld John and myself, getting to know each other better.

At about 8.15pm, we had to leave the coffee place coz it was supposed to close at 8pm! And so we decided to go back to hotel and eat roti prata at the road side stall. YFers, remember the many vareity type? Banana, chocolate, kaya, cheese, sugar and what not??? I was very surprised Eld John had not tasted before and didnt know Thailand has roti prata.

As we walked to the main road to flag a Song Teow, we saw Angela and the rest boarding one. 4 of us quickly hopped onto it. It was perfect timing. What were their goods? Slipper mop, goodies plus thai instant noodles. BK also bought perjamas.... hahaha.....

Oh well, the roti prata was simply delicious and Eld John said it was nice too. Did a quick round of look-see look-see nearby before retiring to bed. The rest continued shopping after putting their bags in the hotel room.

Next morning, it was time for me to say bye to the team.....sad. But before i did that, Warunee, Tai and i brought them to the nearby day market for last last minute shopping. We had about 1.5 hours and guess what we bought? Art and craft stuff (so so cheap) and some cutlery for Susan and Cindy. And Cindy, she bought 11 T-shirts at one go! I helped her to choose too! Each Tee cost $3-4. It was really cheap and good. I think Susan bought something too.

Warunee was feeling a bit queasy after the breakfast and morning rush. Poor girl, she went to the toilet to puke while i helped Cindy to pick the shirts. Rushed back to hotel to pack stuff and transport arrived. Group pic before we went our separate ways. You can see my friend Tai in the 2nd pic.

What did i do after the team left???? Haha... i wanted to play ZORB BALL. What is it? Huge ball that takes two (strapped in) and roll all the way downhill! LOLZ....Warunee and I spotted this when we did the atv thingy and so we wanted to go back this day to try. Alas, it was very expensive. 600-700 baht for one person and 1 roll down the slope. We couldnt even roll it to water. Both of us didnt think it was money well spend and so i didnt try. Here is a video taken by someone (i found in Youtube) for you to understand what it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef12rb0oHEA

Tried to play shooting game but the price was so pen pen (expensive in thai). It cost about 1,000 over baht just to shoot a few rounds. And then we went to this Paintball thingy....but it turned out to be pellet gun shooting....BB Gun they called it. Small foamlike balls and extremely painful if you got hit and how else would you not get hit since you play against each other? We decided not to play. That time i did at Phuket last year, it was paintball (shooting from gun). This itself already gave bruises to Warunee coz she was hit.... haha....I erh escaped injury free then.

And so I spent Saturday bowling......the lousiest alley i had ever been in. Why? Because when you hit 8 pins out of 10 for first throw, chances were you would be left with 1 or none before your 2nd throw. How so? As the thingy came down to hold or pick up the remaining standing pins, it kind of knocked 1 or 2 out.....you can term this as machine clumsiness.....hahahahahaha..... And so for many times, 3 of us had "spare" given to us FOC and it was really good especially when your first throw ended up with 2 parallel pins remaining. Unless you can spin your ball, it was no way to hit both at each corner.

Went back to the local night bazaar only to experience rain again and peddlers busy keeping their stuff to go home. Sigh...... came back to my friend's place and slept very early. Sunday service was next day.

Visited Tai's church....Chiangmai Chinese Church or something like that. Preaching in Thai with translation (using a headphone) to English or Chinese. I chose the English of which i regretted later. The interpreter was like erh......taking a break all the time. The preacher spoke about 5 sentences (or even longer) and all i heard was one-liner interpretation. And sometimes, she didnt say anything. I didnt really benefit from the translation. Heard the chinese was much better coz the interpreter seemed so keen to translate line by line. How do i know? It was because i could hear the man speaking in Chinese diligently while the lady on my side spoke once a while (English on the left pew while the Chinese on the right).

Went for a Northern Cuisine Thai lunch after that.....here's a pic of the food we ordered....yes.....there was satay, pork ribs, pork meat, chicken and something like ngo hiang.... a lot of food and i was very very filled up after this meal.....hahaha....

After the meal, we went to this lake in Chiang Mai.

It was really really lovely. They have huts by the lakeside for you to sit down and enjoy a meal or snack.

Singapore should have places like this...... see this owner with his dog who got extremely excited to go on the boat ride? Btw, they brought this bathtub like boat from their home. Doggy resembled Duke, my friend's dog. Oh yes, her name is Sugar....sweet right?

It was such a serene and peaceful plus cooling afternoon and i was so wanting to lie down on the mat to have an afternoon nap (heehee...as if i could but no harm trying, right?). I even brought my bible to read too.

Then all of a sudden, from a distance, we saw dark clouds and this white mist that was approaching us. It happened real quick. Warunee and Tai went to the car to take umbrella and lo and behold, the storm was here! We hid behind the umbrellas coz it was very very windy and wet even tho we were under shelter. I felt like i was inside the twister kind of feeling... you know you saw from a distance it was coming and then it was around you (you being in the inside) and slowly it moved away and sky clear???? LOLZ.... it was true and pretty exciting and fun coz you could giggle together with your friends.

Well, the storm came back again and after the sky cleared, we headed home to take a proper nap before going to the once-a-week night bazaar (a very big thing in Chiang Mai on every Sunday evening). It was really long and wide. But before i could walk down one street, it started to pour and was rather heavy. We had to find shelter and wait. 15 mins was all it took for rain to stop and we continued to shop. Hee, I bought 2 skirts, 2 dresses, 3 scarves and 5 bags (orders from the ladies).

Thank God for seeing me thro this NTM trip plus the extended holiday on my own. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and cant wait for BDC trip to come. Thai food.....wait for me!!! :)