#2410: Happy New Year and Greetings from Chiang Mai

Post 2410

- 8 years and 354 days since I started this blog -

  

Journal
(written Dec 20-21, 2019)

Read this once (it won't change for the rest of the trip(s): I'll be linking this post to Facebook. If that's how you got here, here's some background: About 9 years ago I started this blog as a food journal. I had a medical situation and needed to lose weight. Initially, that's all I did here: Journal my food intake and my weight. It contributed to helping me lose 20+% of my body weight in 6 months, and continuing has kept me on track since then. I started adding commentary after a while, but lately it has become infrequent. 

While I'm traveling, I let go of the weight-tracking and food journaling, except for the occasional food shot when I've eaten something interesting. And that's where we find ourselves now.

My two weeks in LA went by at light speed - they're a blur. I spent a lot of time just hanging with Alex, and a lot of time eating. It was all a great time.

There was a little sadness. When I arrived, I contacted my old friend Marty - who was out of town visiting family in Arizona. We said we'd try to get together New Year's day or the day after. He died in his sleep December 30. I'm glad we had a chance to wish each other a happy new year, even though he didn't see it. This is a pic from last year.

My other childhood friend in LA, Bobby, died earlier in the year. I'm in the time of life where you don't read obituaries out of fear of reading your own.

As I said, a blur... There aren't that many pictures, because a lot of what I did was not 'remarkable' in the sense that it was just 'hanging out'. Nonetheless, because the hanging out was with Alex, it was the best way to spend my time in LA.

One attempt to do the normal things I enjoy in LA failed - for some reason, the permanent collection in the main building at LACMA was closed when we attempted to visit. It cost us $16 in parking fees to find that out. So it goes. We'll try again when I'm back in LA at the end of the month. I did get a good picture of Alex and me there (it's the one above).

My other attempt at culture was much more successful. I love the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. It is my go-to place when I visit LA.

The sculpture garden at the Norton Simon has fabulous settings for modern sculpture, very heavy on Henry Moore. The garden itself looks like a Manet painting of Aix-en-Provence. It is my happy place.

The sculpture garden at the Norton Simon.

The sculpture garden at the Norton Simon.

As if the sculptures in the garden aren't enough, the museum has the world's largest collection of Edgar Degas sculptures and paintings.

Degas

Degas

There is a lot more. There is every kind of painting - modern art and classics. I believe they have famous examples of nearly every famous artist - from Rembrandt to Warhol. To me, the collection is more comprehensive and better-mounted than the more famous Getty Museum, which seems to me to me more interesting for its architecture and scenic view than the immense collection it houses, to the point where the Getty is no longer a must-visit for me.

Inside the museum, paintings and sculptures are so well-displayed. As huge and dense as the collection is, there is never a sense of crowding.

The Norton Simon also houses an enormous collection of Asian art, including a meditation garden where I usually, well, meditate. 

This time around, that garden was closed, due to recent rainfall making the grounds muddy, but it is viewable from inside. Unfortunately, there were other people with the same idea occupying the available seating, so no meditating that day.

I have spent hours browsing in this Asian collection on multiple occasions, and don't feel I've spent enough time there.

I just love sculpture. The ancient sculptures of Southeast Asia and India, so well-represented at the Norton Simon, hold a fascination for me that is incomparable. This museum and LACMA (LA County Museum of Art) are the two places that I love for their Asian art collections. 

In the past, I've taken selfies here. This time, I enlisted a fellow museum-goer to take my picture and show more of the sculpture, and me.

This gorgeous bronze is only six inches 'tall'. Amazing, exquisite detail. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands of sculptures like this on display. More than I can take in in one visit.

There are also amazing sculptures on display at the building's entrance, set beautifully, which includes Renoirs, and yes, a 'Thinker'.

This is my idea of an afternoon well-spent.

For New Year's Eve, Alex and I joined a half-dozen of his friends for a big dinner, and there was a lot of merriment. Alex didn't think I'd be comfortable at the parties he had been invited to, so after dinner was low-key.

With my time in LA winding down, Alex and I returned to Grub, his favorite breakfast place, for the first meal of 2020.

One day after New Year's Day, we had until 8:00pm before I had to return my car and catch my flight to Chiang Mai, Thailand. I'm happy to say we spent a relaxing afternoon before enjoying a wonderful dinner together at a ramen restaurant where, as is typical in LA, we had a meal that couldn't be beat.

After dinner, I set out to return my rental car and shuttle to the International terminal. I was pleased that everything about that went smoothly. LAX is a nightmare airport, with its very own intense traffic jams, and I was worried about not getting to the gate in time, but I needn't have. Despite the fact that once again, the gate was the furthest from the International terminal's entrance, after the long, long walk, I had plenty of time.

Or so I thought, not until, a half hour before boarding, they changed gates. The new gate, was at the extreme other side of the terminal; I was not prepared to make that long, long run and still, probably, be late to board. But the airline came to my rescue, and ordered up one of the golf carts they use to help the aged and infirm get around the airport. As a result, I was chauffeured to the new gate, just as boarding started.

EVA Air, like Delta on the way to LA, had no problem letting me board with my bass, and found easy stowing for it. I have to say, nothing in my past dealings with any airline prepared me for how well I was treated in this respect.

This year, my connection was in Taipei, Taiwan. In the past, it had been in Guangdon, China and Seoul, Korea (different airlines each time). That flight takes one over fifteen time zones and crosses the International Date Line. Embarrassingly, I  had told friends in Thailand to expect my Friday night, and had to re-message that I would actually arrive Saturday morning.

This was the first of a couple of obstacles between LA and Chiang Mai.

My flight stood on the LAX tarmac for an hour before taking off. Shortly after we did, my cannabis edibles kicked in, and for the first six hours nothing bothered me at all.

It was only after I came down and checked the flight map that I realized the plane would not make up the time, and would arrive exactly when my connecting flight started boarding. Sensing, rather than knowing, that that plane would be on the other side of the airport, I alerted a flight attendant to the situation.

She told me she would do what she could to help. Forty-five minutes before landing, I was moved to first-class, and all my carry-ons were put in a front locker, so I would be first off the plane.

When I disembarked, I was met by a young Taiwanese airline employee, who took my bass, and ran through the airport (with me frequently imploring him to slow down. As he ran, he was constantly on a walkie-talkie, presumably with my gate.

I was right about the connecting flight's location in the airport, at the far end of the terminal from where I got off. I reached it out of breathe, knees aching. But the last bus to the plane was waiting for me. I got on the bus and the doors immediately closed and the bus set off.

Crisis averted.

I got to Chiang Mai ten minutes early, forty hours after I woke up for my last day in LA. I was wiped.

After I checked in to my airBnB, it took me all of fifteen minutes to fall asleep. When I woke up three hours later (I don't ever sleep long - nights are usually broken up into three- and four-hour segments), I had messages on my phone from local friends, including a dinner invite from my main man in Chiang Mai, David.

I met up with David and his girlfriend, Mai, who has been my best Thai friend (even though she isn't a musician) (LOL) at the Ploen Ruedee (Saturday) Night Market, which has a big selection of food stalls and a stage with great sound and a variety of Thai bands every night.

Not this time... I've had crickets, but I can't see me eating a scorpion. Crickets? Well, I have to be in the mood.

I needed to eat light. I was accommodated by V Café, one of a few vegetarian stalls. I got Thai tempeh sausage and a side of tofu scramble. Both were delicious, for a total cost of just over $3.

The band that was playing when we arrived would have been recognizable in Syracuse - playing mainstream covers. They were good, but the attractive singer suffered from growing up with microtonal scales, a very common problem with Thai singers doing Western material. We would call her 'pitchy', but she's really jus singing the songs in the way she was brought up. Still, it noticeably marred the performance.

The next band up was a big reggae ensemble: two guitars, drummer, bass, keys, trombone, trumpet. Most of the leads were by the rhythm guitar player, and he was dead-on in his Bob Marley imitation vocals, down to the accent. They were astonishingly good.

Even David, who doesn't really like reggae, had nothing but praise. I think this might be the first, if not the actual best, live reggae he'd ever heard. Mai and I danced. After, we went up and congratulated each band member on their performance. The bass player recognized me from my last visit. David asked, and we found out the oldest member of the band is 24 years old. As are the socks I was wearing.

Then we went back to David's for some recreation, and that was my first night in Thailand.

My first breakfast in Thailand was at my old favorite, Goodsouls. I walked through the door, and the manager, who I first met at old favorite Tikky Café, immediately greeted me with a 'Happy New Year,' and a fond welcome back.

I'm so grateful to be able to have these wonderful experiences.

Food Comment

The return of the Thai Cobb salad, from Fred 62. This is a better photo than the last.

Another hit from Fred 62: My 'traditional' New Year's Eve breakfast, a LEO (lox, eggs, and onions).

From Goodsouls Kitchen: scrambled tofu with all kinds of salad mixed in (top above), and a raw brownie (still my favorite dessert).

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