Chau or Sawasdee!

(Hello in Vietnamese or Thai, respectively.)

I'm back. Well, technically, I was back since last Monday night, but I was only home for a day before leaving again for family Thanksgiving festivities. But now, I'm really back. Is this a good thing? Well, right now, I say that it is. However, if you ask me on Monday after my first day back at work, I might have a different answer.

Vietnam and Thailand are culinary meccas. I'll be plastering y'all with scrumptious food photos and descriptions in due time, however, today I feel the need to shame Thai Airways. Why is it that a country with some of the most outstanding cuisine lets their airlines serve this? What is it? Even after I took a fair bite of the stuff (I hate judging before I eat something), I could not identify this "dessert" and the contents within. Yuck. Was that fruit a kiwi or a grape? Or none of the above? For a country famous for its sweets, this sucked.


Shame on you, Santos Zopper. Shame. On. You.


The rest of our trip was [insert fabulous words here]! Vietnam is a country with one of the most varied cuisines and I didn't even have a chance to sample 1% of its famous dishes. However, in a country that boasts over 1700 regional dishes (more than 1400 of those dishes originating in Hue, where one of the emperors demanded new dishes every day for every meal), I feel that 1% is still a valiant effort. My waistline thinks so, too. The weather was rather wet during our 10 day stay in Vietnam, we were trying to outrun a typhoon, but even with the wet weather, I loved this country. I will go back someday and stay longer.

By the time we reached Thailand, we had found a dry spot to do some of the activities we hoped to do. Like kayaking in the turquoise waters of the Andaman Sea against a backdrop of limestone cliffs. Yeah, it was good.

This was the view from our bungalow in Koh Phi Phi (also Thailand).

It was a gorgeous view, but you did pay to have it. I lost count after 500 steps.


Oh, and since this is a knitting blog, I did finish two (different) socks on my trip. This one uses the Scroll Sock pattern from More Sensational Knitted Socks, and the second one is a Gentlemen's Fancy Sock from Knitting Vintage Socks. I'll post full details when I finish their mates.



The bottom sock is for the boy, and his size 13 feet resulted in the unintentional anklet. I used all 50 grams of yarn! For contrast, on the above sock, my sock, I still had almost one third of my yarn left when I completed the sock.

I'll have more trip pictures and stories as soon as I can! This was just a little sneak preview so those of you asking where the heck I am know that I'm still alive and, expect for a few mosquito bites, no worse for wear.