Just how does one celebrate a birthday in Thailand?

I know you're all wondering this. So allow me to walk you through my birthday.

With school finished and a month off ahead of us, my roommates and I went to Chiang Mai the day before my birthday. That night, I was presented with a gift that allowed me to start my birthday off right - a Starbucks gift card! Considering that the prices in Starbucks here are comparable to home and that I can spend as much in one Starbucks trip as I do on a week's worth of dinners, this was very much appreciated. I opted for the skim iced latte with sugar-free vanilla syrup and an apple walnut muffin, both of which were HEAVENLY.



Katie came with me. You can't tell from the picture, but we're sitting on the outdoor 3rd story of the Starbucks. Yes, there's a Starbucks in Chiang Mai that's 3 stories tall.

Then Katie and I got Thai massages. When you get a Thai massage, they give you fishermen's pants and a shirt to wear and then they sort of do yoga to your body for you. Despite that terrible description, they're actually enjoyable. We were very happy and relaxed after.





Then we met up with Steph, my other roommate, for lunch. Note our matching $4 fake Ray-Ban aviators.



I got a chicken cheeseburger and a pineapple shake. After a brief nap, we went to Central Airport Plaza, a mall that was so Western, I felt like I was in the Garden State Plaza. Steph and Kate hit up the gym while I got my hair did. Note my hairdresser's impossibly trendy Asian hair.



After copious amounts of Auntie Anne's, we went back to the guesthouse and got ready to go out. We had a delicious Italian dinner (with mozzarella and pesto!), got an after-dinner drink, and then hit up Warm Up, a bar where all the cool kids hang out. We randomly ran into the Chiang Mai PiA fellows and met up with Chad, another Nan English teacher who was in Chiang Mai for the weekend. At one point in the night, Chad and I were getting a beer at the bar when he suggested we could drink it by doing "that thing with the straw", to which I replied, "A STRAWPEDO!!!" That's right, MHC participants, I strawpedoed a beer on my birthday, and while it wasn't Moosehead, I thought of you all while I did it.

Our last stop of the night was a place called Chiang Mai Land. We took a tuk tuk to get there. This is a tuk tuk.



This is me calling Meg from the back of the tuk tuk to Chiang Mai Land.



Chiang Mai Land felt like being back in Nan because we were literally the only farang there. After listening to the live band play a bunch of Thai pop songs, they suddenly started playing "Happy Birthday" in English! Turns out my friend had talked to somebody and had convinced them to play "Happy Birthday" for me. After getting serenaded in English by a Thai pop band, I figured there was nothing that could possibly top that, and we called it a night soon after.

And that is how I celebrated my 23rd birthday in Thailand.


Update on today: I am at the Internet cafe, wearing jeans at 1 pm and not sweating. Hooray for the end of rainy season and the start of cold season! Plans for the night - dinner at Aj. Ari's garden house, where we might fish like we did the last time we visited.