Berry's SEAJ trip Day 31: Meeting up with Stephanie (7/6/15)

After some breakfast I walk around the city some more before meeting up with Rosa Li and Seven (two of my roommates) for lunch. On the way, a friend I met earlier in my trip, Stephanie, gets in town and meets us for lunch after getting settled in the hostel. While eating lunch we decided to meet up with Michele (met in Cambodia) for a Thai cooking class.

Berry on the chopping block. We are ready to get this class started.

Berry enjoyed chopping up some veggies with the meat cleaver.

Berry ready to make some soup with our class.

Our wok before all the goodies go in. Yes Berry I will help you make your dinner cause that is what friends do.

Got to eat some of our cooking before going back for more. This was the soup and the first dish. Those red baskets protect the food from insects. Berry enjoyed this food quite a bit (he better he helped make it).

Berry was helping me crush these herbs and spices. She had us going to town on these things, stating that those who were best at this had no issues finding husbands. Her husband looked up and smiled. It was priceless. 

And now we light everything on fire because why not? That is our teacher Patty next to me. She is showing everyone how to tame the fire.

And this is when I learn, fire cannot be tamed. haha

In theory this was a great idea; in reality, eating a late lunch before a Thai cooking class where you make 4-5
courses was a horrible idea as I could only eat half (if that) of the deliciousness we made. The lady that ran the class (Patty I believe was her name) was an incredibly personable woman with some great cooking skills and even better personality. We all had a great time and even got a little Thai food recipe book to take with us which was nice. After getting back to the main part of town, we head north to the Jazz Co-Op by the north gate (you will see this come up a lot in my writings about CM). We get there and there are people in the street  just listening to the live music coming from this small, cozy establishment. So we go in and realize the upstairs is empty (for whatever reason?) and get some seats overlooking the band while having a beer or two and just enjoying the ambiance of a great gem. Tonight's bands were a cover band playing Toto, journey and some other great music while the second band that we saw played Latin jazz music which was a nice counter to the earlier band. Overall I really enjoyed this place as you get a seemingly good mix of local and foreign people all enjoying the talents of the people in the collective. After they close, we head back to the hostel to get some sleep as tomorrow Steph and I will be heading to a meditation retreat.

View from our seats upstairs. They werent really seats so much as a room with a window we stuck our legs out. Berry was digging the tunes from this place.

Berry found the buffalo. Tis a sign of greatness.