It's the weekend...

After a long week, the weekend finally arrived. Thankfully, my friend Megan invited me to join her at an anniversary party for a couple she met in Burma on her travels. They were celebrating their 25th anniversary at a restaurant called Dash, and I got to be her plus one. She offered to meet me somewhere to follow her there, but I looked it up and it looked pretty easy to get to so I said I would meet her there. I set out on my ride, giving myself a bit of time in case of traffic or getting lost. I took what seemed to be a shorter way to get to the city than I have been shown. It had less traffic, but also less lighting. But it was lovely. At one point it kind of just hit me, I am living in Thailand, riding a scooter to meet a friend. It felt a little surreal. I drove a little slower than normal, only cause I wanted to take it all in, really appreciate it all.  Plus I never really feel like I am in a rush here, everything is much slower than back home. I kind of like it. I am hoping it will teach me patience, being here. As I am just over a bridge, I looked ahead of me and Megan is on her bike in front of me. I honked, but she couldn't see me in her mirrors so I pulled up beside her. From there I just followed her to the restaurant, though I am still fairly certain I could have found it myself.
We arrived at the restaurant and I was stunned. This beautiful restaurant was on a random soi (street), surrounded by not as beautiful buildings. It was just lovely. It was all decorated for the party with balloons and there were a few people there already. Megan introduced me to the couple, and they were quite lovely. We claimed some seats at a table, as they were expecting about 50 people to show up. There was a lovely mix of ex-pats, a few of their friends from back home in the states visiting, and some Thai people as well. We had a couple glasses of wine, and chatted with lots of interesting people. Everyone was so friendly and it was nice to be in company with people who were generally interested in the things you had to say. Megan and I were like celebrities, as for some reason we had our picture taken by and with many people, okay let's say more so the men wanted to take pictures with us. The American ones mostly. It was quite funny. I even had a guy ask to take a picture of my back tattoo cause he wanted to show someone. It was all in good fun though, as the men's wives were there too. The food served was delicious, first bringing out a veggie and shrimp roll of some sort, then the rest was buffet style. I tried a little bit of everything, which got me full quite fast. Not that it stopped me from having a bit of the mango cheesecake for dessert, and I don't even like cheesecake. It was delicious.
After the food, came the band. Four guys who were incredible. Megan and I got up and went to the dance floor and we danced the rest of the night away. Joined by our new friends at the party, it was a blast. The band played a few good songs we sang along to, like Maroon 5 and Jason Mraz. Definitely my kind of dancing, as I just let loose and was able to dance the way I always do, 'special'. During a break from the band, sky lanterns were brought out to light and let go. Unfortunately, it didn't go quite as planned and once one finally got flight, it flew into the street and got stuck on a bunch of wires. The band hopped into action, finding a ladder and running down the street and getting it down. They decided to put the rest out, as it wasn't the best place to have them take flight. After the band was done we went over to tell them how great they were and they told us that the sax player (who was a babe) had a bar called North Gate Jazz. After a bit of talking we realized that they knew a couple teachers we work with, cause the teachers play at the bar. Small world. They had to get to another gig, but we said we'd come by their bar sometime. With the end of dancing, and the looming early morning wake up for International Day at school (yes, on a Saturday), we decided to hit the road.

Decorations

Restaurant sign

Restaurant

Megan

Appetizer. Yummy.

A little bit of everything

Dessert

Sky Lantern

Sky lantern caught in the wires

Putting out sky lantern

The band

I can honestly say that was one of my best nights in Chiang Mai. It was so much fun to eat, and chat, and dance around. Met some lovely people. It was all in all, a successful night.  Got home around midnight, and fell asleep, dreading waking up to go to school on a Saturday.