Thailand That I Love – part 4 – Two Nights in Bangkok

I started writing this post months ago, then dusted it off right after getting back from three weeks in London that was supposed to be one week. Now, before I get to our London trip, I feel the need to finish off my posts on Thailand, given that we returned from there way back at the end of January!
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not blogging as regularly as I’d like. It’s just hard to justify the time when I could be spending it writing actual comics or working on my novel. However, though I may be slow, I remain commited to recording our time in this crazy Foreign Service life. I suppose it says something about how much we’re travelling that I can’t keep up with recording all our trips. Since this January trip to Thailand, we’ve been to London, Bukhara, and Issyk-Kul Lake in Kyrgyzstan. In addition, I still haven’t written about our trips to Vienna and Prague back in December.
On the one hand, it’s exciting that this new phase in our life means we get to take lots of opportunity for travel. On the other hand, it’s an indicator of just how stir crazy we’re getting in Tashkent. There are some things we’re really enjoying about Uzbekistan, such as the people in the embassy community, shopping for fresh food at the bazaar, and the bread from our neighborhood backyard bakery.
However, life outside our lovely home is usually inconvenient at best, frustrating at the worst. There are social and political challenges to living in a police state where you are clearly different from everyone else on the street. We’re isolated physically from family and friends back in the states and our home Internet has a tendency to go down frequently. We’re isolated socially because it’s tough to make friends outside of the small embassy community. We’ve mostly given up on eating out because neither we nor any of our friends have found any restaurants so good that we end up craving more. I could name off the top of my head a dozen restaurants I’d love to visit again in the states or in other countries. Though I keep trying, the food and ambience in restaurants here just isn’t good enough to leave me dying for more.
We’re travelling a lot, but it’s expensive and difficult to get out of the country. If you think U.S. airlines and airports are a hassle, try flying Uzbekistan Airways out of Tashkent airport. Maybe I’ll get into these challenges more in a future post. For now, let’s just say that right now we’re in one of the valleys of enjoying our post and it’s nice to get out and see the world… or even to remember having done so six months ago!
How’s that for a transition?
Overall, Bangkok is not a place we’re looking forward to visiting again. It was nice to see it once, but it’s too big, crowded and dirty for our tastes. Next time we visit Thailand (there will almost certainly be a next time), Bangkok will just be the city we fly into before jumping on another plane or into a car so that we can head to our real destination.
However, that didn’t stop us from having some wonderful experiences while we were there. Our first day, we headed straight to the famous Chatuchak Market for some shopping. We entered through a labyrinth of shops in a huge indoor space. Each shop is just a stall, many separated only by cloth, but the partitions reach high enough to make you feel boxed in as you try to get through the crowds, occassionally stopping to check out something interesting. It’s a huge space that, as far as I could tell, covers several city blocks. Just about everything you could imagine is for sale there, from the mundanity of clothing to the unusual, such as pets.
When we finally reached the open air part of the market (I’m sure there are different entrances that go straight there), we found a delight of various foods available in addition to the shopping stalls. Below are pics of, on the left, a woman making coconut ice cream served inside the coconut shells. On the right are grilled squids.
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Thought we didn’t buy a lot, Lisa did get a couple of cute blouses from this stall on the left. After a satisfying Thai seafood lunch, we also fell victim to the delicious smell of fried chicken breast at one of the stalls.
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Later, we decided to take a break and have a few drinks when we saw this cute little bar stall complete with a DJ. It’s tough to tell from the photo on the right, but the DJ’s turntable stand is actually made from discarded weapons crates, each one idicating what kinds of guns or grenades the box used to contain. It’s nice to see them turned from objects of violence to providing the pleasure of music. Our stay in the bar was perfectly timed, just before the afternoon rainstorm.
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After a night in our hotel, we hopped on a boat the next day that took us and a hundred other passengers down the river. When we exited, we headed past one of the many shrines where religious leaders chanted prayers.
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After passing the lovely shrine, we did our best to find the right bus to take us to a mall where we could buy Lisa a new cell phone to replace the one she lost at the beginning of our trip. Thirty minutes later, overcome by crowds, traffic, and our inability to find the correct mode of transportation, we decided to give it up and buy a new phone in Tashkent. Instead, we hopped on a private longtail boat for a tour of Bangkok’s canals. As we went along the length of the river, we spotted our first dragon! Okay, really it’s a big lizard, but you can mostly see it camoflaged to the right along the canal’s concrete wall. Over the course of the tour we saw two more, some of them just wandering through folks’ backyards! I imagined how our dogs would react to such an invasion in our own backyard, leaving me wondering who would win in that fight. Hopefully we’ll never know.
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One of the most interesting things about the canals is the variety of dwellings jutting out over the water. Some are dilapidated and run down, others are quite fancy with their own backyards.
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Some folks took advantage of their decks for diving and swimming, though I imagine the dirty water isn’t without its health risks. It was also fun to see people getting around on their own boats, or out cleaning them like a 1950s man washing his car in the driveway of his suburban home.
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Several yards came complete with their own personal shrines. This family has a large yard and a lovely one on display for anyone on the channel to see.
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Our tour also took us to one of Bangkok’s floating markets: a series of boats along a floating pier, selling delicious foods of all kinds.
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We were so stuffed at this point that we didn’t eat much at the floating market. However, we did stop for some of the sweet pastries at the stall pictured in the middle here. Yum!! Also, we saw a big temple from the boat as we headed back home. Anyone who can identify it gets extra points! (No, of course I’m not turning it into a contest because I can’t remember which temple it is. That’s a ridiculous suggestion!)
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And when we finally returned from our visit to a tropical paradise, what did we find waiting for us in our yard?
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Yeah, that probably would’ve had more impact if I’d actually posted this back in the winter when it really happened…

Thailand That I Love – Part 3

Here we go, yet another post catching up on our recent vacation to Thailand. Things have been slow here in Tashkent since we returned. We’ve just been working and hibernating in the cold weather. It’s threatened to be Spring here with a few sunny days but then Winter resurfaces. It’s snowing in a massive whirlwind out there right now, looking like the inside of one of those tubes filled with a cyclone of cash swirling around on certain gameshows. I’m pretty sure Loki cracked open the Cask of Ancient Winters on us.
My Russian studies have continued at the embassy, reminding me of this awesome sign from a Russian bar in Khao Lak, featuring Russia’s famous Kalashnikov assault rifle. For you non-Russian speakers, it says:
Russkie Bar
RESTORAN
Informatsea
(all of which means exactly what you think it means)
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I took a few pics on the streets near our Khao Lak hotel. One of my favorite landmarks was the statues and shrines featuring a big, D&D style Gold Dragon and a couple of attack cats.
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Of course, we didn’t just stay in Khao Lak the entire time. We also went on an overnight trip to Khao Sok National Park. If you ever get the chance to visit Thailand, make this part of your trip!! I can’t recommend it enough. This park in Southern Thailand is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
Khao Sok features an enormous lake that was created when a dam was set up to provide hydroelectic power. The damming flooded the valley, making for some jaw-dropping views. We took a van on winding roads to reach the lake, then jumped onto this longtail boat.
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Even our fancy new camera could only capture a fraction of the natural beauty of this place. Imagine riding on a longtail, the misty breeze in your face as you skip across the water, the lake opening up before you. Treetops jut up from the flooded valley floor, their long trunks visible for several meters beneath the surface as you zip past.
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The mountains here jut up from the water in sudden bursts. At one point, we went between two massive mountains, the water flowing between them. Several people said at the same moment exactly what I was thinking: “It’s like the Gates of Argonath on the River Anduin!”
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Okay, what they really said was, “It’s like that river with the big statues on either side from Lord of the Rings!” because they’re not big LOTR geeks like me. Still, it was so impressive I had to look with my actual eyes instead of the camera.
As we continued on, there were many gorgeous sights.
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Then we reached our cabins! Each cabin is made of bamboo and they all rest side-by-side on bamboo rafts, floating right on the lake. For those who are wondering, there were also bathrooms on the shore at either side.
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Of course, we weren’t the only ones in our cabin. We also had a little visitor, seen here on the windowsill. We also had a lovely porch for relaxing in the breeze and drying our wet clothes.
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Here’s a view of the longtail boat where it docked with the cabin’s dining hall, plus a view of the fish swimming beneath our floating accomodations.
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A third our group of around ten spent our first day kayaking near the cabins while the others went scuba diving in the lake. Later that day, we all got together for a little trip. It started with a hike through the tropical jungle on the mountainside until we reached a nearby village and hopped on board a bamboo raft.
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Here’s a shot of me and Lisa on our raft ride. I’m wearing my Camelbak water backpack for the first time, an excellent purchase for our travels (plus drinking from the tube makes me feel like a Fremen in a stillsuit from Dune).
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Soon enough, our bamboo raft approached its destination: a mountainside cave.
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Outside the cave was a small shrine. We waited there a while with our friend Noelle from L.A. and her mom, both on the trip for some scuba diving fun. Noelle is the one we went to Thailand to visit and we had a fabulous time hanging with her whenever she wasn’t out being a dive master.
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We took a few shots inside the cave, but it was difficult to figure out how to do it properly, using the flash in near absolute darkness where our only light came from a guide with a flourscent bulb jury-rigged into a handheld lantern. We saw no sign of D&D style Piercers though there were some normal stalactites hanging from the ceiling. The cave formations were all pretty incredible. It almost made me want to run through the caves fleeing rom murderers like in Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber’s creator-owned graphic novel Underground.
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The next day was another day of perfect weather. Aah, what a gorgeous view to wake up to when stepping out onto your porch in the morning!

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While others went for more scuba, we went kayaking over to the Cliffs of Insanity (aka, tall cliffs that reminded us of the ones in The Princess Bride).
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At the Cliffs of Insanity, we decided to do some climbing. We didn’t get quite as high up as Fezzik or Westley, but it was fun to some climbing and diving.
Ready? Action shot!!
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And that, my friends, is sequential storytelling.
My lovely bride also did some diving. Here are my two favorite pics from the trip, each featuring a different beauty.
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After Khao Sok, we returned to Khao Lak. We never did make it out to one South Thailand destination: James Bond Island (aka Ko Tapu). From what I’ve heard, while the island is quite lovely, it’s something of an undewhelming tourist trap, made a little too famous by its appearance in 1974’s “The Man With the Golden Gun.”  I felt like I was really going to disappoint my pal Alan Porter, author of The History of the Illustrated 007 by skipping this one. Sorry, Alan!
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Unfortunately, because we had originally planned on spending only a week in Khao Lak, we had to book new rooms for our second week. Prices had gone up for rooms at our original hotel, the Bhandari, and its sister hotel, the Oriental. However, Lisa found a website with rooms at the original price. After booking them we discovered that the website was selling rooms that were no longer avaiable. As a result, the folks at our hotel told us they would have to put us in the Bhandari one night, the Oriental another, and then in a hotel down the street for our third night. To make up for this, they provided vouchers for each of us to enjoy free dinner at the hotel each night and a free massage each day! How’s that for customer service?
Well, upon our return from Khao Sok, they managed to find room for us at the Bhandari for our first two nights, which was very nice. The room was lovely and we didn’t have to move every day. On that third night though, we had to suffer hopping in the hotel van to drive five minutes down the road to the other hotel…
…Where they put us in a beachfront bungalow! This was the view from our deck.
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Yeah, it’s a rough life.

Thailand That I Love – Part 2

Now for more about our trip to Thailand!
One day while out walking in our neighborhood, we saw a sign advertising cooking classes. We walked up a side road to the Sunflower Bungalows where we discovered lovely grounds and a class in progress. Cooking in the outdoor kitchen looked like fun and the food smelled delicious, so we signed up for the next day. That next morning, the cooking class instructor/owner of the Sunflower arrived with our limosine.
Okay, it wasn’t actually a limo. It was one of these. I don’t even know what to call it. It’s a motorcycle with a covered sidecar platform attached so that two passengers can ride in comfort. It’s not safe, of course, not by a longshot. But I suppose it’s safer than all the families I saw with parents on the scooter or motorcycle with their kids on their laps.
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Once we’d selected our menu of three items from the twenty or so recipes, our hostess took us to the local market to buy fresh ingredients for our class. In some ways, it looked a lot like the bazaars in Tashkent.
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Other things were different too. There was a whole lot more meat available. Much of it was unrefigerated but since we didn’t get sick from any of our meals in Thailand, I’m going to assume that turnover is speedy enough to present few widespread health problems.
The birdlegs on the left cracked me up, looking like Baba Yaga’s Hut had been turned upside down in a tornado (hello geek/folk tale reference). On the right is a basket of ginger root. I learned that if you bury ginger root it will continue to grow, so one piece can last a long time (assuming your dogs don’t dig it up out of your yard before you do).
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We also got to see the “assembly line” for the market’s coconut milk. Essentially, one dude uses a knife to hack away at the outside of the coconut to peel it, then another guy chops them open and pours the milk into a big bucket. One thing’s for sure: it doesn’t get any fresher than this!
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Ingredients in hand, we headed back to the Sunflower Bungalows for our class. The kitchen is beside a lush garden. Here you can catch a peek of their shrine.
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We got to work prepping our ingredients. I peeled and sliced ginger then scored the squid for cooking. Now I know how to make that crisscross pattern on squid and octopus meat. That’s sure to come in handy in double-landlocked Uzbekistan. As I finished prepping, Lisa started cooking.
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Eventually we had all of our dishes on the stove in various stages of cooking and I was able to pitch in as well. The smells of garlic, ginger, and peppers were electrifying!
Our dishes included:
Stir-fried Chicken with Ginger
Thai Spicy Seafood Vermicelli Salad (Yum Woon Sen)
Stir-fried Rice Noodle (Phad Thai)
Steamed Fish with Lemon
Massaman Curry with Chicken
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Here’s a few close ups of the Steamed Fish with Lemon and the Stir-Fried Chicken with Ginger. Extra points if you can guess which is which…
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Finally, when it was all done, we set it out on the table and prepared to dig in. The Massaman Curry and Seafood Vermicelli salad were the definite winners. Every dish was delectible, but those two definitely stood out.
Of course, this was way too much food for just the two of us and we were in a hotel with no storage for leftovers. That means whatever we didn’t eat became a snack for the Sunflower’s guests. We just might have to stay at the Sunflower next time so that we can enjoy cooking class leftovers ourselves!
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To be continued…

Thailand That I Love – part 1

As I begin writing this first post, I’m sitting on the porch of my beachfront bungalow, looking out at the Indian Ocean, the froth tinged pink with sunset. We didn’t plan to have a beachfront bungalow. Never even made a reservation at one. And yet here I sit.

This was my view as I started this post.

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The story of the beachfront bungalow will come in a later post. This first one is the beginning of our journey and all about the first few days in Thailand. For those of you thinking about visiting, I’ll tell you all about flying to Thailand (from Uzbekistan), where we stayed, and what we did. For those of you who may never visit, hopefully you’ll be entertained and enjoy reading about the fun side of the Foreign Service: travel to exotic lands we may not have reached from the States.

Getting to Bangkok isn’t cheap but it’s relatively easy. There’s a direct flight from Tashkent to Bangkok on Uzbekistan Airlines. The tough part is finding a seat. The flight starts in Tel Aviv and most of the seats are booked well in advance. We’d heard this was a rowdy flight and weren’t disappointed. There were folks passing big bottles of liquor back and forth in the aisles. At least, that’s what Lisa tells me. I slept through most of the six-hour flight.

This view (or something like it) was what we saw as we approached Thailand.

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Once in Bangkok, we grabbed our bags from customs and jumped on an Air Asia flight (the local version of Southwest Airlines) to Phuket, down in the South. From Phuket we took a cab to our destination on the far southern peninsula of Thailand: Khao Lak. In the cab, by the way, was the last time we saw Lisa’s cell phone that we bought in Vienna. I called the cab driver but he claimed he never found it. I’m glad we bought cheaper cell phones instead of splurging on $600 unlocked iPhones. Losing a 75 Euro phone sucks, but it’s not the end of the world.

We’d booked rooms for a week at the Hotel Bhandari in Khao Lak, just a block or two from the beach. The Bhandari is easily a four star resort. It’s the kind of place we would never afford in Hawaii, but in Thailand it ran $100/night. That’s not cheap in a place where you can find a nice hotel away from the beach for $50/night (or less if you’re on a backpacker’s budget), but it’s a steal compared to its equivalent anywhere in the states.

Upon arrival, we learned that they didn’t actually have rooms available at the Bhandari and had to put us next door at their connected-and-facilities-sharing hotel: The Oriental. In exchange for this “inconvenience” (the room was lovely) they were giving us a poolside room, free dinner for two at the hotel restaurant, two free aromatherapy massages at the hotel’s spa, and use of the pool as well as breakfast at either the Bhandari or the Oriental. It’s so nice to be in a country that puts a high value on customer service.

Here are some pics of the Bhandari and Oriental grounds.

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We spent one afternoon under this palapa beside a pond full of lilies. It was sunny then it poured rain for a while. After the storm I put down my book to watch the frogs and bugs living their lives in the pond.

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When you arrive at the spa, you sit on the porch below and have some cool, minty tea. The pic on the right is the view from the other side of the spa’s porch. After your massage you sit again for a cup of hot ginger tea. When they brew it strong enough, burns the back of your throat just right. Plus: hydration!

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Our first day in Thailand consisted of lots of laying by the pool and/or beach, drinking coconut drinks (often served inside a coconut so we could eat the coconut meat after drinking the refreshing beverage within), getting a massage (on the beach or at the spa), heading inside or under cover for an hour or so during a warm rainstorm, and eating delicious Thai food. Lisa vowed to eat seafood at every single meal and nearly succeeded in doing so.

Cold, fruity drinks at the Oriental pool.

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Below left: the pool at the Oriental. Below right: the really, really, really big pool a block away.

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It also bears mentioning just how affordable it is to eat, drink and be massaged in Thailand. Pool or beachside tropical beverages (in or out of coconuts) ran around $2 each. Main dishes at a food stand were around $3 (maybe $6 at a restaurant), and massages were either $9 on the beach or $18 at the fancy hotel spa. We got massages all but 3 of the days we were there, though many of them were free. More on the free massages in a future post.

Here’s a typical massage set up on the beach. The prices here may be outdated, as from what we saw the oil massages were 100 Baht more than others. 300 B is around $9 U.S. In this case, I was on the end of the tents with an unobstructed view of the ocean. It was as perfect as you’d think.

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And finally, here’s a typical beach in Khao Lak. In some areas the  surf was rocky but in others it was smooth as silk. Though there are plenty of sections of beach chairs that are for a specific resorts’ guests only, there are plenty of others connected to restaurants or bars. Grab a beach chair, order a coconut full of rum, have some pad thai and enjoy the view.

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To be continued…

Christmas (Markets) in Vienna & Prague

I’m not actually in Europe over Christmas. I’m actually back in Tashkent where we got up early on Christmas day to do some Christmas Eve Skyping with the Christian side of Lisa’s family plus a surprise bonus Skype with my brother. Christmas day here is just another Sunday in Uzbekistan, but we’re going to have a traditional “Jewish Christmas” day with Chinese food and a movie. This will be our first visit to the Chinese restaurant where all the Chinese diplomats take their guests. It’s supposed to be the best Chinese food in town.

In the spirit of the holiday, I figured I’d share some pics from our trip to Vienna and Prague. This was a work trip for Lisa, but we got to have some fun too. The beauty of both of these gorgeous European cities is enhanced by the holiday Christmas Markets, also known as Advent Markets. Streets are blocked off all over Vienna and to a lesser extent in Prague and filled with temporary shops selling all kinds of delicious street food, hot spiced wine, candies and pastries, Christmas decorations and other goods too varied to name.

The prettiest of the markets to my eye was in Prague at the town square in the Old City, over near the famous Astronomical Clock. There, angels blow pretty lights out of their magic trumpets.

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The only thing more beautiful than Prague by day is Prague by night.

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The markets are open during the day as well. Here’s the place in the courtyard of Vienna’s imperial palace where I had a juicy, literally mouth-wateringly good bratwurst.

 

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Vienna also had plenty of places to satisfy even my ever-demanding sweet tooth! Mmmmm…. donuts….

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We don’t have a Christmas tree, or even a Hanukkah bush, but if we did, this would be the place to go for decorations you can’t get at just a regular store.

 

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One of the coolest things about the market was the fact that it was right in front of the Imerial palace. I could just imagine walking among the crowds hundreds of years ago, buying food and goods in the market while slaving away at the behest of some pretentious nobleman. Good times!

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And, for all you Lego fans out there (especially @themightylayman) here’s Lego Santa!

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Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone!!