another early day

There's something romantic about being out and about early enough that it's still dark out. As i left my house at 4:40 this morning I felt like I was being treated to see a side of Uthai Thani I rarely see. Men were sweeping the streets with stiff brooms. Dogs were fast asleep in the middle of the road. Not much was going on.

I got up early to run a race. It's not exactly the way I'm used to races being run in the states, but I ran last year, so I knew what I was getting into. Yesterday when I went to sign up no one had signed up in my age category and I wasn't sure whether I wanted to run a 13 miler and work on distance, or a 6.5 miler and work on speed. I decided to wait till this morning to sign up and let the deciding factor be the number of people in my category, whatever would give me a better chance of placing. But I hung around yesterday and chatted with lots of nice people which made for lots of friendly faces on the course.

I ended up in the half marathon and had a great race. I took it mostly as a training race and realized when I had lots of steam at the end that I started way too slow. My favorite part about races in Thailand is that at the turn-around they give you a little rubber band with a colored string on it to mark that you've been there. No fancy timing chips on your shoe, but it works just as well.

After chatting with people and partaking of the free noodle soup (they also served free dinner yesterday and free breakfast this morning, and I got a shirt- all for $7.50 entry fee), I went to the sunday market near my house and picked up some corn, spring rolls, and bbq chicken. Then I came home and made masaman curry.

My cooking repitour has grown recently as I'm trying out lots of new things. Here are the Thai dishes I have under my belt. Go ahead and pick and choose what you want me to make for you when I get home. I can't wait to cook for everyone:

-Masaman Curry
-Fried Wontons (just made them yesterday)
-Cashew Chicken
-Clear noodle salad
-Thai Fried Rice
-Sweet and Sour Veggies
-Thai Stir fried veggies
-a yummy fried pumkin dish
-sesame asparagus and shrimp
-'pad see yew' which is basically stir fried fat noodles
-'gang som' a yummy red curry
-'som tam' or fresh papaya salad
-'pad ga-pow' sort of the thai version of taco fixins
-Thai omlette
-Pad Thai
-Thai Ice Tea
- smoothies of many flavors and varieties
- and loads of other stir fried veggy variety dishes

I'm also been working on farang dishes. Look forward to:
-deviled eggs
-juicy hamburgers
-matza ball soup
-hash browns

Mmmm. I'm hungry.