The day of love has arrived and it is very apparent in Yangon. Shop fronts with heart decorations, bakeries with pretty cookies, red roses for sale on every corner, lovers holding hands as they walk down the sidewalk, and restaurants filled with couples enjoying special treats. Although this may sound like any western city around Valentines Day, I am speaking of the sights I saw walking around Yangon today. The young generation of Burmese just love to celebrate western holidays and Valentines Day is certainly no exception.

Kim and I don't usually do anything too special for Valentines Day. We have made the occasional meal for one another and exchanged cards or small items of sentiment but the day has always stood as more of an opportunity to have an excuse to be extra thoughtful towards each other. Since this was our first Valentines Day as a married couple and the first major holiday we have been able to spend together in a while, I thought it would be nice to start a new tradition: Valentines Day Scavenger Hunt!

The plan:
Step 1: Go to the Japanese $1.60 Store and buy each other funny gifts
Step 2: Get picnic food
Step 3: Go to the park and enjoy a quiet picnic
Step 4: Hide the gifts from each other in the park and create a note/picture/treasure map to the gift
Step 5: Exchange said note/picture/treasure map, find gifts, and laugh

What actually happened:

Step 1 went off without a hitch. We made it across town to the Japanese $1.60 Store and went in one at a time to buy each other gifts. 

Step 2 was a little more challenging. We then went to purchase some food for our picnic but when we got to the grocery store it was very difficult to find food that would be suitable for picnic eating. We were at a different grocery store than usual and had a hard time finding anything that would transport well. Instead we decided to wander the streets and pick up some street food along the way. As we were looking for something tasty we stumbled upon Spaghetti Italian Kitchen. As you probably know, Kim and I are BIG Italian fans so it was just meant to be. 

Step 3 After our super tasty lunch we walked to the park only to find a huge festival there. See today is the 100 birthday of Bogyoke Aung San who was a Burmese general back in the 1940's. He was responsible for bringing Burma's independence from the British and is well praised by all Myanmar citizens. Throughout the park there were booths selling food and merchandise, concerts, photo exhibits, tributes to Aung San, and other celebratory areas. 

While we were there we found a caricaturist who happily drew cartoon versions of Kim and me as a crowd of interested bystanders looked on. The final product is quite . . . um . . . interesting. Introducing: Gangster Kim and Long-Faced Alisa

The park was very busy due to the festival, the fact that it was a Saturday, and that it was Valentines Day. Going to the park is a favorite activity for young couples, they usually pick a nice grassy spot and set up an umbrella or two for privacy then spend the afternoon smooching and cuddling. This made it impossible to follow Step 4 of our plan because there was no way we would be able to hide anything without someone running after us to return what we obviously left behind. 

On the bright side the busy park made for great people watching. I noticed two prevalent Valentines Day themes. The first being GIANT teddy bears. Seriously, I think the requirement for buying a teddy bear for your significant other is that it needs to be at least half of their size. 

The second custom I noticed was matching clothing. All over the city we saw couples with matching shirts, or specifically designed two part shirts. For instance, a man was wearing a shirt that said "Will you marry me?" and his partner's shirt said "Yes, I do." Sometimes I noticed a mother and daughter following the trend, or two friends, or even a group of people. I tried to be sneaky and grab a few shots of these shirts as we walked through the park.

Step 4 Since we couldn't complete our scavenger hunt at the park we decided to finish it in our apartment building later in the evening. We took turns going out into the building and hiding the gifts then making our notes/drawings/treasure maps. I was giddy with excitement as we exchanged our notes and followed each other around the building. It was so fun, I think as Kim got close to her gift I was literally jumping up and down. 

Step 5 Kim's note said "It's up high, you can see gold and hear lots of noise from the street."
This led me up to the top floor of the building where we had gone up once and noticed that we could see Shwedagon Pagoda. I found a bag tide to the railing with my gift inside. Kim had picked me out a funnel which is simply perfect because I make my own juice every morning and have the hardest time pouring it into the bottle that I drink it from. She is so thoughtful.

For my note I drew a treasure map along with this riddle: 
"You will find your gift on the floor above the fifth
but don't be fooled, it's not on the sixth. 
You will know you are in the right spot
if you hear singing and see 3 plants in pots.
Behind what you would use if a fire was in sight.
Don't be distracted by Shwedagon, the bright."
I hid the gift on the fourth floor (the third floor elevator door has a 5 on it) behind a fire hose. For the gift I chose a funny Japanese game that involves a gorilla who shoots out of a barrel when a certain peg is pulled out. The last picture is of Kim's face after she finally pulled the peg and the gorilla shot up to the ceiling and hit our kitchen light. 

It has been such an eventful day. A fantastic random restaurant find, a surprise festival, Myanmar culture mixed with western traditions, a warm day in the park, a caricature of ourselves, a SUPER fun scavenger hunt, and starting a new holiday tradition with my love. Happy Valentines Day from Myanmar to you!

A Punk Rock Photography Exhibition in Myanmar? Of course I had to check this out when I was invited by a friend and fellow teacher. Her boyfriend is a part of a Myanmar punk rock band. This band along with a number of others makes up a movement called Jam It! Completely made up of independent bands, Jam It! started as a small group of musicians getting together and playing their music and now they play in public venues for free to promote their music and create a scene.

It was a small space on the fourth floor of some unmarked building but as soon as you stepped into the stairwell you could hear the music streaming down below. Along with acoustic performances by members of various bands, the space was filled with huge prints of photojournalistic photographs that were taken at the different Jam It! events. It was an interesting night, defiantly not my usual scene but defiantly worth it. 

On Saturday we wanted to stay close so we decided on an adventure in our own neighborhood. I had heard about a giant reclining Buddha that was near us. After investigating further I found out that not only was it near us but it was just a short walk away. With the help of three different Yangon maps and Google maps I set on a route in my head and we headed out. After turning down a side street off of a busy main road and before we knew it we were in the middle of nowhere. We found ourselves on a dirt road with tropical foliage on both sides. We past a meditation center and a monastery, we stopped into an art gallery inside someone’s house and found some crumbling structures. We saw monks collecting their Alms (donations from neighbors) and lots of beautiful tropical flowers. It was a very interesting walk.

People who don't have the money to put up razor wire to protect their houses will spread broken glass on the ledges of the surrounding walls. I loved the juxtaposition with the flowers growing right next to the glass. 

It was a very cool walk and nice to be out and about without seeing any vehicles.  As abruptly as the country scenery started, we turned a corner and were right on the heels of a crazy busy road. I wasn't really sure where to go at this point but luckily enough there was a picture of a reclining Buddha just ahead of us so we followed the sign and easily found what we were looking for. 

Monday was Kim's first day of work. The restaurant is still being put together but she went in to start arranging the kitchen and develop the menu. It was very stressful for her to see all the work that had to be done with such a short deadline (they want to open in a week!). But she also really enjoyed beginning a job that she knows she will love. 

It was also the first day of us having a cleaner. Kim made arrangements with a lady named Saroja who cooks for some of the other teachers, Kim will be giving her cooking lessons once a week or so in exchange for her doing our laundry and washing dishes (our two least favorite chores). It was very strange to come home to someone else in the house since Kim has greeted me at the door almost every day since we have been here. 

Changes are difficult when you are trying to get settled still but luckily these are all good changes. 

With Kim working late to get ready for the opening at the restaurant I was left to the task of making my own dinner on Wednesday. If you know me at all you know that this is a BIG challenge for me. There is a reason why I married a chef after all. Usually for dinner I would just eat whatever I could find in the cupboards or order something in. Kim had been trying to teach me some easy dishes that I can make for myself for dinner before we moved but it is so difficult here because we don't have our usual pantry of ingredients and it is really overwhelming. But I had a couchsurfer over named Emi who convinced me that we could make our own dinner. So three hours later we enjoyed a chicken, roasted veggies, and rice. I was pretty proud of myself. 

The restaurant was certainly coming along but there was still a bunch to do. 

Only 24 hours after the kitchen was put together Kim was asked to create a tasting for the owners of the restaurant and their staff. Needless to say it was a miracle all of it came together due to the crazy circumstances of having to shop for and stock a full kitchen, teach the sous chefs (who don't speak any English by the way), and prepare a meal for a dozen people in such a short amount of time. On top of that this was the first time any of these people would be tasting her cooking so needless to say it was a bit stressful. But if anyone could pull it off that would be our lovely Chef Kimmi. 

The tasting was delicious of course, she served us chicken tenders, onion rings, french fries, sweet potato fries, three different kinds of sandwiches, and fresh pasta and marinara sauce. Yum yum yum.

Just a short walk down the street from us is another amazing Buddhist site, Chaukhtatgyi Reclining Buddha. The story is that fifty years ago there was a giant standing Buddha statue that towered above the trees on this spot. One day it got tired and crumbled to the ground. So they decided to build a laying Buddha in it's place. This is actually not a very touristy site, it is not listed on many of the places to see in town yet it is a stunning site. I think what was most surprising was the very simple surroundings of the Buddha. You would expect a place this important to stand out but the entrance looks similar to many other pagoda entrances that aren't nearly as spectacular. 

The Buddha itself is over 5 stories in height and about 219 feet from head to foot aka it was HUGE! It was shimmering gold all along the robe and glittering with jewels. 

The feet were especially interesting. There are 108 images on the soles of the Buddha that represent the three worlds. "59 indicating the inanimate world (Okasaloka), 21 indicating the animate world (Sallaloka), and 28 indicating the world of the conditioned (Sankharaloka)." We got a pamphlet that showed the meaning of each of the symbols and it was fun matching them up to the soles. Some of the symbols included the sun, the east island, the cup full of water, the white lotus, the white parasol, the ruby, the mountain of the universe, among others. 

I heard that almost directly across the street from this Buddha is another seated Buddha that is one of the largest in Myanmar so we will most certainly have to head down to this area again to see another spectacular site. 

It was another Friday night which means Friday festivities! A bit of a change from our usual scene, Kim and I headed to 50th Street Bar & Grill for a teachers event. 50th Street is a very well known expat establishment downtown. It has a very classy feel like that of a fancy NY pub. As I have come to learn here in Yangon, the nicer looking the establishment the higher the prices. This is the only place in town that you will pay $30 for a steak. In their defense though, this is probably the only place in town to get a decent steak. You could probably put every restaurant here in two categories: local and expat. As we tell our couchsurfers, with the local places you pay local prices and with expat places you pay expat prices. Plus the extra tax and service charges. Not trying to complain here, it is just a fascinating separation between the classes. 

All in all it was a fun evening meeting other teachers from around the city. There were two other international schools there: International School of Yangon and Yangon International School - people are not very creative with their school names here (if you are keeping track you will know that my school is called International School of Myanmar and yes, there is a Myanmar International School in town also). It is strange to be in an environment (outside of school) where you can understand all of the conversations going on around you. 

As I circulated the room and meet new people we had the same exchange of conversation over and over again: What school are you with? How long have you been here? Where are you from originally? Do you like it here? How long do you plan on staying?  And so on and so forth. I did get to get to know some pretty cool people and am looking forward to seeing them again soon!

Art Show openings are held a little differently here. Unlike the evening openings that they have in the States, almost all openings here are morning events - often on weekends. With the opening there are a slew of treats available to munch on and tables to hang out at while drinking tea and talking about the artwork. There were a variety of food items at this opening including some sort of fried noodles, hot dog type things, and lots of little fried foods. 

When we went grocery shopping this weekend we realized after we arrived at the store that we were getting hungry. Everyone knows that it is a bad idea to shop on an empty stomach so we decided to grab a bite to eat before heading in. We just wanted a snack so we decided to share one of these Hot & Roll. It turned out to be a crepe with a choice of toppings. We went for the BBQ chicken one which included cheese. It was actually quite tasty.

*These were taken by Kim on our recent trip to Inle Lake, be on the lookout for that post because it was epic!!*

Another great weekend started with taking it easy and watching E & H so Sharon and Steven could have a night out. Saturday morning we met up with the four of them to go for a ride on the Circular Train. The Circular Train is a slow-moving train that makes a loop around Yangon over a three hour time period. 

On the way back I managed to gu-estimate which stop to get off to be closest to the Shan noodle place that we love so it was only a very short walk before we were seated in front of some noodles and dumplings. Yum! Here is a video of the awesomness (don’t mind how incredibly hot and sweaty we were, three hours on an open-air train in the tropics will do that to you):

Still very hot, we tried to find some ice cream but ended up with this creation called a caterpillar that was so overly sweet and artificial. It was not good. Not good at all. 

I had always admired the concept of couchsurfing, letting a fellow traveler crash on your couch (or spare bed or even floor) for a short time as they are passing though. Unlike airbnb or similar sites where you can rent out your spare room to visitors, couchsurfing is completely free for both the host and the guest. The only thing I expect to gain is meeting new friends and fellow travelers that can share their stories and advice, plus some good karma and hopefully some invites to other’s homes across the world. Seeing as we lived in the middle of Maine, we didn’t get a whole lot of travelers wondering though our neck of the woods; but here in Myanmar, the backpackers are flocking in now that the country is open to foreigners with the hopes to see this unknown land before it gets run over with modernization. With few foreigners that live here and even fewer ones that have extra space to offer guests, as soon as I signed up with couchsurfing.org I began receiving requests to stay. 

This weekend we accepted our first couchsufers, two young backpackers from China, Rachel & Jo’di. We invited them out to join us for our Sunday tradition of dimsum and it was just as delicious as ever. Then we wandered around the mall area and found a $1.80 store where Jo’di explained this contraption to me that was designed to make your face slimmer. I also found a “lame mirror,” as well as a phone store that sounds like they take really good care of their customers.

As we continued wandering the streets we stumbled on the very last thing I would expect on a random back road of Yangon – an Amusement Park. It was the creepiest, funniest, most strange find ever. As it was almost 9pm we expected it to be closed but the happily let us in to wander around and I could only think of one thing – that this would be the PERFECT place for a creepy serial killer movie. Let me set the scene for you.

Firstly it is pitch dark, the only lights coming from the off-colored bulbs on the rides that are almost all standing perfectly still except for the occasional merry-go-round which is spinning without anyone riding on it. In fact there is not one person there at all, visitor or worker. As you hesitantly walk around the plastic characters intended to entertain the children look anything but cute as their creepy eyes seem to follow you wherever you go. I continued to glance behind us to make sure we weren’t being followed by a man wielding a giant machete or something. When I turn back around a man appears out of the shadows motioning to an old, peeling sign that says “haunted house.” Always up for an adventure, the group decides to take him up for it and we hand him $700 kyat ($0.70 usd). With a low, menicing laugh he directs us to a dark doorway that I am unable to make anything out beyond the door frame and waves us a slow goodbye. That was the last time anyone every heard from Alisa, Kim, and their couchsurfers. 

Hehehe, obviously not – but that is seriously what it felt like at this place. The haunted house was actually really good. It was just the right amount of scary/creepy and poorly constructed making it funny.  This is my favorite kind of adventure, when we wander around and stumble upon crazy random awesome things. 

Monday started off another school week, in the afternoon I joined a group for the first yoga lesson offered by another teacher (and yoga instructor) in one of the classrooms. I am so glad to have a yoga class again! On Tuesday I began my first meeting of Photo Club. The idea is to get a group of photographers (students, teachers, staff, ect) together to learn some new techniques and practice together. It was a small but interested group that joined, hopefully I will be able to have a great time in the club this year.

Wednesday, Shelly and I decided to go grab some dinner after school. I took the bus over to her apartment and we grabbed a taxi downtown. We didn’t have a real destination but decided to just wander around and see if we could find something tasty to eat. A short while after getting in the taxi we were stuck in the ever growing Yangon traffic – one of the most frustrating and most unavoidable parts of living in a city (especially one with no city planning). After sitting at a light for a good 15 minutes we decided to just get out and walk around that area to see if we could find something to eat. Of course as soon as we got out of the taxi the light turned green and it speed off. That’s okay, not a big deal, but looking around we realized that we were in the wrong part of town to find food because there were no restaurants –not even any stores- in sight. We did the only thing we could do, started walking. I kid you not, after only ten steps or so the skies opened and it started pouring. Now, of course it was not just sprinkling or raining a bit, oh no, it was one of the normal Myanmar monsoon rains that feels like buckets of water being dumped on you.

Shelly was smart enough to have a small folding umbrella with her but I hadn’t picked up the habit yet. Although she tried sharing, her attempt was in vain due to the miniature size of the umbrella and the massive amounts of rain. Since there was no where to duck into we did the only thing we could – kept walking. It looked like we were in the area of Vista Bar where I had gone over the weekend so I gave my best estimate at how to get there and we trudged on.

After taking a wrong turn we found ourselves at one of the entrances to the famous Shwedegon Pagoda. This entrance is unique in the way that it is split halfway through so a road could run through it. We turned left to take a shortcut through the other half of the entrance to reach the road below. As we were almost out of the entrance hall we were stopped by a middle-aged local lady who pointed to our shoes and said “no.” I realized that we hadn’t taken off our shoes when we came through the entrance because we were going backwards. Normally I try to be very respectful of the traditions and customs of the locals but we were literally only 10 feet from the street so we skirted around her saying “sorry” and pointing to the outside.

Normally I would have loved to take the time to curiously wander through the shops we found at the foot of the entrance but by now we were soaked, hungry, still unsure of how to get where we were going, and grumpy from being yelled at. So we hurried along and after another 20 or so minutes of walking finally, FINALLY, found ourselves at vista where we gladly welcomed some tasty drinks and happily munched on some western food as we watched Shwedegon’s lights turn on. 

I don't think I'll ever get sick of this view, ah, Shwedegon