Kate–let me know what you think of Han An Rheum–maybe we will stop by the next time we are in town. We could always meet you there for shopping and schmoozing!

tetherball–it is, as far as I can tell, the same chain.

Malcolm–I have never been to Han An Rheum–I will have to visit it next time I am in the area.

Risingsun–Another batch of green curry will be forthcoming—have no fear!

Liz–the humidity. UGGGHHH! It was godawful. Of course, I lived there for three years, so I knew that the timing of the trip was not going to be comfortable, but one forgets the weather of that area if one is away for a while. Ick.

M–I agree! The not too sweet Korean/French pastries are to die for! They are lovely, especially in the morning. Now that I am pregnant, I don’t have much tolerance for super-sweet foods, so their buns are just perfect for a nibble in the morning.

And yeah, we were there at the same time. If you saw a lady with a long grey abaya on, little glasses and a dark blue hijab, with a tall red-haired man with glasses, that was our friends. I was in a very long, very full dark blue crinkle gauze shirt with a dip-dyed graduated dark to light blue kurta shirt with silvery embroidery around the neckline.

The rest of the group was much more non-descript, but if you caught sight of a sharp-eyed man scribbling in a notebook furiously–that was another of us, and the hyperactively bouncing teen with spiky hair was my daughter. Zak, well, he has long curly hair, little round blue glasses and a beard, and he was in charge of our communal cart….

And next time we travel, I will post an announcement on the blog so folks can get together and we can meet up. That would be utterly cool. I don’t think I will have quite as large an entourage as we had this time around. (Though, you never know…we had an awful lot of fun with our peeps!)

Winslow–I got the idea for teaching the tour class because I gave informal ones to friends, and then lost-looking Anglo customers would start following us around. It was a great idea and the tours were extremely popular. If we had a huge grocery store here like that, I would definately do the tours again.

Barette–what stove did you end up with?

Do go and visit them for the big shopping trips, though if you are just out of soy sauce or coconut milk or noodles, there is a place on Snowden River Parkeway called Sing Fy that is great for a quick stop. The foodstuffs are primarily Chinese, but the folks there are friendly and they do sell live tilapia, and their produce, on Saturday mornings is quite fresh. They are in the same strip mall as the fabled Akbar Restaurant, where we had to eat twice in this trip is. (If you haven’t tried their buffet yet on Saturday afternoon, you should. Great stuff–lots of it vegetarian.)

Thank you, Cat. Morganna has already started to learn to cook Indian, Chinese and Thai, and if Kat’s internal bounciness after my meals at Akbar are any indication, she already has a taste in utero for good Indian food!