Mission 7- pajama jammy jam

This mission might seem out of order... and it is. I cycle past this shop every day to school and my mission was to get family pajamas made for all of us. It is quite wonderful seeing families out and about in their pajamas here on the weekend.

I chose the fabric, pantomimed the sizes, and left as this sweet woman said "tomorrow, tomorrow"

Well, I certainly had fun going back every day of break and laughing with her as we both would say "tomorrow tomorrow" In the end it seems I only ordered pants so will have to pick up the tops for Lisa and Luca... tomorrow.
 

Now, who's excited for their new pajama jammy jams?

This is the look Lisa gives Luca when she is thinking "if you smile or laugh at his jokes you'll only encourage him to tell more".

mission 11- the yangon marathon... sort of

 Usually around this time of year (give or take a few weeks) the Yangon Marathon is held. It was a really fun experience last year as we started in the dark and ran all over the city. I figured it was not going to happen this year and needed an outlet for all of these running miles I have been logging (that was typed in a very sarcastic font).  

Alright, so I have been running a little bit (sort of), I do want to participate in a race (sort of), and I do want a good social with friends (no sort of there!)

With that, welcome to the Yangon (sort of) Marathon

The idea was to have a 5k loop that everyone could run as many times as they wanted. Then we would have some beer and cokes after. 

Here is the course (Tom Kiddoo inspired).

As inspiring as the running of the bulls in Pamplona:  Here is the start

Luca and Fabian were in charge of cold drinks and music.

Liz and Gavin graciously offered to skip the run and guard the beer

The podium and the puppies

Thanks to everyone that came, that was a fun last mission. For a break where I would have rather been off adventuring I think we did all right kicking around our fair city.

Mission 10 Mogok noodles

 

When someone mentions "That place has the best Shan noodles in town." You write it down. First I made sure I knew where the Shan state was (in the east- borders China, Laos, and Thailand. Then we went for noodles!

Dan had told me about it on our photo walk from earlier and I finally worked it into a mission. He mentioned they have very good soup but as we were going the take away route- noodles won.

 Lisa and I taxied downtown and had a nice stroll about. Grabbed some good beers at the teahouse, found a book at the bookshop. 

Saw some cool doorways as well (you always do it seems)

We got home around 3 and what was going to be our dinner turned into an afternoon snack! I swear I was just going to try a little. It was very very good! Thanks for the tip Dan.

The little bag below ended up being pickled vegetables- my fear was that it would be spicy. The little bag above was soup- turns out what Lisa ordered really did need soup. We were careful, didn't spill a drop, and it was amazing

On the way home we saw this sign... ketchup?

mission 8 and 9. Rabies and singletrack

My 8th mission was not to get rabies In order for this to happen we had to get the rabies vaccine (as we really should have got it when we first arrived.)

How we got it became the mission.

I've been biking a fair bit and really enjoy seeing the city from the saddle. On my latest ride I was cruising down a quiet street from the shwedagon pagoda. I really do not know how this happened as the taxi passed me on the left and turned right- right into me! I actually was on his hood for a spell. I must have stuntman in my blood as I didn't really get hurt- just a small scrape above my eye and a sore shoulder.

But... wisdom said to get it checked out in case stitches were needed. They weren't- but we did use the opportunity of a trip to the clinic for all of us to get a rabies shot.

Hey, I didn't say all the missions would be riveting did I?

A few days later I was mostly healed up and ready to bike some more. Good thing as our friend Todd Davis had organized a bike trip north of Yangon. Our bikes were loaded up on a truck and after 45 minutes or so we had some trails to explore. It was very nice to be out of the city and riding on dirt. There were rubber trees, bamboo, and a reservoir (we didn't swim)

I'm playing around with one of my christmas toys- a new gopro so will be trying to post a few videos in different formats to see what works best.

here is the road in from where we parked 

first clip

this second clip is along some singletrack as we passed another crew!

Here are some ladies carrying wood-quite cool actually

And a few photos as well. Not sure what these boots are for.

Todd and Luca

Here is a pagoda on a hill with shade (we had lunch in said shade).

The crew

The view

So it isn't fruita singletrack, but it sure was great being out of the city.

I always like those signs

Luca and I started a tan legs contest at lunch

He won