Chiang Mai Temples

Arriving in Chiang Mai after 18 years away I didn't know what to expect. I was absolutely delighted to discover the city still holds a spell over me. The rhythm of the city is quite different than any other place I've been. On the one hand, traffic is intense and chaotic and sidewalks are ripped up with gaping holes in them. On the other, you happen upon ancient buddhist temples, oases in the middle of the city that act as public parks and places of worship.

Monks walk the streets of the city in the early morning carrying an alms bowl to collect food and other offerings for themselves and the temple. This photo was taken as the monks returned to Wat Phra Singh (wat means temple in Thai), just after sunrise, carrying their alms bowls.


Thai culture, including religion and their script, is influenced by India. You can really see this in this shrine on a temple compound in Chiang Mai's old city.

I made a donation in exchange for a Loy Krathong with my family names on it. I also cut a piece of fingernail and a piece of hair using the scissors and clippers provided by the temple to add to the little banana leaf boat. The boat was added to a larger boat that they floated on the river during the festival.

Culture Shock

As a freshman in high school I decided I wanted to study abroad. I really didn't care where, I just wanted to leave the country. I was 14 so my mom helped me do research on possible programs. She found the Global Youth Academy on Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz, a traveling school that toured the world during the school year and took shorter journeys during the summer. It was 1993 and they were going to Thailand and Indonesia that summer. I don't know if I had ever heard of Thailand before. I looked at a map of South America expecting to find it next to Brazil.

I fundraised money and joined the trip of 7 students and one teacher. When I stepped off the airplane in Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand, my host family met me and drove me directly to their home. The next day they brought me to the uniform shop to get me outfitted for school and soon I was the tallest palest student at Wattanothaipayap school. I experienced major culture shock and home sickness. It was serious. I hadn't expected when I signed up that Thailand would be like Mexico (my only foreign point of reference at that time for places with spotty trash service and no hot water)! I hadn't realized many things, like there would be shanty towns built at the end of roads in my neighborhood, and we would eat fried chicken for breakfast with something I'd never heard of called sticky rice, or that each of us 7 students would be attending different schools across the city, so there would be absolutely no buffer between me and the Thai culture and students. Oh, and I hadn't realized that, at the age of 15, I would be a head taller than most of the teachers in my school and that it was disrespectful to have your head higher than a teacher, so I would bow down to avoid towering over them each time we passed in the hallway or a classroom.

I had an epiphany a few days into my stay. I sat down to lunch in the canteen at school and was introduced to a Thai girl who had lived in Los Angeles until she started high school. She complained bitterly about Thailand and lamented how much she missed California. She was unhappy. Our conversation cured my home sickness. Her attitude was so drastically different from everyone else I had met in Thailand. She was negative. She reminded me of my classmates in Santa Cruz, who had "everything" compared to Thais, but did not appreciate any of it and chose to focus on the negative in their lives. This had been me one week before when I left California. I decided right then and there at the lunch table that I would savor every minute of my time in Thailand because it was absolutely refreshing to be surrounded by people that smiled a lot, did not complain, and focused on the positive. Plus I was amazed by the orange robed monks wandering the streets, the incredibly ornate temples, and the armies of scooters in the streets. Thai pop was pretty awesome too.


Fast forward to 2011, my best friend Sarah and I took a trip to Chiang Mai and I met a bunch of students who weren't even born when I attended the school, but they look just like I remember them!

In my journal from high school I wrote that I had been worried that there would be no ice cream in Thailand. I was delighted when I found that they offered freshly scooped ice cream at my school. On my recent trip I was happy to see that the canteen still offers many ice cream options!

Historical Beer

Sacks of Pale Ale Malt

Founder and sole employee Adam Lamoreaux explaining the beer.

Dimpled beer kettle

Linden Street Brewery, founded in 2009, is located in an 1890 warehouse in Port of Oakland. Founder Adam Lamoreaux makes beer inside in the 1890 style! He wanted to make the type of beer that Jack London would have been drinking at Heinhold's Last Chance so he researched and learned that Oakland beer in 1890 would have been steam beer, which, he explained, "is a lager made like an ale." Adam makes two varieties of beer, Burning Oak Black Lager and Urban People's Common Lager. He's working on a new beer, Town Lager, that will be zero emissions, meaning it will only be available in places Adam can ride his bike to deliver it, mostly Jack London Square and Old Oakland. He has a custom 2 keg delivery bike he already uses to deliver to his neighbor clients. I am happy to report that Linden Street Brewery will open a tasting room soon. Right now, the only way to taste their beer is at a restaurant or bar that serves it. I sampled both varieties at the brewery and they were both excellent!

Cold Storage

Dreisbach is my neighbor. When I moved in, my landlord told me that they provided cold storage and that, even on the hottest of days, we would see men coming out of the factory in huge coats. What I notice a lot more than the men in the big coats is the mack trucks that idle in front of my house around the clock, while using my short street to turn around and back up to the warehouse. On moving day, my moving truck wasn't able to get to my house because 2 trucks were blocking the street. I asked my neighbor if this was normal and he smiled and said, "Oh yeah! You'll hear trucks right here at 3 in the morning! All the time!" I was scared, very scared.

As it turns out, Dreisbach hasn't been such a bad neighbor. The trucks come at 4am, they idle, they block my driveway in the morning when I'm trying to leave for work. But, all in all, the drivers are courteous when I need to leave, and its kind of exciting having this kind of industry going on right here. The steel manufacturer directly across the street from my house is a story for another day...

I learned from the tour of Dreisbach that they are a 3rd generation family business established right here in 1900, and that they have locations in Pajaro and Watsonville, near where I grew up, where they freeze fruits and vegetable straight from the farm for packaging. They also use the train tracks and rail spur directly behind their factory to load and unload merchandise. They store foods on their way to Asia (eg. "Chicken Paws" [feet!] heading for China pictured above) and foods just arrived from all over the world, on their way to the American market.

Nuts for nuts

Artisana Premier Organics in East Oakland makes nut butters out of mostly raw nuts. They make macadamia, cashew, raw cacao, almond, and coconut butters. They provided tons of samples to taste and then to take home. I must say that I am converted. The nut butters I've been putting on my toast are superb. Its great to know that these healthy exotic products are made right here in Oakland. The nuts come from across the globe to be ground in this factory.

Artisana Premier Organics Sampling Table

Artisana started in the old Sunshine Biscuits factory, but have moved across the street.

Changing Perceptons

"Most of us spend our lives viewing our environment through a haze, but if we work hard enough, the haze lifts and the view becomes limitless." -- Ishmael Reed in Blues City: A Walk in Oakland

Veronica Foods

Cubes of Vinegar

Veronica Foods, near the waterfront of Jingletown, Oakland, receives train cars full of olive oil and vinegar on their own set of train tracks located right outside the back door of their factory. In a year, they import over a million gallons of olive oil from all over the world. Veronica and Michael Bradley run the business. Veronica is the granddaughter of the founder of the company. Their daughter makes countless varieties of flavored vinegars, including violet and espresso flavors.

Olive Oil vat

Veronica and Michael taught us how to taste olive oil from a cup. Step 1. Slurp, Step 2. coat your tongue, Step 3. Feel the burn on the back of your throat. They also taught us that the number one criteria for good olive oil is freshness. All olive oil should be eaten within one year of production.

Stacks of Olive Oil

Veronica Foods

6,000 pound olive oil sack

They took a hint from the wine industry on how to ship their oil. These 6,000 lb. vacuum sealed sacks never allow air to touch the oil. They travel the world forming relationships with their farmers. They also established a mill in Tunisia to produce their own oils.