Airport Plaza

Our first night in Chiang Mai, our in country host, Mr./Dr. Shakda, took us to eat dinner at Airport Plaza. This is not a restaurant folks! This is a 4 story very popular mall that has a massive food court. Well, it also has a massive fish tank and while I was taking pictures of the fish (below) Mr. Shakda was informing everyone of the plan. I came back in time to hear "meet back here at 7:30". Now, I had been told that we were going to be going to a restaurant so I figured 7:30 was the time we were going there and until then we could explore this food market and mall. So I walked around looking at some of the things you see in the pictures below. I also come across some freshly plucked chickens hanging by their necks (I did not take a picture of that) and some roasted bananas dipped in some sort of sweet gooey goodness (I bought that!). As I am eating my bananas and walking around I find everyone else sitting down eating actual dinner food. Turns out we were supposed to find what we wanted to eat in the food court and start chowing down. Oops! Since I had already looked around, one thing was very clear to me: I had NO idea what I wanted to eat for dinner. First of all, with the exception of some fruits and vegetables, I couldn't tell what anything was. Second of all, even if I did know what it was, I hadn't a clue how to order it! I finally decided that I wanted some stir-fry veggies and rice and one of Dr. Shakda's Thai students who was there took pity on me and helped me order. Success and Delish!