New Chapter

So, if you follow me over on twitter or instagram, you might have already gathered that Nik and I have picked up and left Brooklyn for good! We have lived there for over a decade now, so it was a not an easy decision. It was a really long drawn-out process over the last few years of deciding where to move to (we considered Portland, Maine and Hudson, NY as the other top contenders), but in the end we both went back to our roots in Rochester, NY. I grew up in a small town 30ish minutes from there, and we both went to college at RIT (and that's where we met!)  My family still lives here and Nik's parents are only two hours away (soo much closer than from NYC,) and with a baby on the way, we knew we wanted to be closer to everyone. So! Rochester it is! We came up here one weekend in March, looked at a million houses, and found "the one." Definitely luck that we managed to find a house we loved in one weekend, and that our offer was accepted. These past few months have been a bit of a whirlwind with house/mortgage stuff, but we finally made the move up here last week. Still unpacking/organizing, but I will share photos soon! It's a biiiig change going from the hustle-bustle of Brooklyn and the tiny apartment living, to a much smaller city with a big house to fill. I imagine the adjustment period is going to last awhile as we try to get back into some sort of normal routine. We're both working from home now too, which isn't a change for me, but definitely one for Nik. So far so good! 

A few days ago, I escaped from unpacking and trying to organize things, and went out to Highland Park with my camera. Lilacs are my favorite and the Lilac Festival was always my favorite growing up and in college, so I had to go see them! They are *almost* in full bloom, but still so pretty!!

No color correction used! Mega pink!

Birthday Adventures

Hello! Nik and I went on a little adventure yesterday, birthday adventures to be exact! We took the tram (!) over to Roosevelt Island, and spent a few hours wandering the island. It's mostly residential with parks, and an abandoned, kinda-spooky old smallpox hospital. Fun! Spring finally showed it's face, so it was nice soaking up some sunshine. 

Nik took me to Hangawi for dinner afterwards, and we splurged for the Emperor's Tasting Menu. Insanity! Course after course came out and it was so fun. It's not a super-fancy place, but they have so many subtle, nice touches to everything and the food was just so PRETTY (and super-delicious!) He, of course, embarrassed me by having the staff come out and sing "happy birthday" to me, complete with a big gong. My face was bright red and the whole restaurant was singing, clapping, and staring. Just wait until his birthday, I say...

Queens

Obligatory selfie on the tram crossing over to the island.

Pretty floating candles outside Hangawi

Pretty chocolate-y things from Lagusta's Luscious that Nik got me. Berry box is ceramic!

Birthday brunch. 

Honeymooning: Koh Lipe, Part 6

So, we had ourselves a little adventure on Koh Lipe. It took a plane ride, a filled-to-the-brim van ride, a long choppy speedboat ride, and a little golf cart ride to get there, but we were rewarded with paradise. Koh Lipe is a tiny island in the Southwest of Thailand, in the Andaman Sea, close to the Malaysian border. We had ourselves a cute little beach bungalow that was about 100 feet from the ocean. Crystal teal water and the dark shadows of coral in the distance. We were so excited to explore this little island and snorkle/kayak to surrounding ones, but the weather was not on our side in the slightest bit. It was the end of the rainy season there, but one last mega-storm reared it's head the entire time we were there. Seriously, we had one sunny afternoon, and saw the hardest downpours I have ever experienced. I thought our little bungalow was going to wash away into the ocean one night during a raging thunder/lightning storm. We still managed to swim a bit (the ocean was so nice and warm!) when it was only lightly raining, but didn't get to do any snorkling or kayaking. Super-bummer! Most of our time was spent at our cute little bungalow and their cafe (which was actually pretty tasty and vegan-friendly!) Lots of reading and sketching and eating. Nik and I are definitely more of the adventure-let's-do-stuff vacation types, so it was hard to just relax and do very little, but it turned out to be a nice contrast from the packed schedules we had in Chiang Mai and Bangkok.

Things I don't recommend: Leaving Koh Lipe at 9am, taking that speedboat, that packed van, and that plane back to Bangkok, arriving around 5pm, and then having time to kill with all your luggage before your plane departed later that evening (morning?) at 1:40am to head back home on a 21 hour flight. Definitely a scheduling oversight on my part, and we were in rough shape when we finally landed in NYC.

Worth it!

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Hammock time!

Sunrise with all the stray beach pups. 

I made a friend.

Our little bungalow. Ocean is behind me. 

Massaman Curry and Rambutan smoothie.

Green Curry and another Rambutan Smoothie

Breakfast Congee and coffee

Tom Kha Soup

Where we spent most of our time. Downpour of course.

View from bed!

Sketching.

The walking street in the middle of the island was flooded from the rain. 

Our one moment of sun.

Such a great trip. 

Honeymooning: Chiang Mai, Part 5

Doi Suthep Temple

So where were we? Chiang Mai still! This is my last big photo dump of Chiang Mai and then I have one more post on the little island of Koh Lipe that we visited, to round out my Honeymooning posts. Thanks for sticking with me here!

So what else did we do in Chiang Mai, outside of the Lantern fest? Night markets, lots of yummy food, walking everywhere, drank a million fruit smoothies, and visited some more temples (though we did get templed-out after a certain point.) We also went on two different excursions outside of the city! One day we randomly signed ourselves up for a kayaking trip, neither of us having any sort of experience in a kayak before. They put us in some kayaks on a slow-moving river, and let us go! It was about 4-ish hours I think? Most of the time I was drifting by myself in silence, although I did slow down and wait for Nik a few times (slowpoke.) It was a small group of us and it was mega-fun! 

The second out-of-town was the popular Flight of the Gibbon zip-line excursion. They picked us up bright and early, and before we knew it, we were flying through the forest. Even saw an actual Gibbon Monkey from afar! Don't have many photos from this or from the kayaking, since we left all camera's and phones in lockers. 

Chiang Mai was definitely my favorite place of the three that we visited. Loved the more laid-back atmosphere, the more outdoorsy things that we could do there, and the Lantern fest was such a special event that I'm so glad we could be there for. 

Hi!

Hello pollution! View from top of Doi Suthep.

tuk-tuk ride.

Adorable. 

My breakfast at our little hotel everyday. They even had coconut milk for me! 

Fruit plate at Blue Diamond.

My eyes popped out of their sockets when this vegan mango pancake was brought to me at Blue Diamond. Highly recommend!

Fruit smoothies for life. 

Zip-line time!

Weird funghi in the jungle. 

After zip-lining, they led us a short hike through the jungle.

The river we kayaked down. It's brown because of the clay, not because it is dirty. I loved the section that was kinda jungle-y. 

Nik's a pro.

...Until he lost his flip-flop in the silt bottom of the river and couldn't get it out. 

Bright sun selfies. 

Puffy little clouds!