Lately we've been hearing a lot on the news and in social media that the winter back home and most of eastern North America has once again been frigid, snowy and generally brutal. Fortunately for us, the weather here has been as good as it can possibly be and, although the temperatures have consistently been in the high 20's or better, the local flora and fauna have recently announced the arrival of spring. In recognition of the changing season, from February 6...

Chinese New Year is tomorrow and Chiang Mai began the celebrations early by blocking off traffic from some of the streets in Chinatown. In place of traffic, there was the equivalent of a night market set up in the middle of the day, complete with row after row of street food vendors selling everything from good old reliable Pad Thai to a few things that were far less appealing, at least to my vegan palate.There were no lineups at the stand shown in the attac...

A lot of people reading this blog and my Facebook page are probably wondering what happened to the hedonistic, foie gras loving, wine swilling Roch they all know and love. Yeah, that's him, the guy in the picture. May, 2006 and, if memory serves me well, pushing 260 lbs. at 50 years of age. I thought I was fit. I worked out regularly, ran on the treadmill and had quit smoking a few years back. What the heck, you only live once, right? Well, when I saw the picture...

We just finished our introductory level to Thai language course at the Y. Thai is not an easy language to learn. It has sounds that just don't exist in English, like the "pb" sound, not quite "p", not quite "b", or the "dt" sound. Once again, not quite "d", not quite "t". Then there's that vowel sound, the grunty one that sounds like someone constipated sitting on the toilet trying to push it out... ouuau... I don't even know how to transcribe it. Thai is a...