Chiang Mai Apartment

Sunday morning Shannon went out for a run and I slept in then went out to scout for our new apartment building. We had to meet the owner according to some pretty vague (near the Shell gas station past the mall) kind of directions with no exact address, so I wondered around until I found a building I suspected was the one as well as the intersection I suspected for the meeting point. When Shannon got back we checked out of the hotel and just walked our bags to the meeting spot because it was essentially just across Huay Kaew Road and it would have been more difficult to actually get there by car so we just figured it was not as far as some trips inside an airport and lugged our stuff over there.

We approached a bald, mustachioed middle-aged white man on a scooter and I gave him the eye like "I'm the guy you're looking for if you're the guy I'm looking for", but he didn't take the hint on the first pass, so I asked him and indeed it was our landlord. He showed us the place and it was great. It's a top-floor in a 15-floor condo building that is a 1-bedroom made by joining to neighboring studios into a single unit. It has a great direct view of the Doi Suthep mountain east of Chiang Mai and the famous temple that is there. Because it was originally 2 separate units, there are matching balconies with the updated bathroom in between them, which means the bathroom is technically "outside" or at least you have to go out through the balcony to get to it. And, importantly, it has relatively fast WiFi. Our landlord got us settled in and also took us down to show us the back way into the Kad Suan Kaew shopping mall which is next door. From the lobby of our building you head down a hallway and based on the signage it looks like you go straight through the men's restroom, but really you're going past it, but even then there's an open door and a wall of urinals right there, but you walk through and you are outside again behind the building where a small path leads you across a parking lot where you can go under the mall and enter the mall directly on the basement level where the Tops grocery store is.

We were really thrilled to have our own space with more than one room, a kitchen, a refrigerator, space to unpack, etc.

So after we got initially settled, we went to a nearby Dim Sum restaurant and tried that out. It was tasty but Dim Sum doesn't really work ideally without a large group. Then we went back to the Tops grocery and stocked up on groceries and comfort foods to great delight.