Milk&Toast

The night before we opened we worked all day building the shop and finishing the business plan. That's Boss, Nam (facing), and Nut.

For the past two weeks my time has been consumed by working at the Milk&Toast shop in the business faculty. The business idea was conceived by the Thai members of our group Boss, Nam, and Nut and is modeled after a popular desert food available at street vendors shops throughout Thailand. We had to write a business plan for our business (its a fun read at 37 pages, the Thai version is 80 pages). We turned the business plan in on Monday July 13th and have been running the shop everyday since. Our last day is this Friday and I will surely be reporting our profits as soon as I find out. I do know that the first day we made roughly 1,600 Baht ($48) and the second day we made about 1,800 Baht ($56).

The food is delicious. We butter one side of a thick piece of white bread and then grill it. Then we cut it into nine pieces and top it off with a flavor of the customers choosing. We have, in order of popularity, sweet milk (which is really sweet and condensed milk), chocolate, Thai green custard, and strawberry. We also sell chocolate milk, pink milk (strawberry), and sweet milk (regular milk with sweetener added). Our shop has been a pretty popular desert/snack stop for Thai students on break between classes. I've learned how to say everything that we sell in Thai so that I can take orders more quickly. It saves a lot of time wasted on pointing and gesturing to place an order. Also, I have been proclaimed (only slightly a self-proclamation) the Grill Master!! The grill is my DOMAIN!!! Which I have announced to nearly the entire business faculty.

Doi Suthep

July 4th was awhile ago but while you were all lighting fireworks, camping, and enjoying neighborhood BBQs American style I was celebrating Thai style. It is tradition at Chiang Mai University for all freshmen to walk from the University front gates to the temple Doi Suthep. The event marks the first day of Buddhist lent that lasts until Wednesday of the next week (consequently we had 3 days off, wahoo!!!). All WSU students are considered freshmen here so we had to participate in the festivities. Dressed in traditional Lanna clothing we embarked up the 16k hike with the rest of the 400 or so freshmen business majors at 8am. The hike starts as a procession marching out of the front gates of the University after doing the chant for your particular faculty. None of us know the chant so we just stood there looking like dumb foreigners. The hike follows the road that goes to Doi Suthep and the walkers take up the left lane of the road while cars, trucks, motor bikes, and busses pass each other in the right lane. It makes for a tight fit, especially towards the top were traffic is backed up for a few kilometers. Along the way there are rest areas set up to accommodate all of the hikers with food and drink stands all over the place. After 5 hours of hiking we reached the top around 1pm, about an hour and a half ahead of the rest of the business faculty. We waited for them for awhile because the last leg of the journey is a mad dash around the last turn and then up the steepest part of the climb and it’s supposed to be done with your faculty. We got impatient though and decided to walk up the last part. The top was packed with traffic, people, and food stands but after an exhausting hike we didn't really feel like perusing and sightseeing so we found our van and headed home. I took a fantastic 3 hour nap to cap off my July 4^th celebrations.