About Us


We are a married couple who retired and moved to Thailand in 2014. You are welcome to join us and our travel monkeys Sun Wukong and Malcolm Jr. on our adventures! We hope you enjoy the trip as much as we do.

Sunday, September 28, 2014

TEDx Chiang Mai

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, but TED is so much more!  A few of my favorite talks include topics about the ocean, overcoming adversity and nano technology!  So imagine my delight when I heard about a TED talk to be held in Chiang Mai.  TEDx events are independently organized and operate under the license from TED and held in cities all over the world.

It was an all day event located at the Le Meridian Hotel and the turn out was a full house of over 800 people in attendance.  We saw young teens, high school age and many college students as well as people from around the world.  We had the pleasure of meeting men from Russia and Puerto Rico.  And oddly enough we met a man from Berkeley, California and a woman from Portland, Oregon.




Lunch, drinks, coffee and snacks were provided and all the volunteers and staff of the hotel were marvelous.  There were several places to relax and watch large screens outside of the main auditorium.  Wireless receivers for simultaneous translation from Thai and English were available.





The topics from 22 speakers were varied and included:

The Hug Project Thailand - Protecting children from violence and exploitation.

Connecting Education and Social Responsibility - From the CEO of Microsoft Thailand.

Two Speakers from Penang, Malaysia speaking about Global Tourism and the Arts.

Vibratosax.com - The inventor of light weight, waterproof, poly carbonate alto saxophones. He even played them on stage and the sound was beautiful!

Localalike.com - A community based tourism platform dedicated to connecting local communities with travelers looking for a more meaningful and authentic experience.

OUR FAVORITE........
Mink Prada Techavijit is 37 years old and Thailand's first astronaut!  She competed against mostly men in the grueling physical and mental competition to gain a coveted spot to leave the atmosphere!    AXE Apollo Space Academy - Facebook

Mink is the tiny woman in the front

Out of the four women and 105 men who competed at the space academy, Mink is one of two women and 20 men from 21 different countries including Canada, South Africa, Thailand and China.  They had to take mental aptitude tests, combat training in a fighter jet and zero-gravity flights to distinguish themselves as the most worthy for the free flight.   SXC manages trips aboard the reusable XCOR Aerospace Lynx Rocket Plane, a commercial space plane that is expected to begin flying customers in 2014 or 2015 at a cost of $95,000 each.

Tables were set up with interactive exhibits.  Slack Line, paint a ceramic elephant, student tech projects and mystery bags to use your creativity using recycled materials put in the bags by citizens in Chiang Mai.






From tree to magazine and back to tree












We were taken by songtheaw to The Glass House Restaurant for the after party where dinner and wine was provided along with live music.  We had a wonderful time.......I only wish there were more coconut filled chocolates!
Sun loves pink elephants













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