Same same, but different?

Don't let Mark go buy water when he's thirsty. You'll wind up with a lot of water to carry home after a long hot day, and you'll get this smug look from him.
see all photos »

I keep seeing t-shirts and other touristy items with "Same Same but Different."  I have no idea what it means.  I've only come up with vague and esoteric things that aren't very clever.  Maybe I'm expecting something more witty than what it actually means.

So far, Chiang Mai is very green and lovely.  It's still fairly bustling, but I don't have to worry so much about crashing into someone anytime I move.  Here, I have many feet and meters of space around me before I'd hit someone else compared to a few inches in Bangkok.

We had this whole strategy session discussing where it was and how to locate ourselves so that we wouldn't be discovered and we had to make sure Jenni bargained for the right bag.

We spent the night at a food center and night market.  The food selection at the food center was pretty good, but we got there pretty early so they weren't really serving much yet.  We went back later in the evening and were 1) too tired out to eat and 2) too late so that many things ran out.  The night market was pretty fun.  Pretty touristy, but there were a few good things hiding out if you keep your eye open.  I bought a bag.  I bargained with the woman initially, but it was early in the evening, she came down to my price really quickly and easily, and I had no idea how many other things there would be.  So I decided to let it go, even though she agreed to my asking price.  Later, I realized that the bag that I saw was pretty high quality and pretty unique, at least based on what I saw tonight.  So then Jenni went back and tried again - I was too embarrassed after rejecting the price that I had asked for myself.  We had this whole strategy session discussing where it was and how to locate ourselves so that we wouldn't be discovered and we had to make sure Jenni bargained for the right bag.  But she only was able to get to 25 baht higher than what I had been offered.  THEN, this is a long saga, I decided that I'd try again and see what I found.  It turns out that the woman didn't remember me, or didn't let on that she did, used a starting price 70 baht lower than ones she offered to me originally and to Jenni, and I wound up with a price 25 baht lower than the original one that I got.  I probably could have gotten lower, but at that point, it's too mean.  I feel like I should get the price out of the astronomically ridiculous range that they start with to something reasonable for me and them, and if I go lower than that, I'm just stealing.  Or at least it feels like that.

Tomorrow we're supposed to take a cooking class - Baan Thai Cooking School.  It's supposed to be an intensive course, but we are suspiciously being picked up after the intensive course is supposed to start.  I wonder if they're lumping us with the regular class so that they don't have to offer two classes.  I have an e-mail record of me asking for the intensive course, so I hope that's what we get!  The dishes for the intensive course look way more exciting and interesting.  The ones for the regular course are probably delicious, but technique-wise and information-wise, I don't think I'd learn anything new or that I couldn't figure out for myself.  We'll see how that goes.  It's too late at this point to communicate with them to straighten things out.