The Night Bazaar, the Canyon, and the Ramen

Recently my sister and my nephew visited us in Colorado for 4 days. Here are some highlights of their trip which included a visit to the Night Bazaar in downtown Denver, hiking at Castlewood Canyon, and making homemade Ramen.

THE NIGHT BAZAAR

I liked calling it “The Night Market” (it sounded more mysterious) and we stumbled upon it when visiting downtown Denver one evening.

My nephew, who likes trying out eateries he hears about on viral Tik Tok videos, asked if we could visit Dave’s Hot Chicken (which they do not have available in Virginia where they live). It is a “fast food” type of eatery but one of the founders trained at Thomas Keller’s French Laundry (one of the world’s most famous three-Michelin star restaurants) and it shows in what I would consider a masterpiece of “fast food” eatery chicken.

So we ventured to downtown Denver where one of the Dave’s Hot Chicken locations was located and across from that eatery was the Night Bazaar. After our visit to Dave’s we headed over to the Night Bazaar.

We had so much fun wandering through the vendor booths as the sun was setting. Mike the Miniature Schnauzer was in the backpack and got to enjoy some sightseeing in downtown Denver:

John was continually stopped as we wandered through the market and then the Platte River Plaza bridge area with questions about Mike in a backpack. In the photo above he is chatting with a large group of people who want to know how Mike ended up in a backpack (the other dogs were being walked on leash through the market).

My sister and nephew found this cool sidewalk art with very wise words and took this cool photo:

THE CANYON

My nephew loves Colorado and wanted to go on a hike while he was visiting. We decided to take him to Castlewood Canyon which is not too far from our home and has lots of hiking options based on desired activity level. Here are a couple photos from our hike:

I’ve learned to wear a hat (I am the sister in the hat) when it’s hot and you are hiking – it helps in the Colorado sun!

At the Visitor Center, where I stopped to use the bathroom, I met a Park Ranger that had a rescued Bull Snake wrapped around her waist. The snake was recovering from an illness and she was “babysitting” it by keeping it on her all day at work!

Now that is dedication to the park’s wildlife!

If you’d like to see more photos of Castlewood Canyon check out this post I did in April 2020 – And on the 8th Day…Part III.

THE RAMEN

John’s loves to cook and always wants to challenge himself and experiment with making foods outside his comfort zone. A couple weeks ago, after much YouTube watching, he began making Ramen soup at home. He was using pre-packaged air-dried noodles (much higher quality than the instant ramen you eat in college) along with his fresh ingredients.

Well he wanted to take it to the next level and learn how to make his own Ramen noodles from scratch. My visiting nephew also loves to cook and was game to do a “Ramen Night” one evening for dinner and make Ramen with handmade noodles.

It took them two evenings to complete the dish – you have to let the ramen noodles sit for a day before you can use them. You also have to let the prepared chicken thighs for the ramen sit overnight before cooking the chicken so it will have a nice crust on the skin.

After all their hard work, they served us Ramen for dinner on Sunday night:

Their Miso based broth was amazing and I thought I was at an authentic ramen eatery!

So those are some highlights from their visit.

I’ll close this post with a couple bonus photos from their visit:

1) My sister brought a kimono for me as a belated birthday gift. She has connected with a woman with in Thailand that makes these kimonos with fabric sourced from Japan. She plans to import some of the kimonos to sell in the US. Here I am modeling the kimono she gifted me:

2) My sister and nephew adore my dog Mike, they are dog people…and cat people (they have two cats and two dogs) and Mike went on a lot of road trips with us. Here is Mike acting as a granny square crochet square rest as I crocheted sitting in the back seat of the car with my sister during their visit:

(I work on crocheting granny squares when I am a passenger in a car for a long car ride…keeps my passenger-in-a-car anxiety under control!)

3) My nephew and John played tennis at the tennis courts in my neighborhood and had a blast.

John didn’t do too bad playing someone like 1/3rd his age. (Both had played on tennis teams in junior high school but there was quite the difference of years since those experiences!)