Nothing quite draws a person in like the smell of fresh bread baking in the oven. There’s almost no resisting that delicious flavor and texture unique to home-baked bread. But making your own bread is a lot of work, right? It doesn’t have to be.

As a rule we publish grocery shopping tips here. But today we’d like to suggest not to go shopping at all, or maybe shop for some ingredients only. That’ll be real shopping on a budget!

Here are three simple recipes to follow to make three different kinds of healthy bread that your friends and family are sure to enjoy.

Whole Wheat

A simple and delicious basic bread recipe is like gold in terms of food nutrition. You can make it for far less than buying loaves at the store and it is way better tasting and you know what’s in it. The following recipe is made with 100% whole wheat but is soft and moist with a gentle hearty flavor.

This recipe is adapted for hand-making (rather than bread machine) from 100 Days Of Real Food. I make several loaves of this every week and it’s great for sandwiches.

Honey Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

• 4 1/4 cups whole wheat flour (I like to use a mix of unbleached white whole wheat and regular whole wheat)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups warm water
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons olive oil or melted butter
• 1 packet or 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast

Mix flour and salt in a large bowl and set aside. Add the honey to the warm water and mix to dissolve. Add yeast to water and let sit for 3-5 minutes until bubbly/foamy. Pour the water/yeast/honey mixture and the oil into the flour and use a sturdy wooden spoon to mix (you can also do this in a stand mixer). When it becomes difficult to mix, use your hands. When all ingredients are combined knead the dough for approximately 8 minutes, or until smooth and elastic. Cover with a damp towel and let rise until double in size.
Punch down the dough and remove from bowl. Knead on a floured surface for about 2-3 minutes. Shape into a loaf (rolling and pinching edges under) and place in a greased loaf pan. Cover with damp towel again and allow to rise for 30 minutes. Remove towel and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes, or until loaf is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped.

Focaccia

Focaccia is an Italian bread that is crispy and golden on the outside and soft and airy on the inside. It’s a great accompaniment to a variety of health family meals from soups to pastas and even tastes amazing simply dipped in seasoned olive oil. It’s thick, cushiony texture lends it to sopping up sauces. Focaccia is often made with a sponge (or starter) that needs to soak overnight. But this recipe simplifies focaccia without losing the flavor or texture.

Focaccia

• 3 1/4 cups flour (you can use unbleached all-purpose or a combination of all-purpose and whole wheat. For 100% whole wheat use unbleached white whole wheat flour to keep the light texture)
• 1 envelope or 2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup olive oil, divided
• 1 2/3 cup very warm water
• Coarse salt (other seasons as desired)

Mix flour, undissolved yeast, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add 2 tablespoons olive oil and the water. Stir until well mixed. Spread dough into a greased 13×9 inch pan. Grease hands to make spreading evenly easier.
Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes.
Remove cover and poke holes across the top of dough with the handle of a wooden spoon or with your fingers. Drizzle with remaining olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt (add any other seasonings you like now, dried rosemary is wonderful).
Cover and allow to rise an additional 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Bake 30 to 35 minutes until lightly browned. Cool slightly before cutting.

French Bread

Long, crusty loaves, soft in the middle – French bread is delicious with so many meals and can even be cut lengthwise to make subs. You can slice it to make garlic bread and even bruscetta.

This recipe comes from The Prairie Homestead. She has really simplified french bread (a notoriously challenging bread).

French Bread

• 1 1/4 cup warm water
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 to 3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Place the yeast and sugar in a large bowl and stir in the warm water until everything is dissolved. Add in the salt, then stir in as much flour as you can. You might not need the full amount, or you may need more– it just depends. You are looking to create a soft, pliable dough that isn’t too sticky. Knead on a lightly floured surface for 6-8 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Place the dough back in the bowl and cover with a kitchen towel. Allow it to rise for about an hour, or until doubled in size. Plop the risen dough back out on your counter top and divide in half. Roll each half into a rectangular shape that is approximately 8″x10″, but it does NOT need to be perfect. Roll up the rectangle starting with a long side. Pinch the ends of the loaf to seal and shape in a “log.” If your seam doesn’t want to stick down, you might need to dip your finger in a bit of water and moisten the dough to encourage it to adhere. Otherwise, it’ll try to unroll during the baking process.
Place the loaves on a greased baking sheet to rise for another 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and prepare an egg wash by beating one egg with one tablespoon of water. Right before you pop the loaves into the oven, brush the tops with the egg wash and make 4 diagonal slashes across the top using a sharp, serrated knife. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Allow to cool on wire racks before serving.

With these three simple bread recipes you can bake just the right loaf of bread for any situation. Homemade bread is a good answer to the eternal question how to spend less on groceries and provide your family with healthy food. Enjoy!

When it comes to providing a healthy meal for your family it can be difficult to find the right food nutrition. This is compounded by the fact that you want a healthy family and yet also want the meals to taste good. So when you come across the issue of butter or margarine which do you use? There are various butters and substitutes on the market today and creating a healthy shopping list can be challenging. The following article will outline the differences between butter and its substitutes as well as provide some grocery shopping tips and supermarket ideas so that you can provide your family with healthy eating habits.

Butter vs. Margarine

While butter and margarine have almost become synonymous there are fundamental differences in the two products. Butter has a nutritional profile of 100 calories per tablespoon, 11 grams of fat per tablespoon, and 7 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon. If this sounds like a lot of calories for such a small amount of butter that is because it is. However, it is important to remember that heart-healthy oils such as olive oil often have just as many calories, but what makes butter so bad for you is the high level of saturated fat not the number of calories. Saturated fat eaten in excess can spike your blood cholesterol. Margarine is a part of the oil-based spreads that is approximately 80% fat just like butter, but often times with less fat, saturated fat, and calories. These products tend to have a long list of ingredients that are harmless and mostly there to just to stabilize the product. Unlike butter, one important thing you should look for in margarine are the words “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated.” These words are key in finding margarine or spreadable products that are trans-fat free. If you come across a product that lists hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils in its ingredient list then you should try to find a product that does not contain these words. @photo

Other Butters and Butter Substitutes

• Whipped Butter

This product is butter but has air whipped into it. This produces a lighter and fluffier product both in feel and calories/ fat count. With whipped butter you will generally find about 70 calories per tablespoon, 7 grams of fat per tablespoon, and 5 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon. This will help you save calories can definitely be put on a grocery list for healthy eating because it is much better for your heart than regular butter because you will be using less of it.

• Spreadable Butters

These butters are simply regular butter with a bit of oil (usually canola) in them. It makes for easy spreading, but their nutritional profiles are almost identical to regular butter.

• Stanol- or Sterol- Containing Spreads

It can be difficult with these spreads to determine what is in them because they are patented. But essentially stanols or sterols are plant-based compounds that have been proven to help reduce blood cholesterol in some people. They usually run about 70-80 calories per tablespoon, 8 grams of fat per tablespoon, and 2.5 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon. The light versions often have a little less; however, the most important thing to look for is hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils in the ingredient list. When it comes to providing your family with healthy alternatives to butter it is suggested that you go for the whipped butters; however, it you choose a spread remember to read the label!

Smart shopping is all about strategy and flexibility. Shopping on a budget may have you thinking, “bulk bulk bulk!” but that is not always the best plan. To really start saving money, you’ll have to shop smart, too. There are many effective grocery shopping tips already out there, and here’s another you may want to try.

Whether you’re a member of a wholesale chain or not, this plan may help you feel more at ease and ready to start saving money while shopping smart. Use this plan as a guideline for how to organize your grocery list. It works by separating your list into three main categories: the Must Haves, the Get Ifs, and the Treats.

The Must Haves

These are those items that, no matter what, your household needs to function. These essential items are part of your lifestyle, but be honest here, because you are trying to save on foods and other items. Anything that you don’t have an immediate need for should go into the next category. The one exception are those products and foods that are consumed almost daily, but many of those things, like toiletries, can be stored in larger quantities as long as space permits.

If an item is on sale and can be stored, consider springing for a larger quantity. Paper products, reasonable quantities of pet foods, canned soups, cereals and grains; these are all great candidates for bulk purchases but only if you can keep those grains dry and you have the storage space for the other items. Any must have that is also on sale should be strongly considered as a possible bulk purchase. Remember that in order to keep many foods fresh while freezing, you may want to divide the goods into usable portions. Individually wrapping chicken breasts in baggies can keep that bulk-buy fresher longer by slowing the onset of freezer burn.

@photo

However, avoid buying bulk quantities of some items. Things with short shelf life are an obvious no, but also shy away from certain items that only appear to be a great deal. A gallon of cat-shampoo may seem like a great deal for that low, low price per ounce, but how often does Pickles really take a bath? And when it comes to chocolates or other rich treats- save those indulgences for the Treats section.

Stick to what you know, too. Only buy in bulk things you know you and yours will enjoy. There may be a sale on that new soup flavor, but how closely does it taste, really, to a Philly-cheese sandwich? Don’t commit to fifteen servings until you’re certain you’ll enjoy them.

The Get Ifs

These are those items that start to make this cash saver shopping strategy fun. They are non-essential, but things you like. Specific meal ingredients like meats and spices should go under this category. Meat never needs to be purchased if it isn’t on sale. Many groceries will steeply discount any cut if it is close to the sell-by date. As long as it is either cooked or frozen soon, it will be safe for consumption.

Keep in mind your household’s consumption, and plan meals according to sales you find. Think of the food shopping experience as a tasty adventure- you might not really know what you’re going to get to taste until you arrive at the store and start exploring. Stay open to sales and embrace your creativity.

Wait until you see a great deal on those pork chops before committing to a meal plan, and dig into your flavor-filled-memory bank once you find the bargain to remember all those possible side dishes that could compliment that main course.

And remember, unless there is a pressing need, over the counter medicines and cosmetics should fall under the Get If category. Large quantities of basic pain relievers or cold medicine may be cost effective per dose, but remember that you’re likely not treating the headaches of the whole neighborhood and these products do have expiration dates. Makeup creams are a lost less effective when they dry out. If you see a great sale, consider a restock. Otherwise wait until absolutely necessary. That inevitable sale is bound to come around and you will be thankful that you decided to wait for it.

@photo

Vitamins are also a great Get-If candidate. They last awhile, but their regularity of consumption also makes it easy to figure out just how many your household can keep at one time. Stock up to the limit when they’re on sale and you’ll easily start saving money without compromising your routines.

The Treats

This section of your list may be the most fun. Anything otherwise unnecessary for daily life goes here. But while trying to shop smart, it is important to keep options open. Note several things in this section, but don’t set your heart on any one single item. Think of the Treats portion as a sort of shopping network of possibilities. Only buy a Treat item if it is on sale, but try to list enough possibilities here that you’ll definitely be able to find something while in the store.

After all, we’re trying to think of ideas for how to spend less on groceries not for how to live a less happy and indulgent life. Don’t shirk away from quality here, either. On occasion, it’s okay to get that decent bottle of wine or the good chocolate. The trick in the treats is to keep quantity down. Get something good for your efforts. Reward yourself a little for your smart shopping by staying open to the sales and finding something truly tasty that is also on sale. Take a moment to slow down and enjoy the treats you find. Savor the flavors! Savor the savings!

If anyone ever tells you that pies can’t grow – do not believe it. They definitely can! We believe it’s high time to enhance the functionality of our “Buy Me a Pie!” shopping list for iOS 7, so today we are releasing the new version, that surpasses all the previous versions. Want to know what secret ingredients we’ve added to “Buy Me a Pie!” to make it delicacy? Or, maybe, would like to find a way to get it free of change?

• By the most popular demand we’ve implemented the possibility to share separate shopping lists between different accounts. How it works: you log in to the app, open the list you want to share, proceed to your contacts list and add everyone you would like to sync this list with. People selected by you get invitations to their emails – and voila! You can even share the list with people who don’t use “Buy Me a Pie!” application at all, they will able to handle the list on our buymeapie.com site.

• What if you want to keep on synchronizing all your lists, i.e. share your account with someone, like before? No problem, just continue using the app the way you used to!
• Privacy and conspiracy: private non-shared lists. If you would like to keep some of your lists private, just to not share them with anyone and do not let anybody into your account. You do not need to store your holiday gifts lists outside the app now!
• The number of lists increased greatly – now you can have up to 20 of them.
• You wonder if it is possible to copy your lists to clipboard to paste them somewhere? Yes, this possibility has been added too!
• Old notifications about the changes in the lists are now automatically deleted. You do not have to clear them off manually anymore.
• We added two more localizations for products dictionary – Polish and Romanian.

Do you already have “Buy Me a Pie!” PRO for iOS 7? If yes, just check if you have the latest version of it.

If you don’t have our shopping list app yet – welcome to download “Buy Me a Pie! – Grocery Shopping List”

Have been an attentive reader and read the article to the very end? Share this news in Facebook and get a chance to win our promo code! 50 winners will be randomly selected.

from Dmitry Joukov,
Art Director of  “Buy Me a Pie!” and 5EVEN, Head of Bodybeat

Not long ago I’ve published a story about the creation of icon for “Buy Me a Pie!” in iOS 7 style and the results of our attempts. I was surprised to see the rush of comments under it, and according to their number and the willingness you shared your opinions on the icons the topic turned out to be a matter of interest! The whole “Buy Me a Pie!” team was monitoring the comments closely since everyone was eager to know which icon wins. As a result #1 proved to be Number One, and frankly speaking I expected that. Now I’d like to tell you more about this very icon: why it was made the way it was made.

It all began in December 2013, when Sergey Bulaev and Alex Salmov (co-owners of “Buy Me a Pie!”) asked me to draw a new cool icon. The slight tension in the tone of their request made it clear to me that they wanted not just some improvements –  the existing variant with the white bag did not satisfy them at all any more. Out of the blue they stopped liking my icon! It took me a week to put up with the fact. I kept on considering my icon acme of perfection  - well, at least the acme of conformity with iOS 7 design ideology and current “Buy Me a Pie!” look and feel. Maximal change I was ready to make was removal of the bag bottom widening, which really turned out to be clumsy.

But in a few days I suddenly found myself looking at my icon more critically than ever before. Now it did not seem that perfect to me. Time to make changes came, but first of all I needed to choose the direction to move in:

1. improvement of the existing white shopping bag;
2. color coding;
3. just a colorful catchy icon;
4. adapting of “Buy Me a Pie!” icon used in the Android version of the app.

As you know, in “Buy Me a Pie!” we use colors to group products, and in the last version of the app we have improved it a bit by adding hatching to some colors. Most of the products can be found in the default dictionary, where they are already grouped, which is very convenient. This is one of the key features of our application, so why not emphasize it?

“I’m drawing some crap” — that was what I thought after I draw the variants above. All that deserved to be thrown away – well, maybe except the last one, it was not as bad as the rest. However it was way too fussy. Thus I decided to reduce the number of the selected directions to two:

1. color coding;
2. just a colorful catchy icon.

By the way, I know several designers who organize the icons on their iPhones screens not by some categories or frequency of usage, but by color (designers, you know). On the one hand it is pretty logical, but on the other hand it makes me believe that icon creators have a rather one-sided view on the style Apple suggested for iOS 7. The idea of making something “flat and single-color” captured the minds of apps and icons designers.
To stand out from competitors one needs to create a vivid image — a successful combination of form and color. This is related not only to the icon  — this is what the graphic design in general is based on. In our case a vivid image should be associated with products, shopping, purchases. Abandoning the shopping bag filled with products makes no sense to us, but the set of products should have been updated.

Now let’s turn to statistics. Here are top 10 products purchased in the USA:

• Milk
• Eggs
• Bread
• Bananas
• Butter
• Cheese
• Potatoes
• Onions
• Toilet paper
• Apples

In Russia this list is almost the same.
Of course it is very tempting to select apples and bananas from this list, but fruit have rather complicated forms, so a schematically depicted apple can be taken for a tomato, and I will not dare to mention what a banana may look like. Cheese and butter do not have any expressive neat images in general, and eggs have no canonic package. So, now we can shorten our list and get rid of all the ambiguous staff:

• Milk
• Eggs
• Bread
• Bananas
• Butter
• Cheese
• Potatoes
• Onions
• Toilet paper
• Apples

We use one icon for our app all over the world, thus we need to select something absolutely easily recognizable and international. Bread, milk and (!!!) toilet paper.

And here we come to the point of the objects forms selection for these three product, bearing in mind that our main target markets are the USA and Russia.

Milk

In the Unites States, where the culture of packing is rich, one can find classic milk bottles made of glass. In Russia we have plastic bottles of a similar form. This bottle can be seen on the most well-known “Buy Me a Pie! Classic” icon and was inherited by the Android app icon and white-and-blue icon of “Buy Me a Pie!” designed for iOS 7. So, let’s keep the milk bottle as is.

Bread

If you want to know what long loaves look like in Russia, have a look at the skeuomorphic icon of “Buy Me a Pie! Classic”. That very long loaf was the core symbol of our application. It looked natural for Russia and countries where bread like that is baked. My previous post was followed by multiple requests from Russian customers to return that very long loaf back. But we know that in America and Europe bread is different. Thus we should change the loaf form.

Toilet paper

Fortunately, the object of toilet paper application is the same all over the world, and toilet paper looks approximately the same everywhere – it is a perforated roll.

I did not decline the idea of color coding. The multicolor icon should be associated with the variety of purchases and app features. But three colors are not enough for that, we need more colors! So let us put the items on the each other and paint the overlapped areas into different colors. As a result we get not just a vivid catchy image but an icon with the proper set of products. Everyone in “Buy Me a Pie!” team believes it should help us to reach the new tops.

Epilogue

When testing the icons in social nets and reading your comments to my post here and on another Russian site I suddenly found out that toilet paper has unpleasant associations for some users. Moreover, some people feel awkward when they have to buy toilet paper.

At first this awkwardness seemed funny to me, but then followed doubt and concern. This new information and direct feedback from customers let us create a perfect icon for our application.

I hope, nobody is too shy to buy apples?

Download “Buy Me a Pie!Free – Grocery Shopping List”

from Dmitry Joukov,
Art Director of  “Buy Me a Pie!” and 5EVEN, Head of Bodybeat

App icons have nowadays become extremely important elements of branding, in some cases they take place of company logos. Icon is the major means of contact with the audience in app stores.

Here are the very first icons of “Buy Me a Pie!”:

The basic format of Apple icon is a square with rounded corners. On the one hand, this provides great opportunities, since any image can be drawn there, but this turned into a real nightmare for old school designers. Everybody was used to depicting some real physical object, not just a square.  This limitation, imposed on the super creative and aesthetically gifted developers and designers who sympathize with Apple, brought unbelievable results. Dribbble witnessed a real fight for «The best way to fit a cup/phone/fruit/car into the rounded square».

“Buy Me a Pie!” also took part in that with its famous product bag, that stayed almost the same for three major versions of the app.

All the managers, whose heads are in the clouds and who consider all that to be just designers’ games and waist of managers’ precious time, should face the truth: the new icon made the app more noticeable and recognizable, which in it’s turn significantly increased the sales. According to the users feedbacks, they had an appetite when looking at the icon. The icon was so cool that there appeared many copies and clones of it.

But skeuomorphism era could not last forever, and sir Jonathan Ive smashed this legacy of the past with chivalrous panache. Needless to say, huge amount of users hated the flat and a bit freaky iOS 7 design – but it’s Apple, baby, they can afford it.

As for me, the new design is the very thing that iOS ecosystem needed badly. Everyone who ever tried to make something skeuomorphic understand that this is a dead-end of design, a mindless embellishment. It has certain pros, though — a good illustrator or technical designer can create a beautiful though bad interface, and users will not note the trick.

We did our best to escape hyperrealism in version 3 of “Buy Me a Pie! Classic” and simplified all its elements a lot, but not the icon – we did not dare to encroach the sacred symbol that was with us for years. By the release of iOS 7 we designed an absolutely new “Buy Me a Pie!” application from scratch. And this time the changes affected the icon as well – we left only the schematic image of the bag and put a few products into it.

The new “Buy Me a Pie!” icon, as well as iOS 7 in general, did not hit the spot with everybody. Despite of being carefully drawn, the result turned out featureless, with some flaws like the widened bottom edge.

But we are not going to give up – on the contrary, we consider it a good reason to make new icon, the ever best one! Even if you are sure that your icon is perfect, it is most probably not —  so experiment, test, try different variants! Here is what we’ve got this time:

Which variant do you like the most and why? Welcome to share your opinion in the comments!

Download “Buy Me a Pie! – Grocery Shopping List”

Download “Buy Me a Pie!Free – Grocery Shopping List”

Russian winter is not just a season – it’s a way of life. Trust us, it’s really cold here in winter months.That’s why this year the «Buy Me a Pie!» team decided to experiment and moved to Koh Samui, Thailand for a month. The idea was to see how the climate change affects efficiency and team spirit. Now that we’re back, and the initial excitement is over, we’ll share our impressions with you.

Arrival

Our group was pretty large – almost 30 people total, thus we parted and reached the destination different ways – some of us flew directly to Bangkok, others travelled via Qatar or Vietnam.

There are many different way to reach Koh Samui from Bangkok: a direct flight, a transfer that includes flight+bus+ferry, or a night bus from Bangkok and about two-hours ferry trip. Since each of us selected the most suitable way according to his/her personal arrival time to Bangkok, we tried them all. And we must say that the ferry rules! It lets you enjoy Koh Samui views before you even reach land.

The trip from Russia to the island took us 5 days in total. Koh Samui met us with three rented villas and swimming pools, that were attacked by our guys immediately. Some jumped in with their clothes on.

After everybody arrived we made an arrival party with grilled seafood and chicken. We tried most of the local exotic fruits right away. In the friendly atmosphere, with easy listening, we finally relaxed after a long journey and realised: we arrived!

Work

For the first few days it was rather hard to get used to time difference: we were now beginning work 3 hours earlier than our colleagues who stayed in Russia. Our everyday teams shifted. We finished, when they were in the middle of their work day. We were definitely a little out of sync.

It was the weather that helped us to tune in to the working mood. We arrived on Saturday and it was extremely hot the whole weekend. Our brains nearly melted and were useless for work. But Monday started with a tropical rain that did not stop until Friday. All we could do is stay in and  work. And you know what? We enjoyed that!

We were mostly focused on «Buy Me a Pie!» v3.0 for iOS, which is expected to be released one of these days. This version has an updated design that is aimed at making the app even more enjoyable to use, as well as some long-awaited features asked for by many customers. While in Koh Samui we also devoted much time to the Android version development, that will follow the v3.0 release.

Fun

Koh Samui has surprisingly a lot to see for a little island. It’s worth travelling far and wide, which we did on rented motorbikes on days off. Besides sightseeing, the sunsets here are absolutely divine. And working days were flavored with morning jogging along the seaсoast, working out, massages and a variety of local cuisine.
If you have a chance to visit Koh Samui, find some time for an excursion to Koh Tao and Koh Nang Yuan islands.
Koh Tao was named after sea turtles that used to live there in large number. Nowadays, alas, there are little of them left there, but underwater is astonishing. That’s where we first tried snorkeling. The experience was incredible. The coastal waters are full of bright tropical fish, sea ​​urchins and other marine life.

If you mount the top of any of these islands, you can see this fantastic view:

Thai people

Thais are remarkably positive and kind people. They are hardworking and diligent, always seeking ways to earn a living. Yet, when they offer to help someone, they almost never are interested in money for their assistance. Like, when one of our bikes had a low battery and we had to push it to the auto repair shop, nearly every (!) Thai riding by stopped and offered help. Finally one of them stopped and refused to leave until we accepted his offer. He sat on his bike, and had our employee sit on his own bike, stretched his foot upon the lifeless bike and throttled. He pushed our employee and his dead bike to an auto repair shop, where he discussed the bike’s defect with the repairer, and left only after he made sure there is nothing else he could help with. He refused to accept any money for all of his help.

Bye, Koh Samui!

Since we were leaving Koh Samui in groups at different times, we decided to have the farewell party on the last weekend, that coincided with the 10th anniversary of our alma mater, «Skript» company. It was a quiet home barbeсue party, with stunningly delicious Thai fruit and jumps into the pool. Not a pathetic corporate party, but a heartwarming night for good friends.

And after that, when each group was about to leave, we organized mini goodbye parties. One such night we launched sky lanterns.

We didn’t want to leave, we felt tuned in to work and found the perfect way to combine work and recreation by reducing time spent sleeping. We discovered we spent much less time sleeping in Thailand, as we seemed to feel more rested on less sleep in that climate than at home. And of course it would have been a pity to waste time on sleep when there were so many interesting things to see!

Departure

As with our arrival, we left Koh Samui in small groups at different times. Many of us took the opportunity to spend a day in Bangkok, the largest city and the capital of Thailand. We all flew from Bangkok to Moscow, but with transfers in different cities: Alma-Ata, Hanoi, Doha, Astana. It was also a good opportunity for us to see these places we’ve never been before.

We were back in Russia on April 2. And we can now say that we – each of us – definitely liked this experiment and will probably repeat it. We discovered a wonderful land called Thailand, and will be happy to see it again.