Tours, Temples, Shopping & Amanda!!

Saturday, May 28
Today we spent the day in downtown Bangkok.  I had booked a tour for 10 of us from Brandon University.  A van was to pick us up at the apartments at 8:00am, but when we got down there the van wasn’t there!  I phoned the lady a couple of times to give her directions, but she still couldn’t find us.  She then phoned me and said that they were at Lertlah (our school) so we told them to stay put and ran to the school! 

The first thing we did was go to the Grand Palace.  At the Grand Palace there were a lot of temples and statues.  The detailing on the temples was amazing.  It was very sparkly and made up of tiny jewels and some were even made of gold!  The Grand Palace itself was a massive white building with beautiful detailing on the roof and points of the roof.  There were perfectly trimmed trees in the front courtyard and there were guards around the building.  It is a sacred building so we weren’t allowed to go in. 

Because religion and tradition are so important to the Thai people, women must have their shoulders and knees covered when they go to any temple.  This rule also applied for the Grand Palace.  The girls and I thought we could wear capris, but when we met up with our tour guide she said we MUST wear pants.  The only pants I have here are my lulu lemon sweatpants, and they were HOT!  We just put our collared white school shirts over our tank tops whenever we got close to a temple or the palace.  I’m SO glad we can wear shorts and tank tops everywhere else!  The reason that you have to cover these parts of your bodies is because sometimes there are monks in the temples.  The monks cannot have anything to do with women, we can’t even make eye contact with them.  If a monk sees too much flesh on a woman they can become tempted, and this is the woman’s fault for not dressing appropriately.

On the same grounds as the Grand Palace we saw the Emerald Buddha (Wat Prah Kaew).  We were all expecting a huge Buddha statue, but it was just very small!  It was on top of a very detailed pyramid type of structure.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures of it when we got in the temple, but our tour guide showed us where we could stand outside to take a decent picture of it.

We then drove about 5 minutes to the Reclining Buddha (Wat Po).  This Buddha was 46 meters long.  It was HUGE!  We went into a building where there was a small hallway surrounding the Buddha, and we just walked around it, took pictures and then went on our way.  After the Reclining Buddha we took a boat across the river to the Temple of the Dawn (Wat Arun).  This temple was approximately 66 meters tall!  The tour guide gave us time to climb to the top of it.  Jill & I went to the first level and were too exhausted to go any further!  A couple of girls climbed to the top. 

We waited for everyone to come down and then went on a long-tailed boat down the river for about an hour.  While we were on the boat we saw a HUGE dragon-looking thing that lived in the water.  My friend thought it was a Komodo Dragon?  I don’t know what the heck it was, but it was awful.  As soon as she said “Komodo Dragon” I immediately thought of my friend Shawn Hersack.  Maybe they do really exist, Shawwwwwn!  Needless to say, we will definitely NOT be going swimming in the river, EVER!  While we were going down the river we saw parts of the floating market.  Thai people load up their boats with souvenirs, fruits, vegetables, barbequed foods, and anything you could imagine to sell to other people in boats or to people who live around the river.  It was really neat to see how different their way of life is.  Our tour guide also gave us bread to feed the fish.  When we threw the bread in the water hundreds of fish came to the surface!  We then saw kids going swimming in the river... yuck!

At the end of our boat ride we went to a restaurant on the river for lunch.  Lunch was included in the price we paid for our tour.  Which, by the way, was only 1450 baht ($48) for a full day tour!  The lunch was a delicious buffet including both Thai and Canadian food.  While we were eating lunch one of the girls pointed out that we could see the hotel that is in the Hangover 2!  It was pretty cool, I’m excited to see the movie and say that I have been to some of the places in the movie!

After lunch we went to a Gems Gallery, one of the largest jewellery stores in the world!  They had some amazing jewellery.  We looked around for a while admiring the jewels and then relaxed for a few minutes in a coffee shop. 

Once we were done at the jewellery store we got dropped off at Koh San Road!  Koh San Road is a street in downtown Bangkok where all of the backpackers go to shop and party.  When we first got there we tried to shop but we were overwhelmed by all of the shops and things we wanted to buy, so we decided to go for foot massages!  It was nice to sit, relax, and get our feet rubbed after a long day of walking.  After our massages we met up with the girls from BU for supper.  We sat and visited for a while and had supper.  I had a delicious banana milk shake thing, I haven’t stopped thinking about it since!

After supper we made a second attempt at shopping.  It went MUCH better this time!  Tori wasn’t in a shopping mood, so her and our friend Taylor went and got another foot massage.  Jill and I, on the other hand, shopped till we dropped!  I got quite a few gifts for people back home and a ton of summer clothes by myself!  I was feeling guilty for how much I bought but then Jill reminded me, “Steph we’re in Thailand... we will probably never be here again!”  And that’s all it took to solve my buyers remorse issues!  Haha.

Once we decided we had spent enough money we met up with Tori and Taylor and caught a taxi back to the apartments.  We got home around 10:30.  When we got home I tidied up the apartment a little bit and wrote Amanda a note as she would arrive at the apartments while we were downtown the next day.  It was like Christmas Eve, I was so excited for her to come!  I was like a little kid who couldn’t wait to open presents!

Sunday, May 29

Goooooood morning, good morning, it’s 6 in the morning, it’s time to go SHOPPING!  We woke up at 6:00 this morning to go to Catuchak, the biggest weekend market in Thailand!  People at the school recommended that we go very early before it got to hot outside and too busy in the afternoon.  At 7:45 we met up with 6 other girls from BU in front of our apartments and caught a taxi to the sky train.  We then took two sky trains and walked for about five minutes until we arrived at Catuchak!  There is no way to explain this market other than a gigantic maze.  We thought we had it figured out as we walked down each street, but from each street was a hallway, and from each hallway was another hallway, all filled with little shops.  We tried to navigate around the best that we could but we would somehow always end up somewhere that we had already been!  It was so confusing that none of us felt like shopping.  Another thing that wasn’t very good was that the vendors did not go down in their prices very much when we tried to barter.  I only bought one souvenir and a camera case.  At 11:30 we met up with the group again and decided to go to MBK (the 7 story mall) to have lunch and look around.  Around 2:30 we caught the sky train back to the main station and took a taxi back to our apartments.

Amanda landed at the airport shortly after 12:00pm, so we knew she would be at the apartments when we got back!  As we paid the cab driver Tori saw Amanda walking down the street!  We all ran out of the taxi and took turns hugging her!  I cried, of course.  It was like a little piece of home had just arrived J  We went back to the apartment to drop off our bags and she filled us in on how Geordie proposed to her!  Oh yeah, let me fill you in...  she went with her boyfriend and his family for three weeks when we came to Thailand, and while they were there they got engaged!  We then showed her around the little community (the school, restaurants, 7-11, etc.).  She was feeling stiff and swollen from the plane ride, so of course we suggested going for a massage!  Amanda and Jill got foot massages while Tori got a Thai back massage.  I just hung out... I don’t want to overdo it!  Tori was only separated from us by a small curtain and we could see her clearly.  It was so funny to watch her get a massage.  For those of you who don’t know, the purpose of a Thai massage is to crack your bones!  Everyone says it’s something you have to do, but I’m not interested!  We then had supper at Old Bar and went back to the apartments.

Amanda unpacked while I showed her everything that I had bought so far... which by the way, is way more than I thought I had bought!  Oops!  “When in Thailand!”  Once she was done unpacking we both tried to Skype home (which sucks by the way).  It cuts out so much... but I guess we will take what we can get to contact our family, friends and boyfriends.  We were both exhausted so went to bed early.  It was weird to sleep in my own bedroom (since I had been staying with Tori & Jill for the past 3 weeks), but it was nice to have some space and privacy! 

Did I mention how excited I am that Amanda is here?!  Bring it on, Thailand... we’re ready for anything!

All About Lertlah

Monday, May 23
Today was our first full day of classes with our students and it went great!  The students wear school uniforms, because mine are so young the girls were little plaid tunics and the boys wear plaid shorts and a plaid shirt.  All of the teachers wear uniforms as well, green pants and a yellow(ish) coloured top.  Since we will only be in the school for seven weeks we are only required to wear black pants and a white collared shirt.  We have to wear black closed toe shoes to and from school and in the hallways.  However, everyone (including teachers and students) have to take their shoes of before entering the classrooms, library, computer lab, etc.   

I taught the first lesson of my Science unit, Colours.  The kids are SO smart and know most of the colours, but they still enjoyed the lesson and there is always room to learn more!  We had “library” today where the kids could choose books and read them in the library for an hour.  Most of the kids chose Clifford, Berenstain Bears and children’s books.  However, one little boy came up to me to show me he had chosen a Harry Potter novel!  I couldn’t believe it! 

The school system is much different here.  Each class has a foreign (English) teacher and a Thai teacher.  The English teacher teaches 80% of the subjects, and the Thai teacher teaches a couple of Thai language courses.  Our students also go to another English teacher for gym, computer, swimming and music.  The English teacher’s sole job is to teach the students the courses in English (math, science, ELA, social studies).  The Thai teacher is responsible for most classroom management and is responsible for cleaning the classroom and dealing with the children when they are upset or need anything such as going to the bathroom.  The Thai teachers also get the students settled in the morning, ready to go at the end of the day and get them lined up and ready to switch classroom when they need to do so.  Thai teacher’s name is Jumpy.  It is like having a full time EA in the classroom that barely speaks English!!  It’s really neat. 

After school the girls and I decided we needed a night off from exploring.  We came home from school and relaxed.  We found websites that we could access to watch Grey’s Anatomy and One Tree Hill on so we were pretty excited about that!  At one point, Tori went to go to the other room and there was a GECKO in our apartment!! The three of us freaked out and jumped onto our chairs!  I’m not sure why we thought that would help since the gecko could climb up the wall.  Tori was brave and ran to get the other BU girls from next door.  Thankfully our friend Julie wasn’t scared.  She scooped him up with some toilet paper but dropped him in the hallway.  I was going to kill him with a shoe but then they were all upset that I was going to kill him!  Julie finally got him again and threw him out the window.  I’m not sure why the girls didn’t realize that throwing him out the window would do the same thing as hitting him with a shoe, but at least he was GONE!  We had heard stories about people having geckos in their rooms, we just thought we were special and would never get one I guess!

Later on we headed down to a restaurant called Old Bar for supper.  We had delicious Mama Phad Guy (stir fried noodles with chicken and vegetables).  Jill and I ordered the exact same thing except she got rice and I got noodles.  For some reason she only had to pay 45 baht and I had to pay 75!  I guess the guy didn’t like me!  After supper we came back to the apartment and hung out for a bit before going to bed. 

Tuesday, May 24

Every morning we go down to the main area of the school for the “word of the day.”   All of the Kindergarten students gather there and one teacher presents an English word of the day.  The students have to repeat the word and use it in a sentence. 

I took part in my very first candle ceremony at school this morning.  Every day after the word of the day we go back to the classroom, sit in a circle and pass a candle around the circle while the students and the Thai teacher sing a traditional Thai song.  When the candle is passed to you, you have to “Y” (bow) to the person passing it to you, and then “Y” to the person you pass it to.  This morning our Kindergarten class learned the ABC’s using play dough, they loved it and so did we! 

Classes are done for the students at 3:20 but the teachers all need to stay at the school until 4:30.  During this time we prepare for the next day’s lessons.

After school the girls and I headed to Carrfour to have supper and get some groceries (all in re-sealable containers so we don’t attract bugs, of course... ew!).  We were about to head home when we realized it was pouring outside so we got Dairy Queen, naturally!  We walked around for a while but the rain wasn’t letting up, so we went to a place called HomePro (similar to Home Depot) to get fuses to replace the ones we had blown in our power bars!  We then walked to the main road to catch a taxi in the rain!  When we got back we just hung out and went to bed.

Wednesday, May 25

One month from today we will be flying back to Canada!!!  Despite what you may think I have been eating SOME Thai food! Every day for lunch we go to Bee’s across the street from our school and have either chicken fried rice, chicken fried noodles or cashew chicken.  We have tried a couple of pork and hamburger dishes, but we are the most comfortable sticking to chicken!  Today after school we planned for the few weekends we have left in Thailand!  This coming weekend (Saturday, May 28) we are doing a tour of the palace, temples and floating market in downtown Bangkok and on Sunday we are going to Catuchak, a famous weekend market.   On the weekend of June 3^rd we are going to Koh Samet. Koh Samet is a beautiful island where we will spend our time on the beach!  On June 10 we are going to Chaing Mai which we have to fly to!  Chaing Mai is a famous place in Thailand where we will see tiger and elephant temples and explore the history of Thailand.  Our last weekend in Thailand is the weekend of June 17^th.  We have booked flights and hotels to go to Phuket for the weekend.  Phuket is another famous beach area down south.  It is often referred to as the “party beach.”  We wanted to go somewhere beautiful for our last weekend where we can work on our tans before we come home!   

Once we finished our planning we went to a restaurant called the Sizzler for supper.  It was AMAZING.  They had everything from ribs to chicken breasts to steak.  The salad bar was massive, so I just had the salad bar.  They had the freshest vegetables and fruit I have ever eaten!  If you have seen the pictures of our meals that Tori put on facebook, she forgot to mention that I had four plates full instead of only the one she posted!  When we got back to our apartment we caught up on some more TV shows before going to sleep. 

Thursday, May 26

Today was a great day at school!  We had our students all morning, and only for one hour this afternoon.  This afternoon during English class we took our students to the multimedia room to watch Toy Story 3!  We haven’t started the GrapeSEED EAL program that I had mentioned earlier so we can’t start our English classes yet.  The multimedia room was really cool, it was dark and comfy and the movie was projected onto a big screen.  The kids (and the teachers) loved it!  I haven’t talked about the fruit guy in a while... I LOVE HIM!  Well I don’t love him, but I love his fruit!  It is SO fresh and so cheap (10 baht, so 3 cents) for a big bag full of fruit.  I get either pineapple or watermelon after lunch every day!  After classes today we had our first staff meeting.  It was just like a staff meeting in Canada, going over expectations and new information.  We went to Old Bar for supper and had Mamma Phad Guy again, and I didn’t get charged more than everyone else this time!  We then went back to our apartments and relaxed as our weekends will be extremely busy until we leave!     

Friday, May 27

There is a little boy in my class who reminds me of Troy’s nephew Aiden SO much.  He looks like him (somehow, even though he’s Asian) and has the same cheesy smile and personality.  For those of you who don’t know, Troy’s nephew is a little sweetheart who is always attached to me whenever I am around him.  When I got to school this morning this little boy in Thailand (his name is Tan) came and gave me a hug and then looked at me with a big cheesy smile and said “I missed you!” 

This morning I had my first evaluation by my supervisor at the school.  I did a lesson on the alphabet which involved reading “Chick Chicka Boom Boom, playing a game with flashcards and making the lower case letters out of play dough.  I was extremely nervous but everything went great and thankfully my supervisor was pleased with what she saw! 

This afternoon Tori, Jill, Michelle & I went with William (the international exchange coordinator) to Campus 2.  Campus 2 is another school run by Lertlah where other Brandon University students are teaching.  The campus was HUGE!  They had separate buildings for the library, gymnasium, cafeteria and for the Kindergarten classes.  They even had two pools!  The bad part about the school is that they don’t have the LIPS program (Lertlah International Program School), they only have the EP (English Program).  The EP is 50% English and 50% Thai, whereas the LIPS program is 80% English and 20% Thai.  Not only do their students speak less English than ours, their class sizes our HUGE!  The average class size in our program is 10-12 students, whereas the EP teachers have two classes of 30 to teach each day!!  Also, the people who teach at Campus 2 have a 30-45 minute cab ride to school and back every day, whereas we only have a five minute walk! 

After school we moved our rooms back as Amanda will be here on Sunday morning.  Tori & Jill’s apartment was getting really dirty from our shoes and hairspray and stuff so we washed our bedding and did a clean sweep of their rooms.  Once we were done cleaning we decided to go to Old Bar for supper.  We were on our way down when we saw a HUGE spider.  Seriously, it was at least as big as my hand!  I wish I would have had my camera, because it sounds a little bit ridiculous.  Tori started crying and ran up to the second floor to get a guy to kill it.  Jill and I tried to be tough spies but every time we would look around the corner it would come running towards us and we would run away screaming!  The guy came down, told us it had teeth and it would probably bit us, but he refused to kill it, he just swept it outside with the broom.  That was not sufficient for us, we wanted it DEAD!  So, I took a dust pan and chopped it in half.  I was the hero for the day!  When we finally made it to Old Bar I had Mama Phad Guy, of course.  We then came back to the apartment, finished our laundry and got ready for the tour we were going on, on Saturday morning.

Best Weekend EVER

A Weekend in Kanchanaburi, Thailand (May 21 – 22)

Saturday, May 21

We were up bright and early in the morning and ready for the adventures ahead of us.  We had a good breakfast at the Pong Phen Guesthouses where we were staying (which I would highly recommend) and then a van picked us up to head out for the day.  We had a one hour drive to the Erawan Falls, 7 levels of gorgeous waterfalls.  We had a guide for the first two levels, but we wished we didn’t.  The first few things she told us was that if we took the wrong path we would see a lot of snakes, she pointed out that the holes in the ground were tarantula holes, and she said to beware because some of the monkeys were vicious!  Thankfully we didn’t see any tarantulas, snakes OR vicious monkeys!  We climbed all the way to the 7^th level, which was a total distance of 2200m.  It may not seem like a lot but it was hard climbing up and over roots and rocks.  Needless to say, coming back down was much easier!  I never even considered hiking before, but after this trip I could see it becoming a hobby!  When we got back we had lunch and ice cream and then took another van to the elephant grounds.  We first got onto a seat on the back of the elephant with a guide riding bareback.  After a little while he asked if I wanted to ride bareback, and obviously I did!  It was SO cool.  The elephant didn’t feel like I thought it was going to.  It had course, wiry hair everywhere, but his ears were really soft!  Everyone’s elephant’s stayed on the path, but ours kept wandering off and eating... it was also really awkward when he decided to scratch his bum on a tree! 

After elephant riding we went bamboo rafting down the river Kwai.  A boat pulled our rafts up the river and then we floated/paddled back down.  There was a Thai man on the front paddling for us and his friend was on the raft next to us.  They were so funny, they were singing us some Thai songs, it was cool!  Our guide’s paddle broke, he tried to paddle with half a paddle for a whole, and all of a sudden he jumped into the river and swam to the other raft to get an extra!

Next we went to a train station along the Death Railway.  We had some time to walk around the railway. check out a cave nearby and get some ice cream.  We then took a train on Death Railway, it was rather bumpy and rickety, but very cool.  It’s sort of funny that Troy is a conductor for the railway and I had to come all the way to Thailand just for a train ride!  Hehe.

We then took yet another van to the Bridge Over River Kwai.  We walked along the bridge and took pictures of the beautiful view down the river.

We finally got back to our guesthouse around 5:30pm, but we weren’t exhausted yet!  We had heard about a delicious Italian restaurant in town called Bell’s (of course I took a picture for the Bell’s back home)!  We all had pasta and it was soooo good!  We were heading back to go to bed when we came across a cute little massage parlour.  We went in just to check prices and ended up staying for a while.  I got a back massage while Tori & Jill got foot massages.  My massage was... different!  The first thing the lady did was push on the middle of my back causing it to crack a lot, which felt good!  The strange part was that there was no massage table, just a mat on the floor.  The even stranger part was that she kneeled on my bum the whole time, and at one point leaned on her forearms on my back with almost all of her body weight and “massaged” it!  It was definitely different but it felt really good, especially after sleeping on rock hard beds at our apartments during the weekdays!  After our massages we were craving some sort of dessert, so we found a cool little restaurant and had warm apple pie with ice cream.  Yes, I realize that I had ice cream three times in one day.  I convinced myself that it was okay because we had hiked so much in the morning!  Haha.  We then walked around the town, looked in a few stores and then went back to our room to relax and sleep!

Oh don’t let me forget, it only cost 1090 baht (approx. $36) for this entire day tour!

Sunday, May 22

Ahhh we finally got to sleep in!  Once we got up we packed up our bags and went back out to the guesthouse restaurant for breakfast.  The ladies working at the front desk were so nice and helpful!  We weren’t sure what to do for the day, so they suggested we hire a boat with a driver to take us up the river Kwai.  The boat picked us up from in front of our guesthouses and we were on our way!  The boat stopped at various places for us to explore along the way. 

The first was a Monkey School.  We saw a monkey show where the monkeys played basketball, swam and rode bicycles.  After the show we held a little baby monkey, which was very scary but so cool at the same time! 

Our next stop was at Khao Poon Cave.  We had to walk up a hill to an eery secluded area where monks lived.  We got to the entrance of the cave and a cute little six year old boy said “you want guide?”  He was absolutely adorable!  He took us down into the cave where there were many statues and buddhas.  At first we were in a wide open area, but as he took us through the walls became tighter and we were starting to get a little bit claustrophobic.  We were doing ok until we saw a bat!  We all started screaming and told him we wanted to go back out, NOW!  He laughed at us and said “bats, no?”  Haha.   We bought him a treat for being our little guide before we left!

We made our way back down to the boat and it took us down the river to the Jeath War Museum.  The museum was in a replica of what the soldiers slept in during the war, and was filled with many detailed pictures from the war.  It was really sad but interesting at the same time.

Our last stop was at the River Kwai Bridge Pier.  Here we went on a floating restaurant and had fruit shakes to cool off!  The boat then took us back down the river, slowing down and turning so we had an amazing view to take pictures of the bridge.  We zipped down the river but when we turned in to go back to the dock at our guesthouse the propeller got all jammed with weeds and we couldn’t move anywhere.  The boat driver jumped in the nasty water to fix it, which took about half an hour!  Thankfully it was a nice day so we just soaked in the sun while we waited. 

When we finally got back to the guesthouse we had lunch at Pong Phen.  I had the best onion rings I have ever tasted!  We then took a truck/tuk-tuk/taxi thing to the bus station and got on a bus, a real bus this time.  The two hour bus ride only cost 99 baht (approx. $3.30).  It was comfortable and air conditioned and we made it back safely!  Oh and I forgot, when we went to get our bags which we had left in the lobby, Jill's was FILLED with literally hundreds of ants!! We opened a zipper and realized that they were all in a cracker wrapper in her bag and they all came filing out, it was disgusting!  The lady working at the front desk rushed the bag to the curb and thankfully cleaned all of the ants out for us! 

We then took a taxi from the bus station back to our apartments, where we unpacked, showered, relaxed and got ready for school the next day.  As you can imagine we all slept like babies after two full days of exploration.

Rats, Stitches & Students

Tuesday, May 17 (pm)

When we returned to our apartments from Hua Hin, the girls and I unpacked our things and caught up on emails.  Yes, we ACTUALLY had internet access at our apartment!  I don’t want to get too excited or I will jinx it!  We then headed down to Carrfour (Walmart) to pick up a few things.  On the way there we saw a RAT!  It was HUGE!!!  I had been warned about them but we thought we were safe after one week.  Yuck!  We did our shopping and got ice cream (DQ) for the way home.  Yum!  Once we got back to the apartment we all showered and did a few loads of laundry and settled in for the night.

Wednesday, May 18

This morning we had to be up bright and early again to be at the school for 8:00am.  We grabbed our usual breakfast from 7-11 on our way (yogurt & juice).  From 9:30 until 11:15 I got to play with the K-1 students, who are 3 years old.  They were SO adorable!  Some of them were crying because they didn’t want to leave their parents.  I felt so bad for them.  We, as foreign teachers, can’t console them, so that made it even more sad!  I spent the afternoon planning lessons and units for my K-3 class, who are 5 years old. 

After school we headed back to the apartment, got changed into some cooler clothes and headed down to sit by the pool for a while.  We then went to the Mall Bankae for supper and to do some shopping.  Believe it or not, I had some self control and only bought one thing, which was a gift for my mom!  After the mall we headed back to our apartment.  I got stitches the week before we left Canada and it was well overdue for them to come out.  I was waiting for the school nurse to take them out but nobody knew what day she was at the school.  So, Tori, Jill and I took it upon ourselves to take them out!  It was a little more painful than it probably had to be, but we were successful and it doesn’t look infected or anything. Thank god!  We then washed up for the night before going to bed.

Thursday, May 19

I got to meet my class today!  I’m not sure if I already mentioned this, but our class is called “K3 LIPS” which stands for Kindergarten Group 3 (ages 5/6) Lertlah International Program School.  They were adorable!  We only had an hour with them so we just played games and sang songs.  After school Tori, Jill & I decided to venture to Downtown Bangkok.  We had to take a taxi and then the BTS (sky train).  The sky train took us directly to a place called MBK, which is a 7 story mall!  When we first got there we found our way to the food court and had a delicious meal (I had a chicken Caesar wrap and fries).  We spent about an hour looking around the mall and then decided to head back to the apartments so we didn’t get back too late.  We had a crazy taxi driver on the way home.  He drove like a maniac and took ½ the amount of time it took to get there!  I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this already, but they drive on the opposite side of the road here, so we were already a little uncomfortable driving anywhere!  We were slightly afraid of the trek to downtown but we found it fairly simple and we didn’t run into any problems.  When we got back to the apartments we packed for our weekend trip to Kanchanaburi.

Friday, May 20

This morning I got to spend two more hours with my class.  We did some drawing, colouring, singing, dancing and played some games.  I can’t believe how smart these children are.  We weren’t even talking about math and all of a sudden they started shouting out math equations and the answers that added up to at least 100!  They are only FIVE!!!  At this school they call their teachers by their first name, so I am Miss Stephanie!  It’s kind of weird since I just got used to Miss Frieze, but it’s cute!  In the afternoon I did more prep for the upcoming weeks and started decorating the bulletin boards in my classroom.  After school we had to rush back to our apartments to catch our taxi which took us to the bus station to catch the bus to Kanchanaburi!  We got to the bus station to find out we would be going on a 12 person van instead, which wasn’t a big deal.  It was 100 baht each (approximately $3) for the two hour ride.  When we got to Kanchanaburi we checked into our gorgeous guesthouse and then went to the restaurant to have supper and book our tour for the next day.  After that we went back to our room, packed our bags and went to bed early in preparation for the long day filled with adventures we had coming up!

Hua Hin - 5 Day Vacation

I apologize for not writing an update every day like I initially said I was going to do.  The internet is very poor and sometimes we can’t get online for a couple of days at a time.  I will continue to post as often as possible!

Hua Hin – May 13 – 17

We spent five days in the beautiful community of Hua Hin, Thailand at the wonderful subhamitra Hotel.  Every morning we would sleep in, relax, and slowly make our way out of the hotel.  We went to a place called Euro Cafe each morning for breakfast.  They had amazing breakfast, including bacon and eggs!  They also had freshly baked pastries and desserts.  After breakfast we would head down to the beach.  On the way we would stop and look at dozens of little shops and shopping stands.  The beach itself was beautiful.  It was really hot and humid, but once we were on the beach there was a nice breeze to keep us comfortable. The water was warm (like bath water).  Everyday there were people going around on the beach selling things (dresses, jewellery, blankets, bathing suits, snacks, etc.), and there were even people coming around offering to give manicures, pedicures and massages as we laid on the beach!  There were also a group of people with horses and you could pay to ride one down the beach.  One guy tried really hard to convince me to go, and when I said he was allergic he said... I will take care of you, haha. I didn’t give in!  We mostly just read books and talked amongst ourselves as we soaked in the sun in the sand!

When we got too hot lying on the beach we would spend some time in the water.  We were uncomfortable leaving our things lying on the beach unsupervised, so one day Tori & Jill decided to go far out in the ocean and I stayed near shore.  As I watched them jump around in the waves like children, I noticed Tori’s face... pure agony.  Apparently a wave had lifted them up and tossed them onto a coral reef.  They made their way back to shore and my career quickly changed from teacher to doctor.  They were sliced up from head to toe and there was blood dripping everywhere.  Tori looked like she had fallen off of her bike.  As I write this they can laugh about how dramatic it seemed at the time, and now it has turned into a few minor scrapes.  I’m sure glad I was the one who decided to watch our stuff on the beach!

We found it very interesting that the local people were always fully clothed (pants, long sleeved shirts, socks, and even toques).  They do this because in Thailand the people with pale skin are the most beautiful.  They thought we were crazy to be soaking up the sun and trying to get a tan!

On the second night (Friday, May 13) we got together with all of the people who came to the resort from Manitoba.  There were about 60 of us.  It was nice to meet new people and re-connect with some of the people from Brandon University that we hadn’t seen in a few days.  The dinner itself wasn’t that great, and they jammed us all into a tiny restaurant so it was extremely hot and sticky.  After supper we checked out one night market and then went to Swenson’s, an AMAZING ice cream place.  They had every flavour of hard ice cream possible, plus shakes, splits and parfaits!  It was a nice way to cool down after our sticky dinner!

A couple of the nights we went to look at the night markets, and bought a TON of stuff.  We kept forgetting we still had 6 weeks to shop and there are much bigger malls and markets to go to... so on the third night we made a pact not to go to any more markets until our next adventure (this didn’t last long)!  It was very interesting to shop at the markets, because the people expect you to barter, which none of us three were good at or felt comfortable doing.  We got better at it after a couple of days got some pretty good deals, we think!

Each evening after touring around we would come back to our hotel, shower (as we were full of sweat and sand) and put on a movie and/or play cards to relax before we went to bed.  We realize that we are lame and we could watch movies and/or play cards at home, but we were so busy during the day that we were too exhausted to go out partying at night. We decided that we would much rather spend our money on souvenirs and adventures than wasting it on alcohol.

Oh don’t let me forget... on the first day when we were walking to the beach Tori stepped in dog poo!  For those of you who know Tori this came as no surprise to us and it was quite the ordeal!

The whole time we were here people kept mentioning this place called “Monkey Mountain.”  On Monday, May 16^th, the three of us decided we should venture from the beach and check it out.  We rode on our very first tuk-tuk to get there.  A tuk-tuk is a type of taxi, which is pretty much a box on the back of a motorcycle (you should google it!).  It was really cool, and something that is very common around Thailand.  The tuk-tuk took us all the way to the top of a mountain where there were monkeys everywhere!  Tori, Jill & I were scared by this, as none of us got our rabies shots before coming on the trip!  We saw another group of people from Brandon University who were feeding the monkeys and taking pictures with them.  We were content to just watch and take pictures of the cute little guys!  There was also a Buddhist temple on the mountain.  We didn’t think we could go in because you are supposed to have your legs completely covered, but there were people there who lent us some sarongs to wear in.  We had to climb an excessive amount of stairs to get to the temple.  Once we got up there we could see the beautiful detailing of it and there was an amazing view of the ocean and the beach where we had spent the last few days. 

When we got back to our hotel, we were already beginning to feel really sunburnt, so we decided to stay out of the sun for the day.  After all, we had just spent three days laying in the direct sunlight on the beach!  So for the afternoon we relaxed in the hotel enjoying the view from our balcony, resting and reading our books.  We then headed back out to Swenson’s for some more delicious ice cream!

In the evening our professor organized for all of the Brandon University students to meet up for supper again.  We went to a restaurant on the pier.  We had an amazing view of the ocean and the beach.  There was a nice breeze and the food was really good!  After supper we all walked over to the Hilton hotel.  Our professor took us up to the 17^th floor on the sky bar where we had a breathtaking view of Hua Hin.  We stayed there and visited for a while, and then walked around the community.  As we walked down one street we saw an elephant!  There was a guy walking it around and you could pay 20 baht to feed it!  We also saw some really cool bars and markets.

On Tuesday, May 17 we packed up our room and headed back to the Hilton as soon as we woke up.  I wanted to see the view during the day, and we got some amazing pictures!  We then went for breakfast and headed back to the hotel to wait for the vans to take us back to Bangkok.

This trip to Hua Hin was an amazing week full of shopping and relaxation.  It was a great start to my Thailand adventure and I can hardly wait to see what else is in store during the next seven weeks!

Have I Really Been Here For A Week Already?!

Oh my goodness, where has the last week gone!?  Things are going great so far, the girls and I have been extremely busy which hasn’t left us much time to feel homesick. 

Monday, May 9

After I wrote my last blog, I met my cooperating teacher.  He is from Winnipeg, and has taught at Lertlah School before, so it is comforting to know that he knows how things go around here! After I met him we found out that we had to go to training for a new program for teaching Kindergarten students English as an additional language.  The program is called GrapeSEED.  We had this training from Monday – Thursday from 9-3, and on the last day we were all presented with certificates for being certified GrapeSEED teachers (a bonus for my resume and portfolio!).  The program has only been around (in Japan and Korea) for a couple of years, and Lertlah (our school) has just become a pilot school for the program.  It is different from what I learned in University for teaching English, but as far as I can see it is going to be an awesome and effective way to teach students English.

The students that are teaching from Winnipeg had already been here for a week, so at lunch time they showed us the shops and good places to eat around the area.  There is a restaurant right across the street from our school called Bee’s, it is really good... they have Canadian food (BLT’s and grilled cheese), as well as some good Thai food (we have tried the chicken fried rice and cashew chicken so far).  To get one of those meals and a canned drink or water is 45 baht (Thailand currency) which is the equivalent of $1.50 Canadian!!!  Just an FYI, 1 baht = 3 cents.  Also, there is a guy with a fruit stand on the street with unbelievably fresh watermelon and pineapple... it only costs 10 baht (approximately 30 cents Canadian!)

After school on Monday we unpacked and organized our rooms.  I am supposed to be living with Amanda but she isn’t coming until the 29^th, and I was too scared to stay alone, so Tori, Jill and I put all of our beds in one bedroom, and all of our clothes and computer desks in the other bedroom, and mine and Amanda’s apartment is empty for now.  Now that is the definition of true friends!

Once we finished redecorating, we realized we hadn’t had supper yet so we went down the street to a place called Pizza Company (I know, we’re supposed to be experiencing Thai food, but our stomachs aren’t ready for it yet!).  The pizza was really good!  Once we ate we all showered, separately.  There are no bathtubs or closed showers, it is just a shower head in the corner of the bathroom, so you have to make sure it is in the right direction or you will soak the whole room!  Once we got that figured out, we went to bed around 9:30.  Although our beds are as hard as laying on a piece of plywood, we all actually slept through the night, yay!

Tuesday, May 10

Tuesday morning we headed back to training for GrapeSEED.  Later on we had a meeting with Chris Brown (the Professor from BU who came with us), and William (our go-to guy at the school).  William told us about the Thai culture and things we should and shouldn’t do.  For example, you can`t sit with your legs crossed because it is extremely rude to point your feet at people, don’t step on money because the King`s face is on it, if you talk poorly about the King you can go to jail and be kicked out of the country, if you get caught with drugs you will be executed (either shot or lethally injected)... don’t worry mom, we won’t have to worry about that!  Another weird thing is that you’re not supposed to flush toilet paper; you are to put it in the garbage or hose yourself off.  At our school, you can’t even flush the toilet; you dump two pails of water in the toilet to flush it.  Oh, and don’t forget to get toilet paper before you go into the stall, or you will have to drip dry!  A few things we ARE supposed to do at school are:  wear black pants or long skirts (no capris, because it shows too much skin), wear closed toe shoes in the hallways, but remove our shoes when we go into the classroom.  There is a camera in each classroom which goes to a control room where parents can come watch you teach their children. 

After school, we hung out at the pool at our apartment for the first time.  The water was fairly cool, but it was nice to cool off as it has been at least 35 degrees with the humidity during the day, and it only cools off a few degrees at night.  After the pool we walked about 10-15 minutes to a place called Carrfour.  Carrfour was awesome, it was like a Walmart/Superstore, and there were a lot of English labels so we knew what we were buying!

Oh I forgot... when we were eating lunch today a Gecko was crawling up the wall behind me!! Needless to say, I was done eating my lunch pretty quickly!

Wednesday, May 11

I flagged down my first taxi today!!  The Winnipeg people told us about a mall, and we were on our way in a flash! I thought we had to call a cab, but apparently I’m sheltered and you flag down taxi’s like in movies!  The cab ride was about 20 minutes and cost 75 baht ($2.50).  When we got to the mall we had supper, which was McDonald’s!  The mall was 4 floors of heaven.  We started at the top and made our way down, but we only got through two floors.  Other than stores and restaurants there was a movie theatre, bowling alley, karaoke, water-park, and kids play land (which was pretty much like Magic Kingdom).  We did get through a few stores and bought a few things.  For the girls, OPI nail polish was only $1 a bottle!  The three of us also chipped in to buy a cell phone in case of emergencies, which was only $20 total!

Thursday, May 12

 Today was our last day of school for the week, as Friday, Monday and Tuesday are holidays here.  We put in our hours at the school and then vans picked up the Brandon and Winnipeg students from our apartment to take us to Hua Hin for five days (a famous beach two hours from our apartment).  We got here and checked into the hotel, which was absolutely beautiful.  We lucked out and got a three bedroom room so nobody was left out!  We were all exhausted when we got here, so we just put a movie on and went to bed early, in comfortable beds!

We Made It To Thailand!

It's 8:19am on Monday, May 9 in Bangkok, 8:19pm on Sunday, May 8 in Manitoba.  We just got to the school and have some down time on the computers here.  Our school is about a 5/10 minute walk from our apartments, so we got to see the streets this morning. It was, diffrent, to say the least.  And WARM!!  Our flights were really long yesterday, from Vancouver to Hong Kong was 13 hours.  It was super uncomfortable and we didn't sleep much, our bodies were swelling up from the change in altitude and we couldn't get up to walk around much, but we made it!  We got to our apartments around 12:30am last night, but our internet wasn't working so we just unpacked some pyjamas and tried to sleep.. which was impossible.  Our beds are as hard as a piece of plywood. I've only slept for 4 hours since we woke up to go to the airport at 5:00am on Saturday morning.  For those of you who know me well, this is VERY unusual!

Anyways, enough about the travelling part of it.  Our apartments are really nice and fairly big.  We have airconditonin in the bedrooms which is really nice because it's extremely humid here.  I'm pretty sure I'm going to be like Monica off of Friends if I ever wear my hair down!  On our walk to school we saw a lot of little food stands, but none of us were brave enough to try anything.  The school is really nice! There is air conditioning in the room we are in right now, which is nice!  We are just waiting to meet with our cooperating teachers (supervising teachers) and then we will find out more and probably see more of the school. 

I will keep you updated as often as I can!

I Want To Hear From You Too!

Hi again.  I just thought I'd let everyone know that it's possible for you to comment and interact with me through my blogs!! In order to comment you have to create a Google Account.  To do this you:
1. Go to http://www.google.ca/
2. Click "sign in" on the top right hand side of the page
3. Click "create an account now" close to the bottom of the page
4. Follow the steps on the sign up page.

Once you have created your account you can click "comments" and then write in the "post a comment" box. You will have to choose "google accounts" in the "comment as" box and then click on "post comment!"

I'd love to hear from you guys to find out how things are going back home while I'm away!

Welcome!

Hi everyone!  Welcome to the blog I have started to document my travels and experiences during my trip to Thailand this spring/summer.  I will try my best to write every day or two to keep everyone updated. I haven't figured out how to add pictures on here yet, but if I will do I will definitely post some.  I will miss you all and will see you all when I return to Manitoba on July 6th! xoxo

Today, May 5th, is my last night at home.  I packed after school this evening and I think I have everything... they told us not to pack much but I have somehow filled two suitcases and two carry-on bags, oops!  I suppose I will have to get rid of a few things to bring everything back in two months!  Tomorrow, May 6th, is my last day of student teaching here in Brandon and then we will be heading into Winnipeg.  We will stay overnight there and I will catch my flight at 7:45am Saturday.  Our flights stop in Vancouver and Hong Kong on the way there.  We will be travelling for a total of 26 hours, so we will arrive in Bangkok at 9:30am Sunday (MB time) which is actually 9:30pm Sunday (Bangkok time). 

I don't think I will have internet access until Sunday night (MB time), but I will keep you updated as soon as I can. 

Thanks for reading, next time I post on here I will be on the other side of the world.  Yikes!