A Very Suphan Christmas!

Well Christmas has come and gone already! Christmas morning Matt and I opened some presents and headed off to work in our very decorated santa hats, thanks to Mom! Most of the Thai people we passed on our walk to school did a small smile and giggle as they went by. Since the M4, M5 and M6 students were on a field trip, I luckily enough did not have any classes to teach all day.

For lunch, all the Thai teachers put together a little christmas luncheon complete with french fries, and thai food. For the rest of the afternoon all the foreign teachers went into the library to use the big screen TV and watch Tommy Boy.

After school, Matt and I got back to the house and got ready for the Christmas dinner at the Thai/Farang Restaurant close by. The owner is from Holland and he made is a free (!) dinner with mashed potatoes and thai meatballs. There were about 25 of us foreign teachers from other provinces of Suphanburi there to celebrate. After dinner, we all headed up Nikki's room in the apartments and participated in White Elephant. We all bought gifts, 100B worth, and came out with some good stuff. I received, after stealing it from Ian, a wonderful toilet seat that says "Take Your Time" on it. I was very pleased. Overall, a very Thai christmas!

Christmas is comingg..

Friday is christmas..

... and I have presents to open this year!! wahoo!

School Camping Part II

Well last year around this time, I went camping with the 3s, 4s and 5s to Chanthaburi down south. So it was nice to have a change of scenery for this year with the 4s, 5s and 6s. We headed East of Suphanburi to Khao Yai National Park. Sam, SiSi, and I left early on Friday morning, while the other teacher had to work (ha ha) and teach the 1s, 2s, and 3s. We arrived at Khao Yai around noon and put our things away in our tents. We ate some lunch (out of the back of a pick up truck) and then started on a 6k hike through the woods.

our lunch out of the pick up

SiSi and I during our hike

During our hike we saw some elephant footprints, crocodiles, and lots of bamboo. At the end of our hike we came upon a waterfall where we met up with the other teachers: Matt, Brett, Ian, Tessa, Ally, Alex and his girlfriend who was visiting Anna. We headed back to the campsite and relaxed before dinner. After we finished dinner, we all got ready for spotlighting at night! All the teachers piled into one pick up truck and all the students split up into other trucks. There was one Thai boy in the front of the pickup with a giant spotlight and we went looking for animals. We saw lots of deer (unexciting) and then we got to see 2 porcupines, which was very cool.

The next day we were woken up at 6am to go bird watching. Yes, bird watching.. at 6 in the morning. You can imagine how thrilled we all were. We walked along the paved roads with students for almost 2 hours then made it back to camp. Saw nothing interesting. Ate some breakfast and packed up to head off!

On the way home from camp we made some pit-stops. First, Chokchai Farms, where apparently they have the best ice cream and dairy products. Which is true because the ice cream was delicious. Stop #2: waterfall, where we ate lunch and went swimming which was very fun. After a few hours of swimming we hopped back in the vans and headed back to Suphanburi! It was a fun time to spend with the students and see them outside of the classroom. And Friday is Christmas!! Happy Holidays!

Updates.

So I've been a bit behind on catching this blog up. Since I am home from school, sick with strep throat, I figured this would be the best time for me to get all up-to-date. When I last left you, I was trekking through the jungles of Laos and spending time in Chiang Mai before semester II started at school. Well school has obviously started since it is almost Christmas time. So here are some updates:

1. New Teachers - They always seem to be coming and going! We have many new teachers in our school. Some new teachers from CIEE (the same program I came through) are Nicki, Maddy, Tessa, Ally, and Tash. We also just got another one from Tasmania for three months, Alex.

2. Weekend Travels:

Nov 1 - Nov 3 : I went to Laos again, to get a new Visa. Pain in the butt, although I got to miss some days of school since the embassy is only open on the weekdays.

Nov 13 - Nov 15 : School Exhibition, I learned some paper folding origami stuff and a group of us went to the tower we have in town that has a water park with 3 slides.

Nov 18 - nov 22 : Had a long weekend so sam, matt, tessa, susan and i went to Koh Chang for some fun in the sun. Awesome sunset photos here.

Nov 28 - Nov 29 : School's 80th Birthday, had a big to do at school in the evening. Free dinner and whiskey. On Sunday went to the Lopburi Monkey Festival, which I had already been to = already blogged about = read about in my archives.

Matt and I at the School's 80th Birthday

Dec 5 - Dec 6 : King's Birthday Weekend. Went into Bangkok to see my Thai friend Gift.

The crowd in Bangkok for the King

Dec 12 - Dec 13 : Bangkok Christmas shopping!

Vacation In-between Semesters

I know, I know, it's been a while and there is much to catch up on, so I'll get right to it. Matt and I had a two-week break at the beginning of October between semesters. We planned our trip to Chiang Mai and Laos for this break. Our tentative plan was Chiang Mai for one night, head to our 3-day Laos trip for the Gibbon Experience, and spend the rest of our vacay in Chiang Mai with a few days in Pai. Friday night we took an 10pm overnight sleeper train from Bangkok up north to Chiang Mai. Sleeper trains are the way to travel long distances, most definitely. Although it takes a bit more time than a bus, it was worth it. We arrived in Chiang Mai around 2pm, found a guesthouse, ate some dinner and booked a van for our all day drive to the Laos border. Sunday we got picked up in the morning and made it an hour before the border closed at 6pm. Once we got our paper worked checked and visa finished we headed to the Gibbon Experience headquarters to check-in.

Some background info: I heard about the Gibbon Experience through the program I came to teach through. They mentioned it during orientation and I had it set in my mind that I was going to do it before I left Southeast Asia. A few friends had done it as well during our summer vacation in March and April. They all raved about it. The Gibbon Experience is located in the north of Laos in a village called Ban The. The gist of it is that you spend 3 days and 2 nights living in treehouses and zip lining from tree to tree. You are on the lookout for Gibbons although it is very rare to actually see one. You can choose the Classic Experience, which is more zipping than hiking or the Waterfall Experience, which is more hiking, less zipping, but you get to swim in a waterfall and do more of the different zip courses. Matt and I both decided on the Waterfall Experience. This would come back to haunt us.

The Start of our Gibbon Experience:

Monday - Oct 12

We woke up, ate some breakfast and waited for our video introduction at the Gibbon office at 8am. We met the other 4 people in our group. We left for the jungle in a pick up truck and headed off. It was about an hour and a half ride to the village where we started our hike. The last half hour of the drive was across a river and through muddy, uneven roads to this village. When we arrived we met our two guides: Tcha-ya and Lu. They were both young guys who did this whole trek in flipflops! Before we started heading into the jungle, the other group from 3days before us were coming out of the jungle. Only to warn us about the many leeches we were about to encounter. Awesome.

It was about an hour hike to our first treehouse. The hike was brutal uphill climbs and by the end it was raining on us cause the ground to be muddy and slippery. And of course the leeches.. all over our shoes, inside our socks, making us bleed. Apparently these tricky little leeches give you anesthesia when they bite you so you don't know when you are being bitten. So we arrived at treehouse #6 wet and tired. We did some ziplining and once in the house Matt and I were dead tired. We showered and relaxed in the treehouse for the rest of the night. The guides brought us some delicious Loas food for dinner and then bed time.

A Leech on my shoe

Tuesday - Oct 13

The day I thought I was going to die. We woke up at 6:30am to our guides zipping into our treehouse with fruit and coffee. The guides told us we had an optional morning hike to look for animals. Knowing that we had a long hike ahead of us that day, Matt and I decided to stay behind and do some zip lining around the treehouse instead. When the other came back from their hike we packed our stuff and headed off for the next treehouse we were going to stay in. Part I of the hike was easy.. 30 mins to a waterfall. Not bad, I thought, easier than yesterday. The waterfall was amazing and felt so good. We ate some food after swimming and then headed off again. This hike, not so easy. This 2 hour brutal uphill hike was not for me. I was tired, I thought my legs were going to fall off and those damn leeches were making me feet uncontrollably bleed. Matt thankfully offered to trade backpacks with me to lighten my load. When we finally arrived at treehouse #5 all I wanted was my leechy sneakers off and to sit down. The rain for the second day in a row wasn't helping either. It got to the point where it was raining so hard we had to stay in the treehouse for the rest of the night. This treehouse was my favorite. It was 3 floors and had amazing views. Our amazing group stayed up all night playing cards, eating delicious food and talking.

Wednesday - Oct 14

The last day. Everyone woke up early to get some extra zipping in. After an hour zipping we packed our stuff and said goodbye to the treehouse. On the way back to the village where we started we made some pitstops at other treehouses to do some zipping which was awesome. When we reached the village we were muddy, bloody, and a bittersweet end to our journey. At least I thought it was the end of our journey. We all hoped into the pick up and headed off on the hour and a half ride back to the town when clouds started to move in. And then came the downpour. On muddy, uneven roads with holes all over our awesome pick up truck got stuck 3 times in the mud. All of us would have to get out of the truck, stand in the mud, and try and help. The Loas way of fixing truck that are stuck in the mud: go into the woods with a machete, chop down a part of a tree and lodge it under the truck to lift it out of the hole while someone else shoves a giant rock under the tire. Eventually, we made it to the paved roads and stopped for lunch. By the time we got back to the town, Matt and I just wanted to get clean and get a place to sleep.

The muddy, uneven road we drove on

Overall, an unforgettable experience. We met some amazing people who have traveled to some amazing places and hopefully we will get to see them again. Although the hiking was rigorous, we had a good time and enjoyed being able to sleep in treehouses and zip line through jungles. And spent the rest of our vacation in beautiful Chiang Mai. There are more pictures/videos of our trip on my photo website. Check them out!

Smells like teen spirit.

Well talk about hard work paying off. This thursday and friday we have no classes for the Sport Carnival. The students in the whole school use the last period before the end of the day and after school to practice for this event. The students are divided into 6 house colors: red, yellow, blue, pink, green and purple. The M6 students organize pretty much everything. Each color has a dance, music, theme which are all created by the students. The whole sports carnival was a 2-day event. The beginning of the day started with a dance by each color then sports competitions. They had volleyball, basketball, soccer, bocce ball, badminton and many more.

Matt and I were on the yellow team. And luckily the yellow team won for best dance! It was a lot of fun and even better because we had two days off from sschool! Pictures are on my website and they are pretty exciting to see!

swine flu mask proliferation!

Swine flu. Beware! It's quite a feat to try to enunciate english words through a bright green cloth over your mouth strapped to your face. Each classroom in the EP program has been given boxes of masks with the regulation that EVERY student MUST wear their mask in the classroom otherwise the air conditioner will be turned off. Not only do the students have to wear these masks, that are now colorfully decorated and drawn on, but the teachers also must wear these masks. I never did think that one day I would have my own personal surgical mask without an MD degree. Interesting.

But it is quite a culture shock to walk into a classroom where you can only see the eyes of each students peering out at you behind a green or white mask. Apparently the flu has become increasingly prevalent in the central Thailand area. But lucky for me I'm healthy as a horse and plan to keep it that way! I'll try and get some pictures of my classes soon to post!

July 4th Weekend

It is nice to have a long weekend for July 4th. Even though it was for Buddhist Lent and not US Independence Day, but all the same I suppose because we got a 5 day weekend. Also, Matt got here on Thursday! So we got to relax on Ko Samet for our long weekend! We took a 3 hours bus to Ban Phe which then we took a ferry about an hour to the island. The part of the island we were staying didn't have a dock so a tinier boat had to come pick us up from the ferry and drive us to the shore. Surprisingly, the area of the island there are lots of Thai's and barely any foreigners.

It did rain all day on Monday but Tuesday's weather was amazing. We made friends with one of the only foreign bartender's from Holland who ran The Baywatch Bar. He made a killer Long Island Iced Tea. We sadly came back on Wednesday afternoon, spent a little time in Bangkok and headed back to Suphanburi. All in all not a bad way to spend the holiday!

Oh those Thai crazies, they are out there.

I was all set for a relaxing weekend, with Friday off from school, to lay on an island 3 hrs South of Bangkok with my friend Glyn. I head out Friday morning get into Bangkok on time.. things are running smoothly enough for me to stop and eat some delicious American food before I head to the bus station. As I cross the street to the bus Station an attendant from one of the buses pulling out runs off the bus and asks where I'm heading. I say "wangchan, Rayong provience". He agrees shaking his head "yes, yes, here, here" I repeat.. "rayong? going to rayong?" he assures me that this is the bus to Wangchan, Rayong. Hesitantly, I get on the bus.. it can't be that easy.

Glyn tells me that it is a 3 hours ride to Wangchan and a 2.5 hour ride to Rayong city. I sit in the front row so the attendant can remember to tell me where to get off since I have never been there before. As 3 hours pass, no signs of wangchan or bus stops approaching. We also seem to be stopping every 5 minutes to pick up and drop off new people. I ask the man again.. "wangchan?" he says he will let me know when we get there. So I tell Glyn that we are definitely going to wangchan but I seem to not be describing what Glyn wants to hear. Finally, at the 5 hour mark, the attendant, who's smiling face I was about to drop kick, lets me off in Rayong city. Not only was I not in Wangchan but I had another 40 minute Songtaew ride into Glyn's town. After which Glyn had told me that we missed the last ferry to ko samet so we couldn't get there this weekend.

When I finally arrived in Wangchan we decided that drinks would be first priority and that the weekend we'll think about later. We hung out with Glyn's Thai friends and decided we would head into Bangkok the next day for the rest of the weekend. Later in the night Big Ass' (Glyn's Thai friend) mother comes back a bit after midnight with her catchings of grosshoppers. She goes into the fields at night and catches them by hand to sell at the market. Apparently they are quite the money maker. She fried some up for us.. and yes.. I ate some. They pretty much taste like whatever you fry them in, so it wasn't too bad. Quite an experience.

The next morning we get to the bus station and I'm actually quite excited that this bus ride will only be 3 hours. We get on the bus and an hour into our ride we hear a loud banging noise. We glance back and two rows back a Thai man is banging his head, hard, against the bus window. He had a charlie mansion look on his face and the attendant came running and wrestled him down. We had to pull the bus over at the local police station. The window was pretty well cracked and we were surprised the man's head wasn't swollen. They got him off the bus and since the window was broken we couldn't use that bus. We had to sit on the side of the road at high noon in the dead heat and wait for another bus to pass us by. We sat for about 2 hours. Which made this bus ride, another 5 hour ride. Of course.

Glyn and I found out later from a Thai woman who spoke some english that this man apparently wanted to break through the window and jump out of the bus?! So at least I didn't get to see that happen. Only in Thailand.

... and we had a good rest of the weekend once we got to Bangkok.

Back in action..

Well it has been a while readers. When I last left, it was Song Kran in April and I was preparing to be homeward bound. Well I've been home and back and then some. Home was great, and even better to see some familiar faces. But as it is never a dull moment in Thailand lots have been going on since I've been back. School started middle of May and brought with it new teachers, new students and new schedule. We are expecting more teachers middle of May which is exciting and we have a new teachers aid Sam from Tazmania and also a new Chinese teacher, SiSi.

June 4th was the first school-related "no classes" day so far this year. It was "teacher day" (wai kru). The gist of this day is that there are no classes and most of the teachers sit on a stage and all the student present their flower/fruit/vegetable arrangements to the teachers on stage. Now let me remind you the school is M1-M6 each class having many classes within the grade. For example: M1/1, M1/2, M1/3, M1/4.. and so on until about M1/10 or so. For each grade. So two people from each class come to present. This is a whoole day event. Morning: M1, M2, M3. Afternoon: M4, M5, M6. After the presentation of flowers, then awards are given. Luckily Brett and I were placed in the back row on stage so it was easy to "disappear" from time to time stage left. We stayed for most of the morning and not much of the afternoon. I did manage to take pictures though so check those out of the website.

Classes this year so far are good. I'm teaching M1/1 & M1/2 in Reading and Writing; M4 in fundamental and traveling around suphanburi (which as far as knowing the town I don't), M5 and M6. I actually enjoy teaching the older students as I thought I might not. But we are reading Matilda in my M5 and M6 classes, which is always interesting. That's all for now, more later.

March & April

School finished after finals on March 13th, so for the rest of March, I spend most of my time in Suphanburi relaxing and saving money, hence the missing blog entries. I felt I'd spare you from the boring details of the small town of Suphanburi. Most of the people from CIEE took backpacking trips before heading home, which will also be my plan for next March-May. Summer school started up April 1st and my last day is today! I'll be missing the last two days of school to head home to the states! I am definitely looking forward to seeing all of my friends and family and enjoying some American food! Yum. 

The only exciting thing that happened for April was the week of April 12-18, which was Protests + Song kran + My 23rd Birthday! On the 11th (Saturday) I headed into Bangkok to meet up with Heather, Glyn and Glyn's friend Alphabet (who went to VMI with Glyn, but now works at the Ministry of Defense in Thailand.. and yes, he's Thai). It was so nice to have someone who has a car in Bangkok and knows the area really well! He took us out to dinner Saturday night right on the river, it was very beautiful.

Sunday, Alphabet was a great host and took us to a wax museum in the morning and in the afternoon Heather and I were planning to get some shopping done. On our way to the shopping area, we were suddenly stuck in traffic, then all the pieces started to come together as to why we were in traffic. Big buses filled with army men in uniform + pedestrians coming out of back streets pulling red shirts over their heads + stopped cars. When we realized protests were starting  all of the cars starting turning around and when we finally got out Alphabet wanted to take us to another part of Bangkok. On our way, we saw army tanks rolling around the streets and protestors coming out of the woodworks. Because Alphabet worked for the government and army he was getting up to date information calls that there was a state of emergency declared, but he told us as long as he doesn't get called in, we won't really have to worry if we avoid it. And he didn't get called in. After shopping, we went back to the hotel to get ready to celebrate my Birthday! Alphabet took us out to dinner then to a hookah bar on a rooftop! It was a great 23rd birthday.

Monday was the start of SongKran festival. It's THE biggest festival in Thailand and very popular. It lasts for 3 days and everything is closed. Everyone is outside throwing water and powder on ANYONE they want. People are selling water guns, bottles of water, powder... and people have blocks of ice sitting in water to throw ice cold water at people. If you are in a tuk-tuk (an open taxi) you are fare game. While Heather and I were walking around our hotel, little children were chasing us down the streets and shooting us with water guns. Monday, the protests were getting worse and Heather was flying out that night so I decided it would be best to head back home. 

Tuesday, in Suphanburi, I went out with some of the village kids and Mr. Wat to enjoy Song Kran. We hopped in the back of a pick-up truck with garbage bins filled with water and buckets.  There was about 10 of us in the back while we drove around the streets of Suphan throwing water at anyone we could. The streets are lined with people standing on the sidewalks throwing water and pick-up after pick-up slowly driving down the streets. 

I was quite the target as I was probably the only farang participating. You would hear "Farang! Farang!" Then all of a sudden 5 kids jump on the back of the truck and start wiping my face with wet powder (like wet clay kind of) and dumping cold water on me. I had a great time though! Wednesday the festival was planned to end, but since the protests had caused a lot of things to be cancelled the government declared extended holiday until Friday. So I had the whole week off from school!

I will post pictures soon!

the month of goodbyes.

February has been filled with goodbye ceremonies, goodbye dinners, and cleaning out desks and houses. Matti was the first of us to leave. He got a job back in Finland and started shortly after he ended here. We had Matti's goodbye ceremony, then later that night had the goodbye dinner for Matti, Marty, Jen and Belinda. The next week was Marty, Jen and Belinda's goodbye ceremony and they left that weekend. Last Friday we had Catie, Kati and Lijuan's goodbye ceremony and last night we had their goodbye dinner. It's only Glendon, Brett and me left as the only fa-rangs (foreigners). Glendon will be leaving after summer school and then Brett and I will be anxiously waiting for the new arrivals. 

Matti's goodbye ceremony was the first introduction of what goes down in this emotional ceremony. All the students in the EP program gather in one of the empty rec rooms. The person or people leaving sit in front of everyone at a table to their hands folded together hanging off the table. Under their hands is a silver bucket type thing filled with flowers. First, Chaht makes a speech in Thai to the students about you then Tuke calls up a representative from each class. That student comes to the front and says some nice things in English about you and what you've done for them. Some classes sing songs, or read things to you or give you drawings. Then you say a few words about your experience and thank yous and whatnot. After, one by one the faculty first, lines up and pours water over your hands and says some meaningful words to you, the students follow by grade.

The goodbye dinners are just for the faculty to say a last goodbye and eat over some delicious food.  Chaht makes a speech, you make a speech and we all have a good time. The dinners seem to get smaller and smaller. Sad.

Pattaya & Valentine's Day

I've been a bit behind so I'll catch you up on my month of February. Catie, Heather and I spent the first full weekend in Pattaya. Apparently one of the most popular beach spots for tourists. There are lots of Swedish, Russian, and Finish people. Most of the Thai's who work there can speak at least one of those languages to be able to sell to those tourists. The beach was alright, but there was always something happening in town. Definitely a big nightlife spot we got to eat at a Mexican restaurant which was a nice change of pace. We stayed at a really cute hostel with a restaurant below and made friends with the waiters there. They were really nice. It was good to be able to lay on a beach again though!

The next weekend was Valentine's Day. Heather, Brittany, Catie and I decided that we would go into Bangkok and finally see the Sky Bar. It's a rooftop bar with an amazing view of Bangkok at night. Although the view is amazing it comes with a price. Drinks are very expensive so we only stayed for two but it was worth it!

yahtzee!

Well it certainly has been a while. King Bhumibol never looked so good on paper as much as he did in my wallet. Pay Day! Finally! Time for some traveling. This weekend, Heather and Brittany made their way on over to Suphanburi. Catie and I did some cleaning for their arrival and was so excited when they got here! We ate some delicious chicken with cashews and drank some singhas for dinner and tried to get to bed early for our site seeing adventures on Saturday. Saturday morning, bright and early 8.30am we met Marty, Belinda and Jen at school and hopped in our rented van and started off the Wat Muang (Biggest Sitting Buddha). Marty, Belinda, Catie and I have been there before but it is surely a site you can see more than once!

After the Buddha, we headed off to the Zoo & Aquarium, which was definitely the best part of the day! Only 20B (.57) entrance fee and we got to see some amazing things. Meerkats, tigers, orangutans and lots more. But the best part of the day was we paid another 20B to feed and hang out with baby Tigers! It was like playing with large cats. Once the lady handed me the bottle, one tiger started drinking and the other was trying to knock it out of the other tigers mouth and started whining. They would wrap their paws around the bottle and jump on our laps. One started biting Marty's shoe and my bag. It was really amazing.

We also got to hang out with an Orangutan named Jumbo. He was the friendliest and cutest orangutan I've ever seen. After walking around the zoo and aquarium for a while, we head over to the 100 year market. I only bought a few pieces of jewelry and a hand made wooden jenga set. But it was nice to walk around and see what they were selling.  After the market, our last stop was the Chinese Dragon Temple close to our house. 

After we got back home, we ordered some pizzza, and got ready to try our luck at a Thai night club, which apparently we have in Suphanburi. It was definitely interesting. And we were the only foreigners in the place. There is nothing quite like walking through a sea of people in really dark lighting, but since you are the only blonde in the building, being stared at when you walk by. We had fun though and met up with some of the other teachers we work with. Well we have next monday off so long weekend! Which means some more beach time! 

Kanchanaburi

For the rest of the NYE weekend we headed out to Kanchanaburi. We got there Thursday night, woke up Friday morning and did some site seeing. Friday, we got to WWII museums and a Temple in the early afternoon. Then later in the afternoon we got a ride to the Tiger Temple. It was really amazing. You get to sit next to and pet Tigers. They feed the Tigers before and lay them in the sun so they are tired and lazy. Brittany and I wanted to pay extra to be able to hold the head of the Tiger in our laps but when we got into the pit of Tigers, all of the Tigers started to waken up a lot of start walking around so they would not let anyone hold the heads. So we got the regular pictures instead. After we saw the Tigers we could walk around the grounds of the rest of the Temple. This Temple takes in orphaned animals and takes care of them. They had peacocks, wild boars, a camel, birds, cows, horses. Tons of different animals.

Saturday, we got up early and got on a bus to the Erawan National Park. It has a seven-tiered waterfall that is amazing. It's a 700m hike up to the seventh tier. Each tier you get to has a different waterfall look and it truly amazes you. Even hiking from one to the next is a feat. As you get higher the trail gets smaller, rockier and steeper. We spent a lot of time at the first two

tiers thinking we would have time to get to the seventh and swim at each. We started around 10am walking up to the first and got to the 5th around 2pm. We rushed up to the seventh and then got a bit of exercise running all the way back down the mountain to catch the bus at 4pm. We got to swim in some of the waterfalls, and had a really awesome time exploring the National Park. It is definitely worth the trip. And the pictures are just a small part of how amazing some of the waterfalls and views are.

Christmas Eve, Christmas and NYE

Christmas Eve was quite eventful. Jen, Marty and Belinda, the three tazmanian teachers that are there for 3 months, found us tickets to the AFF Thailand vs. Vietnam Soccer Cup Finals. We rented a van to take to Bangkok for the day right after school. We had great seats. About 3rd row right in view of one of the goals. We bought so much Thai paraphernalia everyone wanted pictures of us. We bought scarves, flags, wristbands, ribbons, and t-shirts. I think we posed for about 50 pictures with Thai people stopping us every 5 minutes. We had a really good time though. Thailand lost 2-1 in the last few minutes of the game. 

Christmas was not so eventful. We had to work, which sucked. But most of us refused to actually have class. I showed The Grinch my classes and we just relaxed. In the morning after my first class, Bank who works in the office told us that we had to go to the hospital for a physical for our work permit. So Catie and I sat in a hospital on Christmas for 3 hours, peeing in cups, taking X-Rays, and waiting in lines. It was a blast! But even though the hospital was pretty bad when we got back to school there was a Christmas lunch of pizza and Thai food waiting for us which was nice of the Thai staff to do for us. Definitely a memorable Christmas. 

New Years Eve Catie and I headed to Bangkok to meet up with Heather, Brittany, Sara and Mary. We stayed in a nice hotel and went to Center World Plaza for the countdown. I think underestimated how packed it was actually going to be in Bangkok when we headed downtown. It was so packed and crowded we started getting frustrated. There were a few areas closed of for people with wristbands. Each area was sponsored by a different Thai beer. One area, the Chang beer area, was the only one with no wristbands so we figured we'd go for it. We hoped over the fence with some Chang beer cans and walked casually into the area. There was a stage with a band playing in each area, tables, chairs, sections with couches and steps. We found a waitress who seemed to like us and led us to an empty table! By 11:30 we had beers, a table and an awesome view for the fireworks. It seemed to work out pretty nicely! Right after the countdown, a group of people left the couch area and we grabbed that and stayed all night partying with the Thai people next to us. Not a bad New Years Eve!

Phuket

Phuket was probably the most amazing weekend yet, since I've been in Thailand. We left right after we got back Friday from camp for the airport in Bangkok. We met up with Heather and Sara since Brittany was already in Phuket with Colin. We arrived in Phuket around midnight and Colin had a car waiting for us at the airport. We pulled up to the Aleenta resort and met up with Colin and Brittany. 

The resort was gorgeous, and our room was even more amazing. We had a loft with a king size bed, an amazing bathroom with hottub and standing shower, our own private pool and deck and glass doors looking out to the pool that opened all the way. That night we found out that Brittany got into Med School! So we celebrated a little bit before bed! The next morning we woke up pretty early because Colin had rented a private 40ft speedboat to take us island hopping aall day! We left at 8am and returned at 5pm, we saw about 5-7 islands. We ate lunch on a deserted island and the crew on the boat set up a picnic for us, which was delicious! It felt pretty unreal! When we got back from our trip we ate dinner at the hotel and relaxed. 

Sunday we had a full day to hang out. Brittany and Colin went to do some activities, and four of us decided to enjoy the resort. We laid on the beach, went in our pool, had breakfast brought to our room, and made sure we took some hot showers while we could. We left Sunday night around 9pm. Overall, a wonderful weekend thanks to Colin!

Camping Trip

Well the week before Christmas, our school took a camping trip. The M1s and M2s went to Chonburi and Catie and Matti went with them, and Marty, Lijuan and I went with the M3, M4, and M5s to Chantanburi. We camped out in tents and got to hang out with the kids. The camp was kind of like a marine biology trip. They learned about mangrove trees, we went to aquariums, and goat farms, but since the whole trip was in Thai Marty, Lijuan and I pretty much hung around together. There was a beach right near our camping grounds so the kids got to go swimming, and at night the kids all got together and sang songs, danced and played on the drums. One of the nights the kids had to complete some brain teasers in groups together. Puzzle pieces and races were some of them. We also got to go to a dolphin show and a mangrove tree tour, which was in thai was pretty interesting to walk around. On the last day, all the thai teachers that were with us, brought in some seafood and beer.