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. 

Merry Christmas!

I will be blogging soon about our school camping trip and Phuket, but for now Happy Holidays!

My 4's Class (10th Grade)

Catie's 5's class (11th Grade)

My 1's Class (7th Grade)

Koh Chang/Half Moon Party

Well this past weekend, Catie and I met up with some friends in Koh Chang. It's an island off of Trat which is in Southeast Thailand on the coast.  It took us about an 1 to get to Bangkok, then a 5 hour bus ride to Trat then another half hour ferry ride over, but we had friday off so leaving on thursday wasn't bad. We ended up getting to Koh Chang at 7am Friday morning. We spent all day friday beachside. The water was clear blue, you could see your feet even at about 100 yards out.  Friday night, we stayed near this bar right on the beach and a most of the CIEE program participants were there. It was nice to see everyone since we left orientation.

Saturday we got up and took a little hike to a waterfall pretty close by. It was really cool to see and the water was so fresh and felt so cold compared to the ocean which felt like a bath. The rest of the day we laid on the beach and relaxed. That night, we got some food and headed to a half moon party on the beach. They had a DJ on the beach with dancing and a fire show. Sunday, we woke up, got some breakfast and headed out as early as we could. It was quite a hike home, which ended with Catie and I having to take a cab from Bangkok to Suphanburi since there were no buses left. Overall, it was a very relaxing weekend and it's nice to see paradise once and a while.

Action Packed Weekend

Well the last weekend in November Catie and I had plans for an action packed weekend. Friday, we didn't do much because Saturday we had to wake up early to help judge a competition at another school close by. We finished around noon and a group of us from our EP program rented a minivan for our weekend activities.

Saturday, we left around 4:00pm and headed to Kanchanaburi. It was the reenactment of the WWII bombing of the bridge over the river kwai. We shopped for a bit then sat down, ate dinner, and watched the show. There were fireworks, and lights covering the bridge and a little show they put on although it was narrated in Thai so we didn't really know what was going on in the show part. After the show was over, we drove back to Suphanburi, which is only about an hour and a half to two hours away.

Sunday, we woke up around 7am and had a long day ahead of us. Our first stop was Lop Buri for the monkey festival. There is an ancient ruin in the middle of the town and most of the monkeys live and play there, but tons of them roam the streets. For the festival they had tables of food waiting for the monkey to feast. It was quite a sight. After the monkey feeding we headed to an ancient palace pretty close by. 

We got to roam around the grounds from building to building. It was a pretty interesting

 place.  After the palace we hoped in our van and headed to the sunflower fields. There were about 200,000 - 300,000 sunflowers and fields just covered the grounds. We walked around in them and bought some delicious sunflower seeds. 

Our last stop was the giant buddha in Suphanburi. The buddha is about 97m high which is about 320ft.  When you first walk in there are statues and scenes set up to portray hell. They are pretty descriptive and intense to walk through, but once you walk through them you come upon a giant sitting buddha. It was quite an exciting weekend.