Nicole's Visit!

I had my last visitor come in January, my friend, Nicole! She came on January 3 and was leaving the next week.  So Mel came with me to meet her in Bangkok for the weekend.  We met at a hostel and talked about what she wanted to do for the next couple of days. We decided to head to the Siam Paragon, a giant mall in Bangkok. It has Ocean World, the "Largest Aquarium in Southeast Asia" in it and Nicole was interested in doing that.  It was filled with crazy, colorful, exotic fish and interesting tours. We got to have our feet cleaned by fish, do a glass bottomed boat tour to see sharks and go behind the scenes of the aquarium.  It was pretty cool and all underneath this mall.

We went shopping at Chatuchak market and saw The Hobbit at the movie theater.  I love taking visitors to the movies because everyone stands before the movie starts for the King's song and a little video for him.  I really like it and it is so different than America. The next night Nicole and I took the night train to Chiang Mai.  It was so fun! We had two lower beds and had so much fun watching Northern Thailand go by and catching up. 

When we got to Chiang Mai we found a nice place to stay and headed right out to Tiger Kingdom. Nicole played with the medium, small, and smallest tigers. They were so cute and she had a lot of fun! After the tigers we went to the Chiang Mai Zoo! I had never been before so I was excited! It was huge and it's big attraction was three pandas! We rode around on the trams and fed all kinds of animals until we had seen the whole zoo.  Then we were both pretty exhausted. We did lots of shopping at the Night Bazaar and Nicole got to try lots of different Thai food! I am so glad she got to visit and see a part of my life here!

On another note...Mel, Kate, Mimi, Amanda, and I are leaving for Cambodia tonight! AH! The school told us awhile ago that from the 28th of January until the 5th of February they had rented the school out   and so there would be no teaching! We were so excited! But then we heard we would still need to thumb in (check-in) on those days and so would not really have those days off..needless to say we were not very happy! We talked to Nooters and Lockers about it and they agreed that it did not make sense for us to stay in Phrae for these days when there would be no students.  They convinced the Director to let us have those days off on THURSDAY and we immediately went into planning mode! The five of us began planning Cambodia, Brandon is visiting a friend in Bangkok and Soddy and Leah are going down South and island hopping.  We are all so excited! Until next time... :-)

New Years in Krabi!

I seriously suck at writing my blog this semester, I am really sorry! Sixth grade is getting ready for this National test so that has taken up a lot of my free time and now we are all starting to plan and think about our travel plans after teaching. It has been sort of stressful and super busy but when those are your biggest stresses, you know you're doing something right!

Anywho, Mel, Soddy, Leah, Mimi and I took the night bus to Bangkok after school on Wednesday and arrived around 4:30am.  We headed to the Don Muang Airport where we caught our Air Asia flight down to Krabi! We took Thursday, Friday and the next Wednesday off from work so we would be able to have a really nice vacation. We arrived around 10am on Thursday and headed to where we were staying, Pan Beach Bungalows. It was so nice. The bungalows were pretty basic and there was only electricity from 6pm until 6am, but that doesn't really matter if you are at the beach all day! The bungalows were right on the beach and a private beach at that, with only about 4 or 5 other people from Pan staying there.  So luxurious and only for $6 a night! We immediately got in our suits, jumped in the water and ordered Western food. So fun!

 The beach was in a bay and there were a lot of islands in the bay, so Soddy and I decided to swim out to a nearby one. It was so cool!
As it gets later the tide goes out and we were left with little lagoons and you could eventually walk out to the island I had swam to earlier! There was also a wedding going on that was so beautiful and we watched it from our lounge chairs as we watched the sun set. So perfect.

The next day we signed up for a snorkeling tour. The boat master, Eat, and his son, picked us up in a longboat from our beach and took us to nine different islands! We swam around off of one island, saw SO many different colored fish on one island, sea snakes off of another, ate lunch on the most beautiful island, watched the sun set and the moon rise on another, and played with phosphorescent fish at another! It was incredible! We all just kept saying how much fun we were having and how incredible the day was. Amazing.

Soddy, Me, Mel, Leah and Mimi!

We stayed at Pan for two days and then moved into the city of Krabi for three at a more central location. We, of course, did beach time, got massages, tons of Western food, (hello pizza!?) and met up with friends from around Thailand. Mimi, Leah and I were having dinner one night, spilling our hearts when I told them about the tattoo I wanted to get above my scar to commemorate this move to Thailand and show how far I have come after my diagnosis. They were so enthused and encouraged me to get it! What better place than the most beautiful place in the world?! We found a place that does bamboo tattoos, the traditional method in Thailand and usually done by a monk. I was really excited and knew this was the right time and place.  It didn't hurt as much as the machines ones and turned out exactly as I wanted. Elephants are lucky in Thailand, so it goes with my other two and they are all on my right side, which is where the cancer was found. Need all the luck on that side! The bamboo tattoos heal faster than machine so I was out the next day on the beach and totally fine! I am so happy and will never forget that experience and those girls who held my hand, took pictures, and supported me through this past semester :-)

Love this pic of Leah and me

Getting my new tattoo!

All done! With my tattoo artist, Beer.

On New Years Eve, we got Indian food for dinner and then headed to the beach! People were lighting lanterns and gathering on the sand.  We met up with Amanda and her boyfriend, Clai, and Brandon and some of his friends.  We all immediately took off our shoes and waded into the water, getting ready to ring in the new year! People started counting down and as we said "Happy New Year," tons of lanterns flew into the air and fireworks were exploding everywhere! It was such a great New Years! I was able to call my Mom and tell her that the world hadn't ended, oh and about my new tattoo...and she took it great! What a trooper!

On New Years Day some people weren't really feeling up for much of anything, if you know what I mean...So Soddy and I decided to go off by ourselves. We took a longboat taxi to Tonsai Beach and rented some kayaks for a couple hours. Then, we kayaked over to nearby Railay Beach and nearby islands.  Then we found some caves and mangroves! It was amazing! Paddling through them and maneuvering the rocks were awesome, it was like a Disney ride! SO fun.

Unfortunately we had to go home at some point. We took a night bus back to BKK, which took 11 hours, then hopped on another bus to Phrae, another 8 hours! We were pretty much slugs the rest of the day and then had to teach Thursday and Friday.  But it was all worth it!

Christmas Chaos

Christmas was unlike any Christmas I have ever had.  Of course, it was in Thailand. The Thai teachers wanted the foreign teachers to put on a show for the students, on Christmas Day.  We had meetings every Thursday after school for hours trying to come up with ideas that everyone liked and agreed with.  It was not coming together and Christmas was coming up! Finally, the week before, we came up with a Christmas carnival idea with six stations and two foreign teachers at each station.  That way, everyone could do what they wanted at the station and everyone would be happy.  The Thai teachers were not that excited, they really wanted to see us sing and dance and make Christmas fools of 

ourselves.  

6/1's Christmas Tree!

Some fun art projects we did!

On Christmas we were all feeling a little nostalgic and sad that we weren’t with our families.  We were all also a little nervous that this day was going to be crazy! We sang “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” at assembly and then broke off into our stations.  We had pratom 1, 2, and 3 coming in the morning and then 4, 5, and 6 in the afternoon so it was going to be a busy day! There are about 35 students in every class and we would be getting up to 4 classes at a time, every 20 minutes! Goodness. Leah and I were doing “Pin the Nose on the Snowman.” We made two huge snowmen and cut out some noses for the kids to try to tape on.  We put a Santa hat over their eyes and then spun them three times. The little kids were so cute! There were so many kids each time that not everyone got to go :-/  The students each had to bring a present for a gift exchange they do each year that was up to 50 baht and we each brought one that was 100 baht so a few lucky students got a special surprise. 

 One of the stations was Santa handing out the presents to the students, another was a Christmas Tree drawing contest, a dance competition station, and then some other games.  Leah teaches pratom 5 and I teach pratom 6, so we quickly knew that pin the nose on the snowman was not going to fly with the older kids. We tried to think of some new fun ideas for them and Leah really wanted to do a Christmas rap! Our first group was 6/1, 6/2, 6/3 and 6/7.  I beatboxed while she rapped a Christmas song, it was so funny and so embarrassing. Afterwards, we told them to get in groups and come up with their own rap. It did not go over well. Haha they were all too shy to do it or didn’t understand what we wanted...great. Then we decided to play charades with the next group.  One student would come up and pick “Santa Claus” or “snowman” and have to act it out.  It went ok but was too hard for such a large group.  The next group we broke them up into 2 large groups and had them play “Duck, Duck, Goose!” It was so much better and they loved the huge circles they would have to run around.  We did that the rest of the time and were all super exhausted when the day was finally over! 

Pin the Nose on the Snowman!

So cute!

Christmas Rapping!

However, the day wasn’t completely over.  The director wanted to take us to dinner for Christmas, super nice but they always think we want to eat American food, so they take us to this disgusting “Steak House” that has no form of steak whatsoever! We would rather have great Thai food than bad American food... There is a weird hot dog thing, fish and pork. The french fries and beer are good though! We had a lot of fun all together at this unconventional Christmas dinner and made the best of being away from our families.  

I was able to skype with my family during their Christmas Day. But it kind of just made it harder to see them all together and doing our traditional Christmas things, while I  taught Buddhist Thai children about this Christian holiday. 

It made it a little easier that we were leaving the next day for Krabi for a week vacation! We all had been so excited and preparing for weeks. We took the night bus to Bangkok, got their around 4 and then headed straight to the airport for our flight down to Krabi! 

To be continued....