สุขสันต์วันคริสตร์มาส (thats merry christmas in thai)

this past weekend was the first in which i did not venture into the city or go on other various trips. the cause was the much anticipated christmas show/party at school. when steinar and i showed up saturday at 6, we had no idea what to expect. what we found, in addition to the decked out school and gigantic stage, were over a hundred tables sprawled out in the courtyard area, with many of the seats at the tables already filled up.

just after 6, the show began. each class had choreographed a dance and been practicing it for months now. the show started with the youngest, who are 2 years old, shaking maracas for a good 5 minutes to no beat at all. as they were progressing by age, the first hour or so of the show was less than thrilling, and i was reminded of my old dance recitals when the younger kids would have their teacher in front of them and still be unable to hold it together for a few minutes.

finally, the kindergardeners ended and it came time for my students to perform. i had seen many of them practicing and was excited to see them do it live. after they performed, they were allowed to come out into the audience and so i was able to meet some of their parents, though most of them dont speak any english so the meeting was very brief.

we came back on sunday and this time were put to work, handing out programs at the front entrance. not having uniforms like the other teachers, it seemed as though some parents thought that we were handing out advertisements, not programs, and seemed to shy away or duck past us as quickly as possible.

after the show began, we were put to work in the "prize present" area. what this consisted of was a huge present with holes cut into it on each side. with their entry ticket, everyone got another ticket to claim a plastic egg from this present. inside the egg were papers with letters on them, which determined which prize they won. im not sure who created the giant present, but they were not thinking. they should have known that it was going to be mostly little kids doing the egg picking, and made the holes closer to the ground. ill tell you, working that station and picking up kids all night while its 80 degrees and wearing a santa hat with lights in it make you sweat. and this made it feel like anything BUT christmas.

following the show, there were many photo ops. it didnt matter who the camera being used belonged to, everyone jumped in. and after they jumped in, they wanted pictures of just them with certain people. being white, steinar and i became like another, live, attraction, and students as well as teachers and parents, were stopping to pose with us. id sum it up by saying the phrase of the night was "teacha, one more pictah!"

so that was my weekend. for christmas, the group of us in bangkok have done a secret santa drawing and were planning to do a "party" on christmas. some of the group is heading down to an island, and so it will be smaller than expected but at least we will be together. ill be staying in the city with steph at her place, which has a pool, so it wont feel much like christmas anyway.

sunday night i leave for laos to do my visa run. im going with a company that does two runs a week, so im not worried, but i am not going with anyone i know. ill only be there for two days anyway, and then i come back tuesday night and wednesday night leave on the overnight bus down to koh phangan, an island south of here known for its full moon parties. we are actually staying in koh samui, and going to koh phangan for new years even, when there happens to be a full moon party as well. it should be madness.

theres a good chance i wont post again until i get back from traveling, but i will be checking email if you want to send me greetings :)

happy holidays to everyone!!!

do you seem to be lacking holiday spirit?

borrow some from thailand.

for a buddhist country where only a fraction of a percentage of people celebrate christmas, they seem to have an abundance of christmas cheer. the students have been practicing for the christmas show for months and the set was finally finished today, just in time because all this weekend is the show for parents and then they do it again thursday, on christmas eve, instead of having classes.

the stage is in the courtyard and the teachers have been spending every extra second they have working on it. there are lights in every tree and fake icicles and snow on every building. its strange to see that every aspect of their idea of christmas here is shaped by our own customs.

its also the absolute worst time to be preparing for midterms, which is what ive been doing this week, as next week i begin the speaking portions of the exams. see, the thai exams are a few weeks after the new year, and we are suppose to be finished our exams by then. however, throughout all of my review sessions this week and even today during the beginning parts of the speaking exams, students kept having to leave to practice their dances or there was music blaring outside the door from them testing out the sound system.

im sure the show will be amazing and the party will be fun. im really excited to see it this weekend, and i have to admit its almost a comfort that the kids here are getting just as excited as kids back home would. its just frustrating how much of the structure has been shoved aside, and it would be nice if i could be doing some fun activities with the kids related to the holidays rather than hounding them with questions in a language they cannot comprehend.

its the little things

ive been lacking inspiration to write about lately, so today in school i went through all of my old posts. i realized i mentioned some things that i have not followed up on, so ill use this post to make updates to some of those things.

first, the names.

i started trying to learn them by making seating charts and using their nicknames. after doing so, they promptly rearranged most classrooms. there goes that plan.

so after the first two weeks of school, i decided to have all my classes make name tags which they would use every time in class. of course, many of them lost those after the first day, but there are still some that have theirs, and some that even have theirs out before i walk into the room and ask them to place them on their desks. after a week or so, i took pictures of them holding their name tags, kind of like mug shots, that i have on my computer.

it worked out, and even though im pretty sure im pronouncing many of them wrong, i can recall at least half of their nicknames when i see them in the halls or at gate duty in the morning.

next, my goals.

ive been pretty good at keeping up with most of them. i wish i was running more, but its just so freaking hot and humid here that it makes it hard to do so on a regular basis. a few weeks ago there were about two weeks that it cooled down a bit and i was able to go almost every day, and the looks i got from people as a female running on my own in the evening could compare to those steinar and i received when we were trying to get my keys out of the sewer.

there was one goal i realized i didnt put on my list that i should have, and which i have accomplished beyond what i could have imagined, and that was meeting new people/making new friends. if said it before but i cant say it enough: the group we are here with is simply amazing. ive started to worry about what i will do when most of them go home at the end of this term. i know it wont be horrible, but there is definitely something to be said for having them there to go to during the weekends.

the drawings.

the ones i had the kids draw on the very first day of class. the ones i used to clean up the ants with. the ones i had a personal goal of finding as many uses for as possible. they are sitting in a cubboard in my room. i havent found any other uses yet :(

babysitting.

for the first two weeks, this meant tutoring grace and guy at my school for about an hour. after that, i was asked to meet them at their house after school, with an increase in pay and the need to leave school early, at 3 everyday. after the first week of that, someone at the school discovered that i also know spanish, and so now i am teaching them that as well, with another pay increase.

both of the kids are great. they are very good at both reading and speaking english, though grace is definitely more advanced, and they offer me a chance to interact with kids who can actually understand me. also, while im at their house, i am always given either a pastry or fresh fruit for a snack. they are definitely well off, having multiple women at the house at all times as help, in addition to two houses, one for the family and one for the live-in housekeeper, nanny, cook, etc.

their school has been on winter holiday for the last two weeks until the new year, so i thought i would have a little bit of a break again. but no, last tuesday i showed up at school to find out i would be tutoring at the school for an hour, from 4-5, every day this month since they knew i wouldnt be with the twins. oy.

my "routine."

obviously, the babysitting and tutoring have changed this a bit. since i dont get home until 5 or later, the time i am there seems to go faster. however, even though i am doing more, i have fallen back into the routine i have at home, where it takes me forever to fall asleep, and it is then that i REALLY wish we had internet at our apartment. we seriously need to work on that. it would make a world of a difference, and give me better opportunities to talk to people.

my keys.

no more incidents....yet.

quick note.

i found out today that more people back home are reading this than i originally thought. so, if you are, drop a message or become a follower or something! it would make me very happy.

to comment: click on the comments section under each entry.

to follow: click the follow link at the top of the page.

that is all.

a grand place indeed.

we finally got around to heading into bangkok and seeing some of what makes this city so special. we were off again on thursday for constitution day and decided that we were going to take advantage of that and see the grand palace. by the time we got the group together and arrived at the location, it was already 1:00. this didnt give us much time inside since it closes daily at 3:30. some of our group needed to rent clothing because of the strict dress code and so that took time as well.

finally, we got inside. it was amazing. reminded me a lot of things i saw back when i was in india and i was reminded again of how similar, but still different, these cultures are. this is me just inside the main entrance:

the main reason people go to see the grand palace is the temple that is a part of it which houses the famous emerald buddha. its actually not emerald, but jade. apparently there was a common practice years back of covering the buddhas made of richer materials with plaster to hide what it was really worth. there was a person who noticed the plaster chipping on the nose and saw green shining through and automatically assumed it was emerald, so the story goes.

we spent most of our time at the temple and didnt even realize that we hadnt yet made it to see the actual palace, which looks like this:

but the whole place closes at 330 every day, and it was extremely hot in the sun, so we decided to hang around and grab some fruit shakes and food downtown as an end to the afternoon.

since i was in town the night before, i did not take my slr camera with me. it was unfortunate because i saw so many interesting photos at this site. however, i am sure it is somewhere i will visit again, hopefully when someone from back home makes it out here to visit. *hint*hint*

kanchanaburi weekend, part 2

luckily, the other group had hired a sang thoew for the day so it was there to pick them up and they let us jump on with them. because it was a private ride and it was smaller, the trip back didnt take nearly as long. still, by the time we arrived back in kanchanaburi we were starving.

we had dinner at a hotel that will and andrew were staying at and were able to eat right by the water. as it began to get dark out, we saw barges with loud music passing every couple of minutes. We asked what they were and were told they are party boats essentially, bars that float up and down the river. the group was split about wanting to try that out, but ultimately we ended up no getting on one. we chose names for secret santa and by the time we got back to our places, it was almost 9.

we had seen a sign on one of the streets that said that the room we were in was 590 baht, so when we got back, we tried to talk to the desk and get an answer. the owner, sugar, who owns the bar we had been going to, said she would come meet to talk to us but never did, so we went next door to where the others were staying and played connect four and uno for a few hours before heading out to the bars.

the next morning, we decided it was time to deal with the room issues. the day before, emily and beth had both talked to sugar on the phone and so it was my turn this time. i explained to her that a price was only mentioned once to us on friday before checking in and that was 250 and 350 for the rooms. we were willing to pay the 350 and 590 she was asking for the second night, but were not happy about it. after arguing, calmly, for a few minutes, she threatened to call the police, so i passed the phone off to beth.

it ended up that she gave us 80 baht off each night, but on principle, we checked out of that hotel and went down the street to sams. in this place, we were staying on a barge that was docked but floating on the water. it was great. and sam spoke english very well since he had studied at rutgers years ago. he had even lived in tacoma park for a few months!

he talked to us for a bit and we told him we wanted to see the bridge and some other things around town, so he suggested that we take a boat tour. there were 12 of us and each boat cost 600 baht, so it ended up only being 100 each. for a few hours, we traveled up and down the river kwai, and it was amazing.

our first stop was the bridge, made famous by the movie "bridge over the river kwai." the city of kanchanaburi itself is completely based around the pow camp that existed there during wwii and this bridge built by pows as well as used to transport them, where thousands died on the trip or in the camp.

next, we went to the other end and saw a wat inside of a cave. while crawling through the winds and nooks, it occurred to us that we didnt know how they built the wats or the buddhas inside of the cave, but there was no one to ask, since our tour guide was a 7 or 8 year old thai boy.

following the cave, we went to the jeath war museum and learned more about the history of the bridge and the town. there were pictures, newspaper clippings, artifacts and paintings made by the pows while they were being held by the japanese.

we arrived back at the hotel and ate and napped for a bit before the boats came back to get us again for a light and sound show that happens at the bridge every sunday and wednesday night. it was amazing. we were watching it from the water rather than in chairs on the land and even though we couldnt really understand what was happening, we got the gist, since it was a war reenactment complemented by fireworks, music, halograms and lights. there were even people set on fire who then jumped off the bridge or boat into the water. it was definitely worth witnessing.

it did last longer than we expected though, and by the time we were showered and had dinner, it was already 11. after such a long two days, most of us who stayed and didnt head back to bangkok decided to head to bed early. we got up the next day and finally had some of the breakfast foods i had been craving, then walked down to see the war cemetery that is in the center of town before the long trek back home.

we decided to take a mini bus back, thinking it would be quicker and more comfortable, but it ended up taking longer because of the holiday and we were jammed in so it was not either. it took us back to khaosan where the roads were shut down for more celebrations and getting a cab back to my villiage took quite a while. by the time i arrived at my apartment, it was almost 9 and i was exhausted, but thrilled by the weekend i had just experienced.

kanchanaburi weekend, part 1

hands down, this was one of the best weekends ive had since coming to bangkok, and possibly thailand in general. with the three day weekend (read why here), riha loosely organized a trip over to kanchanaburi, a town about 2 1/2 hours to the west of the city, and 14 of us from the bangkok group ended up joining in on the fun.

we left friday night. half went from the northern bus terminal around 530, when the last bus from that station took off. the rest of us met in pinklao to leave from the south bus terminal at 630. we didnt actually arrive at the bus station until closer to 730-8 and didnt get on the bus until around 9. by that time, the other group had already made it to kanchanaburi and found out that, due to the long weekend, most of the hotels had no vacancies, and that part of that group got the last two rooms at the one they were staying at. obviously, this made us worry about what we would do when we got there a few hours later.

when we got to the bus station in kanchanaburi, we decided the best thing to do first was call around to some of the places we were given brochures for when we bought the bus tickets. the first place we called was rainbow lodge, and we were told that they had two rooms open for the night, one at 250 baht and one for 350 baht. there were five of us and we decided we would take it, so they sent a driver to pick us up free of charge.

it was just a short drive to the hotel, and we got there and were lead to our two rooms, which were actually little bungalows.

one, without aircon, had two twin beds, and the other, with aircon, had a double. we decided the best thing to do was to pick names out of a hat to decide which three people would share the double, and it ended up being me beth and emily, while amy and neil each got their own bed but without ac. after dropping our things off, the same guy who picked us up form the bus station, who spoke english so well he almost sounded native, offered to take us to a bar, which was owned by the same person who owned our hotel. it was walkable, so it only took a few minutes by car to arrive at sugar member, the bar that stays open past 12 when its legally suppose to stop serving alcohol. we met up briefly with the rest of the group but didnt stay out too late since we had to wake up early the next morning.

erawan national park is about an hour from kanachaburi and the park closes at 4, so the plan was to leave "early." apparently, we didnt get up early enough, because the other group had left by 10. we made it to the bus station and got on the 1030 bus, but since it was a public bus, it took almost 2 hours to get to the park with all of the stopping and how slow it had to go uphill, being such a big vehicle. when we called the other group, they were already at the 2nd tier of the waterfalls, so we knew we had to move fast.

by the time we caught up to them, it was already the 4th tier of 7. the rest of the gang decided to go swimming at that level, but i chose to stay out and take pictures with my camera. it was at this level that there were "slides" in the sides of the rocks and i was able to get some good shots of people going down them and in the water. we decided if we were going to make it to the top in time to actually enjoy it, we would go straight there from that level, so we booked it to the 7th tier. at the lower levels, there were steps and railings, but as we got higher, though we were still following paths, we were climbing rocks and trekking through smaller paths and more trees. we made it to the top, where we had been told there were rock formations in the shape of three elephants, which was seen as a good sign. this is what it looked like:

which might maybe resemble one elephant head. but since there was no where to swim at the top, we decided to head back down to the lower levels. it was a much quicker journey going down, and at tier 2 i decided to swim and get behind the falls. however, those pictures are on beths camera so a picture of that tier will have to suffice for now.

we knew that the bottom levels stayed open til 5, but just before 4 we were told the last buses leave at 4, so we rushed down to try to catch them. however, when we got there, we discovered that the one time "thai time" apparently does not exist is when buses leave for the night. the only vehicles left were private buses or vans that had already been hired.

my new favorite form of transportation.

the rumors about bangkok traffic are true: its some of the worst i have encountered. the lights in the directions i always want to be going last about 20 seconds while we wait at the intersection for 200+ seconds (i know because the lights have counters on them) for the traffic going down the cross streets. and the whole thing about lanes is kind of pointless, since it seems that those are used by the drivers own discretion.

one solution to this problem is motorbikes, which are used as taxis very frequently. they can zip through the bigger cars and on some of the smaller roads they can go faster. the problems here are 1. they do not have meters, so you must bargain the prices with them 2. they do not go to places that are very far and 3. you cannot travel in groups.

so theres another solution: river boats. and they happen to be my new favorite form of transportation. previously, i had tried out the watertaxi system in bangkok down the chao phraya. for 13 baht you can go all the way down the river, and you get a nice breeze and view while youre at it. definitely beats sitting in a cab in traffic when the minimum is 35 baht.

then this weekend while in kanchanaburi, we were about to go see the bridge over the river kwai when the man who owns the place we were staying at suggested a boat tour instead. for 100 baht per person, we were taken from our hotel to the bridge, from the bridge to a cave, the cave to a museum, and then back to our hotel. it was such a nice day and being on the water gave us a completely new perspective, while at the same time, it was the perspective best suited for this town, as life here does revolve around the river.

now, if only a system of canals and rivers could be dug for me by the time i get back to the east coast, that would be fab.

his royal highness.

his majesty, king bhumibol adulyadej, also known as king rama ix, turned 82 this past saturday, december 5th. not only is he extremely popular and loved by all here in thailand, but he is also the current longest ruling monarch in the world, at 63 years. here, they celebrate his birthday extravagantly and have declared it fathers day as well. as a national holiday, schools and government systems are usually closed down on this day, but since it was on a saturday this year, it became a long weekend, and we had monday off instead.

the celebrations do not just last this weekend, though. they started a week ago with songs and prayers at schools and go officially until the 13th. on khaosan, there are lights and decorations up and they have parades and light shows. fireworks displays have been sporatically going off throughout the country. and even more pictures of the king have been on display and the yellow and pink king shirts are worn by an even higher percentage of the population than usual.

on his actual birthday, bars are closed and stores cannot sell alcohol. at 719 pm, the time he was born, the biggest ceremonies get kicked off across the country.

for all of these reasons, we had a three day weekend.

what i did on my first payday.

there are few things as satisfying as holding a wad of money, especially after pinching for the last week or so and living and traveling for two months without any income. yesterday was payday, and since i have no work permit yet, i got paid in full in cash. i was holding tens of thousands (of baht, unfortunately) in my hands, and it was nice.

so what did we do to celebrate? we went to carrefour. our apartments are rather lacking and there was much on our list of what we needed: at the very top, mattress pads to make it seem less like we were sleeping on wooden tables. so we ventured out to the mecca of all things westernized and blew a good portion of our salary. two and a half hours later, it was totally worth it.

id like to say the most rewarding purchase of the trip was what i bought to make my bed softer, and though there is definitely a difference, i think it will take longer than one night for my body to start to feel normal again. instead, im sticking with saying that my favorite thing that ended up in my cart was the goldfish crackers. mmmmmm :)

the best thing is, i have ANOTHER payday on friday, when i get my babysitting money. needless to say, the bitterness from last week is pretty much now nonexistent.