taxi cab adventures.

throughout the time here in thailand, there have been numerous encounters with public transportation that could only happen here, and only happen to farangs. more specifically, they would only happen to us: me, steph and tash together in a cab just meant a deadly combination. of course, there is the typical happenings of drivers trying to charge us exorbitant fees rather than turning on their meters or telling us simply "no can," but sometimes things that are just slightly more out of the ordinary. here are some of the best stories we have accumulated.

also, i just want to say that these are probably a lot more hilarious to me than anyone else will find them. just take them as those "you-had-to-be-there" kind of things.

uh-oh....accident!

i cant even remember where we were going. i want to say it was china town for the chinese new year, but that could be completely made up. it was sometime around that time though, and of course, as always in thailand, it was more than quite hot. we searched for a while for a taxi that would take us where we wanted to go and with the meter on (because neither of those things is particularly easy to find here), and finally we did. we sat in traffic, of course, for about 10 minutes, and then pulled onto a different street, where we gracefully collided with a motorbike. i dont think anyone was hurt, but the taxi driver jumped out and started arguing with the motorbike driver, who then drove off. but the bumper of the cab was sitting in the street, and the meter was still running. rather than sit around and let the fare get higher, the three of us decided to just get out and find another cab.

caught red handed...maybe?

while heading from one excursion to another, we were in a taxi and passed by a police stop. these are rather routine in thailand, and usually they just peer in to see if everyone in the front is wearing a seatbelt. that said, if theres a farang in the car, there is usually even less of an issue, and they just smile and wave the cabby through. not this time. we were not only stopped, but the cop asked the driver to get out of the vehicle. at this point, we thought it was funny, if slightly inconvenient, but obviously we are used to that in this country. then the cop sent the driver over to another group of police officers and made him open the trunk, and thats when we got a little freaked out, not to mention that the meter was still running (see a theme here?).

eventually, he got back in the car with only a ticket, i think, but we never actually found out what was in the trunk or why he got stopped.

how many farangs can we get into one taxi cab?

soi cowboy in the area of nana plaza is known as (one of) the sleezier districts in bangkok. it also happens to be one of the places frequented by farangs at night. a few months into living here, steph and i had not yet explored that area, so one night the boys (of course!) convinced us we should give it a try. after a bit, although by no means sleezier than some other places we have seen, we were not impressed, and thought we would rather go somewhere else. everyone had split up by that point, so trying to get people together to leave was a task. im pretty sure we had two in the front, and four in the back, when we started pulling away and someone shouted that they saw andrew up the street. the taxi driver didnt understand that we wanted him to pull over to get our friend (or maybe he did and just didnt want to, never can tell with these tricksters!) and so we threw open the door as we passed and andrew basically did a dive onto the laps of everyone in the back seat. this made 7 farangs and an unhappy driver in the car. well done.

bad-luck american.

frequently when they have a little knowledge of english, the drivers will try to start conversations with us. they ask us the standard questions each time...why are we here, how long have we been here, where do we come from, etc. steph was in the front and tash and i in the back, and the driver had just asked us where we each came from. we told him the three countries (canada, england, usa), and he started to say something else when at that moment i sneezed. the look he gave me, according to steph, was one of absolute horror and disgust. then he looked in the rearview mirror and pointed at me while saying "suay." now this word is ridiculously close to the word "suai," which means beautiful. but thats not what he meant. i had to ask someone the next day, but the tonage he used with the word means bad luck. simply for sneezing. mai khao jai.

round-a-bout.

ive referenced our coyotes nights in a few different posts....the place we go to on wednesdays or saturdays and drink free margaritas for two hours. when going from stephs house, it is only a 10 minute taxi drive without traffic. usually there is traffic, but thats still not a problem. the point is, we know the distance and how to get there. we were on our way to meet people and left with about 20 minutes to spare before the drinks started flowing. 50 minutes later, we were outraged. there was a slight amount of traffic, but the driver was going in the wrong direction. we were traveling around the entire city to get to the restaurant which is just a few kilometers north. when we started seeing signs for where lauren lives, just north outside of the city, we tried saying something to him. he just laughed at us, paying no mind to what we were saying. when we finally got there, we tried to offer less money because he took us the wrong way, but he threatened with the police. so we ended up having to pay for an unwanted bangkok tour AND he had cut our free drinking time down by nearly 50 minutes!

taxi ting tong!

without a doubt, probably the funniest taxi story we have. this was just me and steph, on our way back to her place after one of our sunday night splurges. we tried to explore a new area, surasak, because we had heard that there were good places to party and eat there. unfortunately, we chose to go there during the peak of the red shirts disruption, and so we didnt find much...some overpriced decent curry and thats about it. so we headed back. as we were walking back to the main street a cab passed, saw us heading up that direction, and backed up. we got in and because we knew a little thai (we thought) he was impressed and giggly. most of the ride we spent chatting on our own, but occasionally he would throw a comment and a giggle (and i do mean giggle) back at us and that made us laugh as well. but when we got close to her house, all of a sudden he says "hehehe, taxi ting tong! hehehe." in thai, ting tong means crazy, or rather....crazy drunk. wasted. at that point we were on her back street and so we just looked at each other and laughed, but then he sees another white person outside and rolls down the window yelling "farang! teacha! taxi ting tong! hehehe!" and the guy actually was another teacher at stephs school, but one who was not too impressed with the exchange that happened.

catch up.

i was going to go ahead and write separate blog posts for everything that has happened since i arrived back from phuket, but if i try to attempt that, i will NEVER get caught up to where my real life is. so this is going to just be a jumbled mess of basically the last month.

so we arrived back at school, and though a week late, went right back into the routine. it turns out that this semester, each grade only has 3 classes rather than 4. this means a few things. first, when they separated the kids into the groups, they did a better job, so now my p#/1s are amazingly good at everything (essentially honors students) and my p#/3s are basically special education classes. i dont mean that in a negative way, its just the way it is, especially p3/3. id say over half the kids in that class have learning disabilities, but thai school systems do not recognize such disorders and just push everyone through together (remember, they cant fail). needless to say, that class has been quite a challenge. also, it means that the classes are a lot bigger. rather than the low 20s, now each class has well over 30 and closer to 40 students in most cases. finally, it means less teaching hours a week for me (wooo!). as i see each class 2 times a week, i was teaching 24 classes last semester. this knocked out 6....but in order to get me teaching 20 hours a week the school tacked on two kindergarten classes once a week each >:( the fact that it is literally only to make me teach 20 hours is blatantly obvious, as there is a separate teacher for kinder classes and she sees the classes twice a week and then i see two classes once a week each and steinar does as well. it throws off the whole consistency thing with the students, and makes planning difficult as we all have to work together. not to mention, teaching kinder kids is a completely different ball game. i definitely am not a fan.

giving me two random kindergarten classes was only the first thing the school changed this semester. they are trying to work to become...different. i leave it at that because i really have no idea what they are trying to accomplish, only can tell that they are working towards some kind of goal. things change daily, and most of these changes make little sense. for that, and a few other reasons, im kind of regretting staying at this school. my main reason was that i was reasonably happy here and used to it, and didnt want to have to learn a new routine. im learning a new routine anyway and not as happy as i was, and had i changed schools at least i could have been in a better location and making more money.

speaking of location.....i had been trying to move apartments since february. i wanted to be closer to the school, the center of town, and have internet at my place. i started communicating this wish to my 'agency' but was told that i couldnt move until april because apparently when i moved in i said for 6 months...which i know i didnt say. whatever. then in may every time i tried to have someone come out to help me find a new apartment, it never worked. by the time they would have been able to get here, it was middle of june, leaving me with just over 3 months, and i didnt see the point. so im not moving, im staying in my place without internet and walking a mile to school in a monsoon most mornings because, o yeah, now its rainy season in thailand. and thats no fun at all.

pictures of my luxury apartment, because i never posted them before.

hmmm, what else?

o, i had a birthday last month. i dont feel any older this year. im not sure if its because it hardly feels like i even had a birthday, as there are few people in this country who even know what day it falls on, because my outlook has changed, or because my life actually feels slightly suspended from reality. but i went with steph, lauren and stephen over to koh samet and had a nice, relaxed, birthday weekend.

to move off of the negative stuff....ive been meeting a lot of new people. since i wasnt getting any new teachers at my school and was not doing the course over, i wasnt really expecting to meet that many new people this semester. steph and i were planning on spending most weekends together on our own, which would have been fine, but its been nice meeting a new group of people too. there are two new ati groups, and because ive been really (i mean REALLY) into watching the world cup games and going out so much to see them, i have met a decent amount of other farangs living here as well. with each new person, the social circles expand. and while at the core there is pretty much always the general similarity of being english teachers, everyone out here comes from different places and has different experiences to share.

sorry there is such a depressing tone to this post. but hey, it shows everyone who keeps telling me that they are jealous of my life that even though im in thailand, life is still life. its not all buckets and beaches....though it does help to have those things there to turn to when life gets to be like this :]

school year on pause.

aside from one exception, i didnt post on the political situation that was happening in thailand the last few months. it is largely due to the fact that while the serious stuff was happening, i was traveling. but its likely that even if i hadnt been, there wouldnt have been much that i could say that would have been worthwhile because it is so complicated and as a westerner living here, i cannot possibly comprehend everything.

i arrived back in thailand from vietnam on sunday, may 16, expecting to head into school the next day to start of the new school year. i found out when i got home that the next two days had been declared a 'national holiday' so that the government could try to gain control of the situation. this meant that all government businesses would be closed, including schools. since i work at a private school, they were able to determine their own plan of action, and they decided to cancel classes for the entire week.

it turned out that those two days the government was giving as holiday were meant to be used to 'get women, children, and the elderly out of the center of the city before the deadline,' which at first was set for monday, may 17 at 3pm and then pushed back to wednesday morning when it became obvious that people were still not leaving. steph and i found out through some of her teachers that this was because following that deadline, the military was basically going to just go in and open fire in order to disperse the group of protestors.

come wednesday, may 19, things got really bad. the military went in and gunfire was exchanged. buildings and businesses were set on fire. tear gas and rubber bullets set off. this 'war zone,' as it was call, lasted for about three days before the red shirt protest leaders started surrendering, bringing the situation to somewhat of a close.

for days i was checking twitter and the bangkok post every few minutes trying to stay up-to-the-minute on what was happening. there was a lot of chaos and confusion, which is still trying to be sorted. however in the grand scheme of things, everything could have been a lot worse. as time has passed, there have been many comments on how the government handled the situation, and this is what i found to be most notable: no other country would have allowed a protest of that magnitude to continue on and harm the economy to the extent that this one did for as long as it did.

bombings in bangkok

im currently in cambodia, on my first leg of my travels, and i will write about my experiences here in the coming days. however, there is a lot happening in bangkok at the moment that i think i should explain here.

for over a month now, there has been a large demonstration by the red shirts/udd who established their camp near the famous travelers site of khaosan road. on april 10, just days before the new year celebrations were to begin, violence broke out between the udd and the military, leaving 24 people dead and hundreds of others injured and effectively canceling many of the activities in the capitol for the holiday and shutting down the main business and shopping district of siam.

red shirts near khaosan.

after a week, tensions started to build again and the red shirts planned a protest near the silom area, another business and tourist district, and the military dispersed more troops with the orders to contain but not fight, even though soldiers were set up around the streets with rifles and barbed wire blocking certain areas. days later, they threatened that violence would be used if necessary. and thats when the bombs and grenades began.

barbed wire and soldiers in silom.

one went off on the bts, the skytrain in bangkok, effectively shutting it down, but so far, the deaths have been minimal. there is a movement called the multi-colored shirts which have formed in opposition to the red shirts and who are now demonstrating against them. the yellow shirts, government supporters, are expected to arrive in bangkok within the next week.

the red shirts believe that the elections by which the current government was selected into office were unfair and illegal. their goal with this protest is to have the current government dissolved and new elections held. they have currently proposed an extension of their timeline, giving the government 90 days to plan for the new elections.

the entire thing is still complicated and im not sure exactly what is expected to come of it, but this is a guideline based on what i understand of the situation. as much as im glad to not be in bangkok during this time, a great part of me wishes i was there to experience this important political time.

venting

im writing this now because i have 15 minutes to use on this computer, and im using every second of it. and im beyond pissed off at the moment.

the computers and printers at school suck. thats all there is too it. they are too slow, usually dont have internet, and the printers cant make dotted lines. this is a problem when im trying to teach writing the alphabet to 4-year-olds. for kinder classes, i need a worksheet every day. ive been making them at internet cafes but its been lots of work since the free sites offered to help teachers are usually not compatable with whatever these computers over here are using.

today, im waiting on khaosan to have dinner with steph while she waits for her friend to get back from cambodia. so i came into an internet cafe that advertised it also had printing. i asked the lady when i came in which computer to use for internet AND printing, and she said any. so i sat down and started making worksheet after worksheet. i found a great site and got done all of them for summer school.

when i went to print, a notification came up saying that something was off on the printer, so i asked her to fix it. thats when she says to me "o...no print."

are you $%^*!@# kidding me?! im sitting on khaosan road making worksheets that i cant print, or save to my thumbdrive. im pissed. so i just wasted my time and money on this place. which is why im writing this now, to use up the last minutes i do have. ill be damned if i leave any more extra time to be wasted by someone else.

occasionally, i cant stand this country.

gobbledigook

just a series of random statements about my life or from my observations here in thailand, which i either cannot or dont want to contribute an entire post to on their own.

-i dont understand why ALL of the parents have the SAME laugh for when their children ignore our 'good mornings' and simply walk by us.

-ive gotten really good at killing mosquitoes in mid air.

-i still cannot bring myself to eat chicken feet. or crushed up bones curries.

-i spend more money on the weekends i stay in bangkok than when i travel to other parts of thailand.

-kids still get nervous over here for speaking exams even though they know they CANNOT fail. seriously, i have to give them at least 50%.

-i will think again before getting another oil massage.

-taxi drivers who try to take advantage of white farangs need to learn how to tell when the said white people actually live here and know of their schemes.

-some people have surprised me in how well they have kept in touch with me while ive been over here, while others have let me down.

-its crazy how easily we meet people who went through ati at other times or place.

-ive changed a lot since ive been over here.

-there are still moments when the though of "omg, im actually living in thailand" overtakes me.

-the people who living in the building next to my apartment building just got two puppies, and that makes me so happy :]

*the title of this post is also a reference to the song by the same name by sigur ros, which i have recently become slightly obsessed with, especially on beach weekends

aint misbehaving.....

i was bad this week. i went out on a wednesday night for "ladies night" at coyote, which meant all you can drink, free margaritas, from 6-8. it was also to meet up with amit, who i went to college with and with whom i share many mutual friends. hes backpacking through southeast asia and arrived in bangkok the night before, so meeting there just seemed like the perfect combination of the two.

i went straight from tutoring, and anticipating such, i left my bag with my computer at school. i figured id be out and not at home so i wouldnt be needing it that night anyway, and it wouldnt be such a hassle that i would have to carry around.

because i went straight from tutoring, i got their a little early, but found tasha and we got a table. it was before 6, so all the waitresses were trying to get us to buy drinks while we were waiting, even though we all knew that wasnt happening and that we were there for the free drinks. the food isnt bad either, but hey, its a ploy to get people to come in, and it was working because it brought us in.

after just over two hours and two of our friends being asked to leave by the manager, it was time to head out. but i wasnt ready to go home. amit and i had just begun talking and catching up, and some other people were staying out, so we ventured down the streets of silom and ended up at patpong. if you care enough, you can google it. this is what i will say: by the time i was heading home, it was nearly 2.

needless to say, i was not planning on going to school the next day. it turned out that when i woke up, the cold that i have had off and on for the last three months was in full force once again anyway, and so i 'decided' then to take the day off.

this was a great day to do it. meghan had also taken off for personal reasons, and amit was in town. so the three of us met up back in silom and from there decided to head over to see the jim thompson house. meghan had already been twice, but was ecstatic to go again (actually it was her suggestion), and it was something i had been wanting to see but never gotten around to. jim thompson was an american who basically revitalized the thai silk industry and then mysteriously vanished at the age of 61, after a monk had predicted years before that great danger would come to him at that age. his house is an architectural dream to look at, and he was an antique collector, so it is now a tourist site.

from there, we were planning on going to lumpini park, something else i had yet to do, but it was getting really hot out and so we opted to introduce amit to thai massages. we were back in the silom/sukhumvit area and went into one of the cheaper places we saw. when we got there, we were told there were no female masseues available. ok. we didnt really think anything of it. but afterward, we were all just a little weary of the massage we had just gotten. meghan and i had to apologize for giving amit such an awful intro to one of our favorite things in thailand.

we finished off our night with a trip back to coyotes again so meghan and i could split some nachos. this time though, we did not consume any margaritas :P

seeing some more of bangkok.

after relaxing on saturday, i decided i wanted to do something on sunday. most people went out of town this past weekend though, so it was just me and meghan. she suggested going to wat pho, which is one of the most famous things here in bangkok and home to the largest reclining buddha. it was something neither of us had seen yet so it was a good deal.

after waiting for her for an hour, because of traffic and thai time, we finally met inside the wat and got to see just how gigantic this buddha is, and its massive.

there wasnt much else in the wat that we wanted to see though, so we were going to head over to see the un. we finally found a taxi that would take us where we wanted to go and got in. but after driving a few feet and heading into the main traffic, he told us that the un was closed because it was sunday, so we made him pull over and let us out.

after much discussion, we decided to head over to siam to go to a museum and see what was playing at the cinema and then jump on the bts two stops to have some mexican for dinner. however, the museum only had a few exhibits worth seeing and when we got to the theater and debated the times and shows that were available, nothing worked out, so we headed over to eat earlier than expected. this turned out to be good because we got there in time to catch the end of buy one get one free happy hour.

the wall paintings exhibit.

the exhibit called meghan buckman.

we ordered nachos to split and meghan ended up making friends with some guys in another booth who are teachers in korea and on vacation here. we chatted with them, first over the divider and then at our table for a bit and compared the conditions here to theirs there. they clearly have it up on us in almost all aspects....except that they are not by glorious beaches and have as much snow right now as those back home.

so when we tried to leave and head back home, we discovered that the main street was closed off for some kind of festival that we didnt know about, so we walked around that for a bit and saw some performances and food stands and vendors selling crafts before trying to get home.

a punk band playing in the street

meghan was taking the bts, so that was easy for her. i dont have that option though since the closest stop is a 140 baht cab ride away from my apartment. what i usually do is take a metered taxi, but they were hard to come by, and i was able to convince a motor bike to take me (which is what made me write this post). they usually dont do distances that far, but i suppose that the festival created an influx of people who needed transportation and they were taking advantage of it.

friends <3

i talk about these people in many of my posts and many people have asked me about them. i thought it would be smart/fun to write a little blurb about each person to give everyone back home some info about these people in my life. so without further adieu, i introduce to you the cast of characters that make up my life here in bangkok:

beth (aka bee-tan), wales

first person i met from the group. she was stepping out of the shower as i walked into our villa in nai harn. now she lives in pinklao (dont pronounce the l!) and works at a different kasintorn school. hers isnt as good as mine though. shes fun, enjoys her buckets, sarcasm, and singing made up queen songs to everyone when hungover. o and she speaks welsh, which is apparently its own language and its people are british but NOT english.

i have taken many awesomely bad pictures of beth. it was hard to settle on one.

emily suPATCHa, wisconsin

my other roommate from the wonderful, glorious days down in nai harn. shes from wisconsin and is now living in the north of the bkk. shes got quite a nice setup at her school, having one class of 12 four-year-olds who she teaches everyday until 12:30. but, shes also in charge of the science club. give and take people. emily has nine brothers and sisters, but her father is NOT a pastor, as is the common misconception. one thing to know about emily: she poses with her arms when shes dancing.

stephanAY, canada

she shocked us all when we discovered that shes hiding her natural blonde under those dark locks. i hate her because her apartment is amazing. seriously, she has a pool and restaurants and shops and a gym in her building, but what im most jealous of is the hot water and lack of ants. shes kind enough to let me stay there and use her for her shower on the weekends though :)

i dont know why i dont have any pictures of just her.

meghan "my body doesnt bend that way" buckman, new york

shes known to many of you as the bright spot and entertainment in my posts. its probably no surprise that when we had to list an adjective before our names on the first day of training, hers was 'sarcastic.' im shocked by most of what comes out of her mouth. but as we discovered in nai harn, we are soul mates, even though her favorite things in this world are likely the beach, hairy lumberjacks, and nachos.

tasha, known by her students as jane, england

natasha was first placed down south, but after her first day, knew she wouldnt enjoy it down there. SO she headed up north to us in bkk. now shes at a new school. but the first day, she was told the students wouldnt be able to pronounce her name, so she has to go by jane instead. its not so random, it is her middle name. her accent is heavy (think: wallace and grommet), and at first, some of us had trouble figuring out what she was saying. also, tash is the one who usually convinces us that the best option for what to do is a massage, and usually, shes correct.

jake, riha, bierle, "the guys," minnesota

though they actually only comprise 2/3 of the males in our group, the three of them knew each other from college and came her together, so they get lumped together for everything. theyre probably alright with that, because as anyone who has seen my facebook albums knows, all of the guys in our group have developed a tighter-than-necessary bond. riha and bierle are both named chris, and jake can usually be found in the same pair of shorts with a white tshirt.

(in the picture: bierle, riha, jake)

andrew, england

i really cant describe andrew in any other way than saying "mustang sally."

eric, pennsylvania

a self-proclaimed "skater" and "loner," hes usually off exploring on a motorbike whenever we cannot find him. but then, he will randomly pop up out of no where and without explanation. up until this week, he didnt have a job, but was still getting paid >:( now, he lives and works at the school that is just next door to me. the very wealthy school that is right next door to me. but hopefully now ill have someone in town to play with on weeknights...and im going to try to get him to tell me the password to their schools wireless connection, hehe.

here he is juggling coconuts.

wild will, somewhere abouts the midwest....

just an easily likable guy. hes quiet but also always up for a good time. hes taught before and so this is just his thing, but he is placed about an hour west of bangkok and so we dont get to see him as often. he just turned 30 a few days after new years, but he can still party like hes in his 20s. the picture is of him eating his first bug in thailand, where else, but on khaosan road.

steve and lauren, england

theyre dating. theyre fun. theyre cute. theyre from manchester. theyve done a lot of traveling and just have...more life experience (hehe) so we go to them when we have questions or need advice. but lauren has her work cut out for her, as bierle and steve have a bromance going that she may not be able to compete with. we shall see.

a-town and margaritas...am i back at home?

im having trouble writing my posts from laos and new years. only part of the reason there is because most of it was a blur and im not sure how much should be left in or taken out for family back home....but also because it was such a once in a lifetime experience and i dont know where to begin. but rather than not posting until the writers block lets up from those adventures, ill continue with other posts and return to the island of koh phangan when the writers block has ceased.

i had a treat last week because i got to see someone from home. mr anthony kapanowske made an appearance in bangkok. his 'uncle,' who has lived here for nearly 30 years, got married on saturday and so a-town is here for a few weeks with his dad in honor of the ceremony. on wednesday night we decided to meet up on good ol khaosan for dinner and a drink, which unexpectedly turned into many many margaritas courtesy of anthonys dollars and not my bahts.

even though d we dont see each other much now that we dont work together, seeing someone from home was indescribable. its different seeing everyone from the group on the weekends because even though they are great friends, they are still from my life here in thailand. having someone from my life back in the states was just amazing.

so we met wednesday and went out, which was fine, because as it turned out, thursday and friday were the thai testing days, which meant that even though we had to be at school, we didnt have any classes. really, us being here was pointless, but its fine because i got to sit on the computer all day. (you would think i would have been more productive with writing and such, but alas, no.)

friday night i headed over to stephs place to camp out for the weekend. we went to dinner on good ole khaosan again and got to meet bierles girlfriend who was visiting for three weeks during her winter break from school. it was an early night though and after splitting a bucket, we headed back to stephs.

the plan for saturday was to head over to the ancient city, which is why we stopped early friday night. however, we underestimated how long the bus across the city would take, and by the time we were finished the first leg of our journey, with still an hour or so more to go, we realized we would only have a 1/2 hour t

o see the thing, so we decided to meet tasha and opted for another relaxing day at the massage place instead :)

that night we planned on heading back to the mexican place, called coyote, because from 10-12 its ladies night and we get free margaritas! we met for dinner first, and after my first drink anthony came down from the wedding reception, which was only a km away. he told me that i had been invited back, so i left the group and went down the street to meet people. everyone was super nice and offered to show me around or help me find places to visit while i was here.

sunday steph and i had planned on hitting some of the 10+ malls in the siam area so that we could hopefully find some new work shoes, as ours have been destroyed by the conditions here in thailand. some of the malls were just like back home, and some...were not. that means different things depending on each mall, but for example, one was only high end stores which, even over here, are still way too expensive for me, and others were like outdoor markets moved indoors. those were the most interesting because they were just so overwhelming, and we didnt even know where to begin to look for anything.

in the end, i did find work shoes for cheap and also found a nice little treat for myself. :)

steven madden wedges for only $30.....even though i have absolutely NO use for them here.

a vehly mehly clissmus. (just sound it out)

as a group, we had decided earlier to do a secret santa. steph and i suggested that we have a christmas party to swap gifts. after much heeing and hawing, it was vetoed. we thought it would just be the two of us, but it ended up being a small group of us that were around the bkk on christmas day. stephs place is pretty central and very nice, and definitely big enough for many people to stay in comfortably, so she offered her apartment for the gathering. it was a bonus that she has a pool, so we all planned on spending the day poolside with a few drinks and then going out for dinner. but, t.i.t. (This Is Thailand) and so, nothing goes according to plan.

i woke up christmas morning and opened the two presents i had, one from grace and guys mom and one from beth at school, neither of which were expected. after packing up a few things and as i was into the city, steph called to tell me that her pool was closed for a christmas party that was happening the next day, so the few people already there had decided to search for a hotel nearby her place with a pool, since that had been our christmas day plans. luckily, it wasnt too hard to find one, and after they looked online for an hour, they discovered there was one down the street about 10 minutes from her place.

while they were searching, i was shopping, and i was able to find something that resembled christmas cookies. i was very pleased and surprised by this and the fact that they were not exorbitantly overpriced, as i had previously gone on a search for candy canes for my classes and discovered that anything related to peppermint in this country is nonexistent and anything related to christmas is ridiculously overpriced. so i bought the cookies and made my way to the pool.

when i showed up, meghan tasha and steph were all lounging in their bathing suits and santa hats and riha had just jumped out of the pool shivering. (i realize i havent written about most of the people in my group, so ill dedicate a few posts to them eventually). the thing about this pool is that it was in between two high rises, which were blocking the sun. and even though thailand is still scorching, in the shade and with a breeze, it can be quite chilly. still, we had made a decision to stay poolside on christmas and we were determined to see that rhough, so we stayed for a few hours before deciding the next logical step was to go get massages.

now one thing thailand is known for is its massages. there are special schools all over the place which teach traditional thai massage techniques, which is different from what many people generally think of when they think of a massage because rather than it being a relaxing hour of muscle rubbing, it is much more vigorous and entails molding and flexing the body to get all of the kinks out. even though they are insanely cheap here (100-300 baht per hour on average, more in very touristy areas), i had not yet been to get a massage yet. many from our group had taken advantage of this though, and i was warned that it could be relaxing, or painful, and that there was a possibility that i would end up with bruises. still, we hopped on some motorbike taxis and made our way over to the shopping center to get our christmas day massages and then shop for some goodies.

all four of us were put into a room that was already occupied by one other person. steph and i were wearing skirts and so we were given linen pants to put under because of the "bending." still, the lighting was dim and soft music was playing so it was rather relaxing. so my masseuse starts on my feet and i start to drift off, until meghan, who is lying less than a foot to my right, starts giggling. for the rest of the hour, we were periodically interrupted with meghans bursts of laughter, pain, or disgust at what her masseuse was molding her body into. it was an interesting experience to say the least, but very enjoyable nontheless.

after our massages we met up with amy and decided to go shopping at the big c for some holiday treats. what we really wanted was baileys and creme de menthe to make a drink that beth introduced us to which just tastes like christmas. but as i said before, mint is hard to come by here in thailand, and so we had to settle for a very expensive bottle of baileys. while we were shopping, we came across a woman giving announcements over a microphone to the whole store. meghan decided it was the perfect time to start caroling and took her mic to sing jingle bells. though we all walked away and pretended to not know her, it was pretty obvious we were together, as we were 1. the only white people in the store and 2. all wearing our santa hats. its really difficult to take her anywhere sometimes.

we went back to stephs and all showered and changed and waited for andrew to show up so we could go to dinner. while we were getting ready, we drank our baileys with chocolate milk and listened to christmas music, perhaps the only time of this day that made it feel like a normal christmas. that is, until andrew arrived, decked out in a full santa outfit, beard and all. we then understood why it took him hours to get there, as he was busy delivering holiday cheer around the greater bangkok area all evening.

for dinner, we decided to try a restaurant near stephs where you go "fishing" for shrimp in a big pool and then eat what you catch. four of us took that option, but after two hours, none of us had caught anything. finally, i got one, but we decided it was pointless and moved down to another location for fried rice and some cocktails before calling it a night, as by that point, it was 2 and all of the places around us were shutting down.

we spent the night at stephs and had a full day planned for saturday, the first stop being an imax movie theater to see avatar. some people from our group go to the movies every week to get a taste of home. while i enjoy watching movies, im not really a fan of going to the theater even when im back in the states, so i had not yet been while over here. to get there, i had another first experience of riding the bts, the skytrain here in bangkok. i could not believe how clean it was. while the city as a whole is pretty dirty, they really monitor what people do on on the train and keep it exceptionally clean.

anyway, by the time we got to the movie theater, the imax showing we wanted to see was sold out, so we settled for just watching it in 3-d. the earliest showing of that was sold out too, and the next show we could get into only had the front row available (they sell specific seats for the movies like it was a play) but we took it anyway. if you havent seen it yet you should, as the graphics are exceptional and the plot line, even with its underlying political commentary, is pretty good as well.

we rushed out of the movies to go to coyote, a mexican restaurant some ofthe girls found earlier in the week. we were told that ladies get free margaritas from 6-8 on wednesdays and saturdays and we wanted to get in as much of that as we could. but when we got there, it was almost 7, and we found out that on saturdays, ladies night is from 10-12. still, we ordered some drinks and food since we were there. back at home, it would have only been decent, but it was definitely the best mexican food here in bangkok, and we are planning on going back as many times on weds and saturdays as possible.

from coyote we jumped into some taxis and went up north to where riha and jake live. they have made some friends with a group of thai college students and we were invited to one of the house parties they were having. the problem here was that by the time we made it that far up north, the party was already breaking up. so instead, the boys made their way over to the future park mall area to meet us. while we waited, we decided to hop on the caterpillar roller coaster. after paying for our first ride, we befriended the guy working at it and we got another one for free!

so the boys finally got there and we went back and hung out at jakes and all of us stayed up there that night. it was night to see someone elses area, but sunday there wasnt much to do up there. so steph tasha and i came back down to bangkok and went to the indian market. im not sure what i was expecting, but i was not impressed by what i saw. the only good thing that came out of that was that we were able to find a decently cheap place to get good indian food.

even though it was nothing like a typical western christmas, i had an awesome weekend and got to do a lot of firsts in thailand.