songkran

songkran is the thai new year and it is currently 2553. however, years ago they stopped changing their calendar on this date and now switch their years on january 1st of the gregorian calendar. now, the holiday remains as more of a tradition, and since the majority of thais ar buddhist, it also serves at the time to treturn home and visit family, kind of like what christmas is to everyoen in the states. what it also entails, is a giant water fight.

for those who have a 'life list' or 'bucket list,' whether it is written down or just in their head, many include at least one of the following on their list: attend mardi gras in new orleans, attend carnival in rio de janeiro (or salvador!!), attend the tomatino festival in valencia, attend oktober fest in germany. after experiencing my few days of water chaos in chiang mai, i feel it is my duty to spread the word about this festival and convince others that it belongs on that list as well.

i have been told since i arrived in thailand that if i was still here for songkran, chiang mai was the place i wanted to spend it. so, months ago, steph and i decided to book accommodations up north to ensure we would have a place to stay. we had no idea what this water fight meant, how many people would be involved, or what the city would be like compared to how it normally was. we just new that it would be were we would be to bring in the thai new year.

friday the 9th was my last day of working summer school, and my initiation for songkran. the water fight at school lasted hours. the kids were dumping buckets and shooting me in the face with water guns and rubbing the powder goo all over me. luckily, the water was warmed by the sun and not much coolor than the air temperature, so it was just refreshing. that is, until some of the other teachers decided to fill a bucket with ice water. let me tell you, when one of them hit me, the shrieks i made caused more than a few head turns. but overall, it was a blast, and i walked home just after lunch leaving a water trail puddling.

at school, major waterfight!

puddle!

fast forward to the next monday when we were heading back from the trek. though we had been showered with water on our entire trip back, once we hit the heart of chiang mai, i knew why everyone had said this was the place to be. even though the holiday didnt technically start until the next day, people were lined up on the sides of the canal with the same buckets and water guns i had seen at school. the difference was that this was not just a school, but an entire city, partaking in the water festivities, and we couldnt even make it to our hostel, with bags in tow, without becoming fully drenched.

as we entered the city trying to get to our hostel.

i dont have the words to describe the experience. awesome is the only thing that comes to mind, but even that doesnt come close. because of the water, it was dangerous to have cameras, or really anything, on you, and so pictures are few and of poor quality. the first day, tuesday, we stayed on the side of the canal, sharing large buckets with other farang and taking turn buying ice to make the water cold so that when people got hit they experienced that same chilling shock. no worries, with the heat, it was a shock but in the end it was actually really refreshing. but there was nothing that could compare to the faces of everyone when they did get hit. :]

courtesy of the internet: the canal in chiang mai.

the second day, we pulled our trekking group together, plus a few extras we met at the hostel, and rented a truck to drive around the canal in for a few hours. this was the best part of the experience. we had a team name, 'fall like a mango' which came from one of brazil's sayings in portuguese that he translated into english and then made no sense, and on the back of our shirts we all had nicknames. we spent that day riding and water fighting and drinking and dancing....and there were so many moments when i was just hit with the feeling of the moment that cannot be described to anyone who has not taken part of this festival. so if you have no idea what im talking about, GO SEE IT. its something i would make another trip to thailand for on its own.

team fall like a mango!

from left to right: born ready, nipples, tarzan, pterodactyl, nurse nicky, kinky, brazil.

not pictured: scarface, cha-cha, longkorn.

honorary members: joe, keenan, alex.

splash!

best image i could get of the action at the main gate.

since coming back to bangkok, i have talked to other people who spent the holiday in other areas. usually bangkok is a close second to chiang mai, but songkran festivities were canceled this year because of the red shirt protests and the violence that happened the saturday before the holiday started, leaving 24 people killed. so it is more than safe to say that anyone who was in chiang mai had the best start to this new year.

too much (or not enough?) monkeying around

at this point it was two weekends ago that steph tash and i headed up to the little town of lopburi. around thailand, it is known as the town to go to if you want to see monkeys. we knew we wanted to go at some point, and found out back in january that on this particular weekend, there would be a festival, and so it was the weekend we chose to head on up about 3 hours north of bangkok.

the journey seemed like it should have been easy enough. we opted to leave from the northern bus terminal which is pretty close to the last stop on the bts, mo chit. the three of us met up at that stop and then taxied over to the bus terminal. however, of course we arrived at the perfect time for rush hour and it took us a good half hour to get to the station. then when we get there, we get directed all over the place by multiple people before finding the stall to buy the tickets to our destination. so we get there and find out if we arent taking the immediate next bus, which was leaving in 10 minutes, (which we werent cause we needed to eat before our journey) then we couldnt book yet. ok. fine. head back to the other side of the station for dinner. then walk back to the booth to buy our tickets, all the while being pointed in still different directions by people thinking we have no clue whats going on.

finally, we get on our bus which is set to leave at 8:20. we are pulling out by 8:30, not to bad by thai time standards, so we figure we will be in lopburi by 11. but then the most obnoxious thing starts to happen. every 10 minutes or so, we start stopping on the side of the street. it is a normal occurrence to stop and pick up a few people a random spots along the way, but this was like...a new load of people getting on and off at every stop, almost as if using this bus as a mass transit, public bus.

not.cool.

i was already in a bad mood...or according to tasha and steph, a more than bad mood, and was not having it. so steph said something to the guy about how long it would take to get to the city, showing that we had a feeling something was up, and eventually the side stops stopped. but that wasnt the end of our debacle. nope. about an hour before we should have been arriving, the attendant started to ask us for 300 baht, or 100 baht each. when we would ask him for what, he would ramble on in thai for 5 minutes and we would just keep saying that he had ALREADY COLLECTED OUR TICKETS showing that we had already paid. this happened at least three times until we finally pulled into the bus station and could escape the bus. then he tried to point us in the direction of the city. we knew there were no cabs here, and so we started in the direction he showed us until we realized that we were heading away from the lights.

luckily (?) as we were walking and looking lost, a car pulled up next to us and asked where we were going. when we said into the city, he told us he was a taxi and was going there. despite the fact that he already had two thais in the car, we hesitantly got in. the entire ride, the driver and the two thais kept talking about us, but at this point, we didnt even really care. we got to the hotel we were planning on staying at and got out, ready to crash.

we had been told that lopburi isnt really a big tourist spot and that it would be easy to get a room. but nope. that was not the case. the first, and second, and third places we tried were all full. eventually, after wandering around the city for a bit, a nice thai man decided he would try to help us out. he took us to a few more spots, which were also full, and then he was about to start taking us to a few we had already gone to when i spoke up and said we had already been there. so he took us a different way and THANKFULLY they had one room available. it was just a fan room with no hot water (and no sink either) and with windows facing the street, but it was a place to sleep. and thats what we did.

the next morning when we got up and started searching the city to see what the festival had to offer. we decided to first eat, but the places we went to at first only had western (?!) food offered in the morning and we wanted thai. finally we found a place on the side of the road and had some breakfast/lunch, but it wasnt very good. it gave us enough energy to continue on though, and so we went to see king narai reigns castle. (the festival was for that king) almost immediately, while we were watching a performance, some thais called us over to join them in their festivities. they were a group of mostly men, with a few of their wives, who spoke some decent english. they started chatting with us and then had us sit with them and began to offer us food, alcohol, drinks, and then they even started fanning us! we sat with them for a while until we decided we needed to see more of the festival, so we told them we would be back later and headed on.

steph and tash with our lopburi friends.

the city is tiny but actually really cool, as it is built around ruins. there is one that is in the middle of a traffic circle, and even though its not the most modern city by any means, it was cool to see the contrast of that very old mixed in with the new. we kept walking around and seeing what there was to offer, but we got confused because we had yet to see any of these monkeys we had heard so much about. we asked someone and they told us that they congregate around a certain monument because thats where they get fed. so we headed over to that area and were waiting for meghan and emily to arrive when i started feeling really sick. sure enough, as soon as our friends got there, i was throwing up on the sidewalk, and the monkeys had come over to eat it, little scoundrels. so while everyone continued on, i went back to the room to lie down for a bit and try to feel better.

the ruins in the middle of the city.

a few hours later, they came back to get me and i was feeling fine again. we went out and bought some 'thai' outfits to wear that night, and then went back to get ready. then we went for food, which took hours, and following that meghan and emily left (o i didnt get to spend time with them in lopburi, boo). so it was just the three of us again and we headed out to see more of the festival, since we were told it was more of a night thing anyway. and it was. there were fireworks, and parades, and light displays, and shows. we walked around for a while, and had a lot of people asking us for pictures with them, haha. between that and the people fanning us earlier, we felt famous!

we actually asked her to take a pic with us! the lady who sold us the clothes, hehe

we went and saw some muy thai boxing, for free, and had an amazing time there. this time, it was a lot more aggressive than when we went in hua hin and we were actually in the crowd with the thais, who really get into it, cheering and such. but since they hadnt had a three hour nap like i had, they were tired, and so we called it an early night.

we got up early the next day, but i refused to leave without spending some time with the monkeys. so thats what we did for about a half hour.

more monkeys than people?

baby baby, right in front of me! no zoom!

monkeys all over me!

and even though it was a rough start, i left lopburi happy.

vday

for valentines day, the kids at my school put the sticker people to work. instead of cards, they go around giving out stickers to everyone, especially teachers. this was yesterday:

and this was just now (now being friday afternoon as im about to leave)

but the best picture was right after i got back from my 3/2 class today:
happy valentines day to all!

last weekend, i fell in love...

...with the island of koh samet. or koh samed. or koh sumet. however you want to spell it. its paradise. and i was here while all of you back home were getting hit by snowpocolypse :P

i know ive referred to many places ive seen over here as paradise. is it possible that there are so many places where such happiness can be found? yes. but is there one that stands above the others on my list? now, yes.

i wont say it was prettier than phi phi, because im pretty sure no such place exists. what makes koh samet so amazing is:

1. its just about as gorgeous as beaches come, with fine white sand and crystal blue waters.

2. the atmosphere of the 'town' (if you would call it such, as it is a very small island) is just amazing. a mix of thais and locals with the nights spent dancing

(or drinking) on the beach. and

3. ITS ONLY 2 1/2 HOURS FROM BANGKOK!!!

the last one is key, as i am not allowed to take off on fridays or mondays and therefor get very few long weekends. going go koh samet is very doable on a friday night so that i can wake up at the beach and have a full day there. going down south on a normal weekend just makes absolutely no sense because the entire time is spent traveling.

needless to say, when everyone leaves, i will be spending my time on this little slice of paradise so close to the bkk.....at least, any weekend that it isnt monsooning.....

beaching it

the last time i saw the beach was in koh samui after the full moon party in koh phangan. that was a month ago. and since i am living in thailand, that is unacceptable.

it is true that being in bangkok now and not the southern paradise of phuket, it is more difficult to get to a beach, especially since i spend the week working. but there are beaches not too far from the city on the gulf, and it was one of those beaches, hua hin, which we (me, meghan, stephanie, and tasha, and on thursday amit had decided he would join us before going down to the islands) decided to venture off to this weekend.

we had heard that this was a place that was less geared to tourists and more of a beach where local thais would go to vacation. when we arrived on friday night around 11, we discovered that was not the case at all. the entire town was much older, white, mostly german tourists. we were slightly disappointed but would not let this ruin our weekend. afterall, we were at a beach again!

the first thing on the to-do list was find a place to stay. normally, it is pretty easy to find a simple, clean hotel or hostel that is affordable on our teacher salaries. we wandered around the town for a bit and most of the places we tried were out of our price range and/or only had one room available. then we found saw signs for the 21 guest house.

we followed a few signs and eventually turned down an alley and saw the place at the end. there was a sign on the gate that said to ring the bell, so meghan did. she did not see that the man was standing right on the other side. and he was not happy. but he didnt say anything so we opened the gate and walked in to inquire about rooms. he told us there was one room but we had a hard time understanding him when he said the price. we thought he said 300 baht and he was very angry when we tried to clarify, shouting back 600, but again in thai, so it was still slightly unclear. his attitude made some of us think we should just continue on, but some wanted to see the room, so we started walking back to see it.

i need to backtrack here and say that when we got onto the bus and took our seats, we were an odd number, so one person would be sitting with a stranger. there were five seats together with the middle row having one person already sitting. i took that seat. the man next to me asked me to put my backpack in the overhead compartment and not my lap (why im not sure, it wasnt touching him at all) but i told him it wouldnt fit, as the compartment is extremely small. he got furious at this and stormed off, cursing at me in a language i couldnt understand.

back to the 21 guesthouse. as we were being led back to the room, the very same man from the bus was standing in the hallway. i turned around then and there and decided this was absolutely not happening, and it turned out the room was something akin to that from the movie "hostel" we continued on.

eventually, we found a place right by the water with two rooms. one didnt have a bathroom, but they were right next door to each other so it wasnt an issue, and it was clean enough and definitely in our price range. we took the rooms and changed into our swimsuits, as we wanted to get to the beach as soon as possible after such a long absence, nevermind the fact that it was midnight.

we made it to the water and some of us swam for a bit. it was a full moon and the water was warm and i was just happy. we didnt stay out too late though since we had worked earlier that day and wanted to get up early to hit the beach the next day. which is what we did. and we stayed on the beach almost all day and then went to get another, proper, thai massage before showering and heading out for dinner and a muay thai fight.

muay thai is a special kind of traditional boxing that is huge here. tash had done research before we headed down to the beach and found out that there is a fight every saturday night. we were set on this, or some of us were, and steph amit and i had an absolute blast. there were 5 fights each consisting of 5 rounds. the fourth fight was actually to girls, and that was maybe the most interesting to watch because they were just going for it. around the stadium were pretty much all tourists, and of them, we were clearly the most into it. around the ring were the thais, probably trainers and friends of the fighters, and we have decided that we want to try to go to another fight and be with the locals because they were so into it.

after the fight, we wandered a bit but since theres not too much of a nightlife and it was already getting late, we decided to head back to the hotel to meet the others and call it a night so we could have another full beach day before us girls headed back to bangkok and amit continued his journey south to koh tao.

the whole weekend, these lyrics kept playing in my head:

"i dig my toes into the sand. the ocean looks likes a thousand diamonds strewn across a blue blanket. i lean against the wind, pretend that i am weightless, and in this moment i am happy."

and its great, because we decided were going to have ANOTHER beach trip next weekend and venture to koh sumhet. yay!

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

once in a blue moon. (the long overdue new years post)

honestly had no idea what that expression meant before i looked into it. when i heard that not only was there a full moon on new years eve, but it was a blue moon, i knew there was no way i wasnt going to be at the famous full moon party in koh phangan. (a blue moon is the second full moon that happens in the same month. most years, there are

only 12 full moons, so there is only one full moon each month, but because the lunar calendar and the regular calendar are not exactly the same, there is sometimes an extra moon in there somewhere, about every 3 years. it can happen anytime during the year, so the fact that this was THE one on new years was a HUGE deal.)

so the majority of our group, not just in bangkok but those down south as well, started planning our full moon experience shortly before december began. it was tricky because people had all different vacation days. since i had to do a visa run the beginning of the week, i joined up with the group that was taking the overnight bus from khaosan road on wednesday night. we were meant to leave around 6, finally left between 8 and 9 (thai time, ugh) and got down to suratthani around 5 on thursday morning, new years eve. now i agree that it wasnt the smartest idea to spend the night before an all night rager traveling on a bus, but really, we didnt have any other choice.

so we finally hit the island of koh samui around 11am and got to our hotel on the other side of the island about an hour later. koh samui is not the island where the party was, however. that takes place on koh phangan, which only has accommodations enough for 3000-5000 people. normal full moon parties bring in about 20-30 thousand people. this one was expected to draw 50-60 thousand. this meant thatwe obviously had to stay on a different island and boat over.

our "before" picture

we were told to be at the dock at 5, but when we got there we found out the ferry wasnt suppose to leave until 530. of course, on thai time, this meant that we didnt actually head out until after 7. so we got to koh phangan around 830, tired and hungry and so not ready to start all night partying. we thought the best idea would be stop in and get a proper meal. now what would have been smart was to eat first, which was the plan. but of course, during the time it took to find a place that could accommodate us, we somehow ended up with buckets in hand, and that was our downfall.

we ended up having a fantastic meal and then hitting the beach. it was pretty nuts and still very early, considering it didnt stop until 11am the next day. there was music blasting out of every bar and lining the beach, different "makeshift bars" selling the famous buckets. all of them had outrageous schemes to try to get people to buy from them as opposed to the person right next to them selling the exact same thing for the exact same price. all across the beach were different attractions: water slides, fire jumping rope and limbo ropes, body painting, fire dancers, stages, etc. it was pretty wild.

so thats how we spent our night. dancing and drinking on the beach under a full moon. it was great because we got to see the kiwis who are living down south in hat yai, and some other people from our group who we rarely see. however, we didnt stay together as a group for long, and with so many people, that was expected. there was a countdown at midnight and by that time, many buckets had been had and things got crazy.

around 3 steph and i decided we couldnt handle it anymore and went and slept in a room some friends of ours had on that same island. we set an alarm for 530 to get up and meet everyone to ferry back to koh samui.

that didnt happen. at some point, someone threw the phone when the alarm was going off and when we finally woke up, it was after 7. as we walked out onto the beach, the scene we encountered was quite humorous. so steph and i trekked over to the other side of the island to catch a ferry we were told would be leaving at 9. again, we got there and find out the next ferry didnt leave until 11. so we sat down to kill some time at the barge when these two aussies came up and started chatting with us. they were really nice and we were talking to them when all of a sudden, eric popped up off of one of the benches at the waiting area. he had gotten separated from the group too and was waitiing for the ferry at 11 as well. so the 5 of us decided to grab some breakfast/play pool at an irish pub just down the block from the pier.

the scene across the beach in the morning

our "after" picture.

after breakfast we went to catch the ferry and discovered that eric was actually on a different boat. he left first, and then the four of us (me steph and the aussies) ended up waiting for another 30-45 minutes for our ferry. luckily, they were good company and we talked to them the whole trip back to koh samui. they actually had just left australia for the first time and were doing a month-long world tour. and, they even offered us a place to stay if we ever traveled down to melbourne!

so we got back to our hotel around 2 and since everyone else had gotten back much earlier, we had no beds :( we tried to sleep on the beach but that wasnt happening. so we had a bar-b-que that the owner of our resort cooked for us since our hotel was waaaay out of the way for everyting. we planned on having a bonfire on the beach that night and started gathering firewood, but after eating, most of us were too tired to do that, and so we went to bed early to recuperate from the night before.

my new favorite day of the year.

i now understand why the other teachers have been preparing since the beginning of december for sports day: its awesome.

the entire school was broken down into four teams: red, yellow, blue, and green.i came to the conclusion that the kids were able to sign up for the team they wanted to be on based on the fact that for the most part, friends were all on the same teams. for us foreign teachers, we were assigned to a color, and since there are four of us, we each got put onto a different team. beth was on yellow, yu long on blue, steinar red and i was on green.

a week before the even, bleachers went up in the courtyard corresponding to the colors of the teams. then a few days before, decorations started going up and i discovered that each team also had a theme. this became important when it came time for the parade and opening ceremony, with a torch and all.

usually the morning assembly starts off with a few songs and then the national anthem, after which we are able to leave to eat breakfast and prepare for the day. this day, we ate before the songs started. during breakfast, i was pulled away into the office where i was dressed by four teachers in a traditional thai costume so that i could march in the parade. i was unaware of this beforehand.

so as they finished dressing me, the parade was beginning, and i was thrown out and marched around the neighborhood, where i of course drew many stares and even some points because i was a farang in thai clothing with the school. i was actually surprised at how big of a deal the parade was, considering the school is so small in comparison to assumption right next door, but the kids got a lot of support, and that was really cool to see. when we got back to school, we stood in formation while some speeches were given and songs were sung, and then the torch was carried across the courtyard and the games could "begin."

however, a majority of the activities had been completed before the actual day, and started even before the holiday festivities began. on friday, the only activities that were actually carried out were the track and field events and dance competitions. still, there was always something going on and parents were there and the kids loved cheering and yelling at each other. it reminded me a lot of color wars. i spent most of the day taking pictures, but occasionally sat and cheered with my students on the green team.

green dresses dominated.

the runners had adults from their teams waiting for them at the finish line.

ice pops were essential in the cooling down process.

i know im not suppose to have favorites, but that one on the left, fifa, is just plain awesome.

as the races were ending, we started hearing our names being said in conversation, though we werent sure in context to what. we soon found out when it was announced over the speakers that the four of us would be racing, further establishing us as objects used for entertainment as opposed to actual teachers. but it was fun and fine and after we went, other teachers and parents did the same so it wasnt too bad.

the day concluded with trophy ceremonies and the blue team won in almost all categories. after that finished, all of the teams coming together to sing some songs and then, of course, the kings song was played to officially end the activities.

....but it was not the end of the day....

there is a holiday for teachers on the 16th of january, which was saturday. in celebration of it, the administrators (i.e. the kasintorn family) threw a party for the entire staff of the school.

there were skits and karaoke (of course) and speeches and poetic readings, all of which i couldnt really understand. we were sitting at a table with a group of teachers who are really nice, but dont really make an effort to bridge the communication gap. so, throughout our EIGHT course dinner, the four of us were pretty much left to ourselves, and honestly, i talk to them every single day, so there wasnt much to say.

after some people started leaving, steinar and i moved over to the table with the teachers we had gone to the waterfall with and talked to more frequently. earlier in the dinner, one of the teachers came in carrying a case of bottles of thai whiskey, which im still unsure as to if this was provided by the kasintorns or not, but people ha been drinking casually throughout dinner. once we moved over to the other table though, the courtyard at our primary school became a scene akin to that of any pub, anywhere (but more likely in asia because of the karaoke still happening in the background.) and i was even getting toasted by the mother of the twins i tutor, as her husband is the son of the kasintorns and principal at another one of their schools.

we stayed at the school until we were told to leave, and a bunch of us came back to our place and hung out in steinars room until people started falling asleep. it had been awhile since i hung out with the teachers at our school, and now that ive decided to stay at my school through the next term, i was happily reminded of how much fun they can be.

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.

was it the night before christmas?

though the school i work at is considered to be a "catholic school," we were not off on december 24. we showed up decked in red and white and wearing our santa hats to great the students at the gate like most days. however, we didnt have classes this day. instead, the morning was a combination of a variety show and carnival, with some of the best dancers from the weekend performing for the school, games set up around the courtyard, and a duet of one christmas carol and random english and thai songs by steinar and bing, one of the younger thai teachers who teaches art.

aside from having steinar and i read a piece about the history of christmas to all of the kids in english (which was pretty much pointless as well), there really was no reason for us to be at school that day. the other teachers dont let us help with much and they had control of all of the booths, so a majority of the day we spent up in the foreign teachers room anyway.

i thought that because of the holiday, we wouldnt have after school teaching/tutoring, but of course we did. however, the two groups were combined so that we could just sing christmas carols the whole time. bing said he had to leave early to get ready to go to assumption, which is the gigantic school right next door to ours, and told us to meet him there at 6. ok, guess my night is booked.

it turned out that their school has a carnival-esque type of event on christmas eve every year and the teachers from our school run the very popular raffle attractions. of course, they enjoy showing off their white-skinned farang teachers, so having us there was a bonus. the night was spent unfolding paper, passing out prizes, and having people giving us strange looks (for something new) and wondering why we were there with all of these other teachers.

but it was also spent learning and practicing how to say all of my numbers in thai, and building relationships with the teachers at our school and the parents from the neighborhood, and of course, it was spent with food, as mrs. kasintorn herself made sure that none of us went hungry or thirsty for even a moment. surprisingly, it was also spent choosing the numbers for many people, because they thought that i would be "lucky" for them. imagine that!

it was at some point in this night that i looked around and decided that my debate between staying in thailand or going to china or south korea for the second part of my year was a non-issue, because i wanted to remain not only in thailand, but at the same school. i got very lucky with my placement and though i could be making more money in one of the other two countries, i am happy here. and i set off to spend a year in thailand, so i may as well follow through with that.

to finish off the night, steinar and i stopped in at 7/11 (where else) and each bought a few drinks. there was nothing christmasy, so i had to settle on some red wine coolers. we brought those home and watched love actually, perhaps the best christmas movie ever, and then i went to bed. it didnt feel like christmas eve, but it had still been a good day.

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.

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.