I'm home!

Hi, I'm home!

I got home a couple days ago. The flight went pretty smoothly and I have managed to tackle jet lag pretty well. I left at about midnight on Friday night and managed to stay awake all night until I got to Korea, so I could sleep all the way from Korea to Dallas and be awake when I got here all day. I have no idea how I managed that, but it worked out pretty well. Lots of coffee I suppose.

It's a little bit weird being home, not around people or anything (that's all the same-same), but little things like using a dish washer, people wearing shoes inside houses, using a fork and knife to eat, the bed is so soft (and so wonderful), seeing squirrels run across the street instead of rats... stupid little things like that. I've also been taking advantage of eating a lot of berries, turkey, quacomole, steak, and salad (yum), but nothing seems to be spicy enough, no matter how many jalapenos are added. I think the thing I've noticed most is how I don't really need to walk anywhere. It's driving me nuts. haha My legs seriously need to stretch. (I'm about to go for a walk, no worries.) But it's kinda strange having to think about that when it comes naturally in Thailand because you walk everywhere.

Anyways, just wanted to give a quick update. My last couple days in Bangkok were lots and lots of fun. My friends, Nam and Fern, cooked a few of us a homemade Thai meal which was superb and there was lots of hanging out and being silly. It was great.

It's good to be home!

Koh Samet, Go to Samet!

Last week I finally made it to Koh Samet! I've been meaning to make a weekend trip there since.... um, probably September. haha It just never happened. I always got too lazy, which is such a shame, because it was wonderful! Absolutely beautiful and relaxing and the perfect island getaway! There was a big Buddhist holiday (Buddhist Lent, I think) on Tuesday and Wednesday and a bunch of people from the building managed to make it to Koh Samet for whatever days they had off. Lots of us didn't have the same exact break, but they all managed to overlap a day or two, so it was a great time to go.

I left early Tuesday morning with Ryan, Fern, and Nam. We were planning on catching a minibus, but then Name said that he was going also and he could drive us down there in his car, which was really great and it saved us some time. We parked the car at Ban Phe and chartered a speed boat to take us to the island. It took us right up to Tubtim Beach, where we got ourselves a couple of bungalows and sat down for lunch on the beach. A few minutes later, Chris and James wandered our way and after lunch we set out for some hiking and exploring. The entire island is only about 7 km long (shaped like a skinny South America), full of bays that are diconnected by rockiness. I don't know if that makes sense, but that's the best I can do right now. So we hiked along the beach and the rockiness all day. It was great. We made little pit stops along the way to swing on tire swings, take a swim in the ocean, and get some coconut ice cream cones! Parts of the hike were kindof intense and after about 3 hours, I was exhausted. It was more mentally exhausting for me than physically, because I was constantly trying to figure out where it was the most stable and safe place to step. After our hike, we all took a quick nap and then met up for a seafood barbeque feast on the beach. It was so tasty! Oysters, fish, chicken shish kebabs, crabs, and all of it fresh! Then we headed out to lay on the sand and order a couple drinks! A perfect day!

The next morning I woke up and immediately put on my swim suit and went to lay out. I was out there for a little while before the rest of the crew came out and joined me for lunch. Then I went for a last swim. I just love the ocean. I thought I had to leave earlier, so I took a shower and packed up my stuff, but then found out that I could get a speed boat back to the main pier in a few hours for a pretty good price, so I had a couple of hours to spend lazing about. We went to a small beach next to ours, where I napped on a boulder and watched the rest play some frisbee and swim. Then I boarded a speed boat and got a bus back to Bangkok! It was a great couple of days!

Arriving at Tubtim! Me, Nam, and Fern!

Scampering about.

How in the world did we get so blessed?!

After a long day of hiking!

The end of a perfect day!

Lumphini Park and Happy 4th of July!

Hello! Last week we went on a field trip to Lumphini Park, which is about a 15 minute walk from my apartment and a frequent visiting place for me! I go there a few times a week just to walk around and I love it. It's basically just a big park with lots of happenings and interesting people watching. There are a few big play areas, tennis courts, a pool, weight machines, tai chi, salsa dancing, aerobics, monitor lizards (aka loch ness monsters), canoeing, paddle boating... you name it and Lumphini Park has it! It was lots of fun going with the whole preschool, especially since I have now taught all the classes in preschool and every student knows me! I thought it deserved some pics!


Me and Koo Kai!

What a sweet little girl she is!

Hanging out with the TA's!

I love my K3 kids! I miss them!

I just really love this girl. haha She's so clever.

So cute!

Also, Happy 4th! We had big plans for the 4th, many of which did not happen because of getting overexcited the day before and being too tired on the actual 4th. haha But we had lots of fun and went to The Roadhouse and had barbeque! Beef tasted sooooo good. I seriously don't think I've had it since I've been here. Besides the burger from burger king. Roadhouse turned out to not just be a fabulous restaurant, but packed full of entertainment for us, such as shuffle board and darts and Wimbledon on the tv. Then afterwards, we went out for free margaritas at our fave mexican restaurant! YaY! Happy 4th!

Arriving for our American feast!

The biggest plate of food I have seen since coming to Asia. It was tasty.

YaY! Free margaritas!

Up!

Summer school is in session. I am currently teaching the nursery class. I've found out that it is not my cup of tea, but I suppose it's a good learning experience. The reason I'm teaching the nursery class is because a couple of the teachers had to leave early and not enough of my K3 kids signed up for summer school so they decided to move me around. I'm only doing it for summer school. haha They are sweet little kids, but there is no way I could teach nursery for an entire year. haha

Anyways, summer school is kinda fun because we get to go on a field trip every week. Last Thursday we took the entire preschool, nursery through K3, to the movies to see Up!. I was pumped. I really wanted to see the movie. haha Probably more so than most of the kids.

Anyways, the movie ended up being just alright, but the theatre was awesome! haha We booked the "happiness" theatre which consisted of large beds complete with fluffy pillows and blankets in the back half and then in the front half of the theatre there were love seat sofas with leg rests and in the front row there were a bunch of fancy bean bag chairs. It was awesome! The coolest theatre I have ever seen. We all got to sit on the beds and we had more than enough room. I got to snuggle up with a couple of my cute 2 year olds and watch the movie. Then the ushers brought each of us a tray of assorted flavors (yes, flavors- caramel, cheddar cheese, barbeque, spicy, and butter) of popcorn and a soda.

The best movie experience ever.

Mr. Thailand

Sawadee kaaaaa!

Last weekend, Tricia and I had a girl's night out and went to Khao San, the backpackers area. We were wandering around looking for these crazy hats when we came across Mr. Thailand and seeing as how I hadn't had my picture taken yet with him, I asked him to take a pic with me.

Mr. Thailand is this crazy dude that roams Khao San every night wearing these crazy flowered shirts and huge sunglasses and funny turban like hats. He's a little bit famous here.

So I got my picture taken with him and then Tricia started chatting in Thai with him and he decided to join us. He helped Tricia buy a tshirt and then he asked us where we were going and we explained that we just wanted to grab a drink or something at a bar cart. He told he knew of a cool place to go and he took us to a new place for us, The Roof. It was awesome. Rooftop, live hoppin music, and just a good atmosphere. Anyways, Mr. Thailand informed us that he was actually Mr. Khao San and hung out for probably an hour or so. It was very cool.

Fitne

The story about my stomach-

A long time ago Tricia accidently bought a bottle of Bailey's. That sounds really silly and you probably think I'm lying, but it's true. One night last week, we decided to rent a movie and finally drink some Bailey's, but we didn't want to drink coffee because it would keep us up at night. We decided to head to 7-Eleven and we bought the only brand of tea they had that came in little individual packets. We bought green tea and chrysanthemum tea. It was called Fitne.

We came home and tried the two different flavors of tea with the Bailey's. It was delicious! We each had about 3 very large mugs of it.

Well, I went to bed pretty early, around 10:30. At midnight I woke up and had to run to the bathroom. Let me just skip this part and tell you that I didn't get any sleep that night and I REALLY did not feel well.

My alarm went off at 6 the next morning and I didn't think I was going to make it to work, but alas- I was sick last week and I knew that I was just going to have to figure something out. I went and woke Tricia up to see if she had any Immodium. I had no idea what was wrong with me and I was kindof relieved when Tricia informed me that she was having the same kind of trouble. I was also very disappointed to hear that no, she did not have any immodium to give me. Oh no...

The entire way to school I kept trying to think of why we would both be sick. I had no idea what it could be because we didn't eat any of the same food and what else could possibly make two people so sick? When I made my morning stop at 7-Eleven it occurred to me that the only thing we both had was the tea and Bailey's. I went to look at the packages of tea. In tiny writing, in plain English, on the back of the bag it says "Indication: laxative."

My jaw hit the floor. I had been drinking glasses upon glasses of laxatives mixed with alcohol. Worst idea ever.

The next FEW days (yes, multiple days) were spent drinking rehydration packets and eating yogurt. We found out that Fitne was a whole line of laxatives, from pills to coffee, teas, and ginger drinks. Fitne- the Thai way to lose weight. Absolutely disgusting.

As unfortunate as this event was, it has also provided us with multiple long laughing sessions!

Sua Suai

Kissing tigers.

My new pet.

Our only group pic and I got whacked in the head by a very strong tiger tail.

TIGER TEMPLE! I love tigers.

I'm very distracted right now. This is guaranteed to be a very disorganized blog post. My stomach and I are on the outs, which should prolly be another blog post.

Last weekend Tricia, James, and I headed to Kanchanaburi to see some tigers at the Tiger Temple. Which was awesome! I've been wanting to go there since August and I finally got to! So the Tiger Temple is a working temple with a bunch of tigers roaming about. We hung out and pet some humongous tigers (one weighed over 400 lbs.) and played with the little ones for a very long time. The day was full of picture taking. We got to kiss tigers and hug tigers and give them ice and walk them around on leashes and watch them wrestle and do all sorts of cute things. They also had buffalo (kwaii- it took me a long time to think of the English word, hahaha), deer, cows, and peacocks roaming about. One of the baby kwaii became quite infatuated with Tricia and wouldn't leave her alone while the peacocks enjoyed terrorizing James.

We left early in the morning and took a long taxi ride to a far away bus station and then caught a bus that kept leaking dirty brown water everywhere. When we got there we grabbed some lunch and hired a private baht bus for the day. We took a long (45 minutes) and beautiful drive to the temple. When we got there, Tricia and I were forced to buy some awesome fishermen's pants because silly me thought it would be okay to wear shorts. I don't know why I thought that. It is never acceptable to wear shorts to a temple. I should know better, but the fishermen's pants are a great color and comfortable and whatever, it isn't like I'm never gonna wear them. We finally got into the temple and wandered to the canyon were the big cats were chillin'. We talked to a couple of the volunteers for a little while, while we waited to get out pictures taken. They were all just backpackers who thought it'd be cool to hang out with tigers for a month or so. So who knows, maybe one day I'll volunteer at the tiger temple. Then a lady came to get me and took me all around the big cats and took my picture with each of them. They were awesome and had really awesome big paws. Then the three of us wandered over to the babies, where their were only a few volunteers and a lot of tatted up monks. We spent most of the day there just hanging out and wandering around. We got to play with the babies more and interact with them, so it was a lot of fun! Then we had to journey back to the bus station. Our bus ride back was less then enjoyable. I'd say we stopped at least 33 times to drop people off in random places. We were starving by the time we got back, so we celebrated the end of the day with a pizza party and watching Little Mermaid (my fave classic disney!). It was great. All in all, a wonderful day!