School's Out for Da Summah!

It's hard to believe that my teaching stint at Prabhassornvidhaya has come to an end.  Though I've had my ups and downs, my time here has been unforgettable, and I am really glad that I decided to embark on this adventure.  I've met some incredible teachers, students, and parents, and have had some really amazing social and academic moments, both inside and outside of the classroom.  I've learned a lot here, and I hope I've left a long lasting impression on some of these kids.  They gave me a great send off today, complete with roses during our morning assembly, a beautiful piece of Thai art made by a student, and a really pretty framed picture collage (not to mention a tasty seafood dinner on Bang Saen beach).  Though I am sad to say goodbye to the many great people that I've met, I'll admit that I am pretty happy to be finished teaching.  I can now appreciate how teachers at home must feel in mid-June!

While I've been busy the past two weeks grading finals and writing reviews, the students have been working on graduation preparations and school closing activities.  The high school graduation actually takes place next week (I'll be gone already), but here are some photos from my last days at Prabhassorn.  La kawn Prabhassorn, joe gan mai! (Goodbye Prabhassorn, see you again!).

Saying goodbye to everyone at the morning assembly

Boy Scout and Girl Scout activity day

How'd I get talked into this one?  FYI- I won.

 

Graduation for kindergarten kids- think 'Toddlers and Tiaras'

Like many of my friends here who also finished up teaching this week, I had a fairly low key weekend last weekend, as many of us are getting ready to take off on extended travel.  I headed up to Bangkok on Saturday for some last minute shopping, and on Sunday, I finally made it to Ayutthaya, Thailand's ancient capital http://thailandforvisitors.com/central/ayuthaya/oldcity/index.html
The whole town of Ayutthaya is made up of different areas of ruins, so when I got off of the bus, I found a tuk-tuk driver and negotiated a price for him to take me around for 4 hours (my bargaining skills are decent...drivers and street vendors are less likely to rip you off if you speak some Thai).  The ruins in Ayutthaya are really cool; though I am kind of 'templed-out' at this stage of my trip, I will never get tired of exploring ruins.

I am officially ready to hit the road and see so much more of what this area of the world has to offer!  I'm excited to have more than two days at a time to travel, and hope that I can actually relax in some of these places.  I'll be beach hopping in Thailand for the next two weeks, then heading to Hong Kong on the 21st to meet up with my friends.  We'll come back to Thailand and do a few more beaches before we fly to Bali, Indonesia at the end of March.  After that...who knows?  Countries on my hit list include Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Singapore.  I'll likely be myself for the majority of this travel, which could be incredible, kind of boring/lonely, or both (time will tell).  My blog entries will likely be fewer and farther between because I won't be on any sort of schedule, but I definitely won't be dropping the ball completely.  Expect my next post to come from a place of white sand and turquoise waters!  Until next time....Sawatdee kah! 

Project Day

Last week, my school, along with the Chonburi Institute of Technology, held a two-day event called Project Day.  Students from both institutions set up booths, performed skits and dances, made food and crafts, and had an all-around good time at this end-of-school term bash.  Below is a 10-minute video I filmed on the second day; nothing too crazy but there are some funny interactions with students if you have some time to kill.

 

My MEP (Mini English Program) class performed the song 'Wheels on the Bus', and I was in charge of getting them ready for the event.  I added some dialogue about going to a birthday party so that the kids could practice their speaking skills.  I wasn't able to film their actual performance because I was too busy making sure that everything was okay with the music, but here's a clip I took of their practicing in the classroom.  Ignore my singing.

Another fun clip- impromptu jam sesh with a few of my high school students

Project Day was a huge success, and the students really went all out in preparing and performing.  One thing that I've learned from being here is that Thai people know how to do it up right; every holiday and/or school event is perfect down to the very last detail, and seeing that dedication has been one of the most incredible parts of my teaching experience.  I see that quality carried over in other parts of Thai culture as well; one can only imagine what a Thai wedding is like!

Last weekend, twelve of us headed to Khao Yai National Park.  I had been wanting to go to Khao Yai for several weeks, as it seems to be a regular stop on the English teacher travel circuit.  My camping experience is minimal, so this weekend was a nice change of scenery and turned out to be really fun.

Setting up camp

The whole crew sitting around an imaginary campfire

We got up at 5:00 to drive to a lookout point to see the sunrise

All of us at the lookout point- cold and tired

Driving around the park in the back of a songtheau

 

There were animals everywhere, including deer, porcupines, and millions of monkeys!  One monkey even charged our group and pretty much took a bag of chips out of my friend's hand.  Yikes!

We hiked to a waterfall (which was pretty mediocre after seeing beautiful waterfalls a few weeks earlier in Kanchanaburi), and were supposed to see a cave filled with bats but never got around to it (can't say that I was sorry about that one).  All in all, a good weekend....dare I say that I enjoyed camping?!

Well, school is over next week and right now, I'm busy writing student reviews for my younger kids (my special language/elementary school students).  My high school students are currently taking their exams, and in a day or two, I'll have approximately 315 finals to mark and grades to compute.  Fun, fun!  As much as I've joked about the negative points of my teaching experience, it's hard to believe that it's all coming to an end.  I really have developed a bond with a good portion of the students (particularly the younger ones, but some high school ones too), and I think I will be sad when it's all over.  Hopefully, two weeks of island hopping in the south of Thailand will ease the pain....I have a feeling it will!  Until next time...Sawatdee kah!

 

Water for Elephants

Look who's on the landing page of their school's website?  Small pic, on the right.  http://www.pbs.ac.th/    Too funny!

I decided to film one of my mornings so that people could get a better look at my school.  It's pretty boring stuff, but a work day is a work day no matter where you are living.  If you want to make the video more exciting, feel free to take a drink every time I say 'Good Morning', 'hello', 'like', or 'America'. 

 

Last weekend, Audrey and I went to Koh Chang ('Elephant Island').  Koh Chang isn't too far from us, but far enough that asking my school if I could take a half day on Friday made sense.  Most people on our program have been to Koh Chang already, and Audrey and I were two of the last to make it there.  It's the second largest island in Thailand (after Phuket) with many beaches, and we were confused about where to stay as a result.  We waivered back and forth between White Sand Beach (the most popular and touristy) and Lonely Beach (more backpackers/travelers), and ended up doing both.  We spent the night in White Sand Beach on Friday, and though the place had potential with some really cool beach bars, the crowd wasn't great.  So, after spending Saturday morning on White Sand, we packed up our stuff and headed to Lonely Beach.

White Sand

The little village at Lonely Beach lined with shops and bars- so cute!

Our waterfront bungalow- again, so cute.  Much nicer than our ant-infested, no-sink-in-the-bathroom bungalow at White Sand.

Lonely Beach- I think they all start to look alike after a while anyway

What does one do on Elephant Island other than hop from beach to beach?  One rides elephants of course!  Late Saturday afternoon, Audrey and I headed out on a jungle trek/bathing with elephants excursion.....

The trainer told the elephant to spray us....

On the trek

There really isn't a much better way to spend a Saturday!  We finished up the trek around 5:00, and on the way back to Lonely Beach, we asked our driver to stop at the scenic lookout point so we could take some pictures as the sun was going down.  The island is really pretty, and though I tried to take pictures when we were driving around in songtheaus, most turned out blurry, so I was glad to have some steady-handed shots.

Me in silhouette

Turns out, we weren't the only people from our program who hadn't been to Koh Chang yet, and we ended up bar hopping in the village with people we ran into on Saturday.  I'd post some pix, but I look like a hot mess in the 100% humidity, so you'll just have to take my word for it that it was a good time :)

Before heading home on Sunday, Audrey rented a motorbike to explore the island and I headed to yet another beach, Kai Bae.  I definitely got the beach fill I was looking for this weekend!

Only two more weekends left before school is over!  I'm super busy at work on all fronts, making time seem like it's going even faster.  There is talk about going to Khao Yai National Park this weekend, but no decisions have been made yet, so we'll see how things unfold.  Until next time...Sawatdee kah!

Kanchanaburi- Take 2

I mentioned in my last post that I only have four weeks left of school and that time really feels like it is flying.  While that’s true, I am pretty ready to be finished with the teaching portion of my trip.  It gets old spending so much time traveling to and from your weekend destinations, and when Saturday is the only full day you have to relax, the weekends seem like a huge blur.  School itself is starting to drive me kind of crazy too.  Though I know that all of us teachers here have had to deal with students who couldn’t care less that you are standing in front of them, my issues recently have been more administrative.  Don’t get me wrong; I really like my school and they treat me very well.  The staff couldn't be nicer, I've found a great friend in my Filipino colleague (the other English teacher), and the students, though challenging, are overall good kids.  It’s just that things are run differently over here (to be expected) and at times it can be frustrating.  I’ll leave it at that for now; if you are curious and want more details, feel free to ask me the next time you see me in person.

Whenever I travel, there are always a few songs that stick with me as the songs of the trip, usually because I hear them everywhere.  Here's another one that I hear almost every weekend; is this song popular in the US?  Definitely a party song here in Thailand!

Last weekend, I headed back to Kanchanaburi with Audrey, Shari, and Brittany.  Though Laura and Kelli were away for the weekend, our South African friend Eva was around, and she had four friends visiting her for the weekend.  We all made a plan to head to Erawan National Park, which is a 7-tiered waterfall park and easily one of the biggest attractions around Kanchanaburi.  We only ended up spending a short amount of time with Eva and her friends because our group left earlier in the morning, but we all had a really fun day at this beautiful park.

I was the only one who wore a bathing suit; there are fish in the waterfalls and they peck at you, which freaked some of the girls out a little bit.  It's kind of like a fish pedicure for your whole body!  It was so hot and humid; I was glad I could go swimming.

People were sliding down the big rock into the water

The water was such a pretty color of blue-green; hard to get a true sense of it from the pictures.

We hit the town on Saturday night, and on Sunday, we had planned to go to an open safari, where animals literally come right up to your tram and you can pet/feed/take pictures with them.  Unfortunately, due to some wrong information, we missed the safari start time (grrrr), so we went to the local market instead.  I guess I was destined to play with animals that day, as this little leopard cub from the safari was on display.  So cute!

Priceless!

I'll be spending the next couple of weeks at school working on Project Day (everything from science projects to skits and dances), grading final quizzes, and preparing final exams.  There are a few remaining places (that are close to me) that I'd like to get to before I finish up on March 2nd, but afterward, I plan on traveling around Southern Thailand before flying to Hong Kong on March 21st to meet up with my friends from home (SO excited).  Lots to look forward to...just have to get through the next couple of weeks!  Until next time....Sawatdee kah!

You're Going to Laos Tonight!

A little over a week ago, a representative from my program called and told me that I would need to leave Thailand that night and head to Laos because my 90-day visa was about to expire.  All of our sponsoring schools were supposed to be working on our work permits/visa extensions, but the short story is my school dropped the ball.  SO- with three hours notice (I’m a planner so spontaneity isn’t my strong point), I headed to Bangkok and caught an overnight bus to Laos with Katherine, another girl on my program who was in the same boat.  By some crazy coincidence, Katherine is Armenian as well…is there some sort of conspiracy to run Armenians out of Thailand?!   Hmmm J

Despite the reasoning behind the trip, I was pretty excited to go to Laos, and knew I was going to stay the whole weekend even if Katherine didn’t want to do so.  A lot of people have told me to go Laos, but it wasn’t necessarily on my hit list of Asian countries, so it worked out well that I got to miss two days of school AND have somebody else pay for the trip!   Luckily, Katherine had planned to stay the whole weekend as well, and our journey involved a 9-hour bus ride, 2-hour Laos visa process (you need a visa to get into the country), and a 1-hour Thai embassy visit (to apply for our new Thai visa) before checking into a hostel around 11am.  All visa processes were pretty straightforward, and there were a ton of people doing the same thing. 

The passport retrieval line at the Thai embassy

After checking into our place, Katherine and I toured the capital city of Vientiane.  It was bigger than I thought, and though I barely slept on the overnight bus, I wanted to see as much as possible that day.

Ruins at Buddha Park

Katherine and I look so small on this huge reclining Buddha!

Wat Pha That Luang (Golden Temple)

Patuxai- built to honor the soldiers who fought to protect the country from foreign invasion.  Resembles the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.  Oh how I miss you Europe!

The view over Vientiane from the 7th level of Patuxai

We hit the night market for food and shopping, a rooftop bar for a little taste of the scene, and then called it a night fairly early because the next day, we headed to Vang Vieng, a town in Laos known for its fun bar scene and crazy tubing adventure.  It’s a pretty little town nestled between beautiful mountains, and it surely lived up to its reputation.

Town shot

Katherine and I at the Bucket Bar with new friends

Our tubing crew

Tubing from bar to bar along the river

One of the bars

Sunset- the pictures don't do it justice

I would have liked a couple of more days in Laos (I feel like I say that about every place I visit) because I would have liked to have seen the Blue Lagoon in Vang Vieng, as well as checked out a nearby town called Luang Prabang, which seemed to be a popular destination for travelers.  At least I got a taste for the place though, and if I don't make it back there, I'll be okay with that. 

This past weekend, a couple of friends from my program, as well as other teachers we have met along the way, went to the Silverlake Music Festival (http://www.silverlakemusicfestival.com/).  The headliners were Incubus, Seether, and Owl City, and along with some other American bands and many Thai bands, the all-day event proved to be a good time.  I stayed in the (cheesy) beach town of Pattaya with my South African friend Eva, and the rest of the group met up with us at the show.

The view over Pattaya from a rooftop restaurant

Our whole crew at the concert; the only time the entire day that everyone was in the same spot!

It's hard to believe that I only have three weeks left of classes, one week of finals, and one week of grading before I'm finished with the teaching portion of my trip!  There's so much I want to see and do in Thailand before I start traveling to other countries, and I'm starting to panic.  I keep telling myself that I can't see and do everything and that I have to make the most of every experience.  Time is certainly flying!!  Until next time....Sawatdee kah!