Christmas camping in Chiang Mai

Lauren & I had an absolutely fantastic time in Chiang Mai for the Christmas holiday. We left Bangkok right after my class Wednesday afternoon and hopped on a bus up to the north. We met Sarah and Mel at an Italian restaurant for Christmas dinner and had a very nice night. Then on Friday morning, Lauren & I were picked up to begin our 3 day trek....

December

Oops it's been awhile. First of all, there's a lot of stuff going on at home that's got me concerned and very sad. I'll skip the details here, but it would be lovely if you would keep my family in your thoughts for a while.

Lauren, Jenn, Heidi and I went to Koh Chang ("elephant island") a couple weeks ago to celebrate the King's bday in style. We spent plenty of time on the beach, kayaked to another tiny island, and hung out at a really cute restaurant right on the beach for at least 4 of our meals. We were also really excited to do some hiking on this island, but when we finished our hike to a huge waterfall in less than 20 minutes, we quickly remembered that people don't really like physical activity here. It turned out that was the longest hike we'd manage for awhile. The waterfall was beautiful, though, and Jenn and I took a dip in the cold pool at the bottom. It was a great, relaxing weekend.

Other than that I've just been hanging out in Hua Mak and Bangkok. We got ourselves into one of those tuk-tuk scams, but that turned out alright because we got to see parts of the city we wouldn't have otherwise. And we also finally made it to Wat Pho, which was absolutely amazing. I can't wait to go back and spend a full day appreciating that temple complex. I had a birthday, so I'm officially an old lady now. The girls gave me a beautiful pair of earrings and even a necklace that I had mentioned liking in Koh Chang. And I got a few cards and a package from home - actually received them ON my birthday, which was a great surprise. On Wednesday, when I had about 10 students just hanging out in my office waiting to take their midterm, they all stood around me and sang Happy Birthday in that fantastic way that my Thai students like singing English songs. (I wish I could explain their singing in words!)

Last night Lauren, Jenn and I stumbled upon an art show at a gallery near Siam and we all ended up buying some work. Jenn bought a beautiful sculpture that weights about a million pounds and will be tough to carry back to the US, but it's so worth it. Lauren and I bought paintings on small canvas swatches from an artist named Channon - so he and I liked that coincidence. He said the one I bought is from when he was stuck in Phuket with no money to return home. So he collected scrap materials, painted a few images and sold what he could as a way to get home. So now I have a cartoon-style Thai motorcycle scene to put on my wall forever and ever.

Lauren and I have bus tickets to Chiang Mai for Christmas. We'll leave on an overnight bus on xmas eve, do an elephant/bamboo raft/hill tribe/camping trek for 3 days, then return home to teach for 2 days before leaving again for Phuket. We're actually hoping not to stay in Phuket but instead find a boat to take us to the Similan Islands for more camping, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that will work out. Hopefully it will.

Teaching is going really well, by the way. I know I haven't written about it and I've gotten the question in a few emails. I'll get to that someday. But for now I'll just say that I really like it. The students are great and classes are really fun. My job is literally just to come up with games to get them to speak English and practice certain things. My favorite lesson so far was dividing the class into police and suspects, and having the police interrogate the suspects about their alibis while a bank robbery was taking place... that was a lesson in past tense speaking. Anyway, I'm enjoying the teaching even more than I expected to. So of course I'm happy about that.

Merry almost Christmas, everyone! And today is my niece and grandpa's birthday, so Happy Birthday, Jade & Grandpa.

protesters & safety & such

Obviously there's a lot going on in Bangkok right now, but I promise everyone that I'm okay. Thanks for the emails and your concern. The protesters are making a lot of noise, but they're in very specific areas. I spent a lot of time downtown this weekend and didn't see one protester or any extra police or anything. I did have to change my Friday plans from going to the royal palace and government buildings to instead seeing a few wats and shrines in a different area of the city, but that's no big deal and totally worth it to avoid any problems. Other than that, I'm just avoiding wearing any yellow or red and delaying plans to leave the country any time soon. (Though I REALLY hope to be in Cambodia for New Year's if things work out!)

So yep, everything's okay with me here. Last week we had an excellent Thanksgiving dinner at the Radisson, a wine tasting at the Marriott, good sight-seeing and a little shopping at the JJ Market. Tonight Ladky and I are going to a random pizza pub for tango lessons, and this week I'm hoping to finally start the martial arts training I keep talking about. Will let you know how it all goes!

PS - Christmas decorations are up in Bangkok!

Koh Samet: The sea cures all.

I just had a fantastic weekend in Koh Samet, an island about 4 hours south of Bangkok. We took a van and ferry there, quickly found inexpensive bungalows to sleep in, and then spent the next 3 days soaking up the sun and floating in the beautiful blue-green water. Saturday all 15 of us went out on a boat for snorkeling, a BBQ lunch, jumping into the sea from the upper deck of the boat, and sunset fishing. And of course the evenings were filled with drinking, late-night swims, and befriending the Thai and Cambodian bartenders and some Swedish boys that Lauren and I had pegged for hard-core Weezer and Miles Davis fans (“not cool enough for Coltrane”). It was a really excellent couple of days. I couldn’t stop saying that it looked like paradise and telling everyone how convinced I was that the sea can cure all of life’s problems.

Ao Hin Khok beach in Koh Samet

The most intense game of Jenga you ever did see. We played the Cambodian & Thai bartender sharks like pros, and I made the Jenga move of my life.

I'm pretty sure that's heaven.

I'm reading El Principito right now (Spanish translation of the Le Petite Prince) and this looks exactly like his drawing of the snake that swallowed an elephant.

sadness

The only downer of the weekend (and it was a huge downer) was when Lauren and I got in the middle of an abusive argument between a British man and a Thai woman. The situation brought Lauren to tears and she felt she needed to talk to the woman. So keep the man distracted, I sat at the barstool next to him, gave him my most hateful glare, and then picked a fight about a person’s opportunity to make the world a better or worse place, help or hurt others, through one’s every day actions. Meanwhile Lauren got the woman’s heartbreaking life story and held her hand while they both cried. The scumbag and I continued our debate about whether it matters if we do good or bad unto others for about 20 minutes before he saw Lauren talking to his girlfriend and put 2 and 2 together. Selfishly, that was good timing for me because I was more physically intimidated by this man than I’ve ever been in my life. He was thin but towered above me as soon as our argument moved away from the bar. This man just absolutely emitted violence and aggression in a way I can’t describe. My whole body was tense speaking to him. I know it was not our smartest decision to get involved and act as if we could fix anything in the world with this one intervention. But as Lauren said, we also could not just sit there. My only worry is that the woman’s night may have actually gotten worse because of us rather than better. It really scares me to think about that. I gave the woman my phone number and email address, but she said she doesn’t have access to internet or a phone. Of course she doesn’t. She broke our hearts. And the worst part is that this “couple” is just one example of a situation that is far too common.

As Lauren and I walked away, we stole the asshole’s unopened bottle of whisky and practically finished it between the two of us as our own personal (and admittedly meaningless) “F you” to the bastard.

So that was the heartbreaking part of our weekend.

Loy Krathong & first weekend in my new new home

Wednesday was the Loy Krathong festival throughout Thailand. This Buddhist celebration (with its origins in a Hindu tradition) is a time to let go of grudges and disappointments, symbolized by lighting incense and candles and sending them to float away on the river atop banana leaf rafts (krathongs). It also honors the River Goddess and apologizes to her for human damage to waterways.

Heidi and Ladky met me in Hua Mak Wednesday afternoon, and we dined on skewers of street meat that I’d been raving about (though this time they were a little undercooked) and bought a few handmade krathongs from a vendor down the street from our office. Then we headed for the Thaksin Bridge in Bangkok to launch our little boats. Having had my heart set on seeing this festival in Chiang Mai, the scene in BKK wasn’t exactly as I’d imagined it. It was beautiful though, and I think all of us benefited from the opportunity to let go of our disappointments and refocus on the wonderful. We wandered down a very small soi and happened upon a tiny pier full of locals just in time for the firework show. I don’t normally care for fireworks, but they were beautiful and the setting was even better. All in all it was a very nice night.

I spent Thursday and Friday in Bang Na with my other ajarn buddies. We went to Hi Life, the one bar/restaurant within walking distance of campus, and had a good night hanging out. Friday afternoon I came back to Hua Mak, ironed out a few lesson plans, and wandered around the market a few blocks away. I also took my first motorcycle taxi that night and that was good fun. Sam and lots of other people keep telling us to stay away from the motorcycles, but it’s just too fun. And cheap, by the way, so win-win for me.

Saturday we had an extremely long orientation meeting with the university president and some other dudes. Most of it was terribly boring for a Saturday, but it was good to meet other new faculty. After the meeting, Lauren, Rob, Griffin, Jenn and I went to a place called Dream for dinner. We planned on grabbing a quick bite to eat before going into BKK to check out Lumphini Park, but “ quick dinner” turned into 8 ½ hours of marathon drinking all in that same place. Thailand is holding three days of mourning in honor of the King’s deceased sister, so no one is legally allowed to sell alcohol. We were pleasantly surprised that this place offered to serve us as long as we sat inside. We made friends with a group of third year students who were rocking out on an acoustic and singing favs like the Beatles, CCR and Oasis. (They love Oasis here, btw.) Half of the night was a giant sing-a-long with our group, 2-6 of the students, and a couple other tables of Thai men. The students were reluctant to keep hanging out with us after they found out we are Ajarn (professors hold a high level of respect in Thai society), but we just kept insisting that we were friends that night, not ajarn. These kids were super sweet and we had a really awesome time with them. Hopefully we’ll all meet up again soon.

Jenn and Lauren stayed over Saturday night, and we met up with Heidi and Ladky the next morning to go look at apartments and townhouses for the four of them. Sam, the amazing woman who works in the International Student office at ABAC, drove in on her day off just to help us find places. She’s been wonderful in helping us resolve some of the issues we’ve had with Supa, especially the housing debate. Sometimes it seems like she cares a lot more about getting us to move out to Hua Mak than some of us even do. So anyway, Sam and Pierre, a really nice Indian man who’s been in TH for about 8 years, walked around with us for hours until we found something. At first some of the girls were about to plunk down tons of money for a DISGUSTING house with visible mold and a character-building stench, but Jenn and I talked them out of it. Then everyone got attached to a cute townhouse just a 5 minute walk from campus and they decided to move on it. (Huge 2 BR, 2 floor townhouse: 10,000 bht per month – about $300!) I’m really excited that they’ll all be living so close to me now!

That takes care of this past week here. Sorry the post is so long! Hopefully no one has gone blind. =)

I hope all is well with everyone at home. Miss you much!

Hua Hin to Hua Mak

I moved to the Hua Hin campus yesterday. Although it’s dirtier and older, it’s also much more convenient to get into the city. Here I’m only about 10 minutes from the closest BTS skytrain stop, while the Bang Na campus is more like 45 minutes away from the BTS. I’m happy to have moved out here, even though I’m unfortunately the only teacher from my group here now. Most of us have been pressuring the school into letting us move, but it’s been a seriously uphill battle and I’m the only one to win the fight so far. A couple others are still making their case, and some are considering just paying for an apartment closer to the city. Either way, hopefully they will be in the area soon enough.

In the meantime, I’ve been meeting more people out here anyway. I’ve met a few other teachers in different departments, so I’m happy to be expanding my social circle. Yesterday afternoon after I finished teaching I walked around the neighborhood, through a market with fruit and other goodies, to the grocery store, and through another university campus. It was a nice walk and I already love this area for its liveliness much more than the secluded Bang Na campus.

Hua Hin beach group:

The weekend in Hua Hin was cool. We spent the days on the beach and the nights being uncomfortable at bars filled with prostitutes and sex tourists. I’m starting to see that it’s not a scene I’ll easily be able to avoid this year. One of my weekend highlights was the Irish-Mexican bar (yeah, IN Thailand) where Lauren Ladky had to show the Thai bartenders how to make Irish car bombs, where Rob and I downed a couple shots of delicious Thai whisky, and where we all ended up spending a fortune when the bartenders charged us for all their shots. We really should’ve been expecting that.

Thai-Irish-Mexican bartenders?

We also met a sweet Thai artist whose gallery was just across from our guesthouse. He has spent time in the US and is a former art professor at a university in Chiang Mai. He showed us his sketches and let us watch him make progress on his current painting, all the while happily chatting away to us about our adventures in Thailand and his curiosity about what John Lennon might have whispered to Bob Marley if given the chance. That pretty much made my weekend.

my new favorite person:

PS - I had lunch with Sam yesteray - she works in one of the ABAC offices and has taken an interest in helping our group. She told me that "Hua Mak" (my new home) refers to the area's past as a huge beetle nut market. So now you know.

Halloween weekend

Last week when we went downtown for a conference, I fell in love with a quiet little side street discretely tucked away from the Bangkok chaos. So I booked a room in the Suk 11 guesthouse and spent the weekend there with some of the other teachers.

Sukhimvit Soi 11

We had a blast on Halloween Friday. Lauren M, Heidi and I were pirates, Griffin was a vampire and Lauren L was a coked-out model. We splurged on a tex-mex dinner with sangria and befriended the British restaurant manager. He invited us to stop by a costume party later that night. The party was for a group called Thailand Friends – supposedly half Thai and half expat guests. That turned out to mean half cute, young & “friendly” Thai women and the other half middle aged white dudes seemingly on the prowl. We never fully decided if this was an official prostitution ring of just a really weird singles group, but mai pen rai.

We actually had a great time despite ( or maybe because of??) being groped by Thai women dressed as sexy nurses. And if I ever want to take Ris up on her offer for a free weekend at her beach house – all we have to do is be open to “whatever it takes” to have a good time – then I can always call the number she practically stored in my phone for me.

I can’t even begin to describe the taxi ride home, but it was a good one. Take my word for it. We ended up... “somewhere,” as the Thai would vaguely put it.

Saturday was lovely and low-key. We wandered around the Nana area and southern part of town for most of the day. We chilled in a cute Chinese tea house, and later went to the closing night of a film festival for a killer showing of Scorcese’s “Shine a Light.” It was great – Lauren and I were as pumped and dancy as if at a real show. There was free beer and popcorn, too. Beat that. We ended the night at a small house party of some of Ladky’s new friends from her Frisbee tournament.

Sunday, we took a bicycle tour of the “Bangkok Jungle.” We rode out of the city, took a longtail boat across the river and then biked through rural areas. We rode on a concrete path only one meter wide and quite high above the land and water. It was really nerve-wracking, especially at all of the 90 degree turns we had to make on this platform while still riding at a reasonable pace. Jenn almost bit it at a turn, but luckily she caught herself.

So it was a great weekend – complete with Halloween costumes, a party full of hookers, a Rolling Stones concert experience, and a kickass 5 hour bike ride. I rather enjoyed myself and plan to spend as many weekends based out of Suk 11 as possible.

A few of us are off to Hua Hin for a weekend at the beach. We found a guesthouse for about $9 a night and a block from the white sand beach. I'm excited!

OBAMA!

I have been glued to the TV watching CNN and BBC until the wee hours for the past two weeks, and last night I barely slept at all. I was excited and really freaking nervous watching the numbers come in. I tore myself from the tv in time for my 9 a.m. meeting and then had to start my 45 minute journey to Hua Mak. Upon my arrival I went straight to CNN.com and started jumping up and down as I told Lin and Nui, the Thai women who work in my office, that Obama had won. They laughed and were happy that Obama won, but they still looked at me like a crazy person. They asked if I was wearing blue on purpose. (Yes.) And about 10 minutes later, I shed my first southeast Asian tears with relief and consideration of this wonderful opportunity for change in the U.S. I'm ecstatic!

And I'm getting a kickass Thailand for Obama t-shirt that I can't wait to show off.

Right now I'm headed to an Obama victory party in the city. Can't wait!

another weird day.

turns out no school for us today. lol. no surprise there. i'm not surprised by much any more. the whole Thai attitude of just waiting, chilling out, not expecting answers, etc. is really starting to work for me. i kind of like it. i need to chill out in life in general, so this Mai Pen Rai bullshit might be good for me. =)

today was strange and many of the teachers were upset with it, but i honestly wasn't too bothered about things. here's how it went: we got to our office around 8:45, found out we wouldn't have classes for another week, so toured a bunch of classrooms (which we weren't allowed to see last week) and the library during the morning. i got a library card today - that's one thing i accomplished. then after lunch our jobs took an interesting turn. we had a meeting with dr. supa (crazy lady whose job is to run the program but who does a really shitty job at that). apparently some of us need to "volunteer" to teach at the other campus, which is of course where we expected to live and want to live, but were told we could not because we weren't allowed to commute. now we're living out in the boonies and might have to reverse commute because they couldn't figure out a class schedule until... well actually not until "sometime" later this week. anyway i'm volunteering to teach at Hua Mak twice a week so that I'll be closer to the city on those days but not have to commute every single day. it'll be nice to be able to get into the city more easily at least half the week.

then supa told us that we might not have enough students signed up for the classes, so we may need to find some other way to "contribute" to the university. so she wanted our ideas for that. we suggested things like informal English clubs, coaching sports, working with HR, etc. someone said help out in the counseling department (because heidi has her masters in counseling, so she would volunteer to counsel students to help make up her hours) but then Supa turned that into "can you teach psychology?" and started asking everyone if they could teach courses related to our majors, which of course we're totally unqualified to do. weird bootleg university.

then we brought up the fact that most of the students we've met on campus have never even heard of our department or courses (which are new) so we asked what they had done to promote the courses since we hadn't seen any flyers or anything like that on campus. that discussion turned into us setting up a few marketing projects, like designing flyers, setting up promo tables, etc. i worked with some of the teachers to make a schedule for all of us to go to various English Lit classes tomorrow and Thursday to talk for 2-3 mins in the beginning of class to promote our OPE classes. you know how i like making schedules. =)

anyway, it was just strange and a lot of teachers were angry that 1) we might not have enough classes to do the job we were hired for, 2) we suddenly need to find other ways of filling hours even though they are not things we're qualified to do nor what we signed a contract to do, 3) that we find ourselves promoting our department and classes even though that should have been done weeks if not months ago. it's all kind of crazy. Ken, a really sweet older Aussie teacher who has been in country for a few years, just shakes his head and quietly tells us that Thai universities never have their shit together but that you eventually get used to it and learn to love it. we've heard that same sentiment echoed by a few other teachers too, so here's hoping...

also a lot of peeps are pissed that we're so far from the campus. it's clear to us now that Supa lied about where we'd be living. like she lied to us about other things in the past few months. supposedly we live in Bang Na, right? which is a suburb of Bangkok. However, we clearly live twice as far from Bangkok as Bang Na. Our address is off of Bang Na HIGHWAY, but NOT in the town of Bang Na. So even though a map says that Bang Na is like 32 km/27 minutes from BKK, and that's what we all though when we researched it from back home before making our decision, our campus is actually significantly further than that. So we're all trying to gather our thoughts and take a more united stance to insist that we move to the Hua Mak campus, which is much closer to the city and definitely not in the middle of nowhere. That's the other thing about here - it's bad enough that we're so far from BKK, but even worse is that fact that there's nothing around here. literally NOTHING except the campus. not exaggerating at all. there's only one bar within walking distance and even that is a 20-25 minute walk away. and in the other direction, we can take a short cab ride to get to a small street with a couple vendors, one restaurant, and a waxing salon. that's it. this campus is crazy secluded. we're surrounded by a golf course, lots of rice paddies, and nothing else. and a bunch of 17-21 year olds. though some of the might be cool and it's good to mix with the students to a certain extent, it's not exactly a good social pool for us. our students probably should not be our friends, so we need to get somewhere that we can actually meet people and not be so isolated. so yeah, people are pissed. btw the loyola marymount teachers all get to live in Hua Mak, so it again makes no sense that ABAC & Supa think we can't handle commuting.

anyway, that was today. i know it sounds goofy, and it was for a lot of people, but actually i was okay with everything. i've been much more chilled out this week and less stressed about everything. oh - in other good news, we actually got a pay stub today for our work in october. we won't actually get it deposited into our accounts until friday, but it was still a pleasant surprise (lol) that we are getting anything at all yet. we were told that we might not even get that until after our Nov 25th paycheck. Not that we have ATM cards yet to be able to USE the money that will be deposited into our accounts, but still.... it's nice to have a bit more of a concrete date that we'll start getting some dollas.

Pataya

We were invited by the Office for International Students to join the Chinese first-year students for a beach day today in Pataya. The idea was to meet some of our future students and enjoy a day at the beach with some cultural exposure.

It was emphasized repeatedly last week that we needed to be on time for our 7:30 a.m. bus pick-up. Though we were on time, the bus was an hour late. Two hours later, we arrived at the Nong Nooch Tropical Garden & Resort but had missed the "cultural show" due to bus lateness. So we watched a weird, depressing elephant show, visibly unhealthy monkeys dressed in strange human clothing, and unfortunate tigers weighed down by chains that were only 1-2 feet long. One of the tigers couldn't even stand up b/c the chain was so short and he appeared so drugged up he could barely focus his eyes. Ick. I love tigers like no other, they are absolutely my favorite animal, but this was just super saddening and I really didn't feel comfortable getting my picture taken with the tigers like so many of the other tourists. I did pet the thing though. I couldn't resist that much.

Anyway, after the animal depression, we had a huge buffet lunch and then took a trolley tour of the garden in this resort. Odd garden overall, but it had lots of really beautiful orchids. We had to stay until the 3pm cultural show, which was an odd combination of dancing, Muay Thai boxing, and sword fighting atop elephants wearing obnoxiously colored styrofoam hats. Then we hopped back on the bus and finally landed at the beach around 4:45. We stayed there until 6, making for a pretty unsatisfying beach day. Jenn, Kate, Angelica and I went down the street for a drink instead of packing into the already crowded Pataya beach.

Also it rained all day. Kind of a bust. Most of us are done with the group tours. I know that the university is trying to take us on trips they think we would like, but it really hasn't worked out so far. I don't want to be unappreciative, but I'd just rather take my own trips from now on instead of spending entire days touring shopping malls or circus-like, touristy animal havens.

Did I mention that right there along side the tigers and fat, costumed monkeys was a black man dressed like some uncivilized tribal dude? He was all decked out in "traditional African" costume and tooth necklaces and crap. On display right there with the animals. Absolutely effed up.

On the way up side of the day were the beautiful orchids and other flowers in the resort garden. And also that I got to pet a beast of a tiger (drugged up as he was).

mmm mmmm good

I ate a spoonful of ants last night. They mostly tasted like the lemon and onion with which they were prepared. Not bad but probably not something I need to eat again.

We spent the morning getting medical exams required by the TH government then headed into the city for the rest of the day. Our group split in two for awhile and then met up later in the Khao San Road area. I didn't favor the decision to spend our first real night in the city in the most cliche backpacker area, but it turned out to be a fun night. We took a subway, skytrain and river ferry to get to Th. Khao San and found a chill aussie hostel for a few beers. Later in the night I had pad thai from a street vendor and it was the best pad thai I've ever eaten, plus it cost under $1.

Ayuttaya

Today was Chulalonghorn Day in Thailand, so in honor of the holiday we went to Bang Pa-in and Ayuttaya, the ancient capital of Siam. We spent the morning at a wat (temple) on a small island - we had to take little air carts to swing across the river to the island - and had awesome ice cream being passed out by women making lots of food for the holiday. Then we wandered around the gardens of the royal summer home in Bang Pa-in before getting back on the bus to head up to ancient Ayuttaya. We spent the afternoon looking at ruins and riding elephants. The elephant thing extremely touristy and circus-like, which made it strange and overwhelming. Also we saw a few indicators that made me question how well the elephants were treated, so it's something I'll research before we plan a longer elephant hike for later this year in the northern parts of the country. But it was still cool to ride an elephant for a few minutes!

young monk from Wat Nivet

I motioned to this kid to ask if I could take a picture of him. He nodded and tapped the elephant on the ear to make him turn his head for this pose.

this one was more candid
ruins of Ayuttaya

one of the many buddhas among the Ayuttaya ruins

Bang Na, Bangkok, Thailand

Last Friday, Lauren, Heidi and I journeyed out to the Narita airport and met up with 6 other teachers who were all on our flight to Bangkok. We were picked up from the airport at midnight and got to our campus housing around 2 a.m. I could not believe how hot and humid it was, even at that hour of the night. It doesn't cool down here at all, staying in the 90s with lots of humidity all throughout the night. I've gone running at 6 a.m. thinking that I could beat the heat, but no such luck. I am getting used to it though.

Saturday we explored the beautiful campus and then took taxis to downtown Bang Na, which is kind of a far trip. We shopped and ate before heading back to the ABAC campus that evening. Sunday we were taken on what was supposed to be a tour of downtown Bangkok but instead turned into a tour of four (FOUR!) different shopping malls. Apparently they think Americans like to spend all of our time shopping, but that didn't exactly fly with this crowd - most of us are more interested in hiking and eating questionable meat from street vendors than seeing the high-end stores of Siam Paragon. But after our tour, we decided to stay downtown and walk around for awhile. We eventually found a place to grab appetizers and beer while people-watching from an outdoor patio. It was really nice to sit down with the other teachers and all chill out for a while.

Monday through Wednesday we had orientation and training, which was riddled with surprises and confusion. Signing our contracts and other paperwork was a huge fiasco, but that frustration has since subsided and it seems like everything will work out. We start teaching either this Monday or the following Monday... we'll find out on Monday morning. One of the things I'm getting used to is that you don't get advanced notice about anything and that you have to sift through lots of convoluted information to figure out answers to the simplest questions. Thais are just so laid back about everything and never expect much information, so that's been pretty different for us Americans to get used to. The Thai say "mai pen rai" all the time - meaning no worries, it's cool, don't worry about it, whatever, nevermind. We're all starting to internalize that as much as possible, because it's a lot easier than getting frustrated and stressed all the time. So... mai pen rai!

A few days in Tokyo: Arigato!!!

Lauren, Heidi and I spent the last couple of days in Tokyo. It was great there, even if chaotic and almost overwhelming at times.

Wednesday evening we found our way into a small restaurant where we jumped at the waitress who welcomed us with a well-pronounced English “hello.” The hostess held our hands through the meal, trying to explain a few options as best as she could in extremely limited English and finding us dishes that met our vague “noodle” or “shrimp” descriptions. One of the highlights of our entire time in Tokyo came at the end of that meal when we stood up to leave, leaving a tip on the table, and the entire restaurant yelled goodbye and gozai-mas to us. It was uncomfortable and quickly headed for the door. When we were across the street and nearly half a block away, we heard our hostess yelling at and waving to us from the door, so we turned and waved back at her. We waved and yelled “arigato” to our hearts' content until we finally realized that she was trying to tell us to come back to get the money we left on the table. Google later confirmed to us that you do not tip in Japan. Oops.

On Thursday morning we went to Tsukiji, the largest and most famous fish market in the world, also the topic of a case study I did for an anthropology/international studies class I took at DePaul. It was crazy to see all of those fishermen, dock workers and food artists all conducting their business in this massive wholesale market filled with local restauranteurs, family folk and tourists like us. My shoes smelled after walking through the fish guts and nasty puddles of questionable water, but it was worth it to taste the best, freshest tuna I’ve ever had. We also spent time near the Sensoji temple and in a traditional Japanese garden, though the zen-ness of the experience was dampened by some heavy landscaping construction.

Thursday afternoon and evening, we spent tons of time walking around Shinjuku and Shibuya. Those are business and sort of touristy districts with tons of neon lights, LCD advertisements on buildings, and obnoxiously bright and loud arcades filled with business people playing video games. We may have spent close to an hour just watching the absolute madness of the big intersection in Shibuya. Literally thousands of people who cross that intersection every time the lights turn green. It is insane and the videos we took probably don’t do it justice.

This morning, Friday, we had delicious coffee and sandwiches for breakfast and then headed back to Shinjuku on a mission to see Mount Fuji. It took us forever and a day to find the Park Hyatt, which is on the 1,000 Places to See before You Die list. I will tell you, though, that you can go ahead and cross that hotel right off the list because nothing about it was that impressive and unfortunately it was too smoggy to even see Fuji. Finally we headed to the airport on a train with 100+ of the most adorable school children I’ve ever seen – all in dorky bright yellow hats and extremely well-behaved. We also happened to sit across from a guy who would be our flight attendant later on our plane to Bangkok. He played with the kids and took pictures of them, of course smiling and making the requisite peace signs. It was excellent.

Aside from the details of exactly where we went, I think my main memories of Tokyo will be the extensive but easy train/subway system (with its extremely long walks to make transfers), the bright lights and colorful streets, and the friendly Japanese who were always willing to help us out with their limited English skills. I had learned maybe 8-10 Japanese phrases and words, but only used about half of them. Otherwise we made do with lots of hand gestures and smiles.

Now it’s Saturday, 18 October at 3:00 a.m., or Friday the 17^th at 3:00 p.m. in Chicago. I just got to the AU campus in Bang Na, Thailand and got settled in my room. Dr. Supa picked us up from the airport and we arrived at the campus pretty seamlessly. We even got our rooms right away. So thus far, I’m pleasantly surprised that things are going according to plan. Maybe this sweet, disorganized lady has her act together after all. I'm excited to find out.

Last blog from Spain

I can't handle writing about this group or program anymore. Every day there are wonderful moments, but every day there's also a lot of bullshit. So I'll just leave it in my head from here on out and focus on the positive - like the goodness of staff friendships.

I really don't understand Spanish bathrooms.

First of all, there was no toilet paper today (often the case) and then a makeshift hand-dryer plugged into the wall that barely even blows any air. In Spain they don't even pretend that the locks on the doors work. Denise suggested that we start whittling our own holds in the wood to let the lock do its job and allow her to pee without fear of an audience. One servicio today did actually have soap, which is unheard of, but in addition to the main dispenser near the sink, there was another one on a different wall and at least a foot over my head. Now I know I'm a bit on the short side, but this would have been eye-level for someone 6 feet tall. Kind of an odd place for a soap dispenser.

But the walls were a pretty maroon and this place had one of the best coffees I've had in Spain.

Staff game

Colleen and I created a new game to play while waiting for our students to get out of their a.m. classes. Name 3 students and make the other staffer choose who to hug, whose throat to step on, and who to kick in the asshole. Tyler loved our game, so now we're all playing as much as possible.

High school crush

In other news, Nicole overheard a group of guy students saying that one has a huge crush on me. Apparently he's determined to make out with me by the end of the summer. This is both icky and flattering.

Trouble with a student

A bunch of students got quite drunk last night. There is supposed to be an absolute zero tolerance policy here, but that's not how it actually works. Every year students are sent home if they're caught blatantly drinking or drunk, wasting their parents' $10,000+ program money and the college credit they would have earned. We've known that some students have been drinking, but they kept it pretty contained and behaved themselves decently and safely, so we let it go.

Last night we went to a club and there was an incident with one of the students who was a bit more out of line than the rest. The girl had to hold herself up while talking to me, and unfortunately for her, she admitted to me in front of other students that she was drunk. The rest of the details are filed away in an incident report somewhere, but basically it was a really difficult situation for the student and for me. Definitely not the highlight of this trip.

First impressions

First of all, I miss you!

Things here are going pretty well. Actually I should be honest and say that this program has bordered on disaster several times for reasons I don't even want to put too much energy into describing. Organizationally it's a mess, and worse are the unbelievably spoiled and incomprehensibly rude students. Some are among the worst people I've ever met in my life. But there are also a bunch of sweethearts and some super cool kids, so I've decided to give the good ones much more of my time and care than the brats. Enough of that.

Sevilla is BEAUTIFUL and I'm loving every awkward twist in the cobblestone roads, the old architecture and beautiful colors.

My coworkers are wonderful! There are 12 of us from NYC, Philadelphia, California, Minnesota, Chicago and Seville. We all hit it off amazingly well early on and things are still running smoothly most of the time, despite spending 16-20 hours a day together. I'm really glad to have met them all. Our chemistry and communal sense of humor puts a positive spin on what could otherwise be a much more frustrating experience.

Here's a picture of staff:

a Sevilla!

Manana voy a Espana! Mi mama me llevara al aeropuerto - salimos a las seis de la manana. Estoy bien cansada pero emocionada tambien.

Este es mi primer blog. Que suerte tienes leerlo! A ver como me va....