Amy (and Monica) Take Thailand: Week 7

     Sunday starts with a new ritual with my parents: 7:30 AM video chat. My computer, even thought is is plugged in to the internet, still finds ways to make it difficult, like turning off my sound and have slow, lagging internet speeds. (Okay, so only one of those is really the fault of my computer). But we make it through and I take notes for the next time, like how to turn my sound on. I switch to video chatting with Brendan until he's off to bed and then I decide to face a day filled wit a language I don't understand.

     My town is small, I don't know if I've expressed that yet. As I walk out of my house onto the main busy road, I get maybe 500 meters of shops and buildings before I hit 7-11 which can be considered the "end of town" or beginning, depending on your direction. I go for a stroll. My plan is to wander around and explore the market but as I'm walking across the street from a somthaew (songthaew?) [it means papaya salad] stand, I hear "Teacher! Teacher!" And immediately look around. There are three women across the street from me and they're waving for me to come over!

Another view of my street.

     They invite me to sit with them. One of them is named O, she is my age; the next is Nun (I think?) and she is probably around her 40s or 50s; the last is Dune and she told me she's 63. Their invitation to sit with them turned into the possibility of an immediate friendship, I stayed with them for one whole hour. They brought out English/Thai books and started asking me questions. They listened to the little Thai that I knew and seemed overjoyed that I could say anything. Dune runs the songthao shop and said that the next time she'd make me non-spicy papaya salad. [For the record, papaya salad can be pretty spicy]. I leaven them, ecstatic that I have made my first group of Thai friends and that they are so nice. And as I leave they say, "See you again!" Which makes me even more happy. They like me, they really like me!!

taken from : http://media.maangchi.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/plate.jpg

     Monday and Tuesday are normal. Except one of those nights (I think?) I went out to dinner with Teacher Ton, Teacher Lucy, and Teacher Sally. We got hot pot. Which in Thai is called moogatak. And hot pot is like Thai-style barbecuing or something. All I really know is that it's delicious and I would eat that every night if I could. Basically you get raw meat that you put on the frying/grilling portion of what looks like an oversized metal juicer. The meat cooks on top, and in the moat section you can put in broth and vegetables and glass noodles and have a soup to eat too. It's delicious. If you come to Thailand you must eat it. It's definitely a sharing food though, so don't go there by yourself.

     On Wednesday things start getting exciting. It's the beginning of the Christmas week celebration!! Yaaay!! Really the celebration is a bunch of English speaking, writing, reading, and listening competitions that Teacher Lucy and I as well as some of the Thai teachers in our department get to judge.

     The greatest day was Friday afternoon though. The final English competition for the week was a singing contest. Everyone competing had to sing English songs, but it started with Teacher Lucy singing "My Hear Will Go On." Then Teacher Ton comes along and asks if I can sing. I say sure because if Teacher Lucy did it, then I can totally do it. He asks me what song I'll sing and I freeze up. My brain goes, "Oh no! It's time to make a decision? BURN EVERYTHING!"

     To buy some time, I tell Teacher Ton I'll think about it and he says he'll come back. The students start singing. One sings "Baby," another sings "Jingle Bells," and the last one sings "Que Sera Sera." I thought the last one cheated since it's not a total English song but he was the only boy in the competition and the teachers said he sang the same thing last time and almost one so maybe he's just been practicing really hard for a year.

     Teacher Ton came back, as promised, and said "You need to pick a song you can sing without music." I panicked. Not only would I sing in front of the whole school (and sing poorly) I wouldn't even get to have music to drown out at least some of my voice! And it would have to be a song that I know by heart, which my brain already burned those out of existence and planted seeds of doubt in the ashes. I knew I knew a lot of words to many songs, but did I really know all the words to any song?

     My palms were sweaty (knees weak, arms spaghetti). I thought back to my short-lived karaoke/rock band days:
                         "Wonderwall? No, the second time I sang that I sucked.
                           Rolling in the Deep? No way, Adele is crazy good!
                           Killer Queen? I could never get that intro right ...."

     Then it hit me: We Are the Champions. And lucky me, they did have the music to that one! All that worrying for nothing! So I went up on stage, I sang my heart out, I danced and did many fist pumps and I felt like a champion!

     It wasn't until later that it was brought to my attention that none of the students (and even most of the teachers) had no idea what song I had sung. But they really liked my performance. That is the level of English comprehension at my school. They loved what I did, they thought I was hilarious and cool. They just didn't have the slightest clue what song that was.

     So brain, you were wrong! I didn't need to worry! I could have picked a more obscure song and made up the lyrics and no one would know.

     Still, I finished the day on a performance high.

     Saturday was really exciting. I went back to my new friends, got some free papaya salad. Talked some English with them. And did laundry!! Oooooh. For the record though, there are no dryers in Thailand. All clothes are hung dry. Which only suck a little bit when you are so proud of your engineered hooks and hammock ropes hang-dry system, only to learn that the hooks can't support the weight and now all your clothes are on the ground. Now I hang my clothes on curtain rods to dry.

     I also met the father of the girl I will be tutoring every Sunday. Overall, the week ended well. Unfortunately, the entire week is almost picture-less because I didn't know I was allowed to document such things as the activities we did.

     In Monica's world at this time, she's dealing mostly with coworkers leaving and changing positions. Oh, and she also is enjoying things that Amy doesn't have in her town. Like a lake, having more spaces to wander about in her town, being able to wander freely. Getting to wear pants when she feels like it and maybe even slightly less "polite" clothing. And hot showers. Monica also is enjoying the cold because Thailand does get cold, and living so far up North, she actually deals with it and needs sweaters!!
     This week is also the beginning of Monica and I discussing (briefly) our next reunion trip, New Year's Holiday Break.
     As far as Monica has led me to believe, things are well in Phayao.

Amy (and Monica) Take Thailand: Week 6

      After returning from an eventful visit with Monica it was back to teaching -- which was still a pretty new thing at this point.

     The week starts on Wednesday and it could be considered my real first teaching day since it's the first day my lesson plan isn't "Play 'Introduce Myself' for a bunch of Thai kids." It's a decent day. Nothing too remarkable (as I write this a month after the fact, the initial hilarious things start to fall out of focus ... oops.)

No one seemed to care that this dog is destroying a pigeon while the assembly is going on.

This is what the lower grade students wear on Wednesdays or Thursdays.

It's their scouts uniform!

These are some trees by one of my old classrooms.

     Thursday and Friday I'm back to the introduction game. I'm meeting coworkers and doing my best to make work friends.

     Saturday rolls around and it's another teaching day!! Wooooooo!!! Wait .... what?!

     Of course I knew this was going to happen. This is the price I (and my school) pays for getting a five-day vacation. And today was an interesting day. My Matayom 6 class that I teach, I had this grand idea for their class. The title of the course I'm supposed to teach them is called "English on the Job." So the course would start with lessons in resume creation and move from there onto job searching and then end on job interviews. It sounds like a logical progression that will take me through the semester and really benefits the students before they go off to university. It sounds great!!!

     ...

     ...

     ...

     

     And then I start teaching it. Cue the face smack.

     Everything I believed was a lie! I felt my own lesson plan crash and burn within moments. The worst part (and also a really good part) was that I have this fantastic co-teacher who is a total sweetheart and she just watches. She probably doesn't know that my plan is falling to pieces around me and part of me believes that maybe some of what I'm teaching is new to her as well. It isn't until the students to turn her, and I look to her as well -- with what I assume to be desperation in my eyes -- that she becomes the savoir of all things and explains in Thai.

     Then it's like magic! The world is filled with sunshine and rainbows and unicorns DO exist!! My students understand!! A wave of relief washes over me. I realize that all is not lost. My co-teacher is on my team and not a spy to report back to the other Thai teachers that I don't know what I'm doing .....

     I hope.

     The rest of Saturday teaching passes much the same. I teach. My students somewhat understand and I take many mental notes on how to alter my teaching.

     I return to my house after work, still friendless and lonely and I do what I do best. I set up a chair right inside of my roll top door, eat dinner, and people watch until it feels socially acceptable to close my "door." I spend the rest of my night perusing the internet and chatting with anyone awake stateside (mostly Brendan) and fall asleep stoked to have a day off.

Street view from my house.

      Monica's also back into teaching mode. Tuesday night was the last night of the flower festival in Phayao. She was excited for that because that meant the fireworks were stopping.  AND she was already settling into her new role as an MEP teacher. So rather than teaching 15 different classes and jumping from classroom to classroom, she has one class with one set of students that she teaches consistently all week. She works with a Thai co-teacher and they share responsibilities like walking the students to lunch, doing a club activity, walking the students to the pool. It all sounds very nice. And even though her students are a handful, she likes (most) of them.

     Plus she only has to memorize like 30 names. While I get to memorize over 200. I'm only slightly jealous of that.

Amy and Monica Take Thailand: Week 5 Part 2 (PHAYAO!!)

     So I'm sitting in a bus station in Nakhon Sawan. I got dropped off by a lovely Thai teacher that I hardly spoke a word to in the car because we speak different languages. But it's okay because she carpools with others who do speak Thai, so I got to watch and not feel awkward. Except for the part where the woman sitting next to me started breastfeeding. And before I realized what it was, I started looking around wondering, "What is that strange noise .... oh. OH! Look away! Look away!!!"

     I get dropped at the bus station with no real idea of when I can get on a bus, where the bus is that I want to take, or which person to talk to. But lucky for me, I look enough like a lost child that someone comes up and says "Where you go?" And I affirmatively say "Phayao" and am pointed to the window I will buy my ticket from. I buy a ticket for the only overnight bus that leaves at 9 PM ... it's 6:30 PM. Oh well!

     I sit down right by the window that I bought my ticket from and figure it's as good a place as any to post up and wait for the arrival of my bus. I do some reading, do some people watching, get watched by other people, I even made eye contact with a monk and then regretted it because I still don't understand what's socially acceptable with monks.

     At some point the inevitable happens, I have to go to the bathroom! I get up from my cozy spot, and wander around looking for the bathroom. I find it, and move to go in, when a girl stops me and says "3 baht." And I say "But I just ..." and I point at the bathroom. She nods and says "3 baht." Unbelieving I say "Just to go ...?" and point again. And she nods. So I cough up 3 baht for the bathroom and then point to the toilet paper they have in packets, she says "5 baht" and I say "forget it." I walk in and set my luggage down. Then this woman who was cleaning the bathroom comes over and shakes my hand. And then I get to use the bathroom which is a normal toilet. Hooray for a sense of normalcy!!

     I buy food, I go back to my spot and continue to wait. A woman comes over and gives me a ticket and says "8:30." I ask if that's when the bus leaves and she nods. I take the ticket and thank her in Thai. Looking at the ticket, it says my bus leaves at 8:20, so I am left confused.

     8:20 rolls by, 8:30 rolls by, I finally double check with the ladies and they tell me to sit there and they will tell me when the bus comes. The bus shows up at 9 PM. I get on, sit next to this friendly looking old woman who does not appear to speak any English, but she was kind. Mostly people slept, I read until I was too tired to read. And then at some point we stopped for food. The woman showed me where the bathrooms were and made sure I made it back on the bus before it left the food place.

     My bus rolls into Phayao around 4 AM. Monica was aware I'd be coming at a ridiculous time and had told me to call her when I arrived. So I do, and she tells me to wait for her at the station. Which was nice because as soon as I got off the bus I was swarmed by drivers all asking "Taxi? Taxi?" And I say "I have to call my friend." Then they leave me alone. Monica gets to the bus station and doesn't see me and calls me, which immediately puts fear in me when I answer the phone and she says "Where are you?" But it's cool, I got off at the right stop and we found each other. We walk back to her apartment, talk for a bit, and then pass out by 5 AM.

     We wake up and it's Father's Day. Monica takes me out to explore Phayao a bit with her and we get lunch with two of her coworkers. On the way to lunch, we pass by the lake, I take some pictures of the festivities they have set up for the Flower Festival (and also Father's Day?). They were really cool, there were lots of things to see. Unfortunately, Monica took all the daytime photos.

     We ate Kao Seuy. I'm sure I spelled that wrong, it's pronounced Cow Soy and it's a soup dish. And it's delicious. We forgot to document it.

     After lunch, Sarah, Monica, and I explore Phayao a little bit. Monica and Sarah already basically know the town but we explored a street to see where it went. Eventually we get to their walking market and I start shopping for things I want for my apartment. Most importantly, a mirror, a surge protector, and a sponge. I got all these things at the walking market. More shopping occurs later at a Tesco (Thailand's version of a Walmart/Target I haven't decided the amount of disdain I have for the store yet, which will determine what I view it more as).

This store had a really big jeans sale going on.

We also stopped for cheesecake.

And at some point Monica bought this thing.

Which is rice and coconut milk and beans inside of bamboo.

This is outside looking out from Monica's balcony.

There are a million chickens down there. They never stop.

Teehee.

     We go back to Monica's apartment and I'm pretty sure exciting things like napping and blogging occurred until we were ready to go onto our next shopping adventure at Tesco. I bought more exciting things like some cheap thermoses, a quick-dry towel, and some school things ... maybe? Oh! And Nutella. That was a big deal for me.

     We walk back to Monica's in the dark. And then Monica offers to go to the Flower Festival for the night to go to the market they had going on and to see the fireworks and everything. Going to the Flower Festival was a great idea. It was Father's Day (still) so when we got there, they were playing the King's Song and we stopped walking (a must in Thailand) until the song was over. Then we watched as this huge crowd of people is basically doing a candlelight vigil for the King and then they set up their candles on different surfaces. It was cool. Next came floating lanterns!! They were just handing them out like candy so Monica and I each got one and took subsequent pictures.

I liked the moon this night.

This man makes the best Pad Thai omlette ever.

The King's birthday ceremony.

Dragon statues.

Shrines I don't understand.

A lantern!

More lanterns!

More lanterns!

MOAR LANTERNS!

     My floating lantern almost got stuck on a power line but they had someone in a cherry picker and someone with some stick tool that was there to get the lanterns unstuck. So it made it off into the night and it all looked very pretty.

     Next came fireworks. And the concept of fireworks is pretty much the same as in the states, but these fireworks were shorter, and had a lot less of the smiley faces and Honda logos.

    Once it was over, we went back to the apartment because someone *cough*monica*cough* had to go to work the next day.

That lantern has fireworks on it.

This is one of the statue character things they had!

The King.

This says something about Phayao and the lake.

That butterfly is made out of flowers.

     Friday morning we wake up and Monica has to work today because her school was not as kind as my school and did not give her a vacation quiet like me.

     Friday morning was also the first time I hit my first real bought of sickness. So I woke up and was a bum while Monica went off to work. But I took some medicine and by lunch time was feeling good enough that I joined her for lunch at her school (free, I might add). We also went to the stationary store where Monica met someone who would be (what I hope) one of her new Thai friends.

     I then helped Monica cut squares for teaching her class tessellations. After that was all done and Monica had to go back to work, we figured it would be better if I went back home or wandered the streets of Phayao. But since I was lazy, I picked going back to Monica's and sleeping some more.

     After work, Monica and I make dinner in her water cooker and then hang out until we are invited over to her coworkers house for more dinner and to watch The Hunger Games (the first one) at the lowest possible volume possible off of a computer. I didn't really watch, I already knew what happened. We ALSO finalized plans for Saturday, which were to go to Chiang Rai!!

   Saturday morning we wake up. With plans of leaving for Chiang Rai in the morning. We left for Chiang Rai around noon. We got to Chiang Rai and immediately went to the mall to go see The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. It was legit!!! After the movie let out, it was basically time for us to go back to get on a bus to get back to Phayao. But Monica and I decided we would spend the night in Chiang Rai and make an adventure out of it! Unfortunately, all of our contacts in Chiang Rai were like "oh we're booked." So we were suddenly struggling for a place to stay. We spent an hour in a coffee shop using their wifi and eating their food and looking for a place. At least the food was good!

On the bus ride.

Trees!!

Random scenery!

 

Christmas decorations!!

Some delicious drink.

     We thought we had found a place to stay and so we made our way out of the coffee shop and the mall just as they were closing. We went to the taxis and told them where we needed to go and even called the woman who owned the place we planned to stay at. It turns out that she is far outside of Chiang Rai and the taxis would not take us there. So one of the taxi drivers took us into the downtown area of Chiang Rai and pointed us to some hotels and hostels. We ended up staying at a hotel because everywhere else was booked. While the hotel was expensive, it was a really nice hotel.

They gave us slippers!!

And a real bed!

And a bathtub!

And a shower!

And a nice bathroom sink!

And Monica, looking at stuff.

     After we got our room and put our stuff down, we went out to explore the Night Bazaar. It was really cool! Monica and I bought some teaching outfits, and Monica did some Christmas shopping, and there was this Thai man singing Michael Buble songs that I found entertaining. They also had some funny shops strewn throughout the bazaar that I made sure to take pictures of.

I found it funny they put the two together.

Some show was going on.

This was the Michael Buble singer.

     Sunday morning we wake up and take some more inside the hotel photos. We lay around and decide what to do for the day because Monica has work on Monday, and really the debate was only between seeing another movie before we head back to Phayao or not. We decided to skip on the movie and walk to our bank and then take the next bus back to Phayao.

These are the religious books provided by the hotel.

The delicious free breakfast buffet from the hotel!

Graffiti

One side of our hotel.

Another side of our hotel.

Wat Jed Yod in Chiang Rai.

     Sunday night we got out with all of Monica's foreign coworkers to get dinner off of the food street. It was some delicious food. I was the only one who didn't get the Pad Thai omelette since I believed it made me sick. But I did really enjoy my food.
   
     Monday morning, Monica works again. I do get informed that I can show up not dressed like a teacher since I'm just a guest of Monica's and not a prospective teacher. I was confusing some of the Thai teachers due to a bunch of foreign teacher changes happening at Monica's school. I go to join Monica for lunch again and then with the help of her coworkers, I find out that one of the Thai teachers will help me buy my bus ticket to go back to Nakhon Sawan the next day. Woohooo!!

     I go back to Monica's school in the afternoon and spend I meet the Thai teacher who will help me. She offers me an umbrella (because Thais do not like to tan, also, UV protection!) and we walk together to the bus station and talk about all sorts of things. Like how much money do I make, do I have a boyfriend, and where do I live? I buy my bus ticket and even get to choose my seat, so I picked the first one, which is apparently in high demand and I'm told to get there extra early if I really want it.

     After we get back to the school, Monica is teaching for the next hour, so I decide that I will go wander around the area. I walk through the day market and look at the things on sale, I wander a couple other streets. And then I believe that I find a shop that sells the fantastic toast that I loved from Uthai Thani but I didn't end up buying it. I walk back to school as class is ending and wait for Monica outside of her room.

     After Monica is off of work and we've taken a break, the whole group of foreign teachers are going to the flower festival again tonight. So we grab some food, watch the fireworks, take pictures of some flowers, and hang out and bond a little. Everyone seemed really nice and it was pretty fun. Once the fireworks ended we all headed back to the apartments to turn in.

     I end up talking with Alanna a bit at the end of the night and she insists that I get a motorbike so that I can just come visit them all the time. I can only tell her that I'll do my best. Before passing out I make sure that I have all of my things packed up and ready to go for my departure the next morning.

     Tuesday morning we wake up and Monica doesn't have work! Woohooo!! Monica makes some delicious pancakes in her cooker and we eat those as our last meal together (for now). Monica is nice enough to walk me to the bus station to see me off and then I'm on a bus for the next 7 hours or something like that.

     The views were gorgeous, it was nice to watch the countryside roll by. And we stop in the middle to go eat food at some restaurant. I was really confused by what I was supposed to do, but the Thais were nice enough to herd me in the right direction and then basically hold my hand as I get lost on what food I'm allowed to eat. After that short incident, we get back on the bus and I arrive in Nakhon Sawan around 5 PM. Teacher Ton has called me and can offer me a ride back to the village and I take it. He also did the same for Teacher Lucy and her bus is apparently 2 hours late. So we get to kill time in Nakhon Sawan.

Thailand countryside!!

Delicious bus snack.

The food I was allowed to eat.

These guys welcome you into a province.

     We eat some dinner and do some shopping. We were walking along the river in Nakhon Sawan and Teacher Ton's friend was looking for shoes and some clothes. I just browsed because most of the clothes were not "polite." Teacher Ton also informed me that when I go to places like Nakhon Sawan I can wear t-shrits and pants and it's okay!


     Once Teacher Lucy's bus pulls in, we pick her up and drop off Teacher Ton's friend at her house. Then Teacher Ton takes us back to Sanchaokaitor where I promptly prepare to go back to school and pass out.