This post is 3 weeks late. That's what it's like in Kindergarten.
I have been in a few different Kindergarten classes throughout my life which I thought was good enough to give me small sense of what to expect. I was expecting some chaos, some singing, some crying, some cute kids and a lot of fun. I was mostly right.
What I forgot about what the fact that my students are still being taught basic Thai, let alone be able to communicate freely in English. The language barrier turns some chaos and some singing into constant chaos and more singing that I ever thought I would be comfortable with! The level of ability in terms of English is pretty crazy in my class of 23 students. I have some who can communicate is full sentences and comprehend all of my instructions...then there are many students who grunt and manage a "toilet" when they have to use the bathroom and raise their hands whenever I speak (regardless of what I am saying) followed by a confused walk towards me when I call on them (when I was just looking for a simple answer like "2"). It's a challenge! There is only a little bit of crying like I expected (monday mornings are the worst!) and the kids are incredibly cuter than I ever thought possible! (see classroom blog... point proven).
My day starts at 7:00am when I leave the house on my "bike", we call her baby blue and even though she's about 20 years old she's been super reliable! Me as a driver on the other hand is a work in progress. Luckily it only takes about 3 minutes to drive to school! I have to scan my thumb to sign in (before 7:30) and then I have until 7:50 in my room to get things ready. Most of my lessons are in the morning so this time is pretty much always used up quickly to date stamp the days worksheets, set up the songs were going to do on youtube and clear off our daily board. At 7:50 I head down to the courtyard area of the school and greet my students while they line up for assembly. When I say good morning they are required to robotically reply: "Good morning Teacher Kay!". It's funny for the students who are still too shy or sleepy to get the whole thing out, I settle for a whispered "morning". Our assembly lasts about 25-30 minutes most days. I wish I could tell you more about what goes on but the entire thing is in Thai and I spend most of it dragging kids around who are getting out of line and greeting those that trickle in. We begin with the anthem, prayer, school motto and announcements. There's always a sing along portion or small lesson: Monday we do Chinese, on Tuesdays we meditate, on Wednesday and Thursdays the English teachers get to make fun of each other as we lead a singalong (my turn is coming up in a few weeks... not looking forward to that...) and on Friday we do aerobics led by our terrifying mascot who wears a rubber mask and santa hat. Again, look on facebook for a clip of that happening to a Miley Cyrus song.
After the assembly we do our best to walk the students in a single file line to the classroom where they wash their hands, take off their shoes and put their bags away. They bring their homework to the submit basket and then my thai teacher teaches them until 8:50 when it's snack time. This usually involves some kind of milk drink and a pastry type thing. Sometimes I'm really upset that I can't give them a try and other days I am glad. After snack it's my turn to teach. I teach 30 minutes of "experience" which is basically science/life skills. Right now we are learning basic body parts, days of the week, weather vocab and how to ask to go the bathroom. (I can't wait for the choruses of "teacher toilet!" "teacher toilet!" to end). Then I have 40 minutes of English where I use a program called Jolly Phonics to teach them the sounds of the alphabet. So far we have done A, C, N & P. Each of these comes with a song and action. Usually my thai teacher then does a 30 minute lesson, most of the time covering the same subject matter; days of the week, numbers, body parts, and the students do a thai worksheet. Then I have another 30 minutes for math. So far we have counted to 5 and learned our shapes. Again; songs, songs and more songs. Then we lay out all of the mats for nap, get our toothrbrushes and water bottles ready, and head down to the lunch hall. If the students have been good and we have time, this is when we go to the playground. We wash our hands before we eat, I lead the students in a cute little prayer and it's lunch!
"We close our eyes and quietly say, Thank you god for everyday! Amen. Thank you Teacher Kay and Khup Kun Ka Khun Khru Phu!"
At lunch students normally have a sad little serving of rice, broth and a cucumber slice. They can get extra by asking "Teacher Kay, more rice please", "Teacher Kay, more soup please". But this most of the time ends up as "More rice soup!". I understand what they mean. By now it's around 11:45 and I get my lunch break. Lunch is free at school but not on the Kinder campus, on the EP campus where Nick works, so I ride my bike over there. It's usually some kind of plain rice, a curry chicken dish, a broth with cabbage and carrots and lots of sauces. If I'm not feeling adventurous I stick to white rice and hot sauce. It's not much but it's free and gets me through the day! By 12:15 I usually head back to Kindergarten. While I'm gone the students go down for nap time and are still asleep when I get back. Since my lunch break isn't actually over until 1pm I usually walk across the street and get a thai tea. I'm sure I've mentioned it before, but I am a little bit obsessed, even more than I was with chai tea. It's bright orange, super sweet and only 15 baht. The lady at the stand is ready for me by now and practically has it made when I'm crossing the street :)
Afternoons for me are still busy but with less teaching. Monday, Thursday and Friday, I teach a 30 min block of Art, Story time and play centers. Students wake up at 1:15, we put their mats away, they wash their face and have another snack. (Again this is usually something weird and sugary, the one time we had fruit I was so excited!) There are 3 periods in the afternoon since the school day is over at 3. Most of their "extracurriculars" are during this time:
Monday: Thai art and playground
Tuesday: Swimming and vocal (they just strip down in the classroom and it's chaos while they all change!)
Wednesday: Gym and Library
Thursday: Computer
Friday: Chinese
They are busy little kids!! I spend most of this time helping them line up and giving out snacks. After 3 pm their parents slowly trickle in and pick them up. Until then they usually play or if my thai teacher and I are exhausted we put on youtube videos and enjoy the silence.
I can't scan out until after 4:10. On Monday and Tuesday I have meetings at 3:10 and Wednesday and Thursday I have lesson plans and worksheets due then Friday I make sure everything is set up for the next week in case I'm sick or running late. Overall, that hour after school goes by super quickly!
I wish I could say I then go home and relax or even take a nap, but for some reason Nick and I have decided to fill our schedules like little middle school kids who have activities everyday:
Monday: Thai Lessons
Tuesday: Frisbee
Wednesday: Soccer/Yoga
Thursday: Golf/Yoga
Friday: ...relax!
Anyway, I'm sure that's more information than anyone needed to know about my day and Kindergarten, but there you have it. This weekend is a long weekend for us so we are headed off to Krabi! Final plans have yet to be made but we have Monday off and no Thai lesson either so hopefully we will be on a beach, visiting temples and/or climbing rocks... we will definitely blog while we are there.
Also, look for a blog post about out cat coming soon. Snickers is not helping me become a cat person.
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Monday, May 18, 2015
Srithammarat Suksa English Programme Rundown
The first day of school was a little bit stressful more so because some of the other teachers in my office had already started planning ahead and creating lesson plans. For most of the day, we sat in our office, planned, chatted and relaxed. I only had to spend a few minutes in my grade 6 English classes to introduce myself and go over a few rules that I wanted to have established.
The second day was a bit more stressful only because I was actually teaching a full class all by myself. The stress quickly faded away when I was up in front of my students because I realized pretty early on that all of the stress I usually experienced in front of my kids was because I had an associate teacher in the room with me back at practicum in Canada. Here, I had no other teacher sitting in watching, hearing, and jumping in on my lesson. It put me at ease and made it a lot easier to do my thing. The first couple of days were basically me setting the rules, explaining my reward system, and desperately trying to decorate my classroom. It just now had its boards replaced, it leaks 24/7 into a couple of buckets, and my door doesn’t have a doorknob. It has air con and an amazing group of students in it so I really can’t complain.
A basic rundown of my schedule: I have English classes with the two grade 6 classes (6A and 6B). I also have classes called Conversation and Reading. Both of which I have separately for each grade 6 class. These supplementary classes are always taught with two teachers. My grade 6 reading classes are co-taught with Teacher Steve (He’s been here for a long time and is super helpful). I also co-teach with his grade 5 reading classes. My conversation classes are with Teacher Jeremy (Also been here a while and also very helpful). The schedule has 8 periods with a short homeroom period at the end of the day. They are 50 minutes long and the students have a 15 minute break after 2 classes. Second break is a 50 minute lunch.
My schedule usually consists of two classes in the morning, three prep periods and then two classes at the end of the day. I have gate duty on Fridays which means I have to be at the gate by 6:45 to greet students, parents and teachers as they enter. We greet them using the traditional Wai gesture. If the students are walking in, they will put all of their belongings down, stop, and Wai back. As parents drive in with their kids, they slow down to wind their windows down to make sure that I see them and their kids wai'ing me back.
I’m also paired up with Teacher Lee (from England) for club days on Wednesday. Every Wednesday 8th period the kids get to do a club activity. They decide which club they would like to be in. This year I think there is a sports club, a movie club, fitness and food, juggling, and swimming club which is what Lee and I will be doing. Our campus has a beautiful pool and I can't wait to get to use it, I mean, supervise the kids.
So far my kids have been reasonably well behaved. The school has a system in place where the students are fined 20 Baht every time they speak Thai in an English class. I’ve collected about 160 Baht so far. The money I collect will go towards prizes or end of unit parties for the kids, so it does go back to them in some way in the end.
On Fridays, first period is reserved for worship where all of Prathom (Primary) goes to a special room for a service. The teachers get to just hang out while this goes on.
Another really interesting part of our day is the beginning announcements. Every day, the entire school lines up with their homerooms in the back courtyard. They do some simple exercises from attention to at-ease and so on. Then the school sings the national anthem (on fridays they also sing the King's song). Afterwards, a group of Prathom students lead the school in song. They then join their homerooms and another student comes out to lead the school in reciting the school motto, the school philosophy in both Thai and English. At the end, a Farang teacher comes out for the morning announcements and then sends the kids off to class. This is where I come in! I walk my homeroom to their class. That's it. It's a really important job though.
So far, everything has been spectacular. I can't wait to really get into the thick of my unit plans and long term goals for my students.
Sunday, May 17, 2015
Week 2 Down!
Wow, I can't believe it's already been a week since our last post! I thought the first week here would be the most stressful with having to find a house, get a bike, learn our way around, sit through a bunch of meetings etc. but this second week was even more of a whirlwind. I'm going to do my best to give a spark notes account of what we've been up to the last 7 days!
Monday was the first official day of school and thank goodness the students were only around until 10 am or so. In Kindergarten the parents stuck around as long as the kids were here and myself and my partner Thai teacher both talked to the parents about what to expect this year. I'm pretty sure about 4/25 were able to understand what I was saying so that made the nerves subside big time! Nick had just enough time with his homeroom class to introduce himself, meet the kids and then they were gone too, no parents involved in grade 6! I would have thought that the rest of the day would be relaxing but I forgot about how much work is involved with getting the classroom ready for the students in Kindergarten. If the room and hallways don't look fun then the students and parents won't be happy. So I spent my afternoon decorating bulletin boards, labelling drawers and notebooks, organizing my desk and buying school supplies. My Thai teacher (Khru Bhu) is amazing and already had the inside of the classroom pretty much ready to go :)
Monday night we did our usual quick stop at Big C to get a bubble tea and some fruit then we stopped for dinner after buying our bike!! It felt so great to be able to get around on our own terms and Nick has been doing an awesome job learning how to not only drive the semi-automatic bike but also navigating the weird traffic rules and drive on the other side of the road! I'm getting my first lesson tomorrow...
Now Tuesday was a real school day. We thought we were nervous for Monday but that was nothing compared to preparing ourselves to teach our own classes for the first time ever! We will both post a separate blog post explaining what our typical day at school looks like, in grade 6 and Kindergarten we have ridiculously different experiences down to our offices, lunch hour and teaching time. Regardless, we both survived and felt way more at ease :) Tuesday night was pickup frisbee at the school's main campus and the turn out was way better than expected, 16 people! There were only 2 girls, so myself and Mary were split up and the rest of the guys were divvied into two teams and we played two games to 7 points. The level of skills was awesome and way better than expected, Nick and I fit it great and I can't wait to play again next week! Not only did we meet some teachers from other schools but our boss JJ plays too. The only less positive note was how stinking hot it was so that will take a while to get used to...
Wednesday was a National holiday: Royal Ploughing Day, well deserved after our first two days of work. Contrary to what some people believe this is our only holiday for a while over here! Next semester we'll be bragging a bit more about our time off ;) A few of my friends in Kindergarten (teachers not students) invited Nick and I to join them at the waterfalls for the afternoon and how can you pass that up? We all met at Burger Bar (a restaurant owned by one of the farang teachers and her Thai husband) and we had gluten free pancakes!! We thought we had absolutely given those up while we were here but the teacher, Brooke, eats gluten free and orders some stuff in for the restaurant. Our only complaint was the lack of "quality" maple syrup which the other teachers found hilarious even though we were not joking around.
Speaking of which, if anyone would like to ship anything over here, we have been told to send it to the school's campus for which the address is:
Srithammarat Suksa School English Programme
c/o Nicholas Stewart/Kay Jonsson
110/14 Om Khai
Pakpoon Muang
Nakhon Si Thammarat
80000
Thailand
After breakfast a group of 10 teachers on 6 motor bikes headed off to the waterfalls. We looked like a biker gang. I kinda felt like I was in a gang. The drive was about 40 minutes long which was surprisingly comfortable on the back of the bike and the view once we got out of town was amazing! You could follow the mountains the entire way there. At the falls, the teachers who had been there for a while and knew their way around, brought us up a steep trail, away from the other tourists and locals, to a pool of water that was swimmable between two falls. The water was freezing and it felt amazing! There was a spot where you could climb up and sit at the top of a mini waterfall (7-8 feet) and then let it take you and slide into the water. We hung out up here for a least 2 hours (we brought a few drinks and snacks) and then climbed down and drove back home. On the way home we experienced our first ever Thai downpour while riding the bike, it was not fun. We are getting a drybag before the rainy season starts for sure! Again our coworkers directed us and brought us to a restaurant/bar called Full Moon and we had lunch (and escaped the rain!). This place was awesome. Bob Marley posters everywhere, big open huts to sit in with hammocks, mats on the floor and tables. There is also a little "stage" set up where there is often live music. We all had the massaman chicken curry which was delicious (who would have guessed there are some curries I like!).
Thursday and Friday were more of the same. Full days of teaching, finally getting into the routine of waking up at 6am and putting on way to hot, formal clothing and being at school shortly after 7 (earlier for both of us on Fridays which we'll explain in another post).
Thursday night another new teacher (sarah) and I went to a yoga class in town! On the second floor of what I'm assuming is her house, a woman named Ling has her own yoga studio and it's really nice! She made us feel really welcome and we are both buying a ten class pass and going to try to go at least once a week. Although Ling's English is great, she teaches the classes in Thai so it definitely interesting to try and follow along while in weird posses and trying to look at what the other woman around you are doing. Other teachers have also been telling us about another yoga studio where they do "fly yoga" which to me looks like cirque du soleil. There's a silk "rope" hanging above each mat which gets used to help with the posses and stretches so I can't wait to try that out next week!
Friday night we had dinner with two other couples who are all new teachers this year and all 4 of them happen to be from Austin, Texas. (I have found myself saying "ya'll" way to much lately thanks to all the texans around here!). We went to a restaurant called Morgans which is apparently the closest you'll get to fine dinning in NST. It's all open concept and really neat, with huge menus and very obscure items. Snake head soup anyone? We found some pretty delicious food: white snapper curry and chicken, chive and coriander salad, and mojitos! It was definitely the most expensive meal we've had in NST but we felt okay treating ourselves after getting through this week! There was even a live band that came on when we were finishing up who were very island sounding and they even covered the Beatles, pretty cool :) Then home to bed since we were heading off to the beach in the morning!
Phew, that wasn't exactly a spark notes version, but that was our week!
Monday was the first official day of school and thank goodness the students were only around until 10 am or so. In Kindergarten the parents stuck around as long as the kids were here and myself and my partner Thai teacher both talked to the parents about what to expect this year. I'm pretty sure about 4/25 were able to understand what I was saying so that made the nerves subside big time! Nick had just enough time with his homeroom class to introduce himself, meet the kids and then they were gone too, no parents involved in grade 6! I would have thought that the rest of the day would be relaxing but I forgot about how much work is involved with getting the classroom ready for the students in Kindergarten. If the room and hallways don't look fun then the students and parents won't be happy. So I spent my afternoon decorating bulletin boards, labelling drawers and notebooks, organizing my desk and buying school supplies. My Thai teacher (Khru Bhu) is amazing and already had the inside of the classroom pretty much ready to go :)
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| My Classroom! |
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| Circle time! |
Monday night we did our usual quick stop at Big C to get a bubble tea and some fruit then we stopped for dinner after buying our bike!! It felt so great to be able to get around on our own terms and Nick has been doing an awesome job learning how to not only drive the semi-automatic bike but also navigating the weird traffic rules and drive on the other side of the road! I'm getting my first lesson tomorrow...
 |
| Our new transportation |
Wednesday was a National holiday: Royal Ploughing Day, well deserved after our first two days of work. Contrary to what some people believe this is our only holiday for a while over here! Next semester we'll be bragging a bit more about our time off ;) A few of my friends in Kindergarten (teachers not students) invited Nick and I to join them at the waterfalls for the afternoon and how can you pass that up? We all met at Burger Bar (a restaurant owned by one of the farang teachers and her Thai husband) and we had gluten free pancakes!! We thought we had absolutely given those up while we were here but the teacher, Brooke, eats gluten free and orders some stuff in for the restaurant. Our only complaint was the lack of "quality" maple syrup which the other teachers found hilarious even though we were not joking around.
Srithammarat Suksa School English Programme
c/o Nicholas Stewart/Kay Jonsson
110/14 Om Khai
Pakpoon Muang
Nakhon Si Thammarat
80000
Thailand
After breakfast a group of 10 teachers on 6 motor bikes headed off to the waterfalls. We looked like a biker gang. I kinda felt like I was in a gang. The drive was about 40 minutes long which was surprisingly comfortable on the back of the bike and the view once we got out of town was amazing! You could follow the mountains the entire way there. At the falls, the teachers who had been there for a while and knew their way around, brought us up a steep trail, away from the other tourists and locals, to a pool of water that was swimmable between two falls. The water was freezing and it felt amazing! There was a spot where you could climb up and sit at the top of a mini waterfall (7-8 feet) and then let it take you and slide into the water. We hung out up here for a least 2 hours (we brought a few drinks and snacks) and then climbed down and drove back home. On the way home we experienced our first ever Thai downpour while riding the bike, it was not fun. We are getting a drybag before the rainy season starts for sure! Again our coworkers directed us and brought us to a restaurant/bar called Full Moon and we had lunch (and escaped the rain!). This place was awesome. Bob Marley posters everywhere, big open huts to sit in with hammocks, mats on the floor and tables. There is also a little "stage" set up where there is often live music. We all had the massaman chicken curry which was delicious (who would have guessed there are some curries I like!).
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| The pool was under that waterfall |
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| So hard to capture the size but there were at least 8 like this flowing down the mountain! |
Thursday night another new teacher (sarah) and I went to a yoga class in town! On the second floor of what I'm assuming is her house, a woman named Ling has her own yoga studio and it's really nice! She made us feel really welcome and we are both buying a ten class pass and going to try to go at least once a week. Although Ling's English is great, she teaches the classes in Thai so it definitely interesting to try and follow along while in weird posses and trying to look at what the other woman around you are doing. Other teachers have also been telling us about another yoga studio where they do "fly yoga" which to me looks like cirque du soleil. There's a silk "rope" hanging above each mat which gets used to help with the posses and stretches so I can't wait to try that out next week!
Friday night we had dinner with two other couples who are all new teachers this year and all 4 of them happen to be from Austin, Texas. (I have found myself saying "ya'll" way to much lately thanks to all the texans around here!). We went to a restaurant called Morgans which is apparently the closest you'll get to fine dinning in NST. It's all open concept and really neat, with huge menus and very obscure items. Snake head soup anyone? We found some pretty delicious food: white snapper curry and chicken, chive and coriander salad, and mojitos! It was definitely the most expensive meal we've had in NST but we felt okay treating ourselves after getting through this week! There was even a live band that came on when we were finishing up who were very island sounding and they even covered the Beatles, pretty cool :) Then home to bed since we were heading off to the beach in the morning!
Phew, that wasn't exactly a spark notes version, but that was our week!
Khanom
This weekend, Kay and I were lucky enough to be part of a wicked beach party in Khanom. Khanom is a hidden treasure about an hour and a half away from Nakhon. Many locals and farang say that Khanom has one of the best beaches in Thailand.
Kay and I took a van out to Khanom with our new friends, Scott and Sara (from Austin). They were the ones that actually booked our room for us. The ride itself was pretty uneventful, the van was air conditioned so we couldn't complain. It also cost 80 baht each (~$2).
Another teacher from my office, Frankie, was able to tell our driver to drop us off at Jam Bay (the beach bar where the party would be) instead of the bus station since it would be easier for us instead of trying to find a cab from "downtown" Khanom.
When we arrived at Jam Bay, all four of us were completely blown away. The bar was situated right up on the beach, and the main bar/restaurant was an old boat. The property had many raised gazebos, hammocks and logs cut into benches and tables. There were already a bunch of farang at the beach drinking and dancing (it was only noon). We walked up with all of our gear and met some friends from Nakhon and were then introduced to Joe, the owner of Jam Bay. Joe is a local who can speak English very well. He was so friendly and was able to remember our names immediately. All night and the following day, he would see me and go "hey Nick! How are you? How is Kay? Anything I can do for you?". Joe was amazing.
Scott, Sarah, Kay and I hung out at the beach for an hour and a bit, swam and had an amazing lunch at the bar. The water was honestly like a hot tub. Not refreshing at all but really interesting nonetheless. We then decided that we would find our way to our resort which was about 10 minutes away. We asked Joe if he could call us a cab to bring us downtown to rent a motorbike and he let us know that he actually rents bikes as well. So we were able to rent a bike straight from Joe and then we drove to our resort.
Hallo Resort was something I don't think any of us expected. I hadn't even seen pictures of what it was going to be like so I was going in blind. As we drove up on it all I could think of was how similar the main gates were to Jurassic Park. The resort had about ten seperate "rooms" that were actually medium to large size single floor houses. It had an awesome salt water pool and a pretty nice little cafe/restaurant. Our room was called the Superior Room and it was awesome. I think there are pictures on Facebook. Once we settled in, Scott, Sarah, Kay and I hung out at the pool and drank a couple of iced coffees.
Once we arrived back at Jam Bay, the party had really started. I would guess that there were probably 200 farang mixed with a couple locals who were friends with Joe. Joe was out making sure everyone was having a great time. A bunch of our friends wanted to go into town to an Italian restaurant for dinner but we decided on a place called CC's Bar which was a 20 minute walk down the beach. The food at CC's was alright. The coolest part was eating on the beach and our first rum bucket. By the time we got back it was quite dark but Jam Bay had some torches (and people throwing torches) so we could see alright. We played some pool, had a few drinks, and had an awesome time. It rained on us but there was enough cover under all of the gazebos. Plus when it's that hot you don't really care about the rain. Joe had told us that on some nights when the plankton is in close to the beach, they go swimming with them. The plankton glows in the water and apparently if you swim with them, you glow for a couple of seconds when you pop out of the water. We will definitely be going back to try that (plus the caves that are around Khanom as well).
Kay and I drove back to our room around midnight and skyped with our parents. In the morning, we had a really nice breakfast at the resort, checked out, and went and got some massages. The massage was really interesting. At first, I didn't think I would make it the full hour because my lady beat the shit out of me. She twisted my arms in funny directions and got under bones and muscles I never knew could be moved. Once I relaxed a bit, it became a lot nicer (Kay claims her lady was tougher on her). It ended up being a full body massage. They bend you in all sorts of ways and I swear my ankle was by my head at one point. They also hit you a lot. I was laying on my back and I opened my eyes to see her standing over me with her hands above her head to swing down and double karate chop my thighs. All in all, the massage was pretty awesome.
After the massages we just hung out at Jam Bay until our van arrived to bring us back to Nakhon. We had lunch, talked with Joe, and spent some time in the water until around 2:30 when the van finally showed up.
Now back to work on Monday. This is quite the life we are living.
Kay and I took a van out to Khanom with our new friends, Scott and Sara (from Austin). They were the ones that actually booked our room for us. The ride itself was pretty uneventful, the van was air conditioned so we couldn't complain. It also cost 80 baht each (~$2).
Another teacher from my office, Frankie, was able to tell our driver to drop us off at Jam Bay (the beach bar where the party would be) instead of the bus station since it would be easier for us instead of trying to find a cab from "downtown" Khanom.
When we arrived at Jam Bay, all four of us were completely blown away. The bar was situated right up on the beach, and the main bar/restaurant was an old boat. The property had many raised gazebos, hammocks and logs cut into benches and tables. There were already a bunch of farang at the beach drinking and dancing (it was only noon). We walked up with all of our gear and met some friends from Nakhon and were then introduced to Joe, the owner of Jam Bay. Joe is a local who can speak English very well. He was so friendly and was able to remember our names immediately. All night and the following day, he would see me and go "hey Nick! How are you? How is Kay? Anything I can do for you?". Joe was amazing.
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| The Beach! |
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| Reception |
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| Entrance |
Hallo Resort was something I don't think any of us expected. I hadn't even seen pictures of what it was going to be like so I was going in blind. As we drove up on it all I could think of was how similar the main gates were to Jurassic Park. The resort had about ten seperate "rooms" that were actually medium to large size single floor houses. It had an awesome salt water pool and a pretty nice little cafe/restaurant. Our room was called the Superior Room and it was awesome. I think there are pictures on Facebook. Once we settled in, Scott, Sarah, Kay and I hung out at the pool and drank a couple of iced coffees.
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| Our own bungalow! |
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| Iced coffee in the pool :) |
Kay and I drove back to our room around midnight and skyped with our parents. In the morning, we had a really nice breakfast at the resort, checked out, and went and got some massages. The massage was really interesting. At first, I didn't think I would make it the full hour because my lady beat the shit out of me. She twisted my arms in funny directions and got under bones and muscles I never knew could be moved. Once I relaxed a bit, it became a lot nicer (Kay claims her lady was tougher on her). It ended up being a full body massage. They bend you in all sorts of ways and I swear my ankle was by my head at one point. They also hit you a lot. I was laying on my back and I opened my eyes to see her standing over me with her hands above her head to swing down and double karate chop my thighs. All in all, the massage was pretty awesome.
After the massages we just hung out at Jam Bay until our van arrived to bring us back to Nakhon. We had lunch, talked with Joe, and spent some time in the water until around 2:30 when the van finally showed up.
Now back to work on Monday. This is quite the life we are living.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Whitewater Kayak Trip
Yesterday, Kay and I took part in a really fun "team building" adventure put on by the school. We went whitewater kayaking! Now for those of you from Ottawa/the Valley expecting to see some bitchin' sets of rapids, you're out of luck. I'm sure Thailand has some intense rapids but these were little babies compared to the whitewater you can get on the Ottawa River.
We started the day by arriving at the English Programme campus a little earlier than everybody else since we got a ride with JJ (We owe that man a dinner). There, we had some coffee and hung out with some of the Thai teachers who didn't want to go on the trip (none of the Thais wanted to). Once everyone was on campus, we all loaded into a bunch of vans that had really comfortable seats. The only issue was that my legs were quite cramped up with very little room. The ride took about an hour and a half and we were able to see some beautiful mountains along the way. JJ pleaded with the group a couple of days ago to only start drinking until at least after the team building games. Our Irish friend ignored that and cracked a beer open about 30 minutes into the trip.
Once we arrived, all of the returning teachers ran to the hut and bought a ton of beer, snacks and water. Kay and I brought some snacks, so we only needed some water. The company that organizes the trips does not seem too worried about drunk people going down rapids in kayaks because they even gave us bags to hold our beers in our laps when we were in the kayaks. Ahh Thailand.
After some fun (awkward) team building exercises, we were put in a line that was ordered by our birthdays; January to December. The person next to you was to be your partner for the whole 3 hour kayak ride (The kayaks were two person kayaks). It just so happened that nobody's birthday fell between July 10th and August 7th so Kay and I we partnered together haha.
Once everyone had been paired up, we grabbed our lifejackets and helmets, or didn't, it really didn't matter. We were then herded, quite literally, onto truckbeds with gages around them. We all squeezed onto a couple of those and grabbed on for dear life as the trucks flew down the road only slowing down when we hit the access roads.
When we arrived, we loaded up our kayaks with beer and water and set out. A few guides followed us but as we soon found out, there were Thai workers set up all along the river at various check points making sure everything was running somewhat smoothly. Most of the trip was just a lazy ride down a very pretty river. Staying out of the sun as much as we could, Kay and I opted to ride along the shore every once and a while.
The rapids themselves were never anything serious. They showed up quite frequently but as long as you steered properly, you could really only tip if you wanted to or you were drunk (which a lot of people were). People fell out a lot.
There really isn't a whole lot to say about the actual river part. We kayaked, hung out with a lot of cool people, and took a break about halfway.
The Thais met us at the halfway point with buckets of beer (surprise surprise) and a bunch of chips (yes!). They had a notepad and people could start a tab if they didn't have their money with them. Kay and I got a big thing of water and chips. This is where we saw the locals playing on the massive rope swing. You can see my video on Facebook of me using the rope swing. I know everyone always says "Ah man! It was so much higher in person! I went so much farther than it looks!" when looking at videos or photos of any kind. Well I'm going to do that now. I can assure you that I went higher than it looked. I honestly thought I was going to have to edit the video down because of how long I thought I froze up there on the tree. You had to use the vines and small branches to climb up and once you thought you couldn't go any higher, the locals had tied twine very tightly between two trees to act as a bridge you could stand on while waiting for the rope swing. Anyways, I was high up okay?
Just after the rest stop was the biggest set of rapids we saw, and once again, they look a lot smaller in the video. Either way, they really weren't that bad, more uncomfortable since we basically bounced off rocks the entire way down.
The rest of the way was pretty easy, it rained on us, the clouds were threatening and we heard a bit of thunder but nobody seemed that nervous. Our paddles were only metal after all.
I'm having a hard time not just going "And then we were done and went home" because the rest of it was a bit of a blur because of how tired we were. We got out of our kayaks, got driven back up to where we started, had an amazing lunch/dinner and hung out for a while before heading home in our vans.
All in all, it was an amazing trip and Kay and I both had a fantastic time. We both can't wait to get started at our schools with our incredible colleagues!
We started the day by arriving at the English Programme campus a little earlier than everybody else since we got a ride with JJ (We owe that man a dinner). There, we had some coffee and hung out with some of the Thai teachers who didn't want to go on the trip (none of the Thais wanted to). Once everyone was on campus, we all loaded into a bunch of vans that had really comfortable seats. The only issue was that my legs were quite cramped up with very little room. The ride took about an hour and a half and we were able to see some beautiful mountains along the way. JJ pleaded with the group a couple of days ago to only start drinking until at least after the team building games. Our Irish friend ignored that and cracked a beer open about 30 minutes into the trip.
Once we arrived, all of the returning teachers ran to the hut and bought a ton of beer, snacks and water. Kay and I brought some snacks, so we only needed some water. The company that organizes the trips does not seem too worried about drunk people going down rapids in kayaks because they even gave us bags to hold our beers in our laps when we were in the kayaks. Ahh Thailand.
After some fun (awkward) team building exercises, we were put in a line that was ordered by our birthdays; January to December. The person next to you was to be your partner for the whole 3 hour kayak ride (The kayaks were two person kayaks). It just so happened that nobody's birthday fell between July 10th and August 7th so Kay and I we partnered together haha.
Once everyone had been paired up, we grabbed our lifejackets and helmets, or didn't, it really didn't matter. We were then herded, quite literally, onto truckbeds with gages around them. We all squeezed onto a couple of those and grabbed on for dear life as the trucks flew down the road only slowing down when we hit the access roads.
When we arrived, we loaded up our kayaks with beer and water and set out. A few guides followed us but as we soon found out, there were Thai workers set up all along the river at various check points making sure everything was running somewhat smoothly. Most of the trip was just a lazy ride down a very pretty river. Staying out of the sun as much as we could, Kay and I opted to ride along the shore every once and a while.
The rapids themselves were never anything serious. They showed up quite frequently but as long as you steered properly, you could really only tip if you wanted to or you were drunk (which a lot of people were). People fell out a lot.
There really isn't a whole lot to say about the actual river part. We kayaked, hung out with a lot of cool people, and took a break about halfway.
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| Old Thai women fishing |
The Thais met us at the halfway point with buckets of beer (surprise surprise) and a bunch of chips (yes!). They had a notepad and people could start a tab if they didn't have their money with them. Kay and I got a big thing of water and chips. This is where we saw the locals playing on the massive rope swing. You can see my video on Facebook of me using the rope swing. I know everyone always says "Ah man! It was so much higher in person! I went so much farther than it looks!" when looking at videos or photos of any kind. Well I'm going to do that now. I can assure you that I went higher than it looked. I honestly thought I was going to have to edit the video down because of how long I thought I froze up there on the tree. You had to use the vines and small branches to climb up and once you thought you couldn't go any higher, the locals had tied twine very tightly between two trees to act as a bridge you could stand on while waiting for the rope swing. Anyways, I was high up okay?
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| Chilling at the halfway point |
Near the end, you can hear the locals cheering because I gave a boy a high five for turning us around.
The rest of the way was pretty easy, it rained on us, the clouds were threatening and we heard a bit of thunder but nobody seemed that nervous. Our paddles were only metal after all.
I'm having a hard time not just going "And then we were done and went home" because the rest of it was a bit of a blur because of how tired we were. We got out of our kayaks, got driven back up to where we started, had an amazing lunch/dinner and hung out for a while before heading home in our vans.
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| One of the more adventurous forms of Thai transportation |
All in all, it was an amazing trip and Kay and I both had a fantastic time. We both can't wait to get started at our schools with our incredible colleagues!
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| Kay and I at the bottom |
Getting around NST
We have yet to purchase a motorbike and to be honest I’m not looking forward to having to drive myself around this town; not only do they drive on the other side of the road but there are u-turns everywhere and hardly any traffic lights. Despite this fact, we are actively looking at getting a bike for convenience sake, hopefully we’ll have one by the end of the week! Until then there are actually a bunch of different ways to get around the town for dinner, groceries and work.
The first mode of transportation we attempted are what they call Song Taos and are basically pick up trucks with a roof over the bed and two benches running down either side. These drive up and down the main street in town from the farthest point north to the lowest point south, about a 30 minute ride. Anytime we are walking along the road and one approaches us they will honk, if we want to get on we just wave it down, hop in the back and can press a button on the roof of the truck to ask it to stop. There are no set stops anywhere, you can get on or off wherever you want! Song Taos cost 10 baht a person so getting to and from groceries/dinner is 40 baht (~$1.45). The only problem with using these is that we have to walk about 5 minutes from our house out to the main street to jump on one and they don’t seem to run on the “new main road” which is where Nick's campus is.
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| Not our picture... But this is the idea of a Song Tao |
Thursday night we decided to try our luck at finding a mall we went to on our first day called "Robinson Ocean." I assumed it was on the old main road and for some reason Nick just trusted me and off we went to get a Song Tao. The driver asked us where we were going and Nick tried his best to explain the mall, eventually the driver nodded his head and motioned at us to get in. We also learned that you’re supposed to pay him when you get off, not when you get on since we got laughed at by him and the other passengers. We quickly realized that he must have just said “yes” since he didn’t want to admit he either didn’t know or didn’t understand because at least 10 min later here we were still in the truck and no mall in sight. We at least knew that it wasn’t this far! So I decided we should just stay on until the very end of the route and then pay again to come all the way back. JJ had suggested this on the first day we were there as a pretty good way of not only seeing a lot of the city, but understand just how big NST is. Again, we were laughed at when we reached the end of the route and the driver looked at us with his arms going like “what the heck are you guys doing?” but we just payed him and motioned back into town. This time on the way back we had our phones out trying to navigate google maps and this is when Nick realized that he shouldn’t have blindly trusted me since Robinson Ocean is on the other main street. We got off at an intersection that was parallel to the mall on the other main road and walked across to eventually find the mall. Which for future reference is about 5 blocks away from where google said it was...
The Song Tao can also be used like a taxi on occasion. Here’s an example from today: Nick and I were out getting some groceries (pretty much just fruit) and then had lunch at a really nice new place called A&A Cafe which had English menus! We actually ran into a few other teachers there and one of them showed us her bike which she is selling since she just finished 3 years teaching here and is heading home. Anyway, after lunch we grabbed all of our bags and jugs of water and walked back to the main road (one block) and jumped on a Song Tao. The driver asked us where we were going (sometimes if you are the only one in the truck they either don’t want to make the trip or will offer a direct drive) and since he couldn’t understand what we were trying to say he motioned for Nick to sit in the front seat. I guess this way he could motion to the driver when to stop. About 3/4 of the way home it starts raining. In Thailand when it rains, it pours. It never lasts for long but man does it come down hard. So we pull up to the municipal park (landmark right across from our neighbourhood) and at least there is canopy set up for a food stall so I hop out and run underneath with all our bags, already soaked meanwhile Nick is still sitting in the truck. Finally he rolls down the window a crack and said that the driver offered to drive us right to our door for another 20 baht. Thank goodness! So I jumped back on the truck and with Nicks direction he brought us right to our street.
Like most things in Thailand, there isn’t much consistency, if the driver feels like picking you he will, if he doesn’t want to, he’ll drive by and wave his hand at you. If he wants to make some extra cash, he’ll offer to drive you directly to your house/grocery store for a little bit more.
Next there are bike taxis. These are exactly how they sound. A guy who owns his own motorbike can drive you anywhere you want, door to door, like a taxi. With these you have to negotiate a price ahead of time. We are still getting used to negotiating so we have probably been overpaying but at least we’re getting around on our own! At big stores or attractions there will be stands outside where they all wait and try to wave you down. If you are ever just walking along the road they can be spotted by their bright vests, usually orange or red, to flag down. We’ve only used these twice so far since most of the time we have 5-6 bags of stuff and would rather be in a car or a truck but the second time we took one with a whole lot of stuff. I already told that story about the cat food and case of water plus 3 people on a bike!
Finally there is a taxi system in NST which is only about a year old. The good thing about this is that the cars are very new and they still mostly use the meter. Every once and a while I’ve heard of them adding random prices once you get arrive for a “calling in fee” or something else silly. We’ve only used it once to get home from Big C on our first full day here and had no issues talking on the phone (in slow broken English) and getting to our house. Yesterday, when we got home from our kayaking trip we tried to call a taxi again and got hung up on, multiple times, before we could even say where we wanted to go. Again, here is the inconsistency you have to get used to in Thailand, I guess the operator didn’t want to speak English or deal with farang. Our neighbour has had the same issue so hopefully something can be done about that! We ended up walking towards home and luckily another teacher pulled over and offered us a ride. Again, we were at the English program campus where Nick works and has more limited transportation options.
When all else fails we can walk. In the last 4 days I think we’ve walked more than our whole 8 months in North Bay. Like we’ve said before, our house is in a great location and there are a ton of ways to get around in this city. Unfortunately the hours that these methods of transport are available are, unsurprisingly, inconsistent. For example, Friday night Nick and I went to buy a blender and some fruit (we eat a lot of fruit) and felt so great since we finally figured out how to get to Big C using the Song Tao. We get there no problem, find everything we need no problem and walk back to the main street no problem. The problem arose when we realized that it was too late at night (8ish) and the Song Taos had stopped running. So we start walking back towards home just hoping to see a bike taxi, regular taxi or Song Tao and no luck. So, we walked. We walked about 15 blocks carrying all of our stuff and finally got to the mats where we had dinner and a break from walking before we finally went home.
Long story short: we really need to just get a bike.
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| Our new favourite thing! |
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| My favourite snack: lychee jelly with a straw! |
Thursday, May 7, 2015
First Day of School
Today was the first day we saw our school. JJ picked us up which is how it has been for the past couple of days. The buildings are very open. The hallways and staircases are all open to the outdoors but the classrooms are walled and have nice windows. And luckily our classrooms are all air conditioned! The cafeteria is basically just a giant open complex with a roof.
The day started with all of the English Programme teachers and our Thai teacher partners meeting in the big conference room. There, we heard some “speeches” from some of the Thai heads of office. We all just nodded along and pretended to understand their broken English. Some of them actually spoke very well. The M.C. of the event was hilarious because she forgot almost every single persons name she was supposed to introduce to the stage. You would think she’d write them down or something. After they had all said their piece, one of the Thai principals had the great idea of having every single foreign teacher come up with their Thai teacher and introduce themselves (Name, Country, Hobby) one by one. We have 51 foreign teachers and at least 51 Thai teachers… This was incredibly awkward because JJ tried to reason with the principal explaining that it would take too long but she just said “who cares about the time”. This is Thailand.
After introductions, us foreign teachers had an important meeting regarding our visas and 90 day entry forms. Then we got lunch.
By now we have met a lot of new people and a bunch of teachers who have been here for a while. There are a few teachers in my division (1-6) that have been teaching at the school for 3, 4 and 9 years! We have teachers from England, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, United States, South Africa and Australia on staff. Rob, from Ireland, offered to give Kay and I a lift on his moped to a restaurant just down the road where a lot of other foreign teachers were going for lunch. So we hopped on (3 to a bike) and drove down the wrong side of the road (because Thais don’t care about road rules and we wanted to go right but the highway system is a lot like some places in the states where you do u-turns instead of lights). Because people normally ride on the left side instead of the right, I’ve been calling all of the turning lanes on the highway “Michigan Rights”.
We got to the restaurant without dying so that was cool. Rob has been here in Nakhon for 2 and a half years so he's pretty good with the language. He ordered two cashew chickens for Kay and myself and he got a pad thai dish. The cashew chicken was amazing and I ate it all way too fast.
After lunch, I went back to school to have another meeting with my head teacher (basically a faculty leader) that went until the end of the day. Kay went with Rob to the Kindergarten campus for their own faculty meetings. The teachers we met were all incredibly nice in making sure that all of us new teachers had a way of getting around all day (since we were changing campuses and going out to eat), even if it was 3 people crushed onto one bike and multiple drop offs and pick ups all over town.
Today was basically an information overload about the school, the dresscode, the students, the parents, the lesson plans, the duty schedule, the class sizes, the visa paperwork, the work permits, the holidays, the lunch options and I could go on and on. Luckily tomorrow is yet another day filled with meetings which will totally prepare us to start teaching Thai students on Monday, right?
The day started with all of the English Programme teachers and our Thai teacher partners meeting in the big conference room. There, we heard some “speeches” from some of the Thai heads of office. We all just nodded along and pretended to understand their broken English. Some of them actually spoke very well. The M.C. of the event was hilarious because she forgot almost every single persons name she was supposed to introduce to the stage. You would think she’d write them down or something. After they had all said their piece, one of the Thai principals had the great idea of having every single foreign teacher come up with their Thai teacher and introduce themselves (Name, Country, Hobby) one by one. We have 51 foreign teachers and at least 51 Thai teachers… This was incredibly awkward because JJ tried to reason with the principal explaining that it would take too long but she just said “who cares about the time”. This is Thailand.
After introductions, us foreign teachers had an important meeting regarding our visas and 90 day entry forms. Then we got lunch.
By now we have met a lot of new people and a bunch of teachers who have been here for a while. There are a few teachers in my division (1-6) that have been teaching at the school for 3, 4 and 9 years! We have teachers from England, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, United States, South Africa and Australia on staff. Rob, from Ireland, offered to give Kay and I a lift on his moped to a restaurant just down the road where a lot of other foreign teachers were going for lunch. So we hopped on (3 to a bike) and drove down the wrong side of the road (because Thais don’t care about road rules and we wanted to go right but the highway system is a lot like some places in the states where you do u-turns instead of lights). Because people normally ride on the left side instead of the right, I’ve been calling all of the turning lanes on the highway “Michigan Rights”.
We got to the restaurant without dying so that was cool. Rob has been here in Nakhon for 2 and a half years so he's pretty good with the language. He ordered two cashew chickens for Kay and myself and he got a pad thai dish. The cashew chicken was amazing and I ate it all way too fast.
After lunch, I went back to school to have another meeting with my head teacher (basically a faculty leader) that went until the end of the day. Kay went with Rob to the Kindergarten campus for their own faculty meetings. The teachers we met were all incredibly nice in making sure that all of us new teachers had a way of getting around all day (since we were changing campuses and going out to eat), even if it was 3 people crushed onto one bike and multiple drop offs and pick ups all over town.
Today was basically an information overload about the school, the dresscode, the students, the parents, the lesson plans, the duty schedule, the class sizes, the visa paperwork, the work permits, the holidays, the lunch options and I could go on and on. Luckily tomorrow is yet another day filled with meetings which will totally prepare us to start teaching Thai students on Monday, right?
Getting Settled
So for the first 24 hours Nick and I we're pretty spoiled and our boss JJ was basically our guide, translator, real estate agent and taxi. After picking us up from the "mall" (where we somehow managed to get Nick a new phone and both of us SIM cards after a variety of gesturing and miscommunications) we were brought toBig C (kind of like zellers) to get some basic house necessities. Here we were left to fend for ourselves for the first time. After very recently packing up a whole apartment in North Bay we have vowed to each other that we will not collect nearly as much stuff, so here is what we decided to get to start off with:
-bed sheets, pillow cases and a blanket (which are ridiculously expensive here for some reason)
-2 towels
-2 hand towels
-toilet paper (which is super hard to find here and can't be flushed!)
-Kleenex (Nick still isn't quite over his cold)
-shampoo, conditioner and soap
-2 mugs
-4 cups
-2 bowls
-2 plates
-2 forks/spoons
-2 bananas (for breakfast the next day)
-water bottles (can't drink the tap water)
-cat food
We've since learned that there is a water filling station just one street over from us which uses a dispenser that looks like the ones you see in grocery stores. You bring a large container with you, deposit coins, fill your jug, and you're set for another week! This will be a much easier process once we have a bike since the jugs the last tenants left us are huge and too heavy to lug over there!
Now, here we are outside of Big C with 3 full plastic bags (with dishes and water), a bed set in that big square plastic package and a bag of cat food, looking for a way home. As we walked toward the street, discussing our options for getting home, we had at least 5 different motorcycle taxis wave us over wanting our business. Motorbike taxis are actually super useful; they ride their bikes around town and wear colourful vests to be easily identified. You can wave them down from anywhere in the city, negotiate a price for your destination, and they will bring you door to door. The funny part was, even though we kept motioning to all of our stuff and repeating "too big", "too much", they kept insisting they could do it. We decided to instead call a taxi, which luckily JJ left us a number for, ensuring us that someone on the phone could speak English. The taxi system is actually only a year old in NST so they haven't yet been corrupted and you never have to worry about hassling the driver to use the meter. The first operator on the phone understood our location when I said "Big C" but my explanation of where we wanted to go must not have been clear enough since I was suddenly talking to another person and starting from the beginning. Now one thing JJ didn't tell us was how to explain where we live. We didn't know our street name, muban name or any landmarks near our house, we only had the address written down in Thai to show the driver. Luckily, we must have gotten our point across because only 5 minutes later a taxi pulled up, took one look at the address and nodded. (Now we know to say "Lang Technic" and apparently Thais will understand where we live!) And easy as that we made our way home all by ourselves for 50 baht (~$2).
Even though we didn't buy much, after unpacking our haul from Big C this empty house is starting to feel a little bit homier.
Although we have dishes now we still have no food so it was time to explore our neighbourhood. Nick was clearly paying more attention to our tour than I was since he kept saying we should go eat "at that place that puts out the mats by the road". I insisted repeatedly that he had no idea where he was going and that JJ never said anything about mats. I was wrong. Just a 5 min walk out of our neighbourhood and across a deceptively busy road is a street vendor that sets up a whole restaurant on the side walk every night. Located right outside of the municipal stadium is this cute little place to eat where most of the tables are 6 inches off the ground and set up on straw mats. Nick and I later learned that you were supposed to take off your shoes before stepping on the mat... live and learn! One worker here actually had conversational English and offered us English menus! Apparently Nick was also aware of both the English speaker and menus, but I was excited nonetheless. This process reminded me of ordering sushi; the menu was just a piece of paper and she handed up a pen. We circled the options that we wanted: 2 small cokes, 1 chicken fried rice, 1 stir fry veggie and 1 small rice. We were even able to communicate with her not to use any soy sauce in any of our food (phew). The food was delicious and to continue with the trend of listing the cost of our food, was 100 baht (~$4). The portions were also big enough that we both have leftovers sitting in our fridge right now for lunch tomorrow.
My favourite part of Thailand so far has to be the food. Not only how cheap it is but how delicious everything has been! My biggest fear coming into this adventure was whether or not the Pad Thai would be as good as the westernized version I got at home and thank goodness it is just as amazing as everything else we've tried so far.
As if this whirlwind of a day wasn't crazy enough tomorrow we wake up at 7am and get to see our school for the first time as well as finally meet our fellow teachers. I can't believe we haven't even been in the country for 48 hours already. Time is flying.
-bed sheets, pillow cases and a blanket (which are ridiculously expensive here for some reason)
-2 towels
-2 hand towels
-toilet paper (which is super hard to find here and can't be flushed!)
-Kleenex (Nick still isn't quite over his cold)
-shampoo, conditioner and soap
-2 mugs
-4 cups
-2 bowls
-2 plates
-2 forks/spoons
-2 bananas (for breakfast the next day)
-water bottles (can't drink the tap water)
-cat food
We've since learned that there is a water filling station just one street over from us which uses a dispenser that looks like the ones you see in grocery stores. You bring a large container with you, deposit coins, fill your jug, and you're set for another week! This will be a much easier process once we have a bike since the jugs the last tenants left us are huge and too heavy to lug over there!
Now, here we are outside of Big C with 3 full plastic bags (with dishes and water), a bed set in that big square plastic package and a bag of cat food, looking for a way home. As we walked toward the street, discussing our options for getting home, we had at least 5 different motorcycle taxis wave us over wanting our business. Motorbike taxis are actually super useful; they ride their bikes around town and wear colourful vests to be easily identified. You can wave them down from anywhere in the city, negotiate a price for your destination, and they will bring you door to door. The funny part was, even though we kept motioning to all of our stuff and repeating "too big", "too much", they kept insisting they could do it. We decided to instead call a taxi, which luckily JJ left us a number for, ensuring us that someone on the phone could speak English. The taxi system is actually only a year old in NST so they haven't yet been corrupted and you never have to worry about hassling the driver to use the meter. The first operator on the phone understood our location when I said "Big C" but my explanation of where we wanted to go must not have been clear enough since I was suddenly talking to another person and starting from the beginning. Now one thing JJ didn't tell us was how to explain where we live. We didn't know our street name, muban name or any landmarks near our house, we only had the address written down in Thai to show the driver. Luckily, we must have gotten our point across because only 5 minutes later a taxi pulled up, took one look at the address and nodded. (Now we know to say "Lang Technic" and apparently Thais will understand where we live!) And easy as that we made our way home all by ourselves for 50 baht (~$2).
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| Our address |
Although we have dishes now we still have no food so it was time to explore our neighbourhood. Nick was clearly paying more attention to our tour than I was since he kept saying we should go eat "at that place that puts out the mats by the road". I insisted repeatedly that he had no idea where he was going and that JJ never said anything about mats. I was wrong. Just a 5 min walk out of our neighbourhood and across a deceptively busy road is a street vendor that sets up a whole restaurant on the side walk every night. Located right outside of the municipal stadium is this cute little place to eat where most of the tables are 6 inches off the ground and set up on straw mats. Nick and I later learned that you were supposed to take off your shoes before stepping on the mat... live and learn! One worker here actually had conversational English and offered us English menus! Apparently Nick was also aware of both the English speaker and menus, but I was excited nonetheless. This process reminded me of ordering sushi; the menu was just a piece of paper and she handed up a pen. We circled the options that we wanted: 2 small cokes, 1 chicken fried rice, 1 stir fry veggie and 1 small rice. We were even able to communicate with her not to use any soy sauce in any of our food (phew). The food was delicious and to continue with the trend of listing the cost of our food, was 100 baht (~$4). The portions were also big enough that we both have leftovers sitting in our fridge right now for lunch tomorrow.
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| Eating on the sidewalk |
My favourite part of Thailand so far has to be the food. Not only how cheap it is but how delicious everything has been! My biggest fear coming into this adventure was whether or not the Pad Thai would be as good as the westernized version I got at home and thank goodness it is just as amazing as everything else we've tried so far.
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| Yum! |
As if this whirlwind of a day wasn't crazy enough tomorrow we wake up at 7am and get to see our school for the first time as well as finally meet our fellow teachers. I can't believe we haven't even been in the country for 48 hours already. Time is flying.
That was fast... we found a house!
The House... (all pictures have been posted on facebook so I won't repeat them on here)
I will keep this brief. We looked at 4 different Mubans (basically a thai townhouse complex/neighbourhood/subdivision we're not quite sure what it really translates to). All of them were pretty close to school and had relatively easy access to food. We only had the key to see the inside of one house, the first one we saw, which ended up being the one we picked! Nick and I are going to be working at two different campuses; Nick in the English Programme Campus which is grade 1-12 and myself in the Kindergarten campus which has the Nursery and 4 levels of Kindergarten, so we were looking for somewhere that was convenient for both of us. We also wanted something cheap even if that meant less "pretty" and new so that we can spend all of our money on travelling!
Pros: It was an end unit so we have a "jungle" and field on one side and more windows! It's huge! It has AC in the bedroom. It has a washing machine and indoor space for a drying rack. It is located pretty much in between the two campuses Nick and I work at (actually walking distance to the Kinder campus for me!) Two other teachers have lived across the street from us for 3 years so thats a good sign :) And the best pro of all is that it is costing us around $180 a month minus internet and utilities.
Cons: It is not a "new" muban so there is no swimming pool/tennis court to share however our school has both of those and more! Also since it's an older area and house, during the dry season (right now) there is very low water pressure and the upstairs shower doesn't actually work. During the rainy season this won't be an issue though, hopefully, and worst case scenario we shower "thai style" with a huge bucket of water and small bowl.
Oh and did we mention our house came with a stray cat? Her name is Snickers and she cries a lot:
I will keep this brief. We looked at 4 different Mubans (basically a thai townhouse complex/neighbourhood/subdivision we're not quite sure what it really translates to). All of them were pretty close to school and had relatively easy access to food. We only had the key to see the inside of one house, the first one we saw, which ended up being the one we picked! Nick and I are going to be working at two different campuses; Nick in the English Programme Campus which is grade 1-12 and myself in the Kindergarten campus which has the Nursery and 4 levels of Kindergarten, so we were looking for somewhere that was convenient for both of us. We also wanted something cheap even if that meant less "pretty" and new so that we can spend all of our money on travelling!
Pros: It was an end unit so we have a "jungle" and field on one side and more windows! It's huge! It has AC in the bedroom. It has a washing machine and indoor space for a drying rack. It is located pretty much in between the two campuses Nick and I work at (actually walking distance to the Kinder campus for me!) Two other teachers have lived across the street from us for 3 years so thats a good sign :) And the best pro of all is that it is costing us around $180 a month minus internet and utilities.
Cons: It is not a "new" muban so there is no swimming pool/tennis court to share however our school has both of those and more! Also since it's an older area and house, during the dry season (right now) there is very low water pressure and the upstairs shower doesn't actually work. During the rainy season this won't be an issue though, hopefully, and worst case scenario we shower "thai style" with a huge bucket of water and small bowl.
Oh and did we mention our house came with a stray cat? Her name is Snickers and she cries a lot:
Monday, May 4, 2015
First Impressions: Nakhon Si Thammarat
We finally made it. After 42 hours of travel in 5 different airports we finally made it to Nakhon Si Thammarat.
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| On the airport Tarmac |
After landing in NST (Nakhon Si Thammarat) and grabbing all of our luggage (my bike included) we finally met JJ face to face. JJ is the man who interviewed us on Skype in February when we decided to embark on this amazing journey. JJ was wearing a tank top and baggy basketball shorts. He immediately apologized for how he was dressed and explained that he just came from a pick up ultimate game with a group of friends. Cool. He then told us that him and his buddies biked through the mountains for 45 km to find a lake that had a nice cliff to dive off. That's cool too. He was very chatty which was to our benefit since we weren't really in the talking mood after so long of a trip. He mentioned that he really only got back into NST a few days ago because when he originally got back, his friends convinced him to jump on a charter boat and take a trip to some islands off the west coast of Thailand for some scuba diving and cave exploration. Okay, I think we are going to like it here.
After loading up his truck, JJ drove us down the main strip to show us the school and some hotel options for the night. We couldn't really see much of anything as we buzzed down the streets because of how incredibly dark the city was. It was very strange. The roads were nice and bright but everything past the roads were not lit up at all. We decided on the Thai Hotel close to the heart of the city. It cost us 550 baht for the "luxury room" which included a fridge, air conditioning and hot water! For those wondering what that would cost in Canadian, it's roughly 19 dollars for the night.
Once settled in our room, Kay and I took a walk to find a place to eat. We had heard of this place called "Rock 99" that offered traditional Thai food and some Western options so we decided to go there. It was probably only a two minute walk from our hotel room. NST is a completely different city at night. The streets are nearly empty, all the stalls have vanished, and the stores at street level have closed their metal gates.
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| Rock 99 |
Rock 99 is a really cool patio restaurant tucked away a block from the main strip. When we walked in there were a few locals finishing off their meals (we have yet to see any westerners other than JJ). We were brought to a table outside and given huge menus. Luckily there were English translations and pictures of most of the food. It was very weird to see "western" food at the beginning of the menu, things like hot dogs, steak and french fries which would definitely be interesting to try. Further on in the menu I saw a page of "Italian" food and I didn't even want to look. Kay said they offered different kinds of pasta and pizza, I'm glad that I'm not able to try any of that! I only wanted some rice since I wasn't very hungry but Kay was feeling more adventurous and ordered a spicy, minced beef dish and a side of rice as well. Not even 30 seconds after ordering, who I assume was the chef walked over to our table and in broken English questioned Kay on whether or not she could handle spicy food, warning that the beef she ordered was very spicy. Kay said that she liked spicy and without giving her much of a chance to change her mind the chef walked back to the kitchen. We're pretty sure all of the talking and laughter going on in the restaurant was directed towards us. "Silly farangs (foreigners) thinking they can handle our spicy food...". As we waited, I saw a few rats running around in the streets. Kay has yet to see them, but I have seen a couple giant cockroach like bugs that move incredibly fast. As a couple of locals left the patio, I saw one of these bugs get stepped on by one of the guys leaving. They walked off and about a minute later, the bug shook itself off and ran away...
Kays dish came and it was looking awesome and as we had guessed, it was impossibly spicy. I only managed a couple of bites before I gave up. Kay was stubborn as usual and finished about half of it before she ran out of rice. We took the rest back to the hotel and it's still sitting in the fridge as Kay and I sit in the lobby waiting for JJ to pick us up.
This morning, Kay and I woke up and ventured into the streets in search of something for breakfast. We were completely taken aback by how transformed the streets were. All of the empty streets were packed with food stalls and people selling everything from shoes to electronics. All of the shops had opened up their storm shutters and went as far as the eye could see into the building. We circled a few blocks and finally found a place that had bananas. We asked for two and instead of giving the bananas to us, they cut them up and put them in a blender. We then realized that we had somehow ordered two banana smoothies. Didn't matter, they were delicious. After that, we found a place that sold all sorts of teas and coffees both iced and hot. We ordered one iced coffee to go. It tasted exactly how we expected it to taste. Which was good. In total, our breakfast cost us 80 baht or 2.80 Canadian. I could get used to this.
Today, we are going to go do some apartment hunting, find a dress belt because I forgot to pack one, and hopefully meet up with a few other English teachers for dinner before we start work for real tomorrow (meetings all day about work).
We are planning on keeping our posts a little shorter than this one, but give us a break, we've been through a lot these passed 3 days of travel and acclimatization.
Kays dish came and it was looking awesome and as we had guessed, it was impossibly spicy. I only managed a couple of bites before I gave up. Kay was stubborn as usual and finished about half of it before she ran out of rice. We took the rest back to the hotel and it's still sitting in the fridge as Kay and I sit in the lobby waiting for JJ to pick us up.
This morning, Kay and I woke up and ventured into the streets in search of something for breakfast. We were completely taken aback by how transformed the streets were. All of the empty streets were packed with food stalls and people selling everything from shoes to electronics. All of the shops had opened up their storm shutters and went as far as the eye could see into the building. We circled a few blocks and finally found a place that had bananas. We asked for two and instead of giving the bananas to us, they cut them up and put them in a blender. We then realized that we had somehow ordered two banana smoothies. Didn't matter, they were delicious. After that, we found a place that sold all sorts of teas and coffees both iced and hot. We ordered one iced coffee to go. It tasted exactly how we expected it to taste. Which was good. In total, our breakfast cost us 80 baht or 2.80 Canadian. I could get used to this.
Today, we are going to go do some apartment hunting, find a dress belt because I forgot to pack one, and hopefully meet up with a few other English teachers for dinner before we start work for real tomorrow (meetings all day about work).
We are planning on keeping our posts a little shorter than this one, but give us a break, we've been through a lot these passed 3 days of travel and acclimatization.
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