in the land of smiles.: i love islands.

After teaching only 5 days out of the past 2 weeks, it feels weird going back to a full work week….but then again, its only 2 weeks of full teaching till Christmas and I get a little over a week off!

So where to begin with the past weeks adventures……lets begin with Thursday and the field trip to safari world! Nursery and K1 were heading out on the trip so Bradley and I got to tag along. We thought that they were bringing us along to help keep track of the kids and make sure they didn’t wander off or get eaten by a tiger, but surprisingly enough we didn’t have to do anything! The parents actually came with us on the field trip! So they watched after their kids, so Bradley and I just sat back and checked out the animals. Safari world was about an hour drive away on our big charter buses. The first thing we did was drive through the park—just like we were on a safari. This place is basically like a zoo, except there are no cages…the animals get to run around freely amongst one another and the buses just drive on a paved road throughout the park. It was pretty cool—they had TONS of animals and what I found so surprising was that they had a large number of each animal. There were about 10 tigers, 4 rhinos, 6 bears, 4 lions…usually at zoos you only see one or two of each animal, but there were soo many here! After our “safari” we went into the park to watch the animal shows. This place has a show for just about every animal and the school wanted to make sure we saw alllll of them…so we went to the bird show, the orangutan show, the dolphin and beluga whale show, the sea lion show…you get the picture. The shows were kinda cool but got real old after a while. We spent the rest of the afternoon there and around 3:00 we finally headed back to the school!

On the way home I got an interesting call from one of the other girls who works at the primary/secondary school. She said that some guy had come to the school and was trying to find me. She said she didn’t know who he was or what was going on but that there was a lot of thai office workers/teachers trying to figure it all out. Well it ends up that it was this guy pook that Bradley and I had met about 6 weeks ago on one of our walks around town. One afternoon we were walking around and some guy called out to us and invited us to come hang out in his yard. We met his family and they all seemed really nice and we didn’t really think anything of it. We never saw him/heard from him again…until Thursday. Sooooo to make a long story short, pook showed up at the school, during the middle of the day, trying to find me to give me a letter. I obviously wasn’t there cause I was on a field trip, so he had one of the thai teachers translate a letter to me telling me how he wants to be friends and could be my tour guide around town or we could go on field trips to bangkok….i don’t think I’ll be taking pook up on his offer anytime soon…well needless to say, when I got back to the school and headed to the beer stand to drink up with some of the other teachers, they all thought it was a riot and had a good laugh about the whole thing for a good 10 minutes.

After a round of beers it was time to head back to the dorms to pack for our weekend away on koh samui! Koh samui is an island in the southern part of Thailand. A few of the teachers at the school had organized the trip so we jumped at the chance to go. So at 8pm about 20 of us loaded into 2 of the school vans and we were off! The drive was supposed to take about 8 or 9 hours so we were going to drive through the night so we could arrive at the ferry bright and early Friday morning so we’d have a full day to spend on the island. So I popped a few OTC sleeping aids and passed out till we arrived at the ferry at 6am. After a little wait to get on the ferry, the 2 hour ferry ride, and a 20 minute drive we were finally at our hotel…or should I say resort! The place we stayed at was AMAZING. When we signed up for the trip we had no idea where we would be staying and figured we’d be staying in some cheap, run down hostel for the weekend…boy were we wrong. This place was gorgeous! It had 3 pools, a waterfall, a spa, a restaurant/bar (with a happy hour!) and was right on the beach! I was rooming with one of the katie’s for the weekend and when we opened the door to our room we just about had a heart attack. It was sosososo nice! Huge fluffy bed (which was welcomed with open arms since we’re sleeping on bricks in the dorm), a flat screen TV, plush robes and slippers, one of those showers with a rain faucet thing, and the most amazing bath that was on our balcolny. Yeah that’s right, we had a tub on our balcolny. We were in heaven.

The next two days were filled with sleeping in our lovely beds, lounging around in our robes, taking numerous showers and baths, laying out by the infinity pool that over looked the ocean, hitting up the bar’s happy hour, kayaking (thanks to the free kayaks we could rent from the hotel), sight seeing the big Buddha, and eating too much food at the resort’s buffet breakfast (we stuffed our faces with pancakes, bacon, banana muffins, zucchini walnut muffins, fresh fruit, French toast, whole wheat bread…all things that we have not seen in 2 months). The weekend was total relaxation and I loved every minute of it.

I was super sad to leave this paradise on Sunday morning knowing that I was leaving my super room to go back to the geckos in my room back at the school. But oh well, it was an amazing weekend.

The ride back was a lot more difficult than the ride down here. We were travelling during the middle of the day which made it harder to just sleep the entire way there, but fortunately I brought a few books with me. The worst thing about the ride back was that the only food I had to eat the entire day was food that I bought at 7/11. We only stopped for potty breaks and gas, so our only opportunities to get food were at convenience stores. I felt so gross at the end of the day after eating crackers and chips all day. I think I’ll be staying away from 7/11 for a little while. A note about 7/11’s here in Thailand…they are nothing like the stores in the states. They are actually clean and super nice in every other part of the world besides the states! I noticed this when I was studying abroad in Sweden too…I go to 7/11 several times a week here in Thailand—it has just about everything you might need and is super convenient when you just need a few things and don’t want to make a trek all the way to the grocery store, tesco lotus. I might need to buy stock in 7/11 when I go home.

I got to skype with the parentals for a while today which was much needed. Its hard to remember that its Christmas time here in Thailand. Besides the fact that Thailand is a Buddhist country, its hard to remember that its Christmas time when its so hot and because I’m still working. It’s weird that this is my first year with out a real winter/Christmas break. Every year I’ve had a solid 2/3 weeks off from school and work where I could just be at home for the holidays, but this year I’m working all the way up to Christmas eve. It’s strange knowing that I’m not going to be with my family for Christmas and that this is my first time I haven’t been home for the holidays and I feel a little bad/sad about it. One thing that makes me feel better about missing the holidays at home is that my parents are so supportive of me being here and although I’m sure they’d love to have me home for Christmas, they’re happy for me to be here and don’t mind (too much) sacrificing a Christmas without me so that I can experience this journey, so for that I am very thankful!

And I’m leaving you with another quote I’ve found/like…….love you all!

"the world is big and i want to have a good look at it before it gets dark."

—john muir

p.s. pictures to come soon once I have a better internet connection…