chaaaaaaaaaang.

so this past weekend was another long one!  no school on friday because of some buddhist holiday so i decided to get the heck out of here and meet up with some friends on koh chang.  koh chang is the second largest island in thailand (phuket is the largest) and seemed like a great place to relax and hang out for the weekend.  so thursday after school i packed my bag and hopped on the bus to head into bangkok.  the girls and i met up and went out to a delicious meal at this restaurant called cabbages and condoms.  we have heard about this place since orientation and were told it was a fun place to go to with some delicious food, so we decided to try it out!  the food was great and it was fun to just sit and catch up with all the girls and talk about how this semester has just gone by so quickly!  its crazy to think that 2 of the girls that i've become good friends with are leaving to go back to the states after this semester.  thankfully we've all planned on a vegas reunion trip once we all make it back to the states :)  


now the bus takes about 5 hours to get to koh chang, which makes for an odd timing situation because with how long it takes for all of us to meet up in bkk the earliest bus we could take would be the 7 or 8 pm bus....which would put us in trat (the town where we catch the ferry to koh chang) at about 12 or 1 in the morning....soooo we came up with the bright idea to catch the last bus of the night, 11:30 pm bus, sleep on the ride down, and get to trat bright and early so we could catch the first ferry to the island at 6 am.  we also thought we were being economical too!  if we slept on the bus we wouldnt have to pay for a hostel in trat!  what we didnt really consider was how little sleep we'd actually get on the bus and how exhausted we would be when we finally got to koh chang!  mai pen rai, we survived and at around 730am we made it to our hotel.  we were staying on lonely beach which was a 40ish minute songtell ride from the pier where the ferry dropped us off.  we couldnt check into our rooms yet because it was so early, so we changed into our swimsuits, left our bags at the front desk and headed for the beach where we promptly passed out for a few hours.  when we first got to the beach we were the only ones there (probably had something to do with the fact that we got there at 830 am...) but when we awoke around 11 the beach was filled with people!  the rest of the weekend was spent lounging on the beach, soaking in the sun (too much sun for some....), eating delicious food, drinking pineapple smoothies, and reading in hammocks.
 

on saturday night we went out to this random bar on the road where our hostel was.  it was pretty crowded and filled with people.  i randomly decided to sit down and talk with this table of 5 guys that were sitting across from us.  i asked them where they were from and they said they were from this university town in sweden called LUND!  i screamed with excitement!  i've met a lot of swedes in thailand, but i haven't met anyone yet that had been from lund!  i immediately told that them i had lived there for a few months and absolutely loved that town!  they were amazed that i lived there and we spent the rest of the night talking about our favorite grocery store, netto, singing swedish drinking songs, and playing games.  it was great and i had a blast reliving my time in sweden.

the next morning we had to wake up early to catch the songtell back down to the pier, so we could take the ferry to trat, take another songtell to the bus station, take the bts to the end of the line so i could grab a taxi back to the school (i'm always amazed with how many forms of public transportation i have to use to get around thailand).  it was a great weekend and i'm so excited that the girls and i are going to be able to have one more big weekend in koh phangan in march before some of us part ways for the rest of summer break, or before some of them head back to the united states.

so on to my really big news........yesterday as i was casually browsing the airasia site, i saw an ad saying that airasia was having a big sale on flight tickets starting at midnight.  i had no idea where i would want to go or if any of their deals would fit within my budget/travel timeline, but i figured i'd check it out anyways.  bradley, katie and i stayed up and went onto the site as soon as the sale began.  SUCH GOOD DEALS.  we were going crazy over how cheap some of the flights were!  we debated for a while about where we should go, but we finally settled on a place and booked our tickets. soooooooo I'M GOING TO INDIA!!!!!!!!!  the girls and i leave october 2nd and are spending 10 days in INDIA!  for $100USD i was able to buy a roundtrip ticket from bangkok to kolkata!  it took 2 hours of frustrating, screaming matches with the airasia website, but its all booked and we're going.  i am beyond excited!  i figured when else am i going to have such an amazing opportunity to go to india?  so in 8 months i will be hanging out at the taj mahal, wandering the streets of india, and eating some delicious food. STOKED.

4 more days of teaching till the semester is over.  5 days till i meet up with kianna and alysha for 2 months of traveling. life is good.

pictures from koh chang to come soon!

love you all!

 koh chang!

 lonely beach wasn't so lonely..

 on the ferry after a great weekend.

yeah im going here....

numbers.

so i can count on my fingers how many days i have left teaching this semester and its kinda blowing my mind! sooo lets talk numbers for a second...

2 days till i leave for a weekend on koh chang with the girls.

11 days till i kianna and alysha get here and i meet up with them

15 days till my 23rd birthday!

32 days till the full moon party on koh phangan

70 days till my parents arrive

 i have a a feeling that the next two months are going to fly by!  so excited for everything thats coming up!

this past weekend was bradley's (my roommate) birthday and she got the ultimate surprise here in thailand! for the past month i have been e-mailing back and forth with her dad and helping him plan a surprise visit out to thailand for bradley's birthday!  saturday all our work paid off when her dad just happened to be sitting at the restaurant we were going to for dinner that night.  bradley was thrilllllllllled and soooo surprised!  it was so fun to be part of that secret and making it happen!

this week at school we're beginning administering our final tests.  these are really time consuming because i have to test each student individually.  annnnd of course its another short week here so there's no class on friday since its some buddhist holiday!  so that means a long weekend on an island with some of my girlfriends!  then its a week of teaching, graduation ceremony next friday, then summer break (aka 2 months off to travel southeast asia with friends!).

11 days till the three of us take over thailand.

3 weeks.

its hard to believe that i only have 3 weeks left of teaching this semester.  it seems like just yesterday i was struggling through my first day of classes on my own and wondering how i was going to teach a bunch of thai babies.  fast forward 4 months and i know love teaching my little kids and i am excited to see them and try to teach them english and some really great dance moves.  i've gotten better at coming up with new ways to teach them and new games and lesson plans.  its been tough and there have been LOTS of bad days, but i think im finally getting the hang of this thing.

this past week was another short week (shocking i know...)  it was the chinese new year so tuesday the kindergarten spent the morning celebrating and teaching the students about it.  thursday was actually new years so school was closed!  bradley and i took the bus into bangkok and decided to check out chinatown; the place was packed with people.  we grabbed some lunch and spent the afternoon wandering the streets and checking everything out. the street was blocked off so cars couldnt drive down it, so of course we assumed that there must be a parade happening!  there were tons of people who were posted up sitting on the street so we decided that the parade must be happening soon, so we grabbed some changs and plopped down for some front row seats on the street and patiently waited for the parade to start!  while sitting on the street i met the cutest little thai kids.  it was a little brother and sister who were about 6 and 10 years old.  i hung out with them for a while and played some games with them that i had played with my afternoon class and they were adorable and so much fun!  the little girl at one point took my camera from me and started taking pictures of her family (who were sitting right next to us), of her brother and of me! she was a lot of fun and made our time waiting pass by so much more quickly.  well one hour went by....then another...till finally we saw police cars slowly coming down the street with a big car filled with people following it.  we got suuuper excited and thought that HM the king was going to be driving through to start off the parade and we were going to get to see him!  well the car passed by us and we thought we saw someone who looked kinda like the king so we got suuuuper excited.  we later found out that it was not the king (bummer) buuut the princess of thailand was in the car so at least we saw some sort of thai royalty.  annnnnd that was the extent of the parade.  there was no cool chinese dragon things parading down the street, no performers, no music....nothing.  we had sat on the road for almost 3 hours to get a brief glimpse of the princess.  oh well. 

we then figured that there would at least be some fire works so we headed up to a rooftop bar in chinatown and grabbed another chang and waited for the show to begin.  we waited...and waited...but no fireworks!  such a bummer.  we were expecting a much bigger party to happen in china town, but we were out of luck.  oh well.  we got the day off from school so i guess it was a good day.

the weekend was spent just hanging out in bangkok, hitting up the weekend market and getting some amazing shoes and relaxing.  katie's parents were in town visiting so we all got together and had drinks friday night which was a lot of fun!  meeting her parents and talking with them got my super excited for my parents to get here....only 2 1/2 more months till i get to show them around!  i'm really excited for the next few weeks....2 weeks till the girls and i take a trip to koh chang for a long weekend, then the next weekend alysha and kianna get here and our 2 months of traveling begin!  aaaaanddd less than a month till the big 23 birthday!  so much to look forward to!  i have a feeling the next few months are going to go by suuuuuuper fast.....

love you all!

 waiting for the "parade" to start...

 our new friend

 taking pics of herself with my camera...i love her.

 chinatown street from the rooftop bar.

erawan falls.

Ok so i’m sorry I haven’t update this thing in a while!  Life had been pretty low key recently and so I didn’t have much to write about, but this past weekend I ventured out to kanchanaburi and finally have some fun stories for you!

Friday after school Bradley and I took the train to the BTS station and headed to victory monument to catch a minivan to kanchaburi.  I had been to Kanchaburi before when OEG took the whole group there during orientation; my last weekend there was filled with bamboo rafting and elephant riding, but this time we were headed there to check out the waterfalls.  We met up with the girls and hung out Friday night just catching up.  We kept it pretty low key since we were waking up early to catch the bus to Erawan National Park.

Saturday morning we woke up, grabbed some breakfast and headed to the street to catch the bus to the national park.  The bus was packed and the 7 of us had to stand for most of the 90 minute ride to the park.  Once we got to the park we piled out and began our trek to the waterfalls!  The Erawan falls are named after the erawan, the the three-headed white elephant of hindu mythology…the seven-tiered falls are said to resemble the erawan.  We decided to power through to the top of the falls and then take our time coming down and checking out the falls and swimming in some of the pools.  The falls were BEAUTIFUL each tier was unique and beautiful.  On our way down we took our time and stopped and swam in falls 4 and 5.  There are fish in each of the pools which was a little weird because if you stood still in the water, they would come up and start nibbling on your legs and feet!  So we made sure to keep moving the entire time…we had had our fill of fish nibbling our feet when we got that done on khao san road!  The pools were filled with other people….and by other people I mean lots of Europeans who were in itsy bitsy speedos…..At the 4^th tier there was a large rock that you could slide down into the pool so the girls and I took turns sliding down and it was a blast!  All in all it was a great day hiking and being with the girls.  We caught the bus back to our hostel and spent the rest of the afternoon napping and reading books on the grassy area in the middle of the hostel.

That night we got a delicious dinner from a little restaurant.  I had a really good curry that was filled with vegetables and tofu…yuuuum.  The rest of the night was spent playing drinking games and checking out the night life.  The girls and I found a little bar that sold 10 baht shots (about 40 cents) and lets just say we spent more time there than we needed to.  Needless to say we slept in the next morning!  Check out was at noon, so we woke up at 11:30, packed our bags, grabbed some lunch, and headed to the bus station to part ways.  Its always sad to say bye after such a great weekend, but most of us are reuniting in a few weeks when we’re going to check out koh chang during our next long weekend.

The only other exciting things that have happened in the past few weeks has been my trip to the thai orthodontist to get my retainer fixed, random trips into Bangkok, planning for summer break, and anxiously counting down the days till my friends from the states get here ! (25 days!)

I’ll keep you updated on summer plans as they evolve…

love you all!

 our hotel for the weekend.

 at breakfast, getting our grub on before our hike.

 although the monkeys werent fierce with us, they were on the prowl for food.

 tier 3.

 our swimming buddies.

 liz and i at tier 5.

after sliding down the rocks at tier 4.