so i've been a real slacker blogging this semester. i dont know if its just because life has become so normal here that things dont seem exciting enough to blog about. just another weekend another island, or a quick trip into bangkok, another festival at school....just another day in thailand to me now. but i guess for all my friends and parents back home i'll catch everyone up on the past few weeks and share some pictures!
so some of the highlights of the past few weeks:
spent a long weekend on the island of koh chang. i had been there before and didn't have the most amazing time so i was hoping to give the island another chance and see if i had better luck the second time around. while the island is really beautiful, this island just doesnt really do it for me. its probably my least favorite island i've been to (i know that sounds kinda silly) but i've just fallen in love with other islands a lot more. sorry koh chang.
went to the Chelsea vs. Thailand All-Stars football (soccer) game. scored some super cheap tickets and spent a sunday afternoon at the stadium. you would think that the thais would cheer on the thai team, but no EVERYONE was rooting for Chelsea. it was a little ridiculous and i felt kinda bad for the thai players that no one was really cheering for them so i bought a ribbon that had the thai flag on it and put it in my hair to show my support for the thai team. the thai all stars lost horribly, but it was a fun afternoon!
lots of friday nights at the beer stand having game night with the other english teachers. our group now has scattegories and catchphrase, so we spend our friday nights playing games, drinking beer, and having a great time. i met up with some of the girls for a fun night on khao san road a few weeks ago and its always nice to see some of the girls that live a little further away.
the queen's birthday was a few weeks ago, which is also mother's day, so we had a ceremony at school where the kids paid respect to their mother's and put on dance performances. it was adorable! it also meant that we had another long weekend so thursday night katie, bradley and i headed out on an overnight bus up to chiang mai. i knew this would be my last time in chiang mai before heading home so i tried to do all my last sunday market shopping, food eating, and sight-seeing this weekend. we were able to meet up with chelsea and jess in chiang mai! it was sosososososo good to see them! i hadn't seen chelsea since a random weekend we were both on koh samet a few months ago and i hadnt seen jess since the full moon party back in march so i was really excited to spend some time with them! we spent the weekend taking a cooking class (the same one i did with my parents when they were here), eating mexican food, shopping at all the markets, and getting massages. it was a great last time in chiang mai and i will always have great memories of that place! our ride home from chiang mai was memorable too, but in a bad way! we were taking a bus home early sunday evening so that we would get into BKK early early in the morning monday and planned on heading straight to school to work from the bus station. we knew we were going to be cutting it a little close with timing, but we figured it would all be ok......but then our bus left an hour late.....and only 2 hours into the 9-10 hour drive our bus broke down! we all stood on the side of the road for over 2 hours watching our bus driver look at the back of the bus, scratch his head, take out a cigarette, scratch his head and then kinda just gave up on fixing the bus. so we had to sit on the side of the road getting attacked by mosquitoes till the new super janky bus arrived to take us back to BKK. need less to say, we didnt make it back to school on time. oh well, mai pen rai.
its hard for me to believe that i only have 5 weeks left of teaching and the last 2 weeks of that are going to be dedicated to end of term testing! this semester has gone by crazy fast and while part of me is ready to be done with teaching, another part of me is dreading saying goodbye to my students! i dont have a lot of travel plans for the rest of the semester besides going to suphanburi one weekend to stay with my friends liz and ciana, and a weekend in chonburi to stay with allie. i'm going to try to just be a homebody and take in all of samut sakhon and eckachai road that i can. :)
