Pattaya

So the original plan was to head to Cambodia this weekend to see Angor Wat, but since HR decided to hold my passport hostage and told me they'd terminate my contract if I left the country(AFTER I'd already booked tickets; jerks), Colin invited me to join him and his wife Na in Pattaya for the weekend. Left straight from work Friday afternoon, took a taxi to the bus station, then a 3 and a half hour-ish bus ride to Pattaya. For those who haven't yet googled Pattaya, it's a beach town, like Santa Cruz...only not like Santa Cruz lol. More Russians, for one thing. One Russian chick outside my hotel looked lost, so I walked over to her and she rattled of something in Russian. I looked her square in the eye and, making sure to pronounce every syllable with clarity, said, "I only speak ENGLISH." She held up a cigarette and asked, "Fire?" I laughed...and said no. lol

Friday night the three of us met for dinner, then headed to walking street...for about ten minutes and decided we were too tired to walk further and we'd do that street later. Saturday morning I was up bright and early, had breakfast at my hotel, then managed to get the only taxi driver who didn't know how to read a map. I don't even live there, and I knew he was going the wrong way. Anyway, he finally got me to the Elephant Village, where I chose the combination tour, which included elephant trekking, a hike through the jungle, a raft ride to feed zillions of catfish, an ox cart ride, and lunch. Oh and apparently sword fighting. Thankfully it also included a van to take us back to our hotels.
Hit the beach, rented a jet ski for an hour, and then had a delicious dinner at the Hongsa Kitchen before meeting up with Colin and Na for the Tiffany Show at 9pm. The Tiffany show is dazzling and sparkling with fabulous choreography and excellent sets and musical numbers....all performed by ladyboys. ALL. ah..fun times.
Sunday brought even more fun. I grabbed my backpack, laced up my tennis shoes, and set out in search of a motorbike to rent for the day. I found one on Soi 6(they're everywhere, but this was the first one I came to), and the lady refused to rent me one because she said I didn't have experience. Hmph. Well, stubborn as I am, I was determined to ride a motorbike, so I wandered off in search of someone who would rent me one. Lo and behold, two Sois down, I found one. But before I approached them, I called up Colin(since he's been riding motorbikes "his whole life"), and he came to help me out so I didn't end up sprawled out under a truck somewhere. We found a good one, Colin drove us off to get "petrol," and then we went to the side streets so he could show me how to control the beast. Well the beast was only semi-tame, and although I managed to go back and forth up and down the streets a few times, it did a number on my left calf, and I gave up. I believe I had the bike for no more than two hours when we drove it back into the rental place. The guy looked surprised to see me back so soon until I showed him what that monster did to my leg, and his gaze darted instantly to the bike(which was unharmed). He handed me back my deposit, and I bought Colin a beer to thank him for his trouble. Na met us at the beach(it started raining, we grabbed lunch under cover, then went back out on the sand) and while she ate her seafood, Colin and I talked her into going out on a jet ski with me. She finally agreed, but then got nervous about 50 yards out and I brought her back to land. Finished my half hour, headed back to the hotel to wash off all the salt water in the pool haha, then showered and headed out to walking street to meet them for dinner and sightseeing.
Checked out this morning, taxi-ed to the bus station, and we got back to MoChit at around 2pm. I plan on spending tomorrow doing laundry and propping up my swollen ankle. :D
My room at the Grand Sole Beach Hotel

The beach Friday night

Isn't she the most beautiful elephant?! (she's happy cuz I was feeding her bananas)

On our elephant trek

The rest of the "trekkies" lol

This is Tony. He likes to sit on people.

Our jungle hike

Hand-made Thai silk being woven

Ox Cart

Sword fighting

Jet Ski! (yes, mom, I wore a life jacket, this was just for the picture)

The beach

Ladyboys at the Tiffany Show(the ladyboy on the left had to be edited out because he/she was falling out of his/her top)


The Tiffany Show, the first number(later in the show, they did an excellent mock Tina Turner performance)

The beast

The beast's damage

On Walking Street watching Thai boxing

I don't know what these are called, but they were absolutely adorable!

My Daily Route

So I thought I'd share with y'all a few pictures of my way to and from work. Enjoy.






Home Sweet Home...ish

ตุ๊กแก

Now before you go busting out your English-Thai Google Translator to read the title, read the story, and you may figure it out by the end.

Sunday night I woke up at 2am to what appeared to be, in my groggy sleepiness, a firefly dancing and buzzing around behind my microwave. Then I smelled something burning, and thought the poor stupid bug had gotten itself singed on a wire or something, turned on the air to eliminate the smell, and went back to sleep. Didn't see anything out of the ordinary Monday morning, so I headed off to work without giving it so much as a second glance. Only when I got home after work that evening and my microwave wouldn't turn on did I start to think maybe it wasn't just a little firefly.

I turned my microwave around, and this is what I saw:


It was a lizard. It had apparently decided to climb, or try to climb, into the back of my microwave and commit suicide. It was disgusting. I tried calling Rani to come help me deal with it, but he didn't answer. I grabbed rubber gloves(so glad I'd decided to buy them "just in case"), unplugged the box and carried it out to my porch, then used a shishkabob stick to pry the little sucker out.

I sprayed the army of ants with my brand new can of RAID(which was almost instantaneous death for them, something I was quite thankful for), and then brushed them off. I carefully disposed of the fried critter in the dumpster outside, and cleaned the back of my microwave the best I could before taking it back inside. It works fine now.

Mission accomplished.

Let's compare weekends, shall we?

On Thursday Sunny took Bauj and I to get our medical certificates for our work visas, and they tested for 5 things, including syphilis, and something that they had to draw blood for. I didn't like the idea of getting my arm poked on my lunch break, and when they were prepping my arm I made a very sad and distressed face. The doctor asked me if it was my first time getting blood drawn hahaha. I told him no, I just don't like needles, to which he attemted to alleviate my discomfort by telling me "not to look." As if not looking would make it feel like kittens licking me.
That night we(Me, Harry, Melissa, Rani, and Bauj) got our gym/pool membership at our condos at a discounted price of 7,000B for the year(instead of 8, because we signed up as a group).

Pedaling my little heart out
We decided to get started right away and do a workout that night before they closed at 9, and while there, I made the mistake of misjudging Rani's tiny 100lb frame. I bet him that my legs, which have always been my favorite asset, as they are quite strong and usually well toned, could out-bench his. We got to 130lbs..and you'll just have to watch the videos(that were too big to upload, grr..they'll be on facebook soon hopefully) to see what happened.


Friday night I headed out to Bangkok to hang out with April, and it POURED rain(of course). My hair was drenched two steps outside my building, and sitting in the taxi all I could hear was the rain beating down on the hood.

April finally got a cell phone, so I met her at the mall where she had just gotten it so we could go from there. While walking through the mall, we noticed they had those anime contacts that make your eyes look bigger. Yes. We bought them. And we wore them out that night. It was hilarious. April had never put contacts in before, so the first one took her half an hour. I just put mine over my regular contacts; I could still feel them, but it wasn't too bad. Mostly hilarious.

April trying to put in her contacts

lol we look like anime characters
Saturday we got up early to go see Lisa's new place(before she heads out next month), and enjoy their buffet breakfast. We checked out the view from her balcony, then headed off to Chinatown. Lisa had her second MRT ride, and her first Tuk-tuk ride. We had lunch at this huge hotel in chinatown, and I bought a Chinese dress and an Indian outfit.




Lisa got a few meters of fabric for her seamstress to make her something, and April..I think she got some postcards...I don't remember her getting anything else. After Lisa went home, we headed back to April's neighborhood, where she groveled and gave a gift to the Ladyboy that was supposed to do her hair at 2pm(it was now 5:30). She ended up getting it done an hour later, but by someone else. Then she grabbed her stuff and we headed out to my place for the night.
Sunday consisted of laundry(I hadn't done laundry for 3 weeks, and had finally run out of socks), enjoying the pool(and not enjoying the sunburn that turned up later), and then back to Bangkok for church. OH. And my new fridge came. The free one. Because my awesome manager talked to my landlord. :D


Comfy new addition to my apt, thanks to Harry and Melissa

My coffee makes me sexy

Sometimes I feel like all I do is grading. Another reason I don't plan on making this my career. Nevertheless, I'm keeping up with everything, in fact at the moment I'm 3 Units ahead in my lesson plans, I turned in my pre-midterm scores early, and we've started taking midterms today.
(enter video of "speed grading" here..but it was too big, so it'll be on my facebook)

This is set to be a rather long post, as I didn't get around to posting last week, and have done quite a bit since then. Or at least I think so. Last weekend, as you remember, we had our mandatory saturday training, and following this meeting, Khun Pooh, April and I met up with Lisa, Bob, and Christy and Kelly to have dinner at...I forget..one of the malls.

Anyway, had really good western food, then saw this really odd movie; it was a Thai independent film that had apparently won an award at the King's film festival, but we couldn't see why. It was called "Uncle Boonmee, The man who recalls his past lives."

O_o

Yeah. That was my reaction too. We asked Pooh to explain it to us afterwards, but she said she didn't get it either. lol the advertisements before it were pretty hilarious though, including one my post title is related to.

After shopping, April and I got caught outside in a sudden torrential downpour(those happen a lot here), and sought shelter under the stairs to the crosswalk overpass.


The day after(Sunday), April and I headed out for our second week to the Bangkok Christian Guesthouse for evening service at 6:30. They had a guest speaker that night from Australia, and I thought she did a great job.




Last week was...well, another week with the kids. The more I'm with them, the more familiar they are to me, and I often forget I'm in Thailand; it just feels like I'm in a school in the States with a class of slightly illiterate children. I recognize them all outside of the classroom now, and don't even have to think twice when calling them by name. I have one student who apparently broke her arm and won't be back til next month(so her classmates say), and I'm a little worried about getting her caught up when she does return.




I write this in their workbooks if they have more than 3 unfinished pages by midterms. It says PARENT SIGNATURE

The kids playing heads up 7up

Found this while grading a spelling test

Thai candy...I tried one...and put the others in my desk for "later"

My little worker bees, Eng, Poppy and Oom sharpening my pencils to get candy