School

Back home there is that feeling for most people that, “as much as I don’t want too I need to go to school”, this feeling will generally push people out of bed in the morning, maybe with a little help from Mom. I know I never missed a day of school unless I had other activities that cut into school time, but I never fake sick, or just decide not to go.  That, and there is always my mom around pushing me up and out of bed.
Here though that “need” to go to school is gone, there is no one pushing me, all that’s left is “I don’t want to go to school”. In other words deciding not to go to school in the morning, just became a whole lot easier. That choice is largely based on what is more comfortable my bed or my desk, as I just sleep through the day anyway.
During the week I go to school maybe 3 out of 5 days, this week in particular looks like a 2 day week, there is just no pull and no push at home.  My host father who drives me to school, would rather not as it adds about 30 min to his drive to work in the morning, so if I choose not to go, he does not care.
It makes me realize why kids that don’t have that unmovable force at home, to pull them out of bed, miss a lot of school.   It makes me grateful to my mother, who at 6:40 in the morning will fight with me, until I move and get up, she’s not kidding around either.
I know at 6 am my brain cannot comprehend how boring the day will be if I don’t go to school, even if yesterday was beyond boring.

Here’s to decisions at 6 am
Lia

Forgetting English

Probably the weirdest thing I have experienced so far, is forgetting my native language. As many have noticed, my grammar is miserable.

I don’t know if it is just me, but this is the affect of 5 months in another country and trying to learn other languages. When Thai is the spoken language around here and my best friends speak Spanish and Portuguese to me, well my brain is working in overdrive trying to pick that up. I also noticed that I forget words, you know the ones that are not used much, I forget them when I am speaking. Whereas some words in a mix of Thai and Spanish have made there way into regular day vocab such as Kob Khun Ka (Thai for thank you) or Te Amo (Spanish for I love you) it does not matter anymore who I talk to these are just the words I use. Personally I hope the habit sticks around.

Lia

Just Another Day

Wannee Lia bpai gin Roti gap Addy
Prungnee Addy noon glang kuun Lia baan
Te Amo Amiga

Just Another Day, where I visited other parts of the city I have never been before, and visited old places.

It took me awhile to get started but I took a trip out to Makro, which is the Thai version of Costco.  The sun was bright and hot today, I was outside for maybe an hour and I am red as a tomato.

Makro store front

Of course, going to Makro I bought fries and cheese to make poutine, and milk to make pancakes, I’m having a little bit of Canadian cravings.

From there I walked to Addy’s house, talked to Remo on Skype WAAAAY over in South Africa, and ventured to the brand new Nakhon Si Thammarat walking street. We took lots of pictures walking all the way down, tomorrow the plan is to go again just at night.

New Big Bazzar

However I found the best part of the day was going with Addy to a resturant that makes Roti.
Roti is a muslim dessert and it is DELICIOUS! Here we sat for about 2 hours just eating and drinking tea with the sunset in the background, ending another beautiful day in Thailand.
Lia

Year of the Dragon

Chinese New Year … In Dad’s words “Sorry to tell you this but your not in China”
HAHA However many Thai are direct descendants from the Chinese, the city has been the past few days gearing up for celebration, especially Tha Wang, the shopping district.

Tha Wang, Chinese New Year

I am a little upset that I am missing the festivities as my host family is not chinese, however I love seeing the chinese families in the city burning incense outside or setting off firecrackers.

Firecrackers

Also a tradition that I have witnessed is children of a Chinese family receive money from their parents, each child looks forward to the little red envelope which will contain an unknown amount of money.

So far it has been interesting to see, I stopped by my first host family to say happy new year, as they are Chinese, sadly they were not home.

Lia

Issan Trip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=980SpZX6S1w&context=C3087cfcADOEgsToPDskKuyx_A3VgiRGBDKUfnUcz1

This is a link to a video created by Veronica (America) which put our whole trip into, a 10 min video

Lia

Northern Thailand

The difference between Northern Thailand and Southern Thailand is very obviously the temperature. Northern Thailand experience cold night with hot days, whereas Southern Thailand is hot nights with very hot days. The surrounding air as well is not humid but very dry up north. Personally I prefer that. Beyond that the dialect is different and that is it.

Up North we stopped for lunch and shopping in Udon Thani. There we invaded The Pizza Company. Finally we reached to daunting point of Phu Kradung.

Phu Kradung was interesting, he we climbed 5 km up, over rocks, through sand, and up steep inclines. It took us 5 hours to get up. Once at the top we did a 16 km bike ride, over rocks, through sand all along the edge of the mountain.. absolutely stunning views. At the top we slept in tents the first night and cabins the second and third night. Finally coming back down the mountain took us about half the time.

Dec 31st we spent New Years Eve in Khon Kaen, there we went to the countdown and Bodyslam concert. There was roughly 200,000 people in attendance, plus walk ins. Bodyslam is a Pop/Rock thai group, my favourite thai band.

The next day we traveled for about 2 hours until we arrive at Chokchai farms, here we made our own ice cream, had a tour around the farm, milked cows, saw an animal show, had western style steak and potatoes IT WAS DELICIOUS! The tents were fantastic, they looked like tent on the outside but inside was carpeted with two beds, electricity, and WI-FI.. It was like walking into an Harry Potter tent.

This was the end of the trip, we returned to Bangkok and wished the North kids well, while those of us from the south continued with some shopping.

Grand Palace

Tuk Tuk

Mexico, Brazil, and Canada represent

Bangkok

Mexico and Canada

Top of Phu Kradung

Laos

With roughly 7 million people, the country of Laos is for lack of a better term, empty. You could drive for a hour at a time and not see a human being, or signs of one.

Little cold water cave exploring

Laos

Laos

In The Cave

In a Cave

In Laos we went with a tour guide too a small town inside the mountain range.  There we stopped at the BIG SLIDE BAR there, we met other foreigners. After enjoying the music and the big water slide, we moved on to the hotel. from there we got changed went out for dinner and celebrated Jackies birthday with a cake and “drinks”. Right around 9:30 pm we decided to walk along the street for souvenirs, then to the market, which had Bumper cars, of course we swarmed to that. The next day we got up a drove to a cave, which we had to climb to.

This cave was used as a mass shelter during the Vietnamese war. During that time America placed bombs all along the border from Laos to Thailand. This is do not believe is taught in history class. People are still being killed today but unintentionally stepping on one.  In the cave was a kitchen area, an infirmary, sleeping area, and a common room. There was also a safe keeping area, where Laos people could drop their money and valuables into a hole, and no one could get at it, there was also a religious reason behind that as well. However looking down into the whole there were coins and bills, I saw some jewelry.

Climbing down the steps from the cave we went to a small pool, the water was cold, but absolutely, clear  with a cave attached, oddly enough there was a current coming from inside the cave, I wanted to swim in further, but no one was willing to come with me, as it got sort of dark.

My general impression of Laos is that it is a very poor country. The language is very similar, and I dont remember even seeing a sign for an airport. A small country, with an even smaller population.

GSE Aussies

For the past month a group of 5 Australian’s have been touring southern Thailand, looking at things to do with water conservation, cleaning and just general uses. They are the GSE team (group study exchange) each member works outside of the rotary with water.

In the last leg of their trip they moved down to NST and was hosted by the 3 clubs in our city. Each member of the team stays with a host family for three days, similar to how I do. The first day I was not involed in their activies however the 2nd day was Tha Sala’s turn to take them out, for this I went along. We went to weaving village, a waterfall, and then to a rotary meeting, including all three clubs. Each GSE spoke about themselves and their family back home, and what they do for work. Addy and I got up and gave an impromptu presentation on NST’s attractions. The third day was my club’s turn, we took them to the musuem highlighting one of the king’s projects, then to the royal home for the family to stay when they come down to NST, as well we went and saw the making of bird’s nests, (which is a delicacy here), along with lunch over a river cruise.

All together it was great to meet them, as well as to see another part of rotary, that I had no idea about. To be honest it was also really nice to have a legit conversation, some days it get tiring trying to slow my speech, with them I was able to speak at a regular speed. It was a relief.

After visiting us, we met them again in Songkhla for the conference. There they gave a speech, and hung out for a while with us.

Juen, Luke, Stefania, Addy, Dylan, Veronica, and Me at Songkhla

Juen, Stefania, Addy, Dylan, Me, Veronica, Heidi and Walter at Songkhla

GSE’s going to thai massage

Ben

Addy, Walter and I around a statue of the King

Luke

Heidi

Dylan

Walter

On top of the falls

Waterfall

District Conference Songkhla 2011

District 3330 covers all of southern Thailand, and a little bit of northwestern, From Kanchanaburi to Songkhla. This years district conference was in Songkhla for me this meant a 2 hour drive south with my YEO for others it was an overnight train ride.
There was roughly 400 hundred people in attendance, with representatives from Malaysia, Japan and Australia, along with the YE’s.

I wont lie and say this was alot of fun, but truly there was a large amounts of time spent listening to old thai men drone on and on about something I couldn’t understand. I don’t think it is necessary to say we got up and left after about 20 min. To us we thought it was a good thing, as we were making noise, LOTS of noise.

On Sunday we did have to make a presentation if front of everyone, it was not a big deal, there were 15 of us.
The biggest part of the weekend was of the time we had to have a Thai speaking exam.. to be honest I failed miserably, EHH that okay, I don’t blame myself. I blame the lack of a teacher.

The best part of the whole weekend was getting an chance to see everyone and enjoy our limited time together. We toured a museum of arts and went over Thailand longest bridge, connecting 2 islands to the mainland. We also had fun trying to take pictures with a statue of a mermaid on the beach, then without any warning, a torrential downpour, we ended up jumping into the pool, clothes and all.

 

After the torrential downpour

Blue theme dinner

Shades

All together at the museum

Songkhla's mermaid in pouring rain

 

Malaysia

After spending the afternoon last sunday hanging around with friends, my host parents dropped the bomb! They told me at 9 pm sunday night that we were going to Malaysia for 2 days…. NO WAY!! I was beyond excited for that, checks off another country of my list of countries to visit… AKA all of them!
The Malaysia- Thai border is about 3 hours away from my city, and Penang Island (our destination) was about another hour, then the border took us another 2 hours to cross. I was a little worried for a while when they pulled me over to check.. apparently the airport in Bangkok did not stamp my passport correctly, that was interesting.  I was a little nervous. Once we crossed the border we were on our way. Penang Island is amazing! The mix between Chinese, Malay and English is seamless, it is like their very own culture. The point of the trip was to go and tour around my host brothers new school, so we did not do very much sight seeing, however we did go to get Malay food.. fried duck.. yumm! After that of course we went shopping, i found christmas presents and shirts for myself, the mall was huge, I did not know what to do with myself. After that it was bed time, I did not realize is that even 1 hour time difference, can really be a kick in the head, it took me awhile to fall asleep. The next day was just touring around Bio’s new school, it is very nice. He will be studying in the English department. Coming home was the same as getting there, beautiful scenery long border crossing and food.
Malaysia uses money called Ringgit, or RM for short. it has a conversion of 10:40, so for every 10 RM it is the same as 40 bahts, and the conversion from Bahts to Dollar is 30:1 this math cannot be done in my head! All in All Malaysia was amazing I cannot wait to go back, next time I hope to go to Kuala Lumpur the capital city.

Happy Mart

fried duck on the streetPenang Time Square with the host family

fantastic graffiti on the side of the schoolBio's new school (front)

Second Host Family

As of Nov 27 2011 I am now with a 2nd host family. I have to admit it was extremely sad for me to leave my first family, I was very comfortable there, my host sister and I were just making some plans. Now I have to re adjust everything. The new house is very nice, even by western standards. I have my own room, private bathroom, TV and DVD player along with WIFI. The house is smaller then I originally thought, with two floors however it is still big by Thai standards. After showing out my window to a friend he mentioned that it looks like I have the amazon rain forest in my yard. As it is we have coconut trees, and mango trees, 10 dogs and apparently 2 wandering cows. I need to buy a trained monkey though to get at the coconuts.

My room is painted a light pink unlike the rest of the house, which is very white. The flooring of the whole house is white ceramic, minus the stairs which are hardwood. Almost all the furniture is white or black or stained wood. The effect is a beautiful house.

After the initial first impression, I am starting to like my host mom more and more, she is kind and funny,  she is teaching me Thai due to the fact that she cannot speak English, we communicate better then i thought we would. My host dad is still on rocky grounds with me, he is extremely up in my face often, and he is harder to communicate with. My Host Brother Bio, is still an unknown to me, he never tries to say anything to me, but he just looks.

So for now I will continue to attempt to adjust, I will also post a video of the house up on this post, just as soon as I figure out how to

ลียา

Phuket

The largest Island part of Thailand is a major tourist attraction, with world class beaches, scuba and diving. The Island is surrounded by mountain and landmarks, along with beaches. Patong Beach being the most popular. Patong is filled with shops and bars, the nightlife is unreal. The shopping center is massive with three building all the size of the eaton center with 2 added floors. In the center of the three buildings is a “floating market” and a pond that has water shooting up linked to the music playing and a pirate ship. A 9 pm every night the fountain shoots up for a lazer light show which displays pictures and videos of Phuket’s history.

Big Buddha with my Host mom

Another beautiful Buddhist temple, With my host mom

Phuket also provides easy access to the surrounding Islands. My host Mom and I went to Koh Phi Phi. About one hour and a half out of the Phuket port, we stopped at a beach and did some scuba diving. The water was fabulous, clear, blue and warm. There were many fish swimming around and corals. Though because of a recent tsunami the newer colourful corals were wiped away. From there we went to the Phi Phi Resort for lunch and some more gift shopping.

Koh Phi Phi Port

Koh Phi Phi

Thai Flag, Phuket in the Background

Outside McDs, Loveable Ronald McDonald Thai Style

Nightlife

Patong beach

Me, Loving the Beach, and the Sun at 9:30 AM

Heading Back to Phuket, my Host mom and I went shopping and had dinner at an Irish Pub. Then we joined in on the nightlife. Then Next morning I went for a walk on the beach, just to take in everything and realize that yes, im going to own a beach house in 10 years, preferably on Phuket. Heading home was along trip on a bus 7 hours in total, AFTER the first bus broke down on the side of the road, good things those buses are fairly comfortable, and my bag took up the seat beside me.

I defiantly want to go back to Phuket as soon as possible for as long as possible its beautiful, I will for sure come back with friends in a few years

Lia

Money

I have heard many people refer to Canadian money as the most colourful money in the world, but I beg to differ, Thai Bahts are extremely colourful. As well I glaced at a Hong Kong 10 bank note… it is similar to a rainbow

Here the Thai baht is weak. With a 1:30 ratio compared to the Canadian dollar. For every 30 baht I spend the equivalent of 1 dollar, currently reaping the benefits of this.
However it does come with side effects. A Thai bank note, looks and feels like monopoly money, I spend money easily without even realizing it. Not to say I dont enjoy the benefits, in terms of materialistic things, brand name is the way to go right now, its too expensive in Canada might as well get it here, not that much more expensive then regular, especially on the market, sometimes I get an even lower price when the vendors realize I can bargain fairly well.

1000 baht notes

Each bank note is a different color and a different value.  20 bahts being the lowest while 1 million bahts being the highest. I personally have never seen anything higher then 1000 bahts.
20 bahts is green
50 bahts is blue
100 bahts is a red-beige colour
500 bahts is purple
1000 bahts is straight beige
Each bank note has the number in thai and in phonetic number, and a picture of the King’s face.
The 10 baht coin looks like our toonie
5 baht coin looks similar to quarter
2 baht coin looks like a smaller version of a loonie. There is also some that look like a dime.
1 baht coin looks like a dime, just bigger.
Then there is the coin that looks like a penny, I am not sure what it is called, it is rarely used, as it would be used like a penny, but almost all prices are rounded up or down respectively.

It interesting but I have gotten the hang of the coins for the most part, but it is still weird to open my wallet and see 100′s and 1000 ฿ notes.  It will be interesting to come home and try to adjust back to the mindset of have $5 and $20 dollars in my wallet.

Lia

 

Developing Country

I know I have been here for two months already, but truly the fact that I am living in a developing country just hit me.
These people are just like us in Canada, they work, they go to school, they hang out with friends, and they take life as it comes. Each person is Happy though, there is no rush, and there is no smog. Granted I would be surprised if there was no smog in BKK (Bangkok) however my city is still a big city, it is approximately the size of St.Catherines Ont. here we have no ridiculously tall “skyscrapers” or factories, so no smog. Everything is run off the markets or home shops.

The big hit for me that I took notice to, was going to a friends house for lunch, after going to the supermarket to find the food we need we went to her house, and cooked.. outside. The main part of the kitchen is on the back porch. Yes, the fridge is inside, but the table, stove, washing area are all outside.

Game washing the lettuce

Eating on the floor

Extra bowls

General Area

The table at the bottom, along with Koi cutting chicken

Here I live in a world that is vastly different from home. I realize the things I take for granted back home, like drinking straight from the tap, or always having  electricity, or even a bed frame. Still living with the wealthier class in Thailand, it seems easier, we have internet, a good home, nice car, and ample amounts of space. I see that most people don’t, space in some homes is dedicated to the occupation. It is difficult to explain. As well everything here seems so unsanitary, there is dirt and sand everywhere. Even the buildings in the city looked like they were burned at some point. The idea of living in a developing country was daunting to start with, however when I got here it was easy to adjust to, almost effortless, though I see know that others do not live the same way I do here, for others everyday is a constant struggle.

Later,
Lia

 

Flood Affects

Everyone has heard on the floods in Northern and Central Thailand, it has been all over the news. With 4m acres underwater, large companies are shutting down for the duration of the floods, and many are anticipating a large loss in profits. With roughly 400 people dead and many more evacuated, this had become the worst flood in 50 years. Despite my location in relative terms to the disaster, we are still feeling the effects.

7 elevenBig C .. no beef7 eleven .. no coke