Piiictures

Ok, since I have about 20 minutes to spare before I'm off to Prachuap with Ajarn Rose... and because my internet has for some reason decided to work like normal today, here, for your viewing pleasure, are a couple of the pictures from my family visit:

In front of the waterfall from the movie The Beach.

The slash in my purse, from where someone tried to steal from me (but didn't succeed).

In the boat at the Floating Markets.

Beach at Railay.

Alyson jumping on the beach.

1 month and 3 weeks.

I just got back from dropping my parents and Alyson off at the airport for them to go back to Canada. So many things have happened since I last wrote in here.. but honestly, there is no way I could go back and describe everything now. So really this post is just to tell you guys that I'm still alive, I had a great time visiting my family, and that as of now they are safely on their way back to Canada. I haven't had a chance to upload all the pictures yet, but when I do I will (although I'm not really sure when that will be since as of now my internet isn't working too good), and hopefully they will help give you an idea of all the recent happenings. I can tell you now though that words probably couldn't describe how it felt to first see them all again at the airport after being apart for 8 months. I saw them walking towards me off in the distance, and Alyson must have seen me too, because she started running towards me all like it was a moment out of a movie.... it was crazy. To briefly recap everything that we did.. the first 6 days we spent in Bangkok, shopping around and visiting different tourist sites... then we went down to Railay Beach in the South of Thailand for 5 days.. where we stayed in a beautiful bungalow near the beach. It was sad saying goodbye to them at the airport again.. although this time it was much easier since I will be seeing them again in only 1 month and 3 weeks (whereas last time I was saying goodbye to them for over 8 months).



And I also must warn you that I probably won't be updating that much in the next few days either, as tomorrow I am off to Prachuap in the south with Ajarn Rose and some other exchange students.. as far as I know we will be back on April 4th.. so I will update you guys some more then.

1 More Sleeps!

Nothing too tooo exciting has happened in the last few days (jeese I wonder how many blog entries have started with that exact sentence....). However, tomorrow something ultra exciting is happening..... my parents and younger sister from Canada will be coming to Thailand!!! Their flight is scheduled to arrive at 11 a.m. tomorrow morning. Since I live so close to the airport here, I think the plan is for my host dad to take me to the airport to pick them up, then bring them back to my village so I can introduce them to my host family, give them a tour of my school, etc. Then sometime during the evening we will head to the hotel which we will be staying at in Bangkok (you can look at it here ---> pprincess.com) I'm not really sure what we will do for the week in Bangkok. I have lots of ideas, but nothing planned on for certain on certain days. Which I think is okay, we will just take it easy and take things day by day (although I'm like 155% sure we will do a ton of shopping). However, I did make plans with Patch to go to JJ Market with us on the 21st (because that is the only day Patch will be free to do anything whilst they are here).. and apparently we're invited to go have dinner with my old host family at their house sometime during the week.. which could be a little interesting since I haven't seen most of the members of that family since I moved out of their house... but to be honest I do miss some of them quite a lot (well mostly P'Kla and P'Beam... honestly, if it wasn't for the two of them I don't know how I would have survived my first couple of months here). On the 23rd we will be going to Krabi in the south of Thailand (I think we will get there by plane.. but I don't have plane tickets yet sooo who knows, maybe we'll have to end up busing it??) to stay in a Bungalow on the beach for a few days. I don't have anything at all planned for whilst we are in the South, I just think it will be nice to lay on the beach and hang out in a bungalow just the 4 of us... On the 28th we will come back to Bangkok (and hopefully find somewhere to stay for a couple of nights since I don't have any hotels booked yet :S) and just get everything organized for them going back to Canada (since they will be taking alot of my stuff back for me) on the 30th. So now that you know the grand scheme of things, I must admit that I don't think I'll be writing in here very often until they leave on the 30th... so, just be patient, and I'll update you on all the happenings, and will lots of pictures hopefully, as soon as I can!

Return Date!!

I now know what my date of return to Canada will be..... (drumroll) May 21st, which is the date I had been expecting it to be all along, but now that my plane ticket has been all booked and what not, it is official. Although apparently our AFS end of stay camp will be May 18-21st, which means I will have to say goodbye to all of my Thai friends and host family and what not before the 18th (unless all of my classmates go to the airport to say goodbye to me like they promised they would (Soy even promised he'd give me a goodbye kiss +555)).

Today my host aunt taught me how to make a Thai dessert called "Khao Neeow Sun Kai Yah" which was fun. I'm glad that my host family has at least caught onto the fact that I have nothing to do this week, and they've taken this opportunity to teach me to cook different desserts and what not. The dessert today involved making sweet sticky rice, and then making this thing (I don't know what to call it.. I'm sorry, I'm bad with cooking/baking terms) out of eggs, sugar, and coconut milk to go on top. Of course I'm not going to give you guys the whole recipe (which I did write down as best as I could) because I'm planning on cooking this for all of you when I get back. But I guess if you look really closely at that picture, you might be able to read all of my writing...

Bucket Lists

So, here is a list, word for word, (although very short) which I made when I was in Grade 11 of things I wanted to do before I die:

1. Leave this shitter town
2. Get a tattoo
3. Figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life...
4. Go skydiving
5. Live far far away for a while
6. Never stop playing bass

I came across this saved on my computer a couple of days ago... and was quite surprised to discover that I have already managed to do half of those things. Also kind of sad to admit though that I've virtually failed at #6, as I haven't had access to a bass here in Thailand. But I still found it interesting looking back and seeing what kinds of things seemed important for me to do as a 16 year old. So today whilst I was bored and feeling a little inspired, I came up with more of a list of things to do, which is as follows:

7. Travel to as many countries on as many different continents as I possibly can... never say "no" to an opportunity to go abroad
8. Be a vegetarian
9. Get dreadlocks
10. Graduate from university and find a job that makes me happy
11. Find someone to spend the rest of my life with
12. Get over my fear of singing in front of other people
13. Have children (this one shouldn't be coming for at least another 10 years haha) and if I ever have any daughters they will be named Emily and Alys
14. Get that portrait tattoo of Nanny that I told her I would
15. Learn to freestyle on bass and just improve my guitar skills in general
16. Go bungee jumping
17. Host an exchange student
18. Travel across Canada (whether it be by car or motorbike)

now, let's see if I can have half of THAT list finished in the next two years haha..
and just for fun, here is a list of things I've never done, until I was in Thailand:

1. Used a squat toilet
2. Survived without toilet paper
3. Took cold showers daily
4. Washed my clothes by hand
5. Ironed clothes
6. Wore a uniform
7. Ate fish with the head still on, ate shark fin, liver, etc.
8. Sucessfully ate using chopsticks
9. Rode an elephant
10. Fed an elephant
11. Fed wild monkeys
12. Was picked up by an elephant (wow that sounds totally wrong hahaha)
13. Knew how to Thai massage, Thai dance, draw Thai art, etc.
14. Had a sunburn in December
15. Pulled an all-nighter and watched the sun rise
16. Saw a professional ballet
17. Went rafting
18. Jumped off a bridge into the river
19. Went swimming in the sea at 2 a.m.
20. Wore a hi-jab
21. Drank tea while sitting completely clothes in the rain
22. Cooked poutine
23. Was anywhere near a cockfight (although I managed to never actually watch one)
24. Took a "bucket shower"
25. Won any kind of trophy
26. Knew how to knit
27. Shared my bedroom with someone
28. And then of course all the obvious ones that go along with exchange, like being away from my family for so long, using a different language on a daily basis, etc.

Bolt

Today I met up with Elisabeth at the Mall.. and we went by boat to the downtown area of Bangkok.. with all intentions of going to Jim Thompson's House, a kind of museumy type place about the man who made Thai silk famous.. we walked around a bit looking for this place, and then just kind of gave up and went to watch a movie at Siam (mainly because we didn't feel like walking around any more in the heat). The movie we saw was Bolt... and to be quite honest, that movie made my miss my dogs from back home (one in particular of course) sooooooooooooo much. I swear, I was fighting back tears during the finale of the movie (when I thought Penny was dying of smoke inhalation, and Bolt was just cuddled up next to her). So yeah, that's been about the most exciting thing that's happened to me lately... but to look at this kind of boring spell a totally different way, at least I'm getting a little bit of a break before my family comes (in only 1 week from today!!!!) and things start to get hectic in April (going to Hua Hin with some AFS friends, possibly going to Chiang Mai again with Elisabeth, SongKran festival!, and hopefully a 10 day meditation course...).

Anyways, here's a picture of the dog I'm missing so much (and a hella old picture of me... like seriously, me with long straight hair... that's not something you see very often):

Blah

Today, although spent at home, was actually quite an enjoyable day. I spent the afternoon making a kind of Thai dessert called "bo-loy" (it's the same one that I once made in my Thai cooking class monthsssssssss ago) with my host family. My host aunt made up the different doughs, which is apparently done by mixing sticky rice powder with either pumpkin (for a yellow colour), taro (for a purple colour), or some kind of leaf (for a green colour). Then all of the dough has to be rolled into tiny little balls which are then boiled and added to coconut milk (which is then eaten, obviously). Another variation on this dish involves boiling eggs as well to add to the mixture, but we decided to just stick with the little dough balls. For some reason most of the people left (I think they had something special to go to because they were all dressed up in their Muslim getups) and it was just me and my host mom Sah left to roll ALLLLL of the dough into these tiny balls. Well, after a while we got bored (Sah tends to get bored super easy), so we started getting creative with our dough balls. Sah made a flower, a hello kitty, a star, and a heart which she wrote the letters "KS" in.... I just made a heart (haha so much for being creative). I didn't take any pictures to show you guys of the finished product, but apparently on Wednesday we will make this whole dish again and my host family wants to video it or something... I don't really know... but I'll make sure to get some pictures (maybe even a video of my own) then.

Yesterday wasn't really all that eventful either. I went for a bike ride with my host sister Sunyair all the way down our soi (street), which was nice because I've never actually been all the way down our street before... so I got to see a bit more of the surrounding area. The bikes we rode on were bikes that my host parents just bought last week.. I think maybe in an attempt to get me to exercise or something (haha).. because they keep saying I should go biking with Sunyair to the park and what not.. which is fine for me, because I really enjoy bike riding. However the seats on the bikes are SUPER uncomfortable.. I swear, this morning when I woke up my bottom was still hurting. They also bought a little bike with training wheels for my brother.. and although when he sits on it his feet do reach the pedals.. he hasn't really gotten the hang of pedaling just yet (come on he's not even a year and a half old!).. but he LOVES this bike.. so he just kind of holds onto the handle bars and walks his bike all around the house. It's uber cute. And I duno why, but for some reason he just seems to find me hilarious. Tonight I was sitting on a chair at the kitchen table.. and he was just standing in front of me looking at me, and then he would burst out laughing. I wasn't making any funny faces or anything. He also kills himself laughing whenever I speak English to him (he said the word "apple" the other day though, it was soooooo cute)....

Adventures and Randoms

So, I'm still alive (in case any of you were worrying or anything), still suffering from constant stomache issues, and am now finished high school for the second time! Since I last wrote in here about going to see the KPN Music Award thingy, I've spent one day eating a picnic in the park with my Thai friends, a couple days just bumming around my host family's house, one day poking around Pratunam with Elisabeth (who then slept over at my house), and one day traveling to MBK with P'Patch, Cherry and Elisabeth. Yesterday was the whole MBK day.. and the purpose of going to MBK was to check out the hotel which my coordinator recommended I stay at with my family when they come here in 1 week and 4 days!! Originally she had told me it was better if I went and booked the hotel rooms at the hotel in person.. which is what we were planning on doing yesterday, until she happened to call just as we were in the bus on the way to the hotel... and THEN she told us it was better to book over the internet..... Anyways, we still had an enjoyable day walking around MBK/Siam, but nothing too incredibly interesting happened. Last night when I got back home, I attempted to book the hotel rooms online... I filled out all the information, pressed the "confirm" button.... and then nothing? So I'm not sure if the bookings went through or not. Today I apparently have to go into school to talk to my coordinator about all these plans for my family coming, so I will get her to call the hotel and see if it went through or not.. Anyways, I wish I had more exciting things to tell you all about... but really, I don't. My plans to go to the south with Rose, Elisabeth and some other people next weekend fell through, so as of now I have no plans for the time until my family comes. Hopefully I will be able to find something to do, because I don't really want to spend a week and a half doing nothing....

8 MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I must admit, I even amaze myself with the fact that I have now been in Thailand for 8 months! Honestly, during my first month here I didn't think it would be possible for me to make it until this point (I know I didn't talk about it much on my blog, but I did have a really hard time during the first month or two here....). Actually, during the first little while I didn't even want to be here for 8 whole months, I wanted to switch to the semester program and go home in December... but, now I'm really glad that I didn't. I have to go make hotel bookings now for when my family comes and visits me in a couple of weeks.... I will write more on here about all of my recent adventures very soon..

KPN Award Thailand Singing Contest 2009

Many interesting things have happened in the last few days, and therefore I am completely exhausted and not up to explaining every little detail... so I will just give you guys a quick(ish) recap of all happenings:

Yesterday morning I went to the Mall with my host parents and siblings.. it wasn't all that exciting.. just went grocery shopping while Sunyair had her drum lesson. After the Mall we went over to my host cousin Ron's house, because I guess my host dad and Ron had some business work to do or something..(?) Anyways, whilst was chilling out there watching TV, P'Patch called me and asked if I wanted to go to a concert, and of course I said yes! The whole thing was the finale episode of the Thailand Singing Contest 2009, which is kind of like American Idol, but for Thailand, so it was going to be all filmed and aired on TV later that night. One of the teachers from my school is apparently the aunt of one of the contestants.. and she had a whole bunch of extra tickets, so she invited Patch, Cherry, and I to go along. Since I didn't have time to go home and shower/get changed I just had to meet up with everyone and go in my clothes I had been wearing all day.. and let me tell you I was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay underdressed. The whole concert thing didn't actually take that long.. there were only 5 contestants left, and each contestant sang only 1 song. The guy we were cheering for (number 5!!) sang The Phantom Of The Opera, which I thought was pretty sweet, and therefore he was my favourite :) Unfortunately all he won was like some "thanks for participating" award of 30,000 baht.. which I thought was ridiculous (he should have won!!!). The girl who won the whole thing got 1,000,000 baht. When it was over we took a taxi home.. and well, that was that. I don't really know what more to say about it.. the whole thing pretty much just involved us sitting in the audience and screaming whenever our guy went on the stage... I'm pretty sure that I wasn't actually on camera at all during the whole show :(

Today I went with Elisabeth to Khao San Road, where we met up with another German girl called Galina. Elisabeth and I had some trouble actually getting to Khao San Road (we made plans to meet at Minburi Market, but when we got there we couldn't find eachother and had to meet somewhere else instead....).. but once we did get there, we just walked around and shopped a bit.. I bought the new Killers CD and 2 cute dresses. It wasn't that exciting, but it was nice to get out of the house and also to see so many foreingers in one day (since Khao San is like THE place where all the backpacking tourists go).. however there was one foreigner guy wandering around on all sorts of drugs and who apparently had lost control of all bodily functions that scared us sooooooo bad. It was disguisting... I am back at home now though, in my nice air conditioned room. Tomorrow I will go to school for the last day (again) and say goodbye to all my friends.. which means that I must go iron my uniform now before I go to sleep...