Thai Dance Performance (Golden Dress Take Two)

Yesterday was my big Thai dance performance at school (there was a whole kind of festival thingy going on at school mainly I guess so kids who will be going to high school next year can go check out what the school has to offer)! Which meant, of course, that I had to wake up extra early and go to school at 7 a.m. to have my hair and makeup all done, and to get into my dancing costume. I was fairly amazed by how light they went on hair and makeup (compared to my previous experiences in Thailand), I'm pretty sure I didn't even have one squirt of hairspray aimed at my head (however the fake hairpiece I had to wear looked a little silly as it was black, and didn't really match the rest of my head....). The costumes on the other hand, weren't quite as simple. They started out with a gold skirt and gold tube top, and then were blinged out with golden belts, necklaces, armbands, bracelets, ear pierces, hair pieces, and golden wings. We practiced a couple of times in the studio, and then headed down to perform, but of course, since this IS Thailand, we had to stop and take pictures on the way... I ran into Win whilst taking pictures, which was fortunate, because I was able to tell him that we would be dancing on the smaller stage at the front of the school, rather than on the main stage... so although he came and watched us, none of my other friends did since they were all waiting in front of the other stage (thinking that is where I would be performing). We performed a second time in the air con conference room... Both dances went fairly well, although I will admit I did make a couple of mistakes both times... I still had fun though, and I'm really glad I actually managed to learn Thai dance this year (since there were alot of things I managed not to learn, ahem, due to having a lazy Advisor and what not............).

The rest of the day was spent just hanging around the school with my friends, and waiting for Win's band to play... They played really well, although it was a much softer set than the screamo they usually play.. I took a couple of videos of them, but since I was so far from the stage none of them really turned out all that well... And I do have a video of me dancing, but since I'm using dial-up internet right now, it will take forever to load.. and I don't really have forever. I'll upload it when I can get some time on a high speed connection...

This morning I met with Ing, Fon, and Yah (3 girls from my class) at the Nongchok Market, where we bought some food for making Suki, and then we all went to Patch's house... I guess they had to work on a socials project about helping the environment or something, I'm not really sure... But pretty much all we did was walk around Patch's house (where there are all kinds of fruit trees and vegetables and what not growing) and taking pictures of ourselves pretending to water the plants and what not. We also dug up a few potatos from Patch's garden which Ing cooked in a fire, and then we ate them with sugar, which trust me, I found very strange. I tried to convince them that baked potatos are much better with sour cream and cheese and bacon bits and what not, but they all wanted to puke at the idea of eating potatos like that. Then we made suki, which pretty much consists of boiling noodles, vegetables, and various meats in a pot to make soup... I guess it's really healthy for you, but personally it's not my favourite thing to eat (esepcially when the meat isn't thoroughly cooked enough...) It was fun though.. we hooked about 5 extention cords together to that we could take a rice cooker out into the yard and cook the suki outside and had kind of a picnic. There were lots of leftovers though, and Patch tried to convince us to eat them all by telling us to think of the starving kids in Africa who have no food or no clean water... which only made me realize how truly amazing of a person Patch is... her house really isn't much, and she doesn't own many possesions, but she isn't starving.

Things Recently Acquired

I am very pleased to announce that I have recently acquired a video of my friend Soy dancing to "Nobody But You" (a song by a famous Korean all girl band (kind of like the Spice Girls, but 10 years too late) called the WonderGirls)... You have no idea how happy I am to now have this daily happening recorded on video... And I do realize that most people in Canada would feel kind of disturbed by seeing it.... But I know that in the years to come, I will watch it and remember all the good times spend with my crazy ass Thai friends (M. 6/3)!

Thai Dance and Solar Eclipses and What Not (Oh My)

Since my internet has decided once again to stop working… I’m going to type this up now (7 pm on Monday January 26) on Microsoft Word… and post it on my blog as soon as my internet decides to cooperate. Today was actually a really productive day (unlike yesterday, which I spent chatting to people from Canada on MSN…..) I talked to Ajarn Supanee, the teacher who taught me Thai Language last semester, and she said she can teach me on Wednesday mornings from now on (only for an hour though, which still isn’t very much (I’m pretty sure Elisabeth studies 2-3 hours each day of the week)… but it’s better than what I’ve been doing lately i.e. nothing) After lunch I went to my Thai dance class, and ended up practicing for the rest of the afternoon because apparently I will be performing a Thai dance in front of the whole school this Friday!!!! I guess there is some kind of fair going on at school (I have no idea why?) and there will be all kinds of activities and shows, such as Thai dance, and apparently different bands will be playing… It shall be fun, and I’ll make sure to video it all for you to see! Honestly, the dance I’m doing isn’t THAT hard, but since I haven’t gone to practice in 3 weeks so I don’t really know the steps all too well, and because I’m kind of new at this whole Thai dance thing…. I must admit I’m finding it quite difficult. And when it was time to finally go home, I was feeling super exhausted and just super sweaty and hot and gross (of course added to the fact that I got noodle sauce all on my shirt at lunch, and hadn’t shaved my legs in a few days, and forgot to put on perfume in the morning…….. I just wasn’t feeling all too beautiful today hahaha). When I got home I did some laundry and ironed my uniforms for tomorrow/Wednesday… Yay me!

I have this master plan that one of these days I’m going to make a video blog of a life in the day of me… just showing all you guys what school is like and what not. I talked to Patch about the idea, and she volunteered to be my camera woman. I’m not sure when we’ll do that whole thing, but hopefully soon since school is over on February 21st…. I’ll keep you updated

p.s. I got my internet to work for all of like 2 minutes, yay me! And also, apparently there was supposed to be a solar eclipse tonight? (according to Patch)... but I cant really tell the difference.. everyone tells me if I look outside I won't see any stars, but ummmm, I never actually see stars here anyways (hello, Bangkok, polution... yeah)

Supanburi

Sooo my host mom Sah is pretty much my favourite Thai person ever. You wanna know why? The other night she surprised me with a dinner of poutine which she had made herself :) Enough said.

On Friday after school, Patch and I were picked up by a guy named P'Tee (who Patch knows somehow... I'm not really sure how :S) to take us to the 27 Resort at Supanburi. Apparently the reason for going was because this resort is developing a new show full of Thai dance and what not which will open next month, and they need Patch to help translate the commentary for it into English. And once she has translated it for them, they will record her voice reading it... and play it during the show each night (for all the foreigners to understand, I guess). She also recently translated the brochure for their whole resort thingy from Thai into English (with a little help from me in the way of grammar and just making everything sound alright (because sometimes when you just translate directly from one language to another, things just don't sound right....)) We stopped in Minburi (the district of Bangkok which is right next to Nongchok... it's where Elisabeth lives too) to pick up Patch's cousin (named "Patcha") from school... and we got to the resort at about 7 pm. When we arrived, they had already started running through a rehearsal of the show.. so the dancers weren't in full costume with makeup or anything. And I must admit that you could deffinately tell at some points that the dancers were confused and didn't really have the whole routines memorized yet. BUT, they still all amazed me with their ability to actually dance Thai.... being able to bend their hands back so far that their fingers almost touch their forearms... and flexing their feet so much that their toes stick straight up into the air... For the last dance of the night, they (well it was actually Patch who said it through the microphone) asked all of the audience to join in and kind of Thai dance our way around in a circle. I joined in of course, and for some reason all of the Thai dance steps I've learned in school completely flew out of my brain...... it was still a good time though. There was a group of foreign women there, and Patch and I got to talking to them...... and......... one was Canadian!!!!! Second one I've talked to in almost 7 months now! Can you sense the excitement? haha. But really, I always love talking to foreigners here, to see what they're doing in Thailand, what places they are visiting, what do they think of the Thai people, etc. Since most of them are tourists, and are only staying here for a few weeks, they all seem really impressed with the fact that I've been here for almost 7 months now!! (I know, I even amaze myself sometimes....)

When the show was over, we ate dinner in the resort, and then Patch, Patcha, and I just kind of hung out in our hotel room. Patcha taught me a silly little game, and Patch took a video of us playing it. I also have a video of Patch teaching me the steps to "ah-belle" (the thing Asians tend to do when they take pictures.... make their eyes all big, their mouth all small, and give the peace sign), and of course a video of some of the Thai dances (including the one where I joined in hahaha) which I'm currently uploading on my webshots account... We finally went to sleep around 1 in the morning... This morning we woke up fairly early (7 a.m.), under the impression that we would head back to Bangkok around 9.. However, since this is Thailand after all, and Thais seem to run on their own kind of schedule...... P'Tee wasn't ready to take us back until almost 11. He brought me all the way back to my home in Nongchok, where I discovered that none of my host family members were home, and the door was locked and unfortunately, although my host dad did give me a key to the house, I lost it on the same day he gave it to me... well, quite possibly my host gramma was home, but she has a tendency to not answer the door when people are knocking. So I phoned my host dad on his phone, and he said they'd be home in 10 minutes........ I just waited around for them, listening to my ipod, and when they got home, we went out to each sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many noodles that I'm still feeling full hours and hours later. My host family all complimented me on how well I use chopsticks though, which was deffinately a nice thing to hear :) esepcially since I had to work so hard at the beginning of this exchange just to be able to use them...

And if you look really closely at that picture, you can see me dancing away in my yellow school sport uniform haha. And the new videos can be found here: http://community.webshots.com/album/565019446hXFBpQ?start=24

New Dress Among Other Things

Oh, and I forgot to mention before that I took some salt and vinegar chips which my family had sent me from Canada on the train ride to Chiang Mai. Some of my Thai friends tried them, and well, let's just say that while Thai people are good at eating things spicy, they CANNOT handle sour... so none of them really liked the chips. Except for Soy. Oh, and speaking of Soy, he asked me to marry him whilst we were in Chiang Mai, and of course I said yes. So I now have a gay Thai fiance! I'm pretty excited about it to be honest.

Today when I came home from school my host mom had for me my dress for the wedding in February!!!! I guess they ended up ordering it off the internet from a shop in Bangkok because my host auntie didn't have time to make it.. and while it's probably not the kind of dress I would pick for myself, it's still beautiful and I love it (I'm deffinatley hoping I can bring it back to Canada...), and I can't believe how nice my host family is to buy it for me. Now I'm just really hoping that I can actually go to the wedding, and that I won't have to go to the next AFS camp instead. Anyways, the dress is pink, and while it appears strapless it actually has like meshy kind of see through straps attached. It's about knee length.. and it actually fits perfectly. Now I just have to figure out what to do with my hair and what shoes I will wear... Honestly, I'm mainly just happy that I get to wear a semi-fancy dress at all.. when I was told I needed a dress for a Muslim wedding I assumed I would be covered from head to toe and wearing a hi-jab :S

And in other exciting news... does everyone remember my old host brother P'Keng and his girlfriend P'Kai? Probably not because they didn't really have much to do with me while I was living with that family... but anyways, P'Kai just gave birth to their daughter! I was asked to suggest to them good English girls names. I suggested "Kristen". But I don't think they really liked that idea. I don't see why, because it would fit in with the whole names that start with the letter K theme....

ChiangMai

So, as you all know, I spend the last few days in the North of Thailand... Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai to be exact. We got there by train which was... an experience. Very long, and very uncomfortable. So even though we went on the night train (left Bangkok on Thursday evening and didn't get to Chiang Mai until 1 p.m. on Friday) I only slept for about an hour. We spent the time on the train just taking pictures and playing a few games... nothing too exciting. When we finally did reach Chiang Mai, we quickly transferred onto a bus to drive to Chiang Rai where we spent Friday night. The other two nights were spent in Chiang Mai...

We spent our days just kind of travelling around different mountains and touristy type places in the North. We went to a garden on top of a mountain and spent an entire morning taking pictures with flowers. Honestly, you'd be surprised how many pictures of themselves with flowers Thai people seem to need. And honestly, I think I'm the kind of person who would rather go elephant riding in the mountains or bungy jumping... I can only look at flowers and temples for so long. But the company was good, so I enjoyed myself. I hung out with Patch, Cherry, and Cherry's best friend Boat who just got back from her exchange to Chile. Boat's parents are both teachers at my school, and since we had to be chaperoned around by teachers, we just stuck with her parents, who are extremely nice. Boat invited me to go over to her house sometime soon for dinner, which I think will be fun. She seems really nice (although the poor girl got so motion sick whilst we were driving up the mountain). And apparently around the end of January another one of Cherry's best friends named Mook will be coming back from Peru. In the course of a few days I visited both the furthest North part of Thailand (the golden triangle), and the highest place in Thailand on the top of a mountain. The Golden Triangle really wasn't all that exciting. It was just muddy looking river with some shops and a temple. I enjoyed going up to see the highest place in Thailand.. and I was kind of looking forward to it being a bit chilly. However, I guess a Thai person's idea of coolness is VERY different from my own. So while I was just wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, my Thai friends were all decked out in long johns with toques and winter jackets and gloves and what not. Honestly, it wasn't even freezing out (I don't know the exact temperature, but I saw absolutely no frozen water or anything, so it really wasn't that cold.) Also, these Thai people who have lived in Bangkok their whole lives really aren't used to windy mountain roads. While I was enjoying the views and what not in the back of a SongTaew going up the mountain, the Thai's who were with me well, umm, weren't enjoying it quite as much. Boat ended up throwing up which kind of set off a chain reaction where another teacher threw up and then well I started to feel icky because of the smell and yeah......... not fun. I was quite glad to get out of there and smell some good clean fresh mountain air at the end of it to clear my head a little.

During the evenings we went shopping. My favourite place which we went shopping was deffinately at Walking Street in Chiang Mai. Actually I think it was probably my favourite place we went during the whole trip. I found all kinds of sweet souvenirs (but I'm not saying what there are... that would ruin the surprise for you all!) that I haven't seen anywhere before in Thailand (which is amazing trust me.. usually it's the same thing no matter where you go shopping). I bought for myself a t-shirt that says "Chiang Mai Thailand" on it and has a maple leaf of all things. I HAD to buy it. Come on, its like Thailand and Canada all mixed together. I bought a handmade tutu for a little doggy I know..... and a few other random things. We came back once again by train, and this time I slept the entire way... It was tres uncomfortable on my neck, and a couple of times I somehow hit my head on the window sill whilst sleeping.... now I have a sore spot on my head :(

I took quite a few pictures during the whole thing, but Patch took more. So, there are alot which I am missing for now, until Patch sends them to me. But for now, here is the link to the ones which I took myself (and sorry, I haven't had time to go through and write captions for each one yet...):

http://community.webshots.com/album/569718676Nptmyu

Off To Chiang Mai

So, as I'm leaving later this evening for Chiang Mai with my classmates from school... this will be my last post for the next 5ish days or so. Hope you don't all miss me too much. I enjoyed spending this week just kind of lazing around my host families house (although I really didn't get anything too productive done, my bad) because I think this weekend in Chiang Mai will be action packed. Well, I really hope it is action packed and enjoyable :S I don't really know too much about what the plan for Chiang Mai is, other than the fact that we are going by train (not really looking forward to it.. the last (and only) time I travelled by train in Thailand was only for about an hour and by the end of it I just felt disguisting... the train was so crowded we couldn't even get seats (we just had to stand in the aisle) and the whole thing smelt like vomit...), we will be staying at a YMCA (or some other cheap hostel type place I'm guessing), and we will be back in Bangkok on the 20th. Shall be a good time. Apparently the teacher's who are travelling with us (I think my AFS Coordinator is the one responsible for organizing this whole thing really) don't really have much planned in the way of activities to do.. so they will pretty much just be setting us free to do whatever and then meet back up for dinner at whatever time... I'm hoping I can get lots of good shopping done in the way of souvenirs :) esepcially since things are (apparently?) tres cheap in the North (which is where Chiang Mai is... in case any of you didn't already know?) Everyone keeps warning me about how "cold" (6 degrees) it is in Chiang Mai, and they keep telling me to pack gloves and toques and what not. Well to be honest I don't actually have any of those things in Thailand. And come on, if I can't live through 6 degree weather without wearing gloves and a toque, what kind of Canadian am I? Seriously.

I guess because it was Children's Day last weekend, there was some sort of Fair type thing set up near Carrefour... so last night I went there with my little host sister and her friend. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera (because I didn't actually know that's where we were going....). We went on this one little mini-rollar coaster ride that seemed soooooooooooooooooo rickety to me, that I was certain it was going to be the death of me. I wish I could have gotten a picture of it. They also had all kinds of games set up for winning prizes and what not. I didn't play any, mainly because I didn't really have money, and because I wasn't too keen on winning a GIANT Hello Kitty stuffy that would take up my entire suitcase on the way home to Canada.... We didn't stay too long because it was night-time, and everyone seems to think it's unsafe to be outside as soon as it gets dark.

The Last Couple Of Days...

The last couple of days have been (somewhat) eventful. On Sunday Win came to my house to hang out for a bit during the day. It was exciting for me, since it's the first time I've hung out with one of my Thai friends (without P'Patch around) outside of school! It was also exciting because of the fact that well, Win doesn't speak much English at all really, so it was pretty much a completely Thai speaking day for me. And trust me, by the end of it I felt sooooooo exhausted. You'd be suprised how tiring it can be thinking in another language for hours on end, esepcially a language which I still don't really have a good grip on. Anyways, it was fun, and luckily my host parents were cool with me having a boy over to my house (I wasn't sure what the policy is about girls having guys over to their house in Thailand is, so I asked P'Patch and she said it's different from family to family.. and luckily my host family was alright with it... they didn't even ask me if he is my boyfriend or not (which he isn't)).

Yesterday I went to Elli's house in the morning, which was also quite an accomplishment for me, as this time I went the cheap way to her house! Before I had always gone the easy, expensive way (i.e. by taxi), but I talked to P'Patch and figured out which van I can take to near Elli's house for much cheaper (25 baht for van, 130 for taxi)... together we went to Siam Paragon. We went by bus, and for some reason traffic was kind of bad (which is weird for a Monday afternoon?) so we didn't actually get to Siam until about 2. We ate pasta (mmm Italian food for the first time in forever) and ice cream, and then looked around all the fancy stores like Chanel and Valentino, and I tried on a super beautiful, super expensive dress. If only I was a bit skinnier and actually needed a dress.......... haha. By the time we should have headed home (about 5 p.m.) we didn't really feel like it, since we'd only been there a couple of hours. I guess we didn't even think about how if it took us that long just to get to Siam, it would probably take even longer to get back (because everyone would be heading home from work in the evening)... so we didn't actually start heading home until 7 p.m., which turned out to be a very bad idea. I didn't get back to Nongchok until 10, and I had to phone my host dad, who I think was already asleep, to come pick me up (because the alternative was for me to go home by motorcycle taxi, but I didn't really think that was a good idea so late at night). I apologized to my host dad for being home so late, and it said it was no problem... and he even had rotee for me to eat before bed :S however, I guess Elisabeth's host parents aren't letting her off the hook so easily. She texted me last night when she got home and said her host mom was quite angry, so she wouldn't be allowed out of the house for the next few days... which kind of sucks because we were planning on doing some touristy type things in BKK today...

Childrens Day

Today is Childrens Day in Thailand... kind of the same idea as Mothers or Fathers Day, only for Children (obviously). So, my host family had kind of a party-type thing at our house today for all of the children who live on our street. This pretty much meant that there were little kids running around our house and eating all kinds of good candy all throughout the day. My host parents had different games for them to play (musical chairs and such) and gave out prizes (such as toy trucks, guns, dolls etc.) to all of the kids. I partnered (is that spelled right?) with my host sister for one of the games... she had to sit blindfolded and feed me cake (there were about 4 other couples doing this) and whoever finished first won a prize... and, well, we won!!! My prize was some chocolate bar type things, which I really didn't feel like eating after all that cake... My host dad took some pictures with my camera for me, so here is one of Sunyair feeding me:

Christmas Came Late This Year

2 weeks late, to be exact... which means... you guessed it! I got my Christmas parcel from Canada in the mail today! Which pretty much put the icing on an already amazing day (the best day I've had in quite a while)! So, let's start at the beginning:

Well, firstly, today my Thai friends commented on how much of a Thai accent I actually have when I speak Thai! Yay me! Although I'm pretty sure it only happens when I say Thai words that are easy for me to pronounce, such as "mai me"... and when I say words that are super hard for me (i.e. "ngong") I'm pretty sure I sound like a complete idiot.

Ok, now that I'm actually writing this out, I realize that nothing THAT amazing happened today... I was just in a really good mood all day I guess.

After school I went with my Advisor, Coordinator, and the Vice Principal of my school to go to my old host families house to say Happy New Year to them, and give them a fruit basket. The problem was that we didn't actually have a fruit basket to give them. So we went to Tops, where all these women spent forever picking out fruit (imported apples for 6 dollars!!!!) and baskets, then forever supervising the store workers who were arranging the fruit in the basket. When these workers had finally finished wrapping the baskets all up in seran wrap, the vice principal lady decided the arrangments weren't beautiful enough... so then they had to take apart the whole thing at start over. It was madness. Honestly, Thai people are obsessed with the idea of things having to look beautiful. When we finally finished that whole fruit filled hour, we all went to my old host families house, to find that only my old host gramma was home. I must admit, there are certain people and things I miss from that family. Such as my old host gramma, P'Kla, and P'Beam. And I preferred it in that house how I could wash my underwear by hand in the privacy of my own bathroom, rather than here where I have to wash it in the kitchen... which is difficult considering people are always in there eating. Anyways, I told my old host gramma (after we gave her the fruit basket) that I miss her, and she said I should go move back in with them (in Thai of course)... and although that isn't really an option, my Coordinator told me that if I want I can go back there for sleepovers sometime. We'll see.

Then we all piled back into the car, and came to my new host families house, where my host dad was given a gift basket, which included cookies that I made in my cooking class yesterday :) (by the way, I'm really enjoying my cooking class (despite the fact that all we do is bake cookies) because I'm making friends with new people, AND.... none of them speak English. Which means I have made friends speaking only Thai!!!!!! Yay me!) Anyways, when we got to my host families house, I noticed that my Christmas parcel had arrived, and I dissapeared into my room where the unwrapping of Christmas gifts began..... It was magical.

So, now that I finally have my Christmas parcel, I can finally really say to all of you guys: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

(oh, and just to update you all, my host brother is feeling better now, and my host mom found a pictures of a dress on the internet for me.. it's strapless (and pink of course) and about knee length.. I think it looks really pretty, so hopefully it turns out okay, and ends up looking okay on me :S)

HairCuts

Something (somewhat) interesting happened yesterday at school which I forgot to mention. During our morning assembly, one (power happy) teacher was walking around with a pair of regular old scissors in her hand, cutting students' hair as she pleased, mainly boys' hair... but I saw her cut a few girls' bangs... and she did chop off a bit of hair on the top of one LadyBoys head, which I guess was sticking up too much for her liking or something... poor boy (girl?) now looks like he has devil horns sticking out of his head.

Last night, my host aunt reminded me that she will make me a dress for my host cousin's wedding in February.... the tricky part is that she wants me to design it! Honestly, what kind of dress do foreigners wear to Muslim weddings? She also told me to make it fairly simple, and that she will make it pink. I'm thinking something along the lines of thickish spaghetti type straps, with a boat neck, and then have it tightish throughout the waist part and then just kind of a-line to about my knees... I don't know. I need to make sure I won't look fat in it, and that it's not tooooo sexy or revealing... and hopefully I won't end up looking like a pink Barbie. The other problem that this whole thing poses is the fact that my cousins wedding is on February 1st... and I know that the next AFS camp will be somewhere towards the end of January/beginning of February.. which makes it really hard to make plans in the next little while, since I don't know the dates of the camp for sure yet. I would hate for my aunt to go to all the effort of MAKING me a dress, and then not even being able to go to the wedding. I emailed AFS and asked them if they know when the camp will be yet... but they didn't email me back. It's very flustering indeed.

Today after school while on the way home with Patch, we stopped at the market outside of Tops, where I bought myself a cute shirt (button down, green with stars, and 3/4 length sleeves) for 170 baht. Now I have something a little more appropriate which I can wear to Muslim get-togethers! Yay me!

6 MONTHS!!!!

As of today, I have been in Thailand for 6 months (that's half a year!!), and I will be here for approximately 4 1/2 more months (I say approximately because I haven't been informed by AFS what my return date will be.. although I believe it is somewhere around May 21-25ish). How do I feel being at this point? To be honest, right now I'm feeling like there are so many things I want to see/do in Thailand... and I don't have nearly enough time to fit it all in (JANUARY- Class Trip to Chiang Mai. FEBRUARY- AFS trip to Chiang Mai, and the end of school. MARCH- my family comes to visit for 2 weeks. APRIL- 2 weeks of independent travel with other AFSers, Meditation Course, my 19th Birthday. MAY- Goodbye Parties, Final AFS camp... then go home eek, see what I mean?). I also feel like my Thai could be alot better. I'm also feeling really excited about the fact that my family will come visit me in only 2 1/2 months (I remember waaaaaaaaaaaay back at the beginning when they would come in 8 months... now it's only 2 1/2, like honestly, how the hell did that happen?) Oh, and I guess now is really the time to start shopping for specific gifts for people back home (I already have a few... but theres still a looooooong ways to go), so if anyone has any special requests... just let me know :)

Nothing super interesting happened today (although I did study Thai dance for a while in the afternoon... and then a band played a concert again at my school), besides a bit of an embarassing moment when at the end of the day, after sitting cross legged for quite some time (and unable to sit any other way because I was wearing my school skirt), I stood up and, well, just fell back over. Onto one of my friends. Squishing her. But she was a good sport about it. We all had a laugh. Lucky for them they are all used to this whole sitting cross legged for hours on end thing.... but well, I am not. It is one of my missions for the end of this year; be able to sit cross legged for an hour without my legs falling all asleep. I think if I can do this meditation course I want to do, it will help me reach this goal, since alot of the meditation course involves (is that spelled right? once again my English is failing me) sitting around cross legged for hours. And apparently they teach you different techniques for controlling pain and what not.

Another one of my missions is to take as many pictures of my classmates (and everything else, of course) as possible... so here are some photos from today:

Somdech, Me, Fon

Me and Bee

Yah, Me, Husna

Oh, and also... my host Gramma is back home from the hospital now, and she is looking just as angry as ever. I'm not sure how my little host brother is doing today, because I haven't seen him at all... but yesterday he developed a rash all over his face/stomach that looked to me kind of like acne. Poor boy.

JJ Market

Yesterday, after living in this country/city for practically 6 months, I went to JJ Market for the first time! It was tres exciting, trust me. The whole adventure started out by me being faced with the task of getting to Elisabeth’s house all by myself, which could have been cheap and easy if I knew what van to take. But I didn’t. So I took a taxi instead, and by some stroke of good luck, I ended up with probably the only taxi driver in this city, who knows his way around! (which trust me, NEVER HAPPENS!) Therefore, it didn’t end up being too hard to get to Elisabeth’s house, only it was a bit expensive. Mai bpenrai. Elli and I left her house and met up with Sinan (a boy from Turkey who goes to Elli’s school.. I haven’t seen him since September at the COC camp though) at a mall near their school... and then the 3 of us took a taxi to JJ Market!! I guess I was the one most excited about the whole outing, since I'm the only one who hasn't actually been there yet. But I'm sure most of you who are reading this now haven't been there either, so I will explain to you: JJ Market is THE market in Thailand. Honestly, you can buy ANYTHING there, from Thai silk, to exotic pets, to super cheap clothes, paintings, Converse, all kinds of food, etc. Not to mention that the whole thing is HUUUGE and full of foreigners, which is always fun for me since I'm so deprived of foreigners in my everyday life (at least Elli has Sinan (albeit, he is a bit crazy) around). Honestly, I don't know how my brain is going to handle being back in Canada at first, with there being foreigners everywhere and all... it's going to be overwhelming.

I think I spent about 1,000 baht the entire day (around 30 dollars) including transportation and snacks. I bought myself a button up t-shirt with cute little jelly fish on it, a new purse (white with little butterflies), and a hippy-ish flower printed skirt. I also bought some little souvenirs for people back home... when it was time to go home, we all took a taxi to Sinan's house, where we dropped him off, and then Elli and I continued on in the taxi to The Mall. I got in a van to go back to NongChok... and when I finally got to NongChok I was planning to get off outside of Tops... but then the van driver turned down some random street that was NOT on the way to Tops.. so I kind of yelled at hime (in Thai of course) to stop, I got out, and then walked over to Tops, which was a little scary I must admit (since it was already dark out and all these people were starting at me and what not.) I figured I could call my host dad to pick me up, but then I would have to wait around for another 10 or so minutes, which I didn't want to do... so I just went home by saa-ling (this little motorcycle side car thing). In the end, I felt quite proud of myself for getting all around all by myself!

Oh, and as of now my host gramma is still in the hospital, and my little host brother has been sick on and off for the last few days... it's so sad to seem him not feeling well, because he just lays there and doesn't move (normally he's running all over the place) and sometimes cries. So sad.

SA WAT DEE PEE MAI 2552

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!
(SA-WAT-DEE-PEE-MAI)

Plans ended up working out with Elisabeth for New Years Eve… We met up at The Mall during the day, and celebrated it being the last day of 2008/2551 by going to see Madagascar 2 and eating ice cream and pizza. We went back to her house in the evening and got all ready to go to Central World for the big countdown. Her host mom was a little worried about us getting there and back alright, so she (as well as Elli’s host aunt, sister, and cousin) came along with us, but once we got to Central World, she let us all go our own separate ways. At about 11 30, Ellie and I decided we wanted to try and be in front of the stage, where there was some sort of concert going on (we could hear it, but couldn’t see anything) for midnight, and we ended up in the craziest human traffic jam I have ever seen, and well… we didn’t even make it to the stage in time (but we later realized the stage was inside a beer garden thing, so we wouldn’t have been able to go dance around in the front anyways). We kind of ended up just counting down in the middle of this massive crowd… although I couldn’t tell what language people were counting down in and therefore had no idea what numbers they were actually saying, so I just kind of stood there with a puzzled look on my face cheering until everyone started yelling HAPPY NEW YEAR! And spraying silly string and beer everywhere. It was fun. On the way home we heard all kinds of sirens and had to take a detour in the taxi… apparently a club caught on fire and 61 people died L We got home around 2 30 and then went to bed.

On Thursday morning when we woke up, we realized we had a four day weekend ahead of us with absolutely nothing to do. So, Ellie and I decided to go to MBK shopping center (which we have only been to once before for like 1 hour).. but for some reason the bus we needed to take didn’t show up for about the half hour we waited at the bus stop… so then we just gave up and went back to The Mall, where we watched Bedtime Stories (in the VIP theatre! Which meant we got to sit on this suuuuper comfy couch thingy and we got free drinks and what not) and ate crepes and drank tea. I talked to my host mom on the phone, and I told her I would be back “today”, but I guess what she thought I said was that I would be home in “two days”… so when I got home last night (Elli’s host dad drove me) everyone in my host family was all confused and asking me why I was home…

Elli and I are going to try and make plans for something to do on Saturday/Sunday… there are sooo many things we still need to do and see in Bangkok, the problem is that because we aren’t really familiar with the city, we don’t know how to get to any of these places… Hopefully we will get something figured out, because I don’t really want to spend this entire weekend at home.

The above picture of me and Elli is the first picture of me in 2009! (how exciting, I know)

And here is a video of the big countdown (right before me and my camera got sprayed with beer):