Back up to speed!

Okay, I'm kinda losing interest in always writing about what happened almost a month ago, so I'm going to very briefly give a run-down of my experiences to get you all up to speed.

"Reunited, and it feels so good!"

School so far has been pretty good. I still dont understand a thing that is going on, so it can make for a long day sitting there listening to meaningless blabbering for 8 hours. But I'm getting to know the local kids pretty well, and they been a huge help in teaching me Thai. I find myself being quite the celebrity while I'm there as well. I've got light brown hair, blue eyes, white skin and am (in a relative sense) rather tall. Thailand really doesn't have a heck of a lot of inhabitants that aren't Thai, so when a white kid walks by in their school uniform, it's quite the ordeal for them.

Sorry, I dont have any pictures of me with the
elephants. This is my friend Hannah instead!

Ceramic Factory

As for some of my adventures so far, I must say, they are slightly more involving and exciting than school... Take riding an elephant for example. In my opinion, it was a bit more fun than physics class. So my Rotary District, which comprises the northwest quadrant of Thailand, all got together for our first orientation in Lampang, about 4 hours from my city. I met loads of new people, there were about 30 students I believe, and I got to meet some of the Youth Exchange committee. Over the 5 days we spent in Lampang, we went to the Thai Elephant Conservatory, visited the Mae Moh Coal Mine, and a ceramic factory. We had some basic Thai language lessons, and even a dance party in the Hotel!

In the tuk-tuk on the way home... at 12:30am

Loving Life!

I've also visited Chiang Mai for a Rotary function. It is the second biggest city in Thailand, and one of the more touristy parts of the country. We drove up on a friday, and spent the night walking around a University Market, not really a heck of a lot of fun, but still very neat. It was mostly clothing shops and little restaurants, so not exactly my cup of tea. We stayed with a bunch of university students that night, not really knowing who they were, but Rotary told us to go with them, so we did. I think 1 or 2 of them might have been ex-exchangers, and that how they were implicated, but I honestly cant be sure. The next day we had meeting and such for the majority of the day, but it was good to see many of the other students again. That night, Hannah, Carol, Jenni and I went to this massive mall where we ate dinner and where I met up with Vow, a Thai student who I got to know while he lived in my district in Canada. After dinner, we headed over to the real night market, and the 4 of us, who had never been to this city before and who spoke very little Thai, were dropped off to fend for ourselves. We had a small piece of paper that had our address on it, and that was it. We walked around for hours, buying things we really didnt need, and seeing things we maybe didnt want to see... We ran into another group of students who also went to the market that night and so we all headed off together to enjoy the night.

Teaching at Nongping Primary School

I've taught at a few different schools and at a couple english camps as well, which were pretty fun. Its very hard to get used to the teaching methods here though which seem very ineffective, and quite frustrating to follow. But it's all good, I had some good times, and the little kids were ecstatic to have an actual english person teaching them the language.

One really cool thing that I got to do, was spend 4 days living at a temple with my host mom. She took me there for a prayer and meditation week, and I got to learn so much about Buddhism and the Thai culture. It was great! Sitting on the hard floor from 4am-9pm and not being able to eat after 12:00pm was kinda tough at times, but definitely worth it for the experience I got out of it.

Damn big Buddha...

That kinda sums up the big stuff that has gone on so far. Once again, if you want to know more about anything in particular, just drop me a comment and I'll be glad to fill you in!


Here's a link to a video I made while at the Outbound conference in Chiang Mai. Check it out,  Chiang Mai Market