Junior Youth Camp

Ah! I've been so busy, trying to keep up with a blog is truly a task. Okay well the junior youth camp was absolutely great! I had an awesome time with the kids!! :) Alright so we left Nonthaburi around 3pm on Wednesday. I sat in the van with about 8 Thai kids (ages 10-15). I tried to sleep the whole way but the kids were all excited and I still can't get over the crazy driving in Thailand!

On the way over, one of the little boys was teasing the only girl in the car besides me. She was the youngest one and sooo cute! I didn't know how to tell them to stop bugging her and that got me kind of frustrated but then I kinda just started to mess around with him. Tickling him and making faces and stuff and soon he forgot all about bothering the girl. It's amazing how far body language and tickling can go! :)
When we're about 5 minutes away from the camp we stop so the kids can get some snack and drinks and stuff. Vaughan got me my first drink in a bag! Yes, in Thailand sometimes they fill a small plastic bag with ice and then they pour your drink into it, add a straw and there you have a drink in a bag. I havn't figured out the reason, maybe just because bags a cheaper than cups? Who knows. Anyways, it was delicious!

Finally we arrived at the camp around 5ish pm. To my surprise, and secret delight, we arrived at a very nice, small house in the middle of a really nice neighborhood. I thought we'd be going somewhere like the last camp, something rustic and half in the jungle but this was quiet the opposite! The house was beautiful. It had a cute little gazebo in the front court yard and a rock garden. So cool. The inside was only one floor, 3 bedrooms 2 bathrooms. Turns out a Baha'i from Thailand had actually donated the house to the Baha'is of Nonthaburi. How cool is that?

I helped unload the van of everyones luggage and then head inside to register for the camp. I meet Pjip, Roshan and Rahoul. They were the people who organized and were running the camp. They were all really nice, and they all spoke English. They all joked around with me and made me feel really comfortable. From then on I could tell camp would be great. We all got set up in our room. The boys got one small room and us girls got set up in the slightly bigger and air conditioned room. I think this was only fair considering there were 12 of us girls in a maybe 10x14 room, sleeping shoulder to shoulder on the floor. There were only three mattresses and the girls wanted me to have one but I couldn't take it from them. The result was me sleeping on a paper thin mat on a hard tiled floor. I've had better nights of rest but it was fine actually. I would have taken that over sleeping with bugs and no air conditioning any day.

Later on we ate dinner and played icebreaker games. The kids had a lot of fun. Soon it was to bed for the next day of class and activties. For Thusday and Friday there was the same schedule. Wake up at 6:30am for exercise and morning prayers. Then an hour to shower and get ready. Breakfast at 8:30 until 9:00am. Usually that meant a little free time after eating. Then workshop from 9:00 to 10:30 where there is a half hour break for snack time. Second workshop goes from 11:00 to 12:30. Lunch time! After lunch there are group activities (dance/art/drama workshops). After that free time until dinner at 8:30pm. After dinner we have an outing. On the first night we went to see "hing hoy" or fireflies. We drove about 15 minutes to a market. Soon as we got out of the car most of us got coconuts to drink the milk from a stand right on the corner of the market. Walking through the market was so cool! So much food and people and so many different kinds of things being sold.

We got to the place where we were suppose to get on the boat. After waiting for the boat for a bit all 28 of us got on. We headed away from the town down the canal. During the trip we motored past trees that were illuminated by the fireflies! They looked like Christmas trees it was sooo cool! It was a really fun time. I learned also that fireflies only mate once in their life and when the female firefly lays the eggs she dies and then the male takes care of the eggs for 11 months until the hatch! After all that they only live for 15 days! How crazy is that?!

Anyways after about an hour on the boat we got off. By that time (around 10pm) the market was closing up. We headed back to the house for the evening. We ended the evening with prayers and people taking showers. The ground was hard to sleep on and the girls were up chatting all night..but it's easy to fall asleep listening to them...(seeing as how I didn't understand what was being said). Overall the first day was really good!

The second day was the same as the first. This time I slept through the workshops though. They were children workshops and all in Thai so I couldn't even help, which sucked. But I observed as much as I could. So that afternoon we went on a couple outings. First we went to a lake where the kids took out paddle boats. The rest of the adult fed fish, there were soooo many! They were literally swimming on top of each other!! That took about an hour. During that time Yu and I got freshly made coconut ice cream on top of sweet sticky rice and topped with peanuts. OH MY GOD it was sooo good. Delicious. My new favorite desert! :)

After the lake we went to a temple where people prayed and stuff. The kids got fortunes from the temple. It was a beautiful temple covered by trees growing all around it. The kids and I took some funny pictures with some figures of men fighting outside the temple. Then we went to the most famous Catholic church in Thailand. It was a Protestant church. Apparently they don't believe in the Pope, I thought that was interesting. There was a guy there who told us a bit about the history of the church and the Catholics in Thailand. Catholics have been in Thailand for about 500-600 years and still only 3% of the population is Catholic. Very interesting. The Thai are very firm in Buddhist beliefs.

Finally after a long day of travelling around in the car and visiting different sights we headed home. That night being the last night, was the night for performances ( of the things the kids worked on at the dance/drama/art workshops ). One thing that drove me just about nuts was that for the dance workshop the kids were learning a dance to "Low" by Flo Rida.. "apple bottom jeans and boots with the fur" and ever since that first work shop the kids played it NON-STOP until that performance. One thing that was funny though was listening to the girls try to sing the words in the song. So cute! Well they did their performances and played some games and then it was off to bed.

The last day it was the same until after breakfast. We cleaned up the house a bit and loaded up the cars with the bags. On the way out of camp we stopped at a place where they breed Siamese cats. They were adorable but we were only there a short time, seeing as how cat urine and hot weather don't mix well. After that we went to the ocean! We went to see "Don Hing Lot"...some kind of sew shells but the tide was in so the water was too deep to see the shells. Anyways there was a little market where we stopped and there the kids and I saw a baby elephant and ate shaved ice with syrup and condensed milk. I even ate fried shrimp with the head and eyes and all! It was actually quite good. Finally we were headed home after another, long hot day!

Thai Massage (Day 6)

We got back from the camp very late, around 12am. I got a much needed shower after a long day and long ride in the car. Yu went out to get some food before bed. I ended up going to sleeep around 2am. Yu and two other girls stayed in my room that night.

The next day I woke up around 9am. The two other girls had left by then and soon after I woke up Yu did and she went home to change and shower. I got dressed and waited for Yu to get back. About an hour later Yu and her friend Sang and I went down to get some lunch at a restaurant. I had 'kow pat gai' or chicken and fried rice! SO good. Lunch was noisy because across the street there is construction. They're building a HUGE mall right across the street from the condo building...Vaughan is worried that all the kids will go there now instead of going to sunday school!! I guess we'll see.

After lunch Sang went home and Yu and I went down to the ATM on the corner so I could get some money out. As it turns out my Visa card doesn't work at the ATMs over there! Ugh!!! So we go to the bank and I try to exchange some cash I have on me. They look at me and Yu and tell me I need an ID... I show her my American drivers liscence but it's no good. So we have to go all the way back to the apartment to get my passport and then all the way back down to the bank to get it exchanged! What a hassle! When we get there exchanging money is no problem. I had $100 on me and that changed into about 3,375 baht! Nice right?! Right after that we went to the 7-Eleven to get some snacks and THEN... we went to get Thai massages! It was such an experience!!

So we step into the store, leaving our shoes outside of course. There are two older Thai women there. Yu tells them we want the tradtional Thai full body massage (= 1 hour). They have to wash our feet first since we've been walking around in flip flop on the dirty streets. We sit in big comfy chairs as they wash our feet in warm lemon water! After that we step into little rooms seperated from the rest of the store and each other only by curtains. On the floor there are small mattresses with a pillow and a change of clothes. The clothes we put on are huge!...I suppose a one size fits all kinda deal. They put on soft classical music and they ask us to lay down on the matts, face up. She starts on my left leg...My left foot and ankle still aren't in great shape. I hurt my ankle in the last game of lacrosse at Lawrence and when I went camping a severly brusied my heel but jumpin off a rock. Both hurt a great deal when she pounded my heel and twisted my ankle..downside of not knowing Thai during a Thai massage. The massage was really painful at times but it was all worth it. This was no typical American massage, face down on a table...this was all over the place. She kneeled on my legs and pushed my legs with her feet and stretched my arms behind me...She pulled my legs behind my back! I was all over the place. She used her elbows all over my body....every inch of every muscle was worked! She even, painfully, worked out all the knots in my back...no one has done that before, she had mad skills! She worked it all out.

After the hour massage we got dressed again and when we came out they had tea waiting for us. We sipped the tea for a bit and then we were on our way. The whole thing cost about 150baht which is about 5 bucks! How crazy is that. It was a great experience...although painful at times. I don't recommend it for anyone who has a lot of bruises or bruises easily, or can't stanfd people working their muscle. If you're really ticklish, this also is not the thing for you. Luckily I was able to control my squirming when she was working the muscle above my knee! Haha. We headed back to the condo and Yu took Sang to the bus station because he was going back to Laos.

For the rest of the night I just chilled. I ate dinner with Vaughan and Nicholas (a Baha'i from Geneva who moved to Thailand, probably 40ish). For dinner Vaughan order white rice, vegetables, and omelet and red chicken curry. All of it was very good and spicy!! The omelet was especially banging! After dinner I downloaded You Don't Mess with Zohan and Forgetting Sarah Marshall and watched them. (Still working on my American cultural literacy! ) Haha I also packed my backpack for the camp the following day.

I'm going to a junior youth camp now, where I will be working as a counselor. Someone tol me that most of the other facilitators should be able to speak English so I'm happy for that. Secretly I'm hoping that this camp isn't quite as rough and rustic as the last one! I think we'll mostly be playing games and having a good time with the kids! I'm really excited because this will be the first tast of what working at the school will be like!! :)

As it turns out, I won't be going to the school until the end of the month instead of after the first camp as originally planned. I met Golee, the lady I was going to stay with in Yasothon, at the camp and she told me she would be away in Chiang Mai until the end of the month. So that leaves me in Nonthaburi until she returns from her trip. For now I'm happy in Nonthaburi with Yu and Vaughan. The room I'm in is great, however, I can't wait to get to the school and have a set schedule everyday and also to set up everything. It's been a week and I havn't done laundry. Luckily, within three bags I was able to pack enough clothes so it's not a nessesity yet but it does grow rather difficult to rummage through a bag of clothe not being sure what is dirty and not. I will keep working on my Thai. I hope to be really good soon. Now I can pick out words sometimes from what people are saying but very few. I know numbers and when people are asking a question. Thats all for now though! I'm heading out to the camp! I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and post them when I get back!!

(PS. Sorry for not having pictures in this one especially of the condo building and the massage shop, Yu said we'd go back though before I leave for the school so I'll be sure to snap a couple shots then!) :)

The Rest of Camp (Day 4 and 5)

Second day of camp we wake up at 6:30 to the sound of roosters crowing. We get dressed quickly and head out for morning prayers and exercise. We say prayers and we play some relay games before breakfast. Breakfast, of course, isn't steak and eggs; it's chicken and white rice in soup. We hang out a bit after breakfast and people grab some showers. Then we begin our first workshop around 9:00am. The workshops go for about 4 hours with a break in between. For break we get bananas in a grey coconut soup. It looks a bit weird but I try it and it tastes great! For the workshops some of my friends translate for me so I get the general idea of what's going on. We have lunch and then some activities and another workshop after that. During the second workshop break we have black jelly and ice. I don't understand the ice but I eat it anyways, also turns out to be rather good! (Me and Jit)

In the evening before dinner we all go to an obstacle course. We walk into the jungle surrounding the camp and there are obstacles that we must do. By now it's gettin dark and the mosquitos are going crazy on me. The obstacles were a little too much for me at the time...some were over very murky water and the bugs were driving me nuts so I didn't participate in all of the obstacles I'm sad to say but at the moment I was way to paranoid about falling into gross water and getting parasites or something! Dinner is large flat noodles with pork soup and veggies. I choose to eat the pork soup because the last thing I want is to be malnurished and hungry; I pick around the pork as much as I can though. After dinner I finally get to take a much needed shower after hiking through the jungle and being hot all day long. Sleep is much needed by the end of the day. (Yu, Mail, and Maprang)

Day three at camp is the same schedule as the first except we get to wake up a bit later. By now I'm a little frustrated with the camp to be honest. It's not their fault at all but I don't understand anything that's going on and I'm frustrated just having to sit there and listen to Thai all the time. Sometimes people translate for me but usually their English is so broken I don't really get the whole picture. I also get really tired in the middle of the day..I don't know if it's jet lag really or if it's just adapting to such a hot climate and everything. After lunch I sleep a bit though, instead of going to the last workshop. They undersatnd and let me sleep until there is an activity I should participate in. (Starting from top left > Noon, Pat, Yu, Sita bottom left> Pbang, Maprang, Mail, Pu, and Jit)

At camp it would rain everyday in the afternoon. Crazy rain..like hard core rain drops the size of gumball! The pavilion we sat under had a zinc roof so when it rained it made the whole pavilion echo. It was so loud! We were also asked to turn off our cell phones because being under a zince roof made us very suseptible to lightning strikes and even more so with cell phones on. A couple other things I found interesting about the camp was there were wild dogs everywhere! All the time the would just walk in the middle of our work shop and start scratching themselves in front of everyone or start fighting with one another. It was pretty comical at times. I also found that people use baby powder all the time on their faces to keep the sweaty look at bay. People who didn't rub it in well would come out with white faces. Haha. (Oh also in Thai the word for the number 5 is 'hah' so teens write '555' like 'hahaha'..thought that was funny) Everyone I met was very friendly and helped me to speak Thai. Maybe its and East Coast thing but I've never found people to be so warm and touchy. People I just met were hugging me and kissing me on the cheek, it made for a very friendly enviroment. Also Thailand is known as the 'Land of Smiles' even when they get upset Thais are always smiling. Finally I found that Thai women don't shave their legs. This, I guess, isn't that unusual considering Europeans but I never thought about how many things can be different. It's amusing to learn all these things. (Me, Pat, and FM) (This is a board of messages we all put up, on one of the hearts I praticed writing some Thai saying it was great to meet everyone and to help me speak Thai!)

First Day of Camp (3rd Day)

We were ready to leave for camp around 11:30am. I brought all three of my bags plus my backpack down to the van so that Vaughan could load them up. There were several other youth around including Yu but I felt a little akward not knowing the language. It was about 15 minutes of standing around until we all loaded up into the van (which seats 13 including the driver). Unfortunately the air conditioning didn't work and the ride was two hours long but somehow I survived..probably by sleeping most of the way. When we were just about at the camp we stopped at a 7-eleven to use the bathroom and get some food. I didn't know what to get...everything was in Thai. I ended up with some bread, dried squid, and chocolate. All of it cost about 40baht. (On the right Pbang and left is Yu)

For anyone who's been to Camp Tabarsi at Onas..this camp was a lot like that except a little more tropical. I needed help to register (the form was in Thai) after that we go set up in our beds and then we wait around until 4:30pm when camp starts. There are maybe 40 youth and we all sit on big straw mats on the concrete floor of a big pavilion. Two guys probably in their early twenties address the group. I don't know what's going on but I try to pay attention to see if I can grab any clues. We read the Ridvan 2008 letter and and NSA letter addressing Thailand (They have copies of these in English for me so I know what's going on.) The letters call upon the youth of the world to take action and be positive influences on the future and to not be dragged down by the materialism in the world. (This is a traditional Thai toilet. Toilet paper is not used. You squat and do your business and then you take a scoop of water from that bucket on the left and pour that into the toilet and that's how it's flushed..takes a bit of getting use to and some muscle)

After the letters we eat dinner. It is white rice and some kind of curry with chicken ("gai"). It's very good and spicy! I sit with Yu and a couple of her friends. For the most part they all speak in Thai together but then one of the guys, Walan, speaks to me in English. He's really nice and takes me around and introduces me to people. Everyone is very nice and most of the older kids speak a little English. Unfortunately, it was hard for me to remember everyones names at first, but as I got to know them I began to remember. After dinner we play some icebreaker games (Things I don't like to play in the first place, let alone in a different language!) Though it wasn't so bad and we had some fun. Finally it is time for bed around 9:00pm. I'm very tired from the trip and the weather. I get a good nights rest.

Unfortunately, I suffered many mosquito bites no matter how hard I tried to protect against them, it was inevitable. I'm worried about malaria already because by now I havn't started to take my medicine for it. The camp is pretty rustic, especially coming from the States and having to adjust to everything so quickly. The girls room is one long room with a raised platform on one side, lined with matresses. It's nothing I'm use to but I'm no wimp and I can handle it...even the squat toilets with not toilet paper! I met the lady, Golee, I will be staying with in Yasothon (where the school is) and the girl who will be my roommate there, Pat. They're both very nice. It's hard living out of a suitcase and I'm not really comfortable with it because I like to have everyting set up a certain way but I'm adapting to dealing with things I'm not usually comfortable with very quickly! (To the right is the room I stayed in at camp and my friends Yu on the left and Jit on the right)

Second Day

Ok so I'll start where I left off. The second day in Nonthaburi, the town where my host Vaughan lives, I woke up around ten...sleeping in was much needed. So I hung out a bit and then my friend Yu came by and took me out to lunch at this restaurant around the corner from the condo building. The restaurant was very small, maybe seven tables. It was very informal. The only guy in there was probably the business owner but also the host and the waiter. He was very nice and talked to me a bit in English, so I asked him to order for me. What I got was white rice, a small salad and a piece of chicken in a sweet sauce kind of like teriyaki. It was soooo GOOD! It was probably the thing I would have ordered for myself! Yu got some kind of fried chicken which looked good too. Over lunch we talked about out different countries and she taught me a little Thai. The portions were smaller than a typical American meal but still too much for me to eat. When we finished Yu told me she had to go to a job interview. She's about to be twenty and just graduated from university in Cambodia. She left and I went back up to my room.

I hung out in my room until dinner when Yu came back to take me to the market. We got on her motorbike and drove about 3 minutes to the market. The ride there was fascinating. Seeing so many things, hearing people, smelling food. It was awesome. We drove past what looked like townhouses (obviously much older and worn down than the ones in the US), a random little building that was a barber shop and a guard station plus the always present little stands selling all different kinds of food. The market was set on what was pretty much a traffic circle. The traffic went around a large center and on the perimeter there were more stand and behind that, restaurants the whole way around. Thai pop music was playing, punctuated by an occasional "yo yo yo", which we both laughed at as we parked in front of the restaurant. The restaurant really was more like an open garage and the cooks were the first thing you saw. They were set up right in front maybe a couple of feet from where people would drive by. We walked past the cook stands to where there was seating. Again maybe 7 tables and this time one of the cooks came to wait on us. Yu ordered chicken and white rice in a lemongrass soup..AMAZING. We talked about music over dinner and she told me that the song "Low" by Flo Rida was really popular now in Thailand.

After dinner we walked around the market a little bit. I bought some fresh pineapple at one stand - 10 baht (= 0.28 cents). At another stand I met Yu's aunt and uncle. At another we bout fruit juice. I had never had beet root juice before so I tried it....wasn't bad actually! We drove back to the condo after that and Yu told me she was gonna bring two more girls over because they wanted to practice a dance for the youth camp we were going to the next day. The girls that came over were maybe 15, and their names were Maprang and Mail. They were really nice and practiced a little English with me and I tried my hand at some Thai. For the rest of the evening they practiced dancing and I read from my Thai phrase book as they corrected my pronounciation. (On the left is Maprang, center is Yu, and right is Mail.)

It was a really good second day. Everyone I met was really nice. All the food was great and I learned a bit of Thai. The next day we would be leaving for the youth camp so I got to bed soon after they left around 10pm.

First Day in Thailand!

Right out customs there were people with signs and when I looked I couldn't find any with my name on it, so I walked around a bit trying not to freak out; trust me when you get to a completely new country and you don't have a phone that works and you look completely like a tourist, and you can't find the person who is suppose to be there for you and you don't speak the language, you start to freak out a bit! But finally I found my sign and Mr, Vaughan with three little Thai girls. I was so happy to find them! They helped me with my bags and we got to that car.

The moment I stepped out of the airport it was like a sauna!! So hot...and I had just come from Alaska where it had been snowing! Anyways, the first surprise was that all the cars drove on the right! It was so weird to have to get into the passenger seat on the left side. AND, you know how in America there are lanes of traffic and lines on the road so you know that...well in Thailand there are lines but they seem really more like guidelines! People were driving everywhere, cutting across three lanes at once using the whole road using the shoulder as another lane. Half the way there we road straddling the lines! It was a little scary I must admit.

We drove past the main city and arrived at a condominium where Vaughn lives at the Nothaburi Baha'i Center with his wife Sunata. They have several other condo rooms rented out for when volunteers when they come and since I'm the only one at the time, I get the room to myself. The picture here is what the room looks like. That door on the left is the bathroom probably 6x6 and then the door on the right is the balcony where the picture above ^ was taken from. Another surprise I got on the first day was the bathrooms. In Thai bathrooms there is no shower encloser. There is just a room, toilet, sink and a shower head. When you shower, the whole room gets wet, the whole floor the walls the sink the toilet. With the hot climate everything drys of ery quickly so I guess it works...just feels so open! Oh and everyone takes their shoes off before they enter a building or home.

Anyways I get to the room and put my things down and then Vaughan tells me he's going back to work for a bit and that I should go with him to see the city a bit. I was really tired already but I was also in no mood to pass up the opportunity to see the city and sit around alone in the room for the rest of the night! So 15 minutes to change into shorts (still had been wearing pants from Alaska) and we were off! Little did I know how exhausted I'd be by the end of it all.

So we get out of the condo and walk down to the main road past the 7 -Eleven on the corner (plus all the little stands of people selling food). We cross the main road on a rickety overpass and down to the bus stand on the other side. We wait for a bus but end up taking a van instead, which is like a taxi (more like the vans in Israel) but it holds 12 people plus the driver and then once it's full it takes everyone to the destination it's on route to, which in our case was center city Bangkok. Bus ride lasted maybe 10 to 15 minutes and then we get off the bus and walk to the sky train after I buy some much needed bottled water. The sky train is a lot like the subways in New York but there is only one and it goes all around the city. Bangkok is a city, so imagine New York but its much older and dirtier and the sidewalks are even more crowded they're smaller than in New York and there are vendors selling foods and goods as far as the sidewalk is long.

So we get off the sky train and walk about two blocks to Vaughans office. (He works for a company that helps refugees.) We go inside and I meet the people in his office and I'm already really tired from the trip so I ready my guide book on Thailand while he works a bit.

After a while we go to the mall to get me a phone. The mall was about a two minute walk from his office. There we successfully get a phone and return back to his office for a bit. He offers me some dragonfruit and apple but I'm hesitant to eat anything because my stomach is still a bit upset and I was told and read not to eat the fruit. He said it should be fine so I had some apple. The dragonfruit is about the size of a grapefuit. It has a deep pink skin and a white flesh with little black seeds throughout. He ate it with a spoon and scooped it like a melon almost. I didn't want to try it just then. We were at the office until about 5 pm. Until Vaughan decided he had to visit a friend at the hospital. So we took the skytrain to the hospital. The hospital we went to was a government run hospital but it looked to primitive! The emergency room was pretty much on the street and the check in was maybe 150 feet off the busy streets of Bangkok. Patients in beds could be seen from the street! It was very bizarre to see and a bit scary. Also it was a reminder that I should really try not to get sick.

We stayed at the hospital until about 6:15pm and Vaughan realized he had a dentist appointment at 7:00pm back in his town. So we rushed back to the bus station, by now it was dark. The van was packed (rush hour) and the streets were crazy! Vaughan and I joked that this was the kind of ride where you have to put your trust in faith! I couldn't watch as the driver pulled up fast behind someone and then just swerve to to shoulder and crept up the side of the traffic. Well we made it in one piece to the dentists office. I was soooo tired.. and practically falling asleep as I waited for Vaughan.

We finally caught a bus home after the dentist appointment, and I met Vaughans wife Sonata. She had bought us some food, chicken curry with peanuts and potatoes, for dinner. It was really good even though the chicken was on the bone and yes I ate it! I was really tired and couldn't eat that much though so I finally excused myself and went back to my room. I wrote some emails and talked to some people and then took my first shower in the weird bathroom lol. It was interesting.. and I was really paranoid about getting any water in my mouth. Soon after I completely crashed on top of my new quilt!! :) (thanks mom and grandma)

Trip to Taiwan/Thailand

Okay so flight leaves Alaska at 4:15 am and we get there with plenty of time at 2:20 am. Jian and Kayti helped me checke my bags and we say goodbye. Security was a breeze, besides me almost forgetting my Nalgene and Jian having to run it back to me from the car. Get to my gate and make a couple calls and buy some candy and post cards at a stand nearby. The flight was delayed a bit but I got a chance to talk to this older guy named Dean. He was telling me about how he races dog sleds all around Alaska and offered to teach me if I ever came back to Alaska. i also got to ask him about Palin (since none of the college students had a clue), he said she was actually a personal friend and he liked her a lot as a governer and kinda wish she'd lose the race to come back and govern Alaska, though he thought Obama would win anyways.

On the plane I sat next to a guy from Philly, probably in his mid-twenties, and he was on his way to Indonesia to work at the Ritz Carlton Hotel for three months with a group of people. On the other side was a Chinese woman and her toddler who would not stop screaming or laugh the entire trip! Luckily, I was able to sleep through most of the trip, including all the snacks besides a ham and cheese sandwhich :(. The whole trip was about 10 hours.

I got to Taipei, Taiwan at 8:00 am. And waited until 9:40 am until they started loading the plane. It was cool I got wireless internet in the airport and I listened to some music. On the plane I got the aisle seat, finally, which was nice and my own personal screen. I slept through take off and woke up to watch Baby Mama for the first half of the flight. Unfortunately, I didn't sleep through the food this time and I had chicken with noodles that turned out to upset my stomach for the rest of the flight. No fun. I watched a little bit of Armageddon trying not to get sick. Finally we landed in Thailand at about 12:00 pm. Getting through customs and getting my bags were a lot easier than I thought it would be so I was really glad about that. I had finally arrived!!

Last Days in on this Side of the World

Well my last days here have been real nice. Yesterday Jian and I watched the whole directors cut of the Lord of the Rings (about four hours long). After that we went for a walk on these trails that lead all over Anchorage and the APU campus. We saw the dog park, University Lake, and the electronic bell tower. Quite amusing I thought; and all this with me in jeans and and Jian's hiking shoes which are four sizes too big for me. By the end my jeans were caked in snow and my feet were wet, but that's Alaska livin' right!?

After the walk we went into the one and only building with class rooms...or maybe there's one other but still, that's nothing compared to Drexel!! It looked like high school. But to eaches own right? We met Jian's friend Porter in the school store after and we went back to his house to watch Live Free or Die Hard. (See a lot of movie watching goes on around here!)

Finally we got hungry and went back to Jian's apartment and Jian made dinner for us. She's a good cook and I'm proud of her for cooking food all the time and having good eating habits unlike most of her roommates. But that's college life I guess. After dinner Jian and I played Cranium against Kayti and her friend Dylan. Naturally the sister sister combo could not be beat!! We played Madden after Cranium. Although I usually don't like to play video games I had fun playing Madden even though I didnt exactly know how to do everything like I was saying...all you have to know is that the EAGLES RULE! It was a lot of fun even though people here didn't agree with me being on the West Coast and all. :(

I was trying to learn some Thai using the CD and phrase book that I got and it totally boggles my mind! It sound similar to Chinese, because it is also a tonial language. It seemed to be impossible to learn the characters and the proper tones but I was talking to the people in Thailand and they said that people who commit to learning it have become fluent within three months so I'm still hopeful!! To be honest, I'm a little nervous about the traveling to Thailand. I don't like going somewhere and looking like a tourist or not knowing exactly where I'm going or what I'm doing. But I try not to concentrate on that and just get everything I can together so I can be as prepared as possible!

Alaska with all the MOOSE and SNOW

Well, I made it to Alaska without a hitch!! The plane ride to Seattle was about as good as it can be sitting in between two slightly bigger gentlemen and being sick and congested. My right ear wouldn't pop with the change of pressure, and you can probably imagine what is must feel like to have someone pushing something into your ear! :( The flight to Alaska from Seattle was a little better seat-wise, I got window seat and sat next to a very nice older couple. Same issue with the ear but I slept through the majority of both flights anyways seeing how I didnt catch a wink of sleep the night before i left.
From the airport in Alaska, I met up with Jian and her two friends Kayti and Brandy who were very nice. From there we went to buy some food for breakfast and headed back to the campus. If you can imagine Drexel campus...right outside the city, several block of buildings, more cars than trees...well Alaska Pacific is the exact OPPOSITE! It's crazy to see the exact opposite of what I was looking for in a college and to see how much my sister loves it! Anyways is very pretty here; snow covering the mountains and trees which is great because I won't see snow for a while after this.
College life here is pretty boring though, or atleast what I've seen. Definitely glad I'll be in the city and for sure taking notes of what i do and do not want to do when I get to college. Anyways thats all for now! Tacos for dinner tonight!!

Final Plan!!

Okay! Finally I've reached a final plan, bought tickets, gotten a visa and I'm all set to fly out of Jersey! The PLAN:
October 10th-15th > Anchorage, Alaska -to visit my sister
October 17th(two days of travel over the 'line')-April30th > Yasothon, Thailand -to volunteer and work at and elementary school
May 1st-June 1st > Munich, Germany/Europe -to visit my uncle and explore the area

So that should bring me home by June 1st, 2009 in time to get ready for my school in the Fall at Drexel!
In the meantime, before I leave, I'm running around trying to get everything done...working to the last day. Getting immunization shots and buying traveling supplies and such. It's craziness and stressful but I can't wait to go and finally be there. It'll be so different and that makes me just a bit nervous but mostly excited to have the time of my life!

Thats all for now! ;)