Wat Umong and other Chiang Mai things

Today was pretty relaxed. Deanne and I are both unfortunately indecisive people, which makes it difficult for us to get moving and decide what to do. Especially in a city as culturally rich and full of artsy things like Chiang Mai. 

We got out from the hostel around 11, and it was unfortunately too late for breakfast so we had lunch at a cafe and sat and watched the city go by for a while. We decided as we sat that we wanted a Thai massage, since Deanne had one in Bangkok that she hadn't been happy with. We walked another block and found a little hole-in-the-wall massage place in a little courtyard that was tucked off one of the main roads in the city. It was named Pranom Health massage. We only got foot massages, but it was seriously one of the best massages I have had here. I almost fell sleep several times. Deanne was dozing in the chair next to me. An hour well spent.

After our massage we wandered up the road and found Wat Umong Maha Thera Chan. It was under construction, and Deanne made a 10 baht donation for Kolby. That bought us one of the terra cotta roofing tiles, and we wrote a prayer/well wishes on it and put it in the pile of other tiles. It was the only English tile. 

We looked the wat up later, and it made sense that we found it because it seems like the kind of thing Kolby would like: http://bangkokbois-gay-thailand-blog.com/2013/03/22/wat-umong-maha-thera-chan-of-mad-monks-and-confused-touri/

After we found the wat, we went for mango and sticky rice, which is definitely a fantastic Thai snack. We went then to the Lanna Folklife museum, which I'm really glad we stumbled upon. Lanna refers to this northern region of Thailand. It had a lot about the various Wat decorations and traditions. It also had several exhibits about lacquerware, ceramics and cloth patterns. And food. It was pretty darn comprehensive for a smallish museum. And the air conditioning made it a double plus.

We had dinner at a local Thai place, which was super cheap and super tasty. 10/10 would go again. Alas, we have dinner plans tomorrow night with my "little sisters," probably at KFC because Ausma likes it. Silly girl.

Also, tomorrow, Deanne and I are going to our cooking class! So excited! Pictures (on Facebook and Instagram) to follow. Internet here at the hostel isn't great but when I get to where it's better pictures will be uploaded.

It's been a month, sorry...

I didn't have a whole lot going on for a good while. I was trying to do a lot of nothing in an effort to save money and lay low until this month. My intentions mostly worked out, but I definitely have a weakness for the weekly market in Lamphun...

I finished proctoring finals a week ago. It was pretty uneventful, just sitting in the room watching the kids while a Thai teacher gave out the tests and told them what was expected of them. It was a lot more lax than the standardized tests in America. 

Tuesday I finished entering in all my grades and printed everything out to hand in. I signed all the paperwork and handed it in Wednesday, and by Thursday I'd finished my student reviews. All 250 of them. 

Thursday lunch was our farewell buffet in Chiang Mai, at the Empress hotel again. We were given gifts and that was that... That night a lot of the teachers left to go to Rayong and Koh Samet. Since I as expected in Chiang Mai on Sunday, I had to pass. 

I spent a couple lazy hours on Friday cleaning out my desk and playing online, and I left around lunchtime. Friday was a lazy day in general. Saturday Fang drove me to Doi Suthep, which is right near Chiang Mai but that I hadn't really been to. We stopped at Huay Keaw waterfall and sat and enjoyed the afternoon for a while. It was really peaceful. We went out to a new hotpot place for dinner, which I'm sad to only just discover as it's pretty cheap and right across from my hotel. It's a more traditional presentation, as well. It looks like a steel bucket with a thick layer of cement holding in a flowerpot. Inside that are charcoals, and a clay pot sits over the coals. The pot has a bunch of broth, and you add cabbage and herbs and mushrooms and pork and egg... Lots of things. So very delicious.

I met Deanne around 4 yesterday at Thapae Gate. We walked to the hostel and set out again for thapae market. We definitely spent a good few hours just moseying around and talking. I'm almost finished with my list of things. 

Today we just walked to Wororot market, and down changklan road to the Chiang Mai cotton store, and then back to our hostel. It was maybe 6 miles of walking, and it's definitely really hot outside. We rested for a few hours and then ventured back out for dinner, which we found at the Chang Puak food market. 

Not sure what's on the agenda tomorrow...

Update

There are two weeks of teaching left, and four weeks before I'm traveling around Thailand on vaca.

What.

So, I'm in the middle of reviewing 200 students. Since I'm now teaching the English Promotion and Development kids, I have to review their progress. To this I say, well, shit. Thankfully I was smart and have already started. I have them maybe a third of the way done. That still leaves a BUNCH left to do. The ones that are really good and really bad have stood out since the beginning and are easy to review. It's all those pesky middle-grounders that blend into their desks that I don't know what to say about. To help future me, I'm taking in my camera and having them all line up with a little sign that has their number on it so I can have a visual reference when I finish their reviews. That will happen next week. Probably.

I've given some of my kids a conversation that I have presented as their final, but really it's just a way to waste time and keep them busy. So far my plan is working. The rest of my kids have finished a listening test which has been great in some ways and really disheartening in others. Kids that did great on their spoken questions test a couple weeks ago have apparently pushed all knowledge of question words out of their minds. Ask a question like "Who likes noodles?" And I get the answer "chicken." "What day does Natalie eat breakfast?" "Pad thai." "Where is the cafe?" "Sergio." "How many people eat meat?" "Yes."

For the past two weeks, we've either had half of our Friday classes or no class Friday at all. This week is one of the latter. It's a fancy Buddha day (can't remember the name) so school is closed. Lucky me that it also is Valentin's day. I think Fang and I will be going to eat hotpot at his house... But he apparently has some sort of surprise. Erp.

In two more weeks, we'll be proctoring the finals for the other teachers. After that, I've got one more week to come to work with few to no kids, where I'll be entering grades, finishing reviews, and just generally shooting the shit with the other teachers because I hope by then to be either completely or nearly finished and therefore have little to do. 

Then Deanne comes. We'll meet in Chiang Mai and spend a few days there, and then come back to Lamphun  and take a tour of the Wats here. Then a train or bus to Sukothai for a day or two, and we'll be off to the islands. I've let Deanne decide where she wants to go because she has graciously offered to pay for the flights and accommodation while there. Which I'm thrilled about because I really wanted to see the islands one more time before I left. The few days on Koh Chang last October were just not enough. 

We'll fly back to Bangkok for a few days before we both leave. Deanne will head back to Georgia, and I'll be off to Osaka for a couple days. I get to go to Japan! I'm pretty excited, though I will be damn near broke. I have some US cash dollars I'm holding on to enough for I think a week or so while I try to find a job and not bug my friends too much that have already offered me their spare rooms or couches. 

Hopefully I'll have something more blog worthy soon.

UPDATE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magha_Puja If you want to learn about the Buddha day, here's a Wikipedia page explaining it. Fang gave me a box of chocolate donuts (3 creme filled, 3 chocolate filled, all chocolate glazed chocolate donuts. I think it's safe to say he knows me) and a dress that I liked. Fun fact, I bought the dress in blue months ago, and he bought me the gray version. So now I have two! Which is awesome. 

San Kamphaeng

The last weekend in January Fang and I went to San Kamphaeng, a royal hot springs site about 20km outside of Chiang Mai. The whole area around San Kamphaeng is full of little private hot spring spas, and San Kamphaeng is like a public park that uses them as well. People camp there and picnic and the like.

There are two little geysers that are constantly going, and apparently they're 105 degrees. Wasn't clear but I'm pretty sure they're using Celsius. What's really cool is that they pipe the water from the ground into little tubs where the locals have put hooks along the sides to cook eggs. They have a little stand that sells both regular and quail eggs (the latter of which are crazy popular and very tasty), and there's a sign right near that tells you both in Thai and English how long to cook your eggs. Then there's a little man-made stream that runs through this park that people sit along the edge in and dangle their feet. The farther away from the source, the more it cools off so it's like there are tiers of hotness to sit along. It's quite cozy to sit there and laze away an afternoon with your feet in spa-like warm mineral water. 

It wasn't a very long, or a very eventful day but it was really pleasant to just get away and soak my feet for a while.

90 days to Georgia

Officially have bought my ticket home! My visa is up in Thailand as of march 28, and I have seven days after that to leave the country. So I'm officially flying out of Bangkok on April 2. 

Our last week with the students is either the last week of February or the first week of March (as always, we are getting conflicting reports). Armed with that knowledge, I arranged for my friend Deanne to come visit me at the end of my stay in Thailand. My last day at Chakkham Khanathon school will be March 14 (there's grading and other preparations after finals), and I'll be meeting Deanne in Chiang Mai on March 15. We don't really have a bunch of plans set yet, but there are a couple of places I've wanted to see. We'll spend a couple of days in Chiang Mai, and then hopefully we'll be going to Sukothai (cool ruins), Ayutthaya (more cool ruins), Kanchanaburi (neat scenery), and finally we'll spend a couple of days in Bangkok before we fly out. 

Thankfully I was able to arrange my trip home with a stop in Osaka for a couple of days. I'll land there early on the morning of April 3, and fly out mid afternoon on April 6. I'll land in Georgia early April 7. I can't wait!

Doi Inthanon

It took me the better part of two hours to figure out where we were headed. Because, you know, it's easier to puzzle it out than just ask... 

The trip started at a quarter to 8 and we changed from the light blue to the yellow songtaew after the usual obligatory stop at a Wat. Not sure what yellow means but there we were.

Anyhow, we wound our way up the mountain. Alli and char were going to come but bowed out, so it's just me and 12 thai teenagers. As scary as it seemed at first, I had a blast and even though I was tired I was glad I agreed to go. I got only about 4 hours of sleep Sunday night so that made the rest of the day interesting...

We stopped first at a sort of garden halfway up the mountain. The views were beautiful but I noticed that even in the country/mountains there was a brown haze over everything. The flowers, though, were enough to distract me. There were cherry blossoms and chrysanthemums and orchids and all kinds of things I don't know the name for, but they were beautiful. We walked around and took about a hundred pictures (because that's what you do when you visit anywhere, the Thai people are firm believers in pics or it didn't happen!) and then got back in the songtaew. We stopped next at a nursery of sorts. It looked OTOP sponsored, with special areas for things like growth and demonstration of vanilla and Chinese tea and barley and other plants. Cue more photos. There was a little rose garden by a pavilion where we ate lunch. The roses were huge and smelled great. The kids had made some fried noodles and bought some chicken sausage. It was delicious and filling, and as usual, lacking in vegetables. 

I forgot to mention that on the way to the nursery, part of the road was absolutely terrifying. There were a couple of areas where there were huge holes (think car-sized) on one part of the road because the road had literally fallen off the side of the mountain. And there were humongous potholes that the songtaew had to slowly wind around.

After that visit, we went about 15 minutes back down the road and stopped again at some sort of orchid park. It was overlooking a cute pond. There were a bunch of fake large concrete orchids that were built as markers for the real orchids that were scattered among huge boulders. Cue about a thousand more photos. I went and found a large comfy looking boulder and sat for a while as the kids wandered around, and after about 20 minutes they pulled me down to join them in a different area. 

We left there and went to a place called Small Farm. It was what it sounded like, with a kind of attraction-parkish vibe. They had ostriches and horses and angus steer and sheep. There were babies! A baby sheep you could feed with a milk bottle, a couple of foals that were very shy, and 

Iittle piglets that were striped and adorable. And very smart, they kept trying to sneak out of the pen every time the door was opened. After about 180 more photos, that was it. We climbed back in the songtaew and made our way back down the mountain and came home. 

All in all, even though I was sleep deprived and felt sick at times on the way due to humongous potholes and curvy mountain roads, I had a great day. I'm glad the kids invited me. 

T minus 83 and counting

This Christmas was possibly one of the best Christmases ever. I'm not talking gifts, and I'm not really talking amazing experiences because not a whole lot happened. Part of the awesomeness may have been fueled by my homesickness and my loneliness here in Thailand. Whatever the reason, it was a fantastic Christmas spent with some of my favorite people (because I am a complete sap and also because I think y'all are the only ones who read this...), my family.

I flew 20 hours from Chiang Mai to Seoul to New York City to surprise my parents at my sister's apartment, and boy was it a surprise, despite my tired brain's efforts to give it away. I spent the week of Christmas there, and even through slight jet lag it was a relaxing and fun time with the family. It was so great to see dad, who I haven't really spoken to (since video chats aren't an option, and emails are only slightly effective). Even though Kathryn and mom and I speak every week, seeing them in person is definitely better. And Alex, who I also rarely speak to, was also a joy and a treasure as usual. We mostly wandered around the city shopping or relaxed in Kat and Alex's apartment. We went to the Nutcracker on Christmas Eve. We had our traditional fondue that night. Gift giving Christmas Day was fantastic, because I could actually contribute this year! And then we watched our traditional family Buffy marathon. A great nerdy Christmas, who could ask for more?

After the arduous 20 hour flight back, just as I was getting used to the new time zone, I spent the next three days (which included New Year's) sick in bed. Lack of sleep and dry air and sinus/cold stuff apparently don't mix. I got better, though just in time to start work yesterday. Yay?

So now there are 8 weeks left of school. Half of my classes have gotten impromptu tests as review (and so I can get a jump on my end of year grades), and the other half have gotten free time today so I could enter last semester's grades. Already I am prepared for holidays in the near future. There will be no classes next Friday (the 10th) because Chakkham hosts a yearly half-marathon, that I have been encouraged to but will not be running in. There is also a New Year's party. The 16th is a school holiday (I am not yet sure of the reason), and the next day I may or may not have classes. I'm not sure if all of my students will be at some camp or if only half of them will be. So that's three days in just the next two weeks alone. Valentine's day will undoubtedly come with fewer classes, and who knows what other fun holidays or events will pop up. 

March 12 is my tentative outta-here date. Deanne is coming to see me (YAAAAAAAAY) and we'll spend the next 2 weeks or so bumming around Thailand. I may or may not be able to afford a stopover in Japan on the way home, and I estimate being back in Macon around April 10. I guess we'll see...