Ancient City

Hi,

Well this has taken a while.  So many activities and so many things to tell you.  First of all, we visited the Ancient City a couple of weekends ago which was very interesting.  It is a HUGE tract of land with all of the major Thai tourist attractions scaled down in order to give people who have limited time the opportunity to see all that Thailand has to offer!  Of course, Emily and I have loads of time so we used it as an idea-finding mission; now we have an idea of what we want to see and where we want to go. 

We went with our new friends (the ones who accompanied us to Safari World) which was nice.  But the best part was we got bicycles and rode around the whole park which took us 5 hours and we in no way saw everything!  But even better than that?  My backside and legs were not even sore the next day!!  hahahahahaha

We had a traditional Thai lunch in the floating market.  Emily had papaya salad which was very spicy but she enjoyed it and I had rice, chicken and veggies Thai-style.  We sat on the floor at a table on a raised platform right near the water.  I think you can see our 'dining room' in one of the pictures.  I will post an album in facebook in order to share more pictures.

Oh, I haven't told you the coolest thing: whenever you dine at a buffet-style place and have to pick up the utensils from a central location (including our canteen at school), you will find a crockpot filled with near boiling water for you to swish your utensils in to sterilize!  What an amazing idea, eh?

One of the exhibits was a deer farm.  Harry and Edward will understand when I say I made the elephant noise and scared all the deer, making them run away en masse.  Hilarious.  The rest of you should just imagine the trumpeting noise and elephant makes.  I did that near a group of 15 deer which made them start, look up, turn and run away in unison.  Very funny!  I know some of you may say that's mean, but it's not.  No one was hurt in the scaring of the deer.   LOL

And on that note, I will end this posting.  Talk to you soon.

One Night in Bangkok

Hello there!

It is 12:13am Thursday 26 September  and I have just arrived home from a 'night on the town' in Bangkok with my friend Julia.  Our original destination was the Wine Cellar, however when we got there, the promotion (all you can eat and drink 299 baht) had ended! So we walked on down Sukhumvit to the Londoner which is a British-inspired pub with really, really good food, a live band, ESPN and pints on tap!
This was my first night out since we got here, yes Emily stayed at home while I went out and partied.  Yes H and E, I went out and met some new people and even had a couple of beers!  I got two cards.  One from an English professor at the University and one from a Learning Specialist with Ford.  I think I may email them and keep them as wonderful contacts.
I had a really good time; got all dolled-up and am grateful to my friend for insisting I join her.  Those of you who know me well, will know how difficult that was.  But totally worth it.
This gathering happens every Wednesday so I may just go again next week.

Talk to you soon,
I have much to tell you about last weekend and this weekend. 
But that will have to wait until later today because I need to go to bed now as I have to wake up at stupid o'clock for work.

Good night!

I'm too sexy for this dress...!   LOL

Time flies

I'm baack
I just saw the last post was on 08 September...9 days ago!  Obviously time flies when you are having fun.  What has happened over the past week? Ummm, life I guess. 
We have a daily routine now.   Get up at stupid o'clock (5:20am), shower, breakfast and walk out to taxi stand for the ride to school.  We have enough Thai to be able to tell the driver the street we need (Phokeow pronounced Po cow) and the basic instructions; go straight, turn left, turn right, stop, thank you.
After school we either take a taxi all the way or half way and walk home.  It mostly depends on the time.  If it is late (5pm or so), we walk because the traffic can end up costing another 20 baht.  Which reminds me, the traffic lights are on a crazy schedule. The red lights stay red for upwards of 3 minutes.  They even have a countdown LED display to 'entertain' you while you wait.  Then, the weird thing is, green lights seem to last for only 30 seconds.
Once we are home, it's homework, homework, homework.  For both of us.  Seriously, Emily does about 2-3 hours of homework each night.  Some of you may have seen the posting regarding her being artist of the week.  Those of you who haven't, check it out on my facebook page. 
We still swim, but do not visit the gym as often because we are wasting away.

The Thais love to shop! They construct the most amazing malls.  Because we are visiting the malls as tourists instead of shoppers, we take photographs to share with out friends. So here are the pictures from our visit to Terminal 21;

The outside...

 Each floor represents a city and is decorated in the manner of that city

All escalators look like airport security gates.  Going up is Departing for ___.  Arrival at the floor is arrival at____.

London had trams.

Rome has statues and a Vespa.

 

And the Sistine Chapel!

 

 San Fransisco has the bridge.

 

 

6th floor is Hollywood with the Cinema and a giant Oscar.

 

Emily and I had dinner at a restaurant while we were at Terminal 21.  And yes, I took food pictures!!!!

 

 Our delicious salad starters.

  Tenderloin, mashed potatoes and gravy.

  Lobster soup.

  Dory fish with mash and gravy

  Total: 359.00 baht ($11.97 taxes and tip all in)

See if you can figure out this picture

The middle portion is the bottom floor.  The many

escalators are the black and white parts.

 

Even upcoming promotions are displayed on an

electronic 'arrivals/departures' readout.

Safari World

We went to Safari World today and it was great. 
It is a cross between African Lion Safari and our Zoo because there is a portion you can travel through in a vehicle and another portion you can walk through.  We chose to walk! 6 hours!
We saw everything...check out the video on the right for a little peek at what we did today.

Wai Kru (Teacher's) Day

Wai Kru Day was on Thursday 05 September 2013 and is a really important ritual in Thai culture in which students pay respects to their teachers in order to express their gratitude and formalize the student–teacher relationship.
At our school all students and teachers gathered in the Assembly Hall and at 8:00am the ceremony began.  The students were all sitting in neat rows with a cleared central 'aisle' for the teachers to walk down from the back of the room to the stage where we took our places. 
One student from each division (primary, junior, high school) read their essay of why teachers are great, then the students sang a couple of traditional songs.  The grade 12 students sang a song about the love they have for their teachers and the ending was acapella...very well done. 
The student body paid respect to the teachers by bowing down low (a very impressive sight). 



You can see Emily at roughly 12 o'clock 6th from the back.

They showed their appreciation by presenting to the teachers lovely bouquets of flowers.  One of my students presented me with the bouquet...he was so proud and I was so proud of him.

The presentation of flowers was all precisely orchestrated and Emily was one of the chosen ones! 

 

 

The ritual is very serious; no joking or talking.  Those of you familiar with children will appreciate the enormity of controlling over 300 children between the ages of 5-18.  This was achieved by claps and hand signs issued by the senior students.
Once all teachers received their flowers, we were to bless the children by tying on the holy string.

Basically, we tied a piece of string onto the wrists of the students and said a few words of inspiration (i.e. study hard, practice your English etc).  It was beautiful!  It was a 2 hour ceremony.

 

 

My beautiful flowers!

 

 

September

 Good day and welcome to September

Time has flown!  For all of you who are getting ready for back to school/back to real life, good luck in the coming year.  Some of you are starting a new chapter, some are finishing the book and some are re-reading the pages.  LOL.

Saturday the last day of August Emily and I went in to Bangkok to the MBK shopping mall.  We got a taxi to the Ekkamai BTS station then took the BTS (Bangkok SkyTrain) to MBK which was really cool. 
What is MBK like?  Think Eaton's Centre on steroids, then imagine that bigger.  It has seven floors and about a million shops plus a Theatre and a Bowling Alley.  Seriously though, it is not like our malls that have shops along the edges, wide open walkways and a few vendors in the middle.  Oh no, there are shops down the sides and in the centre and in little maze-like chunks.  There are shops where you don't expect shops to be and at one end on one of the floors is a flea market style area with many, many vendors.  Believe it or not we didn't find everything we needed in that cornucopia of merchandise.  Teacher supplies are virtually no where to be found.  I had to place an order on Amazon.com for the manipulatives I need for the class.  We ate in the Fifth Food Avenue International food court which was really cool.  It has 20 different vendors with food from India, Thailand, China, Vietnam, Western etc.  When you go in, you are given a 'credit card' which you give to the counter person when you place your order.  They swipe the card and load it with the value of the meal.  You can visit as many vendors as you wish then when you leave, you give the cashier the card.  She swipes it in her machine which adds everything together and voila!  You pay the total.

Sunday we went to our local mall (Fashion Island) for groceries and found a few teacher supplies in one of the bookstores.  While we were walking around, we decided to go in to the Toys R Us but it was a very small outlet with only a limited amount of stock.  However I took a little walk around KidsWorld just outside of the toy store and you cannot imagine what I found.  Are you familiar with the Promenade in Vaughan?  I think that is the mall with the amusement park inside.  Fashion Island has an amusement park with rides, a climbing castle and bumper boats.

Talk to you soon,
Nicole and Emily

ps enjoy the video and pictures
pps 1 Canadian dollar = 30 Thai baht

Boarding the BTS

The shopping mall

One view of inside

Another perspective

Custom-tailored suits, shirts, ties, pants. 300 baht = 10 CAD

Kids World at Fashion Island