Week 1ish

Wow, it’s been a really long time since I’ve posted anything, but the days are so packed that I literally don’t have any time at all between homework and classes and excursions trying to find something cheap to eat for dinner. So on Monday, all 150 of us got up and were loaded onto a luxurious version of a minivan and taken to our training town of Hua Hin. Now the thing about these vans is that the windows don’t go very high, so we’re all straining our necks trying to look at the ginormous billboards and attractions on our way there. My van was van 10, which was the last van, so there were only four of us riding which made it all the more luxurious. Sitting next to me was a girl named Katherine, who I just found out is friends with a girl in my grade who went to Hutchison. Her airline had lost her luggage so she was a little worried about that, but eventually she got it later that day. Behind me was a South African guy named Jaco. He didn’t talk at all, even when I tried to have a conversation with him. He slept most of the time though. There was also a girl named Jordan. She slept most of the time too. Actually I think we all fell asleep at some point during that two hour trip. And when we weren’t sleeping, we were trying to look out the window.

When we arrived at our residence, we unloaded our vans and then immediately left and went to the mall. It’s about the size of a regular American mall, but here that’s considered small. Connected to it were some little restaurants, including KFC, which delivers. Our leaders took us to the bank and the main grocery store and gave us much too wordy talks about each; I thought they should have been a little more self-explanatory. I exchanged all my money at the bank I would soon have an account. Then I went to this place called Tesco, which is just the Thailand version of Wal-Mart. I got a fan and some snack food and drinks for my room. I couldn’t stop complaining about the fact that we hadn’t even seen where we’d be living for the next month so we really had no idea what we needed to buy or what we would already have. I didn’t get a phone the first day because we were so rushed and I didn’t want to just get the first crappy phone I saw, so I thought I’d wait and get it another day.

We finally went to our residence, which is called Suchaya House. It’s like a dorm-style residence. It’s basically just a room with an en suite bathroom and a small balcony. There’s also a TV that I got excited about until I realized it probably only plays Thai TV shows and stuff, which it does. But I did connect it to my laptop via HDMI cord and just play DVDs through that.

The next morning I woke up around 5, wide awake. That sucked because we weren’t leaving Suchaya house until 8:45. So I watched some episodes of Friends and ate the Thai version of coco crispies I bought at Tesco the day before. So straight from there, we went to the school where we’d do our training. It is actually a very big government Thai school. We were in an air conditioned room, so that was nice. Our first class was basic orientation and an overview of what we’d be doing. After three hours of that, we had our lunch break. Some people and I found this great little Thai restaurant near the school. It was a little pricey in local terms, but it was delicious! After we got back from lunch, our songthaou, which is a long truck with seats lining the back, to a Buddhist temple. We learned all about the religion and practices and how most everyone is Thailand is Buddhist. We learned the rituals and were even blessed by a monk who gave us all bracelets that would protect us from evil. I really wanted to say, “Thanks, but I have Jesus.” But I didn’t because that would have been very disrespectful and rude. Next, we went to a street dog rescue place that’s connected with Xplore Asia. It was awesome because now if I want a dog with all the stuff it needs, I could get one for free!

 

I don't remember what day it was but it looked like the sky was about to collapse on us. Regardless, we loaded up the songtow and drove pretty far out to a pineapple farm. We took a bunch of pictures like this one. We could all feel the looming clouds above us ready to rain down the apocalypse. So we all took one last group picture and drove to an elephant sanctuary. That was really fun because we got to feel the elephants the pineapples we had just gotten! They loved them!



I meant to post this weeks ago but lack of interned prevented it. Sorry and keep reading!