Holiday Part 1

      Yes, I have neglected this blog for much too long and, honestly,  I give my sincerest and deepest apologies, for I promised my typed words on this blog would be updated frequently. Not only do I leave my readers curious, but I leave myself in a self-loathing state, as these posts are very beneficial for myself, and it's not every day one get's to travel to Thailand for an entire four months. Enough said, for I feel like I am constantly apologizing and making promises.

I did make one promise though, and that included new blogposts written by me. So let the adventure begin!

HOLIDAY:
It all started on the night of Tuesday October 22nd, where my group and I set off in a van ordered specifically for us. We were to reach the border of Laos in the morning and we did just that. 6am we stepped into the neighboring country of Laos and got our passports stamped, giving ourselves the satisfaction of marking another country off of our world list. The goal and only point of going to Laos' capitol was for a visa run..... and as my group and probably any foreigner would tell you, a visa run is all that city should be used for.
Our weary bodies made it to the thai embassy, bright and early in hopes of beating the many other foreigners wishing to stay in Thailand a little bit longer. Much to our inconvenience, the Thai embassy turned out to be closed due to a national public Thai holiday. That being said, we were to stay in that hell-hole of a city one more night.
I guess I can't complain too much about Vientiane, as we did get to tour a prosthetic leg museum....

Not to mention get my nails painted..

In the end we received our visas. Thank the lord. 

and our tattered, homesick-for-thailand selves ventured on to the next destination: Bangkok. 

BANGKOK 

Our time in Bangkok, influenced much by the forces of tourism, was an experience nonetheless.  Despite the freezing hostel in which only towels were given as blankets, Bangkok offered us all some sort of thrill. Though if you ask any traveller backpacking through south-east asia, they would probably tell you 1-2 days spent in Bangkok is enough, for Bangkok carries a much different feel than the rest of Thailand. Scam artists flood the streets and should be avoided, not to mention the local prostitutes and ping pong shows... If wanting nature and the hospitality of dear thai people, Bangkok probably wouldn't fit to your wants. 

Anyhow, our trip to Bangkok began with the prominent floating markets. The markets literally reflect their name. We all boarded onto a boat to then set off down the canal filled with similar boats which were filled with merchandise, fruits (not to mention mango sticky rice :o), spices galore, picturesque paintings, etc. etc. We made our way to their boats and they made our ways to ours. 

The floating markets felt much like an attraction at Disneyland. The jungle cruise in real life, anyone? 

                                    

Afterwards we headed towards the grand palace of Bangkok. Unfortunately, we were running late on  time, and short on a few hundred baht  so we missed out on actually going inside the grand palace.

 so we quickly made our way to the reclining buddha

It's always hard to compare pictures with what you actually experience with your own individual eye. That being said: this buddha is HUGE. It looms over the many tourists admiring it. 

That temple was nice, though I must say being in Thailand after a while, the temples tend to blend together and each temple no longer has it's own uniqueness. I've quite enjoyed the spiritual peace each temple brings, though the floods of tourists seem to snatch that feeling away. 

As that was over and done with we were to journey onto the next temple: Wat Arun (also known as the temple of Dawn)........Now as I write about this temple, I take my previous words back. This temple was very unique. Unique in that it allowed me to face my fear of heights, receive a awe-inspiring view of the city of Bangkok, and believe in just one hour that I was a female version of Indiana Jones. And here are just a few photos to please the eye. 

As the evening approached, as did our goodbyes to Bangkok. We wished to end our adventures on a good note. Kate, Emi and I took the transportation of Bangkok.. The SKY TRAIN. A metro above the city, and being girls we thought shopping would end the night well as well as mcdonalds................. 

The shopping at MBK was overwhelming. With over 2,000 shops all in a 6 story building. Of course McDonalds attracted us first. Many ray-bans were bought and Kate and Emi prepared themselves for our next destination with corn rows. The mall was very impressive. A mall in which you can haggle almost any shop owner for a fair price. 

Here we are lookin bad @$$ in our newly bought ray-bans,  and sayin farewell to that Bangkok city life. 

Tame your weeping eyes, for this is just the start of our vacation, as we spent 1 week in paradise in Krabi, Thailand. That blogpost will follow. And and as the TV show announcers say...: to be continued.... 

The best words to describe how I feel about leaving Thailand in 5 weeks. Thailand has been so dear to me.

New blogposts to come ----->

Festivities

     Around this time each year, Phichit holds an annual boat festival. Your mind may just be asking yourself what a boat festival is. Well, I guess a lot of thais take a liking to long boat rowing races, and that's exactly what it was. A festival designated just for the long-boat races on the Nan River in front of the Laung Temple in Phichit (the city we are teaching in).

Watching the boat races alone were pleasing to the eye, but as were all the many vendors who sold everything from puppies, to milkshakes, to octopus on a stick, to shorts, to t-shirts, to tattoos, to ray bans, to iphones,  to instruments I had never seen before, and also nazi flags (whaaaaaaaaa?????) just about anything you wanted, you could probably find it there. Over the entire weekend Friday, Saturday and Sunday I bought a total of 3 pairs of shorts, 3 shirts, 3 milkshakes, 1 neon colored orange drink, 7 pancake sort of things with a hazelnut chocolate spread in the middle which was like heaven in my mouth. 

White army of barbies 

It was hot and humid as it always is, and as crowded as could be. One thing I've learned here is how much attention you will get being white in Asia. Constantly we here the word: Phalang, which I guess a simple translation is just foreigner. Who knows... I am so oblivious to all that goes and is said around me here.  Constantly people shout "Hello!" to us in English and tell us how beautiful we are. And more often than not, we are asked to pose in a picture with multiple people. It doesn't make much sense to me, as they use a lot of white creams to make their skin lighter and also only had white barbies for sale. I'll admit, it's cool to be noticed at times, but honestly, being praised and stared at at continuously can get old. For, we were only born on opposite ends of the world.

Going off of continuously feeling oblivious to what is going on around us- I have never felt a language barrier more strongly in my life. We go out into the city quite a lot and and interact with the thai teachers here somewhat- funny thing is, as we speak in our native language, they speak in theirs and nothing is ever accomplished by it. Charades has now become a lifestyle. In fact, coming to think of it- the only legitimate conversation I have had in this town was in German. And zee photos speak the truth . What a sweet lady who showed me that my German does come in handy in Thailand. Seeing that even the packaging at the store is in thai and German and I am able to translate all words.

Along with boat racing competition, we were also introduced to a sport which requires much talent with the human foot and flipkicks. It is much like volleyball, but with your feet. Just a video to prove the swiftness, beauty and pure talent of this sport which we just discovered. America, you will be welcoming a new sport as I arrive back to your land.

The moves these young Thai men preformed were so amusing, my gal Paige and I even became fans of a team.

Funny story this though. At the end of the day on sunday we were determined to get a picture with some of the boaters. As seen in the photo below. For, we are fans of men in uniform. 

Anywho, I thought these pictures were sufficient, though my friend Paige thought differently; she didn't like the photos I took of her and the boaters. I told her that she should stay calm and we would continue looking for other boaters. Eventually we were disappointed in finding no trace of the rowing warriors.... Suddenly the idea came to mind that the Takraw players (foot volleyball) were also men in jerseys and proved to be skilled in a very fascinating sport. So we got there and Paige asked if she could get a photo with them, while chasing them to their headquarters. With much confusion to the english that was being spoken, eventually they agreed. After the agreed upon photos, they asked us kindly to watch the game they were to play in the next hour and a half. We agreed and came back to watch. They won of course and invited us to sit with them and converse. They knew a few words of english and us only a very few amount of thai prhases and words... so the night ended in laughing, language barriers and charades. 

And there you have it... A novel written by McKenna 

Alles bestens 

Three Weeks In

 Survived the first 3 weeks of my inhabitation in Thailand. It feels good, though time seems to be passing by much too quickly.

My apologies if you have been checking up on this blog to then find that I actually haven't posted anything new. I guess this blogpost just makes for a pleasant surprise. :)

It's hard to know what exactly to say or exactly where to start because all that I  experience and see is completely new to my eyes, mind and soul. It also does not help having no ability to organize anything.

I'll start with teaching, for that is where I left off with the last post, I believe. Teaching is quite the experience. My students are the cutest things you could ever lay your eyes on while at the same time- the most obnoxious. These kids could run around, hit each other, scream all day and still not show a small bit of exhaustion, I swear. They suck a lot of energy out of me, but I still continue to adore them.

For the most part, my students English is good and understand most everything I say while being able to get across what they need to say. It's hard knowing exactly what they need to improve on, as we are just replacing the last teachers who were here. My students are roughly the ages 6 and 7 with one child being 5, as he skipped a grade (he's quite the intelligent one.) They struggle with conjugation. For example, "she have a blue pen" while also not being able to get subjects down. Like- "Me want to play, teacher." And then you wonder if getting the point across is more helpful than actually getting the grammar. I believe they'll eventually pick up the grammar... it's also hard having kids be at all sorts of levels and trying to teach
These kids have also taught me quite a bit. One thing being that a monotone voice is never the solution. I'm a person that has never had the ability to produce a lot of emotion. Es ist einfach so. I'm not sure whether I should praise myself in being so, or should pity. Let's just say, it has had to change teaching children.

Here's a few photos of my little rascals

 Aomsin and Pan

 Pordee (the intelligent 5 year old)

Pordee took my camera and had a blast snapping photos

 Pan and Post

 Aishi

 Meephoo is my ninja

And there is a blogpost which is semi dedicated to the teaching life.

CIAO
All the best
M.C   Kenna

First Impressions

 After about 30 hours of traveling by plane and bus from Bangkok we finally made it to our hotel room in Phichit at 4 a.m Thursday (thai time) morning. We were staying in the hotel, as the teachers who taught this previous semester were still at the school.

Thursday and Friday we shadowed these teachers to see how teaching goes about and Friday evening we moved into our dorm which lies on  campus. The dorm is filled with 3 bunk beds a table and a sitting area. All in one room. It's a nice cozy place, but I immediately recognized how

hard it may become within the next four months, as all 6 of us have completely different personalities.

We begin teaching on Monday and I couldn't be more excited. I am a beginning reading teacher and will be sharing 12 students (roughly ages 5 and 6) with another girl in the program. The kids are darling, and I can't wait to see their improvement in English which is already relatively good. I'm also looking forward to test out ways to teach a foreign language by immersion. The ILP program has interesting ways  in which they go about teaching English some of which I don't find the most productive ways, so when I say I'm excited to figure out new ways, I really am.

I really only got to go into the city this morning (saturday) and lemme tell you, this is place is interesting. I will try to get more pictures of it, as I have not taken very many yet. They weren't kidding when I heard that Thailand is the land of smiles. Everyone smiles and waves to us and shout "helloooo" as we are the only white people in town and they know we teach at the "Imperial bilingual elementary school." The people don't seem to have a lot, but are very grateful for everything.

As seen on the left there are many stray dogs here. I have never seen so many dogs in my life.

the bottom photo is of a couple of my roommates sitting on the back of a truck getting a ride to the school. The ride did it for me- I smitten with this land. Which also reminds me, I always considered driving on the right side of the road a completely normal thing to do that is done in every country except England and their commonwealths. Turns out it is done in China, Japan, Thailand and who knows where else. A bit weird to get used to as we do have our own bikes to ride into town, which is also the experience as everyone drives they way they want to here.

I hope to post some more soon, especially when I start teaching and what not. I also hope to sound a little bit more intelligent.

Lots of Love und Ich habe euch Lieb.
McKenna