My First Trip To Bangkok!

First of all, I'd like to start out by apologizing that it has taken me so long to put out posts, but I have been busy, and am just starting to find time to update my blog.  I realized that I am just about a month behind in my blog posts, so there will be lots to update you guys on. 

So as the title of this post says, I went to Bangkok on August 20th and spent the 21st, and 22nd there.  One of the things we did there was visit The Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.  This place was absolutely spectacular.  Everythign was ornately done, and very colorful.  Like most of the temples that I have seen, the main colors were blue, red, green, and gold.  Mainly gold though.  We went to The Grand Palace with my host mom, my host sister (who is now in America), my older host brother (who is studying in Bangkok) and then some other family members that I am not totally sure of the relations.  We hopped into two taxis and drove there. 

This is the main entrance to the temple.  The part that is cut off (right in front of the temple) is an area where you can pray.  I was given a flower to place on the table, some insense to burn, and a candle to place in front of the temple.  There were a lot of people doing this, and it was quite the experience.  As you can see, the place is huge, and this is just the first building I saw.  This is one of the less ornate buildings that I saw, believe it or not.  You may not be able to really tell in this picture, but the window decals are all done with gold designs with colorful glass inbetween the gold parts.  And the colors are more vibrant in real life.

This is a section of the mural that can be found in the temple.  I'm not sure what this section depicts, but the entire mural tells the story of the history of Buddhism.  The mural can be found under a "walkway" that goes all around the temple.  I am not sure how to describe it, but essentially its like a long corridor with the mural on one side, and the rest of the temple on the other.  Thats a horrible description, but I don't know how else to describe it.  The mural is inlayed with gold pieces (the shiny "yellow" pieces) in the picture. 

This is a picture of me and one of the guards of the temple.  You may not have noticed this, but my outfit doesn't match at all.  Red skirt and purple shirt...that actually wasn't my fault.  I had been told that I had to wear long pants, so I wore my tights and the long shirt, but when we got to the temple, we found out that my pants couldn't be tight.  The sollution was simple, I would rent a sarong from the temple, and then it would be all good.  I didn't get to chose what color, so thats why I don't match.  You probably don't really care about that, but I thought it was an interesting part of the trip, so I thought I'd put it in.  Behind the guard is the walkway with the mural in it. 

So this is another building within the temple grounds.  As you can probably see, it is made with lots of gold coloring.  You can't really see the other colors, but there is green and blue glass tiles within the gold.  It was very big, and I had to be extremely creative in order to get the entire building in the picture.  I got a few weird looks, as I crouched on the ground, trying to get as much of the temple in as I could. 

This is the group of us that went to the Temple.  My host mom is on my right, and on my left is my host sister, and then the other random family members that I am unsure of the relation.  My host brother is taking the picture.  The background is the same building as before, but you can just see the colors a bit better, and it is a bit brighter. 

Okay, so this is another section of the walkway, "guarded" by the two guards.  I thought that this was a good picture that showed the colors of the roof, and just more of the temple.  I wasn't allowed to go to this part because it was blocked off for restoration purposes.  But you can see the different colors, and the size of the temple. 

This is just a entrance way to a temple.  I thought it was pretty and showed a lot of the detail in gold as well as other colors.  The two statues in front are the "guards".  I was told that they ward away evil, but I'm not 100% sure on that fact. 

This is one of the doors to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.  I wasn't allowed to take pictures within the temple, so I thought I would take some of the outside instead.   You aren't allowed to step on the threshold of the building, it is pretty much taboo.  Luckily someone told me that cause I probably would have stepped on it, and gotten in a lot of trouble by the guards.  If you even took out your camera in the temple, a guard would pop up and be tell you no, and if you didn't listen you would be not so politely escorted out of the temple.  I saw one guy get that done to him, and he wasn't pleased.  The inside was breathtaking.  There was the final scenes of the mural, along with an emerald Buddha, and lots of other statues that all had meanings, but I don't know the meanings.

This is just another building that I found pretty.  It has less gold than the other buildings, and is more focused on the green color.  Not much to say about it, because I don't actually know what the building is used for. 

The Grand Palace.  This is the Grand Palace.  It was too big for me to get a picture of the entire thing, but this is a picture of the main entrance.  It was pretty spectacular.  There were a lot of people here, so it was extremely hard to get a picture without hundreds of people in your picture. 

This is an extension of The Grand Palace, and the people that are walking in white and black are the guards.  They were pretty scary.  They looked like they were there to do their job, and if you messed with them, they weren't afriad to remove you. 

So that was my time at The Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha.  It was pretty cool, and I had a blast here.  Our next stop was to the airport to send Namwarn (my host sister) off to America.  It was pretty sad, and it reminded me of when I left, so I almost cried.  It wasn't really fun.  While we were here, there was another group of students that were leaving, but for 10 years instead of one.  Apparently Thailand sends their top 5 smartest students off to America to study for 10 years.  I thought that was insane, but I guess its "free" education, because the Thai government will pay for your schooling. 

My First Field Trip!

On my third day of school, I had the awesome pleasure of not going to class, and getting to go on a field trip.  It was to a place called Kong Bhai (I think thats the correct spelling, but I'm not 100% sure.) It was a trip for biology, and I went with my class 5/9.  (Grade 11-(thats the 5 part, and the 9 is for the ninth class of grade 11's).  We paddled down the river in this little boat.  The teacher informed me that we would be taking a boat, and immediately after that the next question was,  "You can swim...right?" I was thinking..."Wow that's soo reassuring." Haha. 

So this is one of the boats.  It took three boats, with 17 of us in each boat, so thats quite a few students.  Much bigger than the class I had in Campbell River.  We got on at this little village, and that is the bridge that they use to cross to the other side.  You can't really see it in this picture, but just about all of the houses in this area are built on stilts, incase the river floods.  It was pretty cool. 

Here is a picture of the house on stilts.  Well this is actually a restaurant, but its built with the same concept, so I figured it would pass.  You can see the mudflats underneath, and as you can tell the water isn't exactly clean.  I wasn't allowed to touch the water because my mom was worried that I would catch something.  That was such a reassuring notion.

Our first stop on our field trip was to a coconut oil making place.  The pictures I have aren't very good because it was done from behind a crowd of excited students, so I won't post any of them on here.  But it was pretty cool.  They showed us all the steps, and we were given the opportunity to buy a bottle of the product for 100 Baht.  I thought I would buy a bottle as a souvineer, becuase it had been made there, and I got to see how it was made.  Palm oil has some pretty awesome benefits including weight loss, helps with your hair, and helps with your face.  I thought that was pretty cool. 

Our second stop was at a basket weaving/roof weaving place.  I was given a water basket as a present from one of the ladies there.  Sometimes it pays to be a fa-rong (westerner).  Haha here, they also had food that they offered us and water.  The food was coconut milk and coconut mixed together so it was like a paste, and then wrapped in palm leaves and cooked over an open fire.  It was delicious. 

This is a picture of the lady making the food.  It was pretty good.  Haha the people around her are my classmates. 

This is the lady who made me the water basket.  The man in the back is a teacher.  I think that he is my English teacher, but I am not 100% because after a while they all start to look the same.  Not meaning to be rude, but theres over 3000 faces that and its hard to figure out who's who. 

This is one of the villagers cooking the food.  I thought it was pretty cool that they used the old coconut shells to burn as "wood" instead of using actual wood.  They are very green in the community, reusing most of their stuff. 

Our next stop was to a two hundred year old house that was made with wooden nails.  I have a few pictures, but it just looks like a house, so I won't put very many up.  It was insanely hot, and when we got to explore the building, there were times when I felt like I was going to fall through the floor of the building, but I didn't so its all good. 

So theres a picture of the house.  Looks safe right? Haha as long as we didn't step where it was falling apart, we were generally safe, but its still slightly startling.

Our next stop was to a place where they make orange juice.  There wasn't much to take pictures of, so I won't post any.  It was pretty cool, they let us taste it.  Someof it was really sour and i didn't really enjoy it, but its an experience.  :)

So that was pretty much the extent of our field trip.  We headed down the river towards town, so I have a few pictures of that, but my computer isn't loading the pictures anymore so I will have to end it with that. 

I had a great time on this trip, and made quite a few friends.  The people here are really welcoming and easy to talk to.  Thats about it for now.  I'll try to update at a later date.

My First Day of School!

My first day of school was one of the scariest things I have ever had to do.  I was told that I ould have to introduce myself, so I assumed that I would be introducing myself to a few teachers, the principal, maybe a few students.  Apparently I was wrong.  Their idea of introducing myself involved me standing up on a podium, in front of the entire school.  That wouldn't have been so bad if I was in Canada, where the schools are generally small.  Nope, I had the pleasure of introducing myself to a crowd of over three thousand students.  I am not a big fan of public speaking, and this was one of the scariest things of my life!

My host Rotary Club-The Rotary Club of Sritapee was there and they introduced me and gave me a lovely bouquet of flowers, and luckily I wasn't the only student that had to speak.  Namwan my host sister also had to give a goodbye speech because she was off to America.  There were lots of pictures taken of me, and in just about all of them I found myself squinting because of the sun.  It was bright, which helped me so that I didn't have to stare at the 3000 pairs of eyes staring right back at me. 

My first day of school was filled with many "firsts".  I got to wear my first school uniform, my first public speech, and my first 8 hour school day.  That was the longest school day ever! I was so tired after it, I went home ate and slept.  It was quite fun.  The students here can have 8 or 9 classes a day, but lunch is considered a period.  My schedual for the first day involved a Health class, two math classes, Thai language. lunch, physics for two periods and then a socials class.  It was a long day. 

This is me givingmy speech to the school.  Sadly I don't ave a picture of the kids, but i will try to get one asap.  The outfit I am wearing is one of my school uniforms.  This is the one that I wear Tuesday-Friday.  Or sometimes I will wear the other one as well. 

So these are some of the members of my host Rotary Club.  The lady who is at the microphone is the Presidant, the lady in the pink on my right (far end) is one of the teachers at the school.  The two other ladies on my right are members of the Rotary Club.  Then there is myself and Namwarn, and the lady on the end on my left is my host mom.  They were introducing us and talking about where we came from, and what we had been doing.  It was less nerve wracking because I had already finished my speech.

The Rotary President giving Namwarn and myself our bouquets of flowers.  I am somewhat behind her but before this picture I was in front.  Haha.  The flowers were delivered to us on gold cups, it was pretty cool.  The big metal structure that is behind us is the flagpole, if anyone was really wondering.