Phuket Trip!!!

My first real "Rotary Trip" happened from October 10th till October 15th.  We were going to Phuket to celebrate their Vegetarian festival for four day's and then spend the last day in Nakornsrithammarat.  I'll give you a little background information on the Vegetarian Festival, because it is quite an interesting event.  Before I do that, I will describe what we did before that, because we only really participated in the festival for one day (where we were a part of the procession) and then the other days we were doing other activities around Phuket. 

October 10th. 
    My day started by getting up and heading into Surat Thani (I have been staying in Don Sak because school is out for midterm break :) ) I then boarded a bus and drove a long four hours till we finally arrived in Phuket.  I had a slight scare when I got off the bus, because I had no idea where I was supposed to go, or if anyone was meeting me.  So I did the smart thing, and called Tanit, the Phuket Rotarian saying I had arrived.  He then asked me where I was....and I didn't know.  I asked a lady that was beside me where I was, and she gave me a very concerned look and said..."You are in the city of Phuket." I wanted to laugh, but I didn't because that would have been rude.  I then asked her if she would talk to Tanit because I didn't know how to describe where I was.  About five minutes later Tanit arrived, and we headed off to another bus station to pick up a few other people.  We headed out for icecream, before heading off to our first destination-the Bang NIA Shrine.  This is more a Chinese shrine, then a Thai shrine, but that makes snese because this festival is more based on Chinese traditions than Thai, but the Thai have adopted it as their own, adding their own renditions. 

 These are some chairs that are going to be used later in the festival (I'll show you picutres and explain it later) but in this picture you can actually see the chair.  There will be a group of men carrying these chairs through the procession, and then people who are on the sidelines will throw firecrackers at the chair, and they will go off. 

 A side view of the Bang NIA Shrine.  There were a lot of these "chairs" there, lots of people wearing white (That's the color you had to wear in order to celebrate the festival, and then lots of colorful flags. 

 Another picture of the "chairs" that will become important later on in the blog. 

 This is the entrance to the shrine.  We got to go in and take part with all of the praying, and burning of incenses.  There were nine stations that we got to go to, but I only got to go to six because in order to go to three of the stations, you had to be wearing white, and I wasn't wearing white-gray capris and a hot pink shirt, doesn't really scream "white colors".  It was here that I found out how painful burning ash can be, as it fell on my leg and feet multiple times.  Luckily it brushed off, but it was still slightly painful.  After laying the incense down at the different stations, we went to burn money.  They had given us this Chinese money (not real, don't worry) and then we would throw it in the fire to help pay our respects. 

 A group shot of all of us outside the shrine.  There were quite a few weird looks that we got due to the fact we just whipped out this giant sign, and then had what seemed like a hundred pictures taken. 

 Emi from Japan (who was going to be my roommate for the trip), myself, and PaDee.  Padee was our "host mom" for the time that we spent in Phuket.  Instead of us all staying at a hotel, we got to stay with other Rotary members.  Emi and I got to stay at her bed and breakfast, so it was technically like staying in a hotel. 

This is a shot of the entrance to the shrine area.  All of the people that you can see here were setting off fireworks.  I tried to get a picture of the actual fireworks going off, but that didn't work to well because they were mostly firecrackers, and just made a bang.