Ancient Siam!

Ancient Siam is a part of Bangkok that is filled with buildings from the time when Thailand was a part of Siam, and not Thailand.  Truthfully, there was a few older buildings (like the actual ancient ones) but for the most part there were newer buildings that were based on the design of the older ones.  It was really hot out, and I was starting to get grumpy, but I didn't let that deter us from having a grand old time. 

 Our first stop within Ancient Siam was at what they call "The Floating Market."  Behind me in this picture is a few boats that are being pulled into the market area.  The one closest to me is carrying pots, but I couldn't tell you what the other ones are carrying.  There were lots of different vendors here, selling a variety of things such as food, clothing, and other little trinkets. 

 The Icecream Stall.  This is the first stop that we made while checking out the market.  Due to the heat, my host mom and I decided that it was a good time for icecream, so thats what we had.  Icecream here is different from Canada, but its still good.  In Canada, you would put chocolate sauce on it, but here it is more like fruits and veggies that have been soaking in sugar, so its slightly healthier.  Or at least thats the story I plan on sticking to. :D  My icecream had chunks of coconut, and some other Thai fruit, that I can't remember the name of. 

 This is just a glimpse of the floating market.  It was extremely big, and we only walked around a little of it.  I did see a lot of cool things that were being sold, but nothing really caught my eye and said "Buy me! Buy me!".  There were a few little boys swimming in the water, but I didn't think that I would attempt that because it didn't really look....clean.  There are a lot of art students that come here and draw what they see.  When we were at this section, I saw at least 10 students drawing, and the drawings were really good.  I wanted to steal them, but I didn't think that the artists would have appreciated that very much. 

 Here are four different boats all selling different things.  The boat that is farthest to the left is selling a variety of meats such as hotdogs, meat balls, and other little foods like that.  They would be cooked up and then served to you (I didn't eat them here, but I have had them in my home town, and its pretty good.  Spicy, but not so spicy that I couldn't handle it.)  The lady next to here (second in from the left) is selling water and coke.  They vendors kind of work together to make a living, or at least thats how it seems.  The person that is third from the left, I'm not totally sure what she is selling, but I do know that it is some type of soup.  And the final person is selling fruit.  If I have placing mixed up, I apologize, but sometimes I forget how I am supposed to describe pictures. 

 Just another view of the floating market. 

A closer up shot of the boats you can see in the background of my first picture.  As you can tell in this picture, there is no one driving the boat, and I think that it is just there for show, so that you can see how the goods are brought into the market.  I didn't realize that there was no driver at first, so I apologize for giving you misinformation up above. 

The Grand Hall of Wat Maha That, Sukhothai. 

The next three pictures are of The Grand Hall of Wat Maha That, Sukhothai.  This is one of the ancient buildings that I told you about earlier.  It is in the Old Sukhothai Kingdom, and is composed of eleven large rooms.  It is believed that there is also a niche behind the pedestal in which a bronze Buddha image, named Phra Sri Sakya Munt was seated.  Nearby there are the statues of four Buddha images in four distictive gestures which are known as Phra Si Iriyabot.  The statues show unique characteristics of the distinguished art in casting the images in Sukhothai, and other areas. 

 This is me and a one of the statues that they were talking about.  The Buddha will have its yellow robe changed at the different times of the year, showing the different seasons.  I don't have any pictures of the other statues, but they were pretty cool to look at. 

 A long view of the statue, and one of the eleven rooms.  There used to be a roof, but over time, the roof kind of dissappeared, but for the most part this area is still in pretty good shape. 

A picture of the Buddha, without me being in the picture.  The people you can see in the picture are art students who are drawing.  Behind the big statue is where this supposed niche containing the bronze Buddha lies. 

What Chong Kham, Lampang.

According to the traditions of the Shan or Tai Yai, who lived in Northern Thailand, most of the temples in the community were often named "Wat Chong Kham".  The cerremonial quarters and monks' living quarters at Wat Chong Kham are combined within one building.  Wat Chong Kham displayed at Ancient Siam is an unusually old Shan or Tai Yai temple complex.  The unique style is rarely seen today.  Consequently, the original building that once stood in Ngao in Lampang, has been acquired from the Monestary. 

So as you can tell this is one of the rebuilt temples. 

 This is a look at the outer portion of the building.  I thought it was a good shot where you can see the different tiers of the roof, and the shape.  The buildings main colors were red, dark brown, and gold.  I went in here and prayed to the Buddha, and it was pretty cool.  This is one of the prettiest buildings I have ever seen, and I enjoyed spending time in it. 

 A side view from across the river of the building.  Not much to say about it, but it was a pretty cool little building. 

 This is a shot of the area where you can go and pray.  The little area you can see it just the right side of the praying area, there is also a left side that is almost identical to the picture here, but there is another Buddha image, and then the center is a bigger Buddha image, and slightly more intricate. 

Another view of this section of the temple.  It shows more of the intricate woodwork that went into these temples. 

The Pavillion of the Enlightened. 

This place literally took my breath away.  It was so majestical and beautiful, I don't know how to describe it.  Pictures honestly do not do this place justice. 

Okay, so Mahayana Buddhist respects a wide spectrum of ethical and spiritual values.  Religious teaching and training has developed many different strategies for communicating with the faithful.  It is called "The Story of the 500 Enlightened."  Monks show that people of different backgrounds with different codes of conduct and different merits could all become enlightened and reach Nirvana.  I would enlighten you on this story, but I don't actually know it, and the only reason I know of it, is because it was on a sign that talked a little bit about this area. 

 This is a picture of some of the buildings within the Pavillion of the Enlightened.  It is huge, and there are pathways that go through out the entire place, winding from building to building, creating this majestical area for you to walk through.  In each of the different buildings, there were Buddha images, and all of them were different.  I'm pretty sure it has to do with the story, but I'm just taking a guess. 

 A shot from one of the bridges of one of the larger buildings.  In this particular building there was at least 30 different Buddha images (and when I say images I mean statues, so I guess I should start calling them statues.)  They were all made out of a gold type material, as you can probably tell, the main colors of this pavillion is Gold and green. 

 Hehe.  A picture of me with the Pavillion in the background.  It was impossible to get a picture of just me and the temple, without any other people walking through the picture, so you will have to ignore them. 

 Another picture of the Pavillion. 

 This is an area with some of the Buddha statues, or they might be monks.  I'm not totally sure.  I think these ones are monks...  Anyways.  This particular section of the Pavillion had 18 monks, and they were all situated a hexagonal shape, facing outwards, and sitting in different positions.  No monk looked the same, and they were all unique. 

Another shot of the Pavillion, but in this one you can see more of the boardwalk, and the temples in the background. 

 These smaller buildings were everywhere on the board walk, and they had a sitting area, no monks.  I'm pretty sure they were there so that you could escape from the heat, and sit in the shade to take in the beauty of the Pavillion. 

 A shot of one of the main buildings within the Pavillion.  It shows a lot of the detail and colors that went into building this place. 

And yet another shot of the boardwalk with the buildings in the background.


So the next collection of pictures is one of the last buildings we saw because of two factors.  1.  It was insanely hot, and none of us were really in the mood to continue our sightseeing adventure, and 2. we had a six hour drive home and it was starting to get late. 

The buildings were situated on top of a mountain (okay it was more like a big hill, but in the heat, it felt like a mountain).  My host dad wasn't feeling up to trekking up this hill, so my host mom and I set out on our little trek, and sweated through the entire thing. 

 This is an example of the stairs that we had to climb, ending with a platform at the end.  After about 50 stairs, there would be a little platform where you could take a break (hehe) and look at the temple.

 As you got higher up the mountain, the temples got bigger.  This one was about 50 feel wide and 20 feet deep.  Don't quote me on that, because I stink at figuring out sizes, but it was fairly big.  There was a guy who sat in front of this building for 20 minutes, trying to get the perfect shot.  It made me laugh. 

 A picture looking through one of the ends of the temple.  You can actually see right through the building to the other side, but it's hard to tell that because as you look further, the size gets smaller.  If you can tell, there is a person standing at the very end of the tunnel, but they are very hard to see.  I wanted to get a picture of me like that, but I really didn't feel like walking all the way to the other side for a photo.  Maybe next time. 

 This is at the very top of the mountain, with the main temple.  You weren't allowed to go in it because of the fact that it's very old, and probably not safe.  But it was still pretty cool to see. 

 A side view of the main temple at the top of the mountain. 

 Me and the temple.  The flag that is flying in the background is the Siam flag, but there is also a Thailand flag that is there, but you just can't see it from the angle that this picture has been taken from. 

 This is a shot looking down at one of the landings that we took a break at.  As you can tell it is pretty big, and this is one of the old temples.  I thought it would make a good picture because you could see the temple, as well as the surrounding area of where we were. 

A shot of one of the landings.  This is the walkway into the temple, you have to go around the building in order to continue on your trek.  Surprisingly this was very well taken care of, so it leads me to believe that it is not as old as I originally thought, and that it has been built within the last 200 years, but still it's pretty old. 

 Looking out from the top of the temple onto the grounds of Ancient Siam.  There is a lot of trees and rivers, but from where I was, you couldn't really see any of the other buildings.  There are a few, but not too many. 

 My host mom and one of the little walkways at the temple. 

I thought this was a pretty cool picture showing the different walkways that you could go through to get to the other side of the temple.  You were allowed to walk through it, but it looked like it would be a tight squeeze for me to make it through, so I didn't try it because I didn't want to get stuck.


The Kings Ships:

In one of the river passages located within Ancient Siam, there were a lot of these long boats.  I had to ask what they were, because quite frankly, I had no clue.  My host mom then told me that they were the Kings Ships, and the Kings used to sail in them.  The King would sit in the middle on a platform, while the other people would sit around them and row.  I'm not 100% sure on that because it is a very loose translation.  At this point in time, my Thai wasn't very good, and I didn't understand most of what was being said to me.

One of the boats that was floating in the water.  They aren't really used anymore, so for the most part they are there for decoration and to show the visitors what they are.  In this picture, the boat looks fairly short, but they are decently big.  

This is just another shot of one of the Kings boats, showing how long they actually are.  I'm not even going to give a guestimate about how long they are because I'd probably be wrong.  But they were still really cool to look at.

So that was our time in Ancient Siam.  After looking around for a bit longer, we headed back to catch a bus that would bring us back to our truck.  I ended up sleeping the entire way back to Surat Thani-all 6 or 7 hours, because I was exhausted.  Near the end, I could tell my host dad was getting tired of sitting in a car as well, because we were going pretty fast.  Not so fast that I would feel unsafe, but fast enough to know that we had been in a car for too long. 

Erawan Museum!

The day after going to The Grand Palace, we headed off to do some other sights around Bangkok before heading back on the long journey to Surat Thani.  Our first stop was at the Erawan Museum.  I have no idea how to describe this museum, other than saying its pretty magnificent.  The building has multiple floors, the bottom floor being a grand collection of different pottery pieces and other things like that from all of the different times.  I didn't really understand what was the guide was saying when she was explaining everything because it was in Thai.  You had to pay a lot extra if you wanted it in English, and I figured that it wasn't worth it, and I'd pick up a book explaining the place on the way out. 

This is the outside of the museum, and as you can probably tell from the picture, it has a giant elephant chilling on top of it.  The elephant actually has three heads, but I couldn't get a decent picture of all three of them due to the backlighting.  But for Grandma-this is the three headed elephant I told you about, and I am honestly not going crazy.  You have to option of going "up" the elephant, through one of the legs, and you can look out the belly of the elephant.  I did this, and when climbing the stairs, you really don't get to see how high you've gotten, until you look out a window, and see the ground, really really far below you. 

At just about every place I have travelled to, their is a prayer area, where you pray to the Buddha.  It was the same for the Erawan Museum, and this is just a picture of my host mom and I praying...Well she was praying and I was kind of sitting there reflecting on things.  I wasn't totally sure what I was supposed to do, so I decided that reflecting on everything that I have learned was a good thing to do. 

Something different that we did here was putting lillies into the water for good luck.  I thought it was quite amusing because the watery area that we put the lillies in (depicted in this picture) went around the museum, and ended on the other side.  There was a slight current so the lilly would go around the museum and then a worker would collect it on the other side, and resell it later.  I guess its recycling, but I still found that to be quite amusing. 

In this picture, we are putting a piece of gold foil onto an elephant for some reason.  I think it was for good luck, or good health, something that is beneficial to you.  Most people put it up high, but I couldn't really reach, so I think I put my piece of gold foil on the foot of the elephant.  Elephants are very special here, and they represent the fact that Thailand has never been colonized.  There is a much larger story to go with that fact, but I do not know it, so I can't tell it to you.  Maybe a bit later in life I can tell you the story, but not right now. 

Okay so enough with the probably boring information.  We weren't allowed to take pictures in the bottom half of the museum (the part with all of the artifacts) so there are no pictures to show you.  All I can really say is that it was pretty cool, and there was a lot of ceramic vases, plates, and various dishes that were all very pretty to look at.  There was writing in English describing all of the different things, so I was able to understand just about everything that was in there, just not the person talking. 

The second floor.  So this is a statue at the bottom of the stair case in the second floor.  (The main floor, just above the artifact part.)  Not much to say about the picture, it's pretty much me and a statue, but I liked how it was so intricate.  Everything here was intricate, and breathtaking.  The staircase, which you can't really see is done as a dragon, and in other pictures you can see the scales, and the colors.  It was pretty cool to see.  I was a little nervous about climbing the staircase because it was freestanding, but I did it because I didn't really want to stand there looking like an idiot, and I figured that thousands of people have done it before me, so I should be safe. 

 The skylight.  This is the skylight located directly under the elephant.  It is a map of the world, and I just thought it was pretty cool.  I found where Canada was, so I have a picture of that as well.  It was brightly colored, but you can't really tell that from the picture. 

  Inside the belly of the elephant, or this might be the head, I'm not totally sure, was a temple.  There is a statue of Buddha at the very top, and then other Buddhist images/monks placed around it.  The roof is painted with a lot of constellations, and it was pretty impressive.  There was someone doing a film (camera crew and everything) on this place, and I'm in a bit of the video :) I will probably never see the video, but I thought it was cool that someone out there will see me chilling in the elephant. 

Okay, this is me at the bottom of the staircase, the very bottom.  The first picture is like the second floor of the main building, I'm not sure how to explain it.  This is another statue that is used as a decal for the end of the railing of the staircase.  I liked it because it was an elephant, and it was very nicely done.  The ears are lined with ceramic spoons, to give it that shape.  They used some of the most interesting things to decorate it-lots of spoons, but also glass tiles and beads. 

 This is sort of a side look at the inside of the building.  The staircase is the pinkish scaley thing you can see in the top right hand corner, and the middle left is another section of the staircase.  The big temple type thing in the middle is called a Sa-lat, and its where a statue of a Buddha sits, and you can pray to it.  The big gray slab of rock that is on the left hand side of the picture is a column made out of one piece of stone (not sure what type) and there is some sort of a history depicted on it.  I haven't read the book describing what everything is yet, so I can't really explain everything properly.  Sorry about that. 

 Just another view of the inside of the museum, where you can see the staircases, and some of the intricate designs that are in this place.  Thats the top of the sa-lat, and an upper portion of the colomn that was in the previous picture. 

 The main entrance way.  This is the main door that you use to enter the building.  I thought I'd post a picture of it because it was really pretty and cool to look at.  Its big as you can probably tell, and thats all I really have to say about this picture. 

Ahh this is a picture of the staircase.  In the middle slightly to the right you can see the head of the dragon.  Sorry its backlit, but it was sunny and hard to get a picture.  You can see the scales of the dragon, and a bit more of the column. 

So this was my time at the Erawan Museum.  It was really cool, and I enjoyed it throughly.  I think that I am going back their in December with the other Rotary Students, so I will take lots more photos. 

The next stop on our Bangkok Trip was to a zoo, with an crocodile show.  I didn't take any pictures of the zoo because it was quite sad.  The animals weren't well taken care of, and seeing them made me sad.  We had lunch there, and I was offered crocodile, but I politely declined because I didn't really want to eat a crocodile.  One of the highlights of the zoo was the crocodile show.  There were two guys who did a few tricks with a crocodile to get some money.  My host dad was like a kid in a candy shop watching the show, and I'm pretty sure that if his wife didn't stop him, he would have thrown all of his money at the people doing the show.  It was quite amusing. 

 The three guys ending the show with their crocodile buddies.  It was a pretty entertaining show, with all the people freaking out at the different points in time.  My host mom looked like she was going to cry at one point, but she never did.  And luckily there were no accidents that would be life altering.  Haha.

 They would totally relax the crocodiles jaw muscles, so that they would be unable to shut their mouth, even if they wanted to, so the guys were pretty safe.  It was still quite amusing to see everyone gasp and whisper after the man took his head out of the crocodiles mouth, and the crocodiles jaw would slam shut. 

 Just another picture of the guys head in the crocodiles mouth. 

Believe it or not, there is a wad of cash in the little boys mouth, and he is going to deposit it in the crocodiles mouth.  He took a running start and is sliding into the crocodile, so that he can do the "drop".  It was quite funny to see because the first time, he missed the crocodiles mouth, and he didn't slide far enough the second time.  But, lucky number three, and he got it in where he was supposed to. 

There is another part of my day, but I think I will put it in another post because this one is getting pretty long. 

So my next post will be about our time in Ancient Siam. 

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.