TraveLLs

In Khon Kaen I have met some amazing people.  Among these people is my friend Jay.  Jay used to work at Anuban Khon Kaen School and decided teaching was not for him, so he opened up a bar near the lake named Chocolate Bar.  Chocolate Bar has become one of my friends and my favorite weekend hang out spots.  This weekend, however, was special.  Chocolate Bar put on its first of  many art shows.  The show was titled Where Paint and featured local artists from Khon Kaen University.   A few weeks ago I wrote about my adventures I had as a result of my search for a fish.  Among these adventures was one involving a beautiful painting down a random alley in Khon Kaen.  It turns out these guys paint all over Khon Kaen in various alleys and what is more, these guys were the artists that Jay was featuring in his art show.   What was once a big, unfamiliar, scary city has now become a place full of connections ...

This is my venting session.  Shoes are a big deal to my boss and basically, I have just had it.  

I decided about eight months too late to get a class pet.  I thought a fish would be the easiest to care for and I could use it as a form of behavior management!!  That's right, kids.  No more stickers.  If you're good you get to feed the fish!  I had seen some fish at the Saturday night market so I decided to start my search there.  Unfortunately, there were no fish to be found!  I asked my friend Chelsea if she had seen any pet stores.  She said she had!  She pointed me in the direction of the shop and I ventured out to find a fish! I walked down the street for three or four blocks and hadn't come across any places selling pet fish.  I had bought some chai yen (Thai iced tea) earlier on in my search from a women who spoke English.  I went back to her and asked if she knew where I could find any fish.  This was our conversation, more or less: "Fish shop?" "You want to eat fish?" "No, no.  Pet fish.  ...

While walking to dinner last night for Ari’s birthday, I stepped out into traffic to cross the street.  After successfully crossing the street T. Oil said to me, “How did you do that?  You are not Thai!”  I am not Thai.  I have a superpower.  I have the ability to stop traffic.  It is not because of my stunning facial features or my smokin’ bod’.  It is because I am a young, white female living in Bumfuck Thailand.  I risk my life everyday walking to and from school, to and from dinner, and to and from other various places.  I am lucky though.  Because I attract so much attention by just being here most drivers automatically slow down to take a look at me with jaws dropped.  I take advantage of this and choose this as my time to cross the street.   In Thailand, I have a superpower and this superpower might get me killed one day.  I will stick to the usual looking right, left, and then right again before I cross th...

EP 1/2 ready for the zoo!  It doesn't look like they're excited but I swear they were!! Yesterday we took a class trip to the zoo.  After arriving at school and surviving morning assembly in the blazing heat of Thai summer we boarded the bus for the hour long bus ride to the zoo.  On the bus the kids partook in non-stop karaoke.  I slept. When we arrived at the zoo we had a meeting with the other Thai classes.  There were photos taken and awards given.  Then it was time to explore the zoo.  The first fifteen minutes consisted of moving around in a large group with the four other Thai first grade classes.  We went up to several different displays full of reindeer.  After unsuccessfully staying together, each class split off.  My class plopped ourselves in the shade in front of the camel display.  After cooling off with some ice cream it was time for lunch.  I ate lunch with the Thai teachers while the students sta...

Tonight I went to see ATM with Preow.   She invited me to go to dinner before hand with her and TangMo.   Tang Mo picked me up after tutoring at Central and took me to a BBQ restaurant near Khon Kaen University.   After we filled ourselves up with delicious BBQ pork, bacon, and squid Preow and I headed to Central SF Cinema to see the Thai movie ATM.   Here is the preview!   

While I am waiting on a computer to upload new photos to my blog entries pending in my draft box, I thought I would share this quote.  It seems quite relevant: “...That's the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don't want to know what people are talking about. I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.”  -Bill Bryson, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe   Even after eight months, everything in this world, from the food to the building structures, is new and completely unfamiliar.   I am slowly learning words in this world's language.  Accordi...