Sawat dee

Yes...I realize it has been a while - the past month has been very busy. Today was the last day of the term and I now feel that I have some time to write.

Yes...we are done for the term and year. I don't have to go back to school until the year 2009. A lot has happened in the last month or so. A female teacher was hired as a "co-teacher" for me supposedly because some parents felt that I wasn't "maternal" enough. It hasn't been the perfect situation for anyone in the class but we are working through it. Just before that happened I resigned from the job effective at the end of the school year. I decided that it isn't my niche and that I should move on to try and find my niche. My tentative plan is to try and find something either in Asia or South America for the 2009/2010 school year. If that doesn't work I will apply to some Ontario boards for September 2009. And if I'm totally burnt out by teaching by then I will go back to school.

On the home front I am having a lot more fun here. Outside of school I am tutoring about 5 hours a week, then going out for dinner a lot, and hitting up clubs frequently enough. I am finding that it is easy to be a glutton in this city though. Last weekend, we had a "Boy's Night Out" and started at a buffet dinner in the tallest building in Thailand, then went bowling and polished off a bottle of vodka and a bottle of whiskey (between 6 guys), then went to 2 after hours clubs. Now I could see myself staying here for a few years if the opportunity arises.

The political situation has calmed down some. There are still demonstrations but they haven't really affected anyone or anything since the government was dissolved. The airports are back open and running at full efficiency. The only inconvenience to me was that I had to cancel my weekend trip to Cambodia because I wasn't sure if I would be able to fly out or get home.

The airport opened up just in time for Jess and I to head away for our Christmas trip. Next Wednesday we are heading to Singapore for a few days, followed by about 1.5 weeks in Malaysia, and New Years in Phuket. We will be gone from the 17th to the 2nd. Looking forward to it immensely.

Last weekend Jess and I went to Ayutthaya for a day trip. Ayutthaya was the kingdom of Thailand until 1767, when it fell to Burmese forces and the King moved to Thonburi and then Bangkok. It was nice to be a tourist - easy day trip from Bangkok, pretty scenery, history, and another buffet.

Last weekend we also went to see "Twilight." Don't do the same. I did however buy 3 albums - Shad's "The Old Prince", Priestess' "Hello Master", and Band of Horse's "Cease to Begin." All are amazing and I would recommend them to anyone with good taste.

Finally, I just had my first (and probably only) suit made. We are going to the Thai-Canadian Chamber of Commerce Fire and Ice Ball this Saturday so I needed some fancy dress. To tell you the truth, it was a pretty neat experience. You go for 3 fittings (more or less depending on how picky you are or how good the tailor is) and come away with a tailor made suit. It looks great. I also got a few shirts made, which look a lot better than the Value Village rags I have been sporting. All up it cost me less than $500 dollars for tailor made clothes. Pretty awesome.

That's about all for now. I think that has been a good catch up. I need to get ready now for Jess' birthday party. Take care all.

Surrealism

One of the amazing things about this city is that you are constantly bombarded by so many surreal sites. Here are just a few examples as of late: (I wish I had some pictures but the moments are fleeting. Someone should invent some sort of camera embedded in our brains that we can then plug into a computer and share the images.)

1) Walking into a bar in downtown Bangkok, past hundreds of prostitutes and a vendor cart heaped with fried insects. Then walking out of the bar 45 minutes later and instead of a bug vendor, there is a full size elephant and his mahout.
2) Motorcycle taxi driver sleeping (in rush hour traffic no less) with his head on bike, butt on a plastic stool, feet on a table.
3) Beggars with no arms or no legs, pulling them selves down the dirty, uneven, garbage-strewn sidewalk.

Check it out.

Bangkok is growing

on me.

It's not the cleanest city, it's not the most "on-time" city, it's not the most green city, but gosh darnit, it's pretty fun.

Starting from last Wednesday, me and 2 other fellas went to see DJ Shadow. One thing led to the next and we were at an after hours club finishing a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, not talking to each other. Needless to say, we weren't able to go to work in the m0rning. Last night we went to see the new James Bond movie. Movies here are fantastic - comfortable, cheap, and close by. Jess didn't like it because there "wasn't enough character development." I told her that character development in James Bond movies ended in about 1959. People go to see James Bond for action, girls, and sauveness. Today we went to the 4 Seasons Brunch. Now this isn't your gradnparents typical brunch (not that there is anything wrong with those Nan and Pops) but this was a 4 hour affair, consisting of all the alcohol you want and every ethnicity of food possible. The price tag was steep - as much as a night away but well worth it. We all felt like stuffed turkey's by the end of it and made it home, just in time for a siesta.

Work is still work but I'm thinking about sticking it out now. We'll see.

Come visit.

Pai Pai Miss American Pie

We just got back from a much needed holiday last night. We went up North to Pai and Chiang Mai. Both were great - pretty, quieter than Bangkok, and inexpensive. We flew to Chiang Mai last Saturday and then took a minibus directly to Pai. It is a really windy, mountainous road there and we were glad to reach our destination that night. Pai is only about 3000 people small so it was really easy just to wander around and explore. We rented a scooter (only 180 THB for 24hours!) and toured the countryside, had some great coffee, ate some good food and relaxed. All until the third night that was, when we both came down with food poisoning. I'm putting my blame on the eggs at the resort's breakfast. Food poisoning is never fun.

After Pai, we went back to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand, but at only around 400000, it is so much slower paced and quieter than Bangkok. Our first night there we laid low because we were still feeling the effects of the food poisoning and the bus ride back. The second day we did an Elephant tour. It included a show of what the elephants could be taught (very impressive), a jungle ride on the elephants (a little scary), a ride on an oxcart (very bumpy), a ride down a river on a jungle raft (so relaxing), a stop at an orchid farm (beautiful) and a show at a monkey school (they teach them to get coconuts down from trees.) It was a great day. The next day in C.M., we went to a cooking school to learn how to make some authentic Thai food. It was fantastic. The chef was great - very helpful and knowledgeable. We made AND ate 6 dishes altogether. Needless to say, we didn't eat dinner that night. The next day we did a walking tour around the old city. There are more than 300 wats in and around C.M. so we wandered around and looked at a few of them. On our last day in town we went up Doi Suthep to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep - one of the holiest wats in Northern Thailand. The views of C.M. were worth the trip alone, not to mention the beauty of wat itself.

We are now back in Bangkok, getting ready for school tomorrow. This trip has made me look forward to the next opportunity to travel and will hopefully make the next couple months bearable.

Check out the photos at my Flickr site.

Stomach bugs

Hi everyone! I thought that my time off from school would be a great opportunity to make a new post.

Yeah...I have a nasty stomach bug. I finally went to the hospital this morning and got a diagnosis and some medication after suffering all weekend. I guess it is one of the downfalls of living in a place where you can't drink the tap water and have to be leary about eating street food.

School has been flying by. I'm not going to lie to you though - kindergarten is not for me. This school is not for me. It could actually be such a great place but the silly things that go on are driving me nuts. I won't go into details but I will say that you wouldn't find half the stuff that goes on here at any other school in the world! The teachers would revolt.

Furthermore, I haven't really adjusted to Bangkok yet. The heat, the pollution, the noise, the traffic, the lack of green space is all still a big hurdle for me. Sure, different food every night, and a multitude of bars to choose from is tempting. But who's kidding who, I don't booze it up anymore and I can only eat out so often. If anyone has any advice how I can lighten up and enjoy myself more, I'm all ears.

So needless to say, things could be going better here and I'm looking for a change at the end of the year (I just hope I can last to the end of this year!)

We have some traveling coming up. In 2 weeks we have a week long holiday. Jess and I are going to Chiang Mai and Pai for the week. We are very much looking forward to getting away from her for an extended period of time. I will post again after that trip.

Comin' at ya'

this post is coming live from a bar, the witches tavern. amazing.

did i mention that jess has dengue fever? yeah...not fun. everyone should send her you well wishes.

Paradise is only a 2hr cab ride away

We just got back from beautiful Ko Samet after a much needed weekend out of Bangkok and I have some stories to tell.

We left on Friday night. We had to leave after school and decided to take a bus because it was going to be heaps cheaper than taking a cab (180 THB each instead of 1000-1500 THB.) The bus took 4 hours to get to the ferry terminal, followed by a 30min. ferry ride, and a 5min. taxi ride (when I say taxi I mean truck bed with benches.) After all that we arrived at 9:45pm, exhausted, ready for a Singha and bed.


Saturday morning was overcast but it didn't end up raining during the day (there was a 60% chance of thunderstorms.) We had a big "American Breakfast" (included in the cost of the room) and then laid in deck chairs for the rest of the morning. The sun was never really out all morning but I still got burnt. Go figure. In the afternoon, the sun burned away all the clouds and became really hot. We wandered around our resort, found the pool, the other beach, and a giant Buddha. For dinner, we cleaned ourselves up and walked down the beach to one of the beach BBQ restaurants. You choose your meal (from Tuna to T-bones, baked potatoes and corn, or mussels and crabs), the cook cooks the meal, while you lounge on the beach in Thai beds. Once night fell at this particular place, there was a really cool fire show. All this for the less than thirty Canadian dollars! We ended the night with rotis cooked on the beach, by a vendor, on the walk home.

This morning, we rose to beautiful sunshine. After another great "American Breakfast", and another swim in the ocean, we cleaned ourselves up and got ready to leave. We took the resort's ferry back to the main land and started walking to the bus depot, dreading another 4 hours in a bus. On the way there a man on a motorcycle stopped and asked us "Taxi?" We asked how much, to which he replied "1200 Baht!" We said "No thanks!" and kept walking to the bus depot. He caught back up with us and asked "1000 baht?" and after a little deliberation we said yes. Now, immediately after getting in the cab I became leary that this was a con - the driver switched on the meter, which began rising quite rapidly. The 1000 baht mark came and went on the meter as the driver sped along the highway at speeds reaching 155km/h. (My heart was in my throat a couple times, as the driver swerved in and out of traffic, lauched us over bridges, all without the protection of seat belts as very few cabs have seat belts in the back seat.) Regardless, we made it to our door in 2 hours on the dot, for the low price of 1000 baht. Jess and I paid the driver and laughed all the way up to our apartment. Ko Samet really is close when you find a cab driver like that!

Looking forward to the next trip out of the city. It's true, Thailand - Bangkok specifically - becomes a lot more bearable when you know you can get out of the city easily.

I added some more pics from the trip to my Flickr site. Go check them out!

Rain in biblical proportions

Howdy everyone. Been a while...I know.

We are settling into the routine nicely - gym, school, sleep, etc. The kids are fun, everything else isn't. But that's another story...

So because it is the tail end of the rainy season the rain is falling hard out. Everyday. In biblical proportions. And when it rains it shuts everything down. Traffic stops, cabs don't pick you up, the sky darkens, thunder rolls, etc. The other great thing is that the really torrential rain usually starts about the time that we go home from school. So great! Anyway, on Tuesday, the rain came at about 3:30pm and the sky grew darker than I have ever seen before. It was like night time. I was sitting in my classroom talking to my co-teacher when there was the loudest thunderclap I have ever heard and an extremely bright flash (in some countries they call it lightening...) Anyway, the lightening hit a transformer about 25 meters away from where I was sitting and it caught it on fire. The transformer was attached to the music room and possibly ruin all the equipment in the music room. Unbelievable.

Well...that's about all the interesting stuff that has happened here.

The land of laziness

The land of smiles eh? More like the land of laziness...I am slowly figuring out that in this country anyone can find someone to do everything for them. Need a driver or a nanny? A maid or a tailor? Girlfriend or wife? All can be had for a small sum.

I went golfing yesterday and it was a very surreal experience. It may have been the heat or the hangover, or both, but it was like nothing I have every experienced. The course was about a 1.5 hour cab ride from my apartment. Upon arrival, there is a caddy waiting to take your bag from the trunk. The caddies are all petite, attractive females covered nearly head to toe (Thai women find "whiteness" more attractive than their natural colour so they try to hide them selves from the sun at all costs) in identical bright pink, canvas pant suits. The green fees and the beer were all very resonable (1450 THB + 300THB to tip the caddy + 250THB for food and drinks). The course was quite nice - lots of water and sand - and out in the country. There were cows grazing in nearby pastures, mosques calling worshippers to prayer over their loud speakers, brush fires causing smoke to engulf a number of holes, local gearheads burning around on dirt bikes, and old men swimming in the water hazards. All this in near spontaneous-combustion-like temperatures. Most of the group went to a sports bar after for food and drink but I had to come straight home for a soak in the pool before an early bedtime. On the cab ride home, our first driver stopped after 11km because (we assumed) she didn't want to drive us all the way into the city. After sitting for 10 minutes on the side of the road (with the meter running of course) she finally flagged down a cab that would take us the final 25km.

In an earlier post I think I mentioned that a friend from school is opening an Italian restaurant and we were supposed to be going for a grand opening on Friday. Well, plans were changed last minute. It turns out that my friend and his partners, who are opening an Italian restaurant, were supposed to be cooking food for a bar nearby the new restaurant. On Wednesday of last week, as the renovations were being completed on the kitchen, one of the employees leaned against the meat slicer and received a fatal electrocution. Needless to say, the deal was canceled, and my friend and his partners got the hell out of dodge. Long story short, we didn't go to the opening on Friday night. Just another example to make you more than a little concerned about the quality (or lack thereof) of anything resembling regulatory bodies in Thailand.

We are into our second week at school. The pace is picking up, deadlines are coming due, etc., etc. It's only the second week into it and I'm already exhausted. And on that note it's early to bed for me.

Into the thick of it

I have been maintaining radio silence lately for the simple reason that after a long day of teaching 4 year olds I just don't have the energy to do anything creative. It is really and truly exhausting.

The kids are mostly great - like most classrooms 90% are really cool. The other 10% take up most of the day. You've got your ADHD cases, your "not loved enough as a child" case, your overactive boy case, etc. But really...the good ones are so good.

I feel that if I can last it, it will be so good for my teaching. I'm already discovering (well, not really discovering...more just honing) skills that I didn't really need to use at the high school level. For example, each classroom is shared by 2 classes and with 2 teachers, 2 assistants, and 31 kids it can get really loud. Having a loud voice I would generally just yell over it all but boy-oh-boy that tires you out quickly. Instead I have learned to modulated my voice appropriately and in turn it quiets my kids down as well. I will tell you though, I don't know how Mrs. Duffy did it (my kindergarten teacher.) 30 kids to yourself, no assistant, no maid, forget it. I taught only 3 days last week and I had to go to bed at 8:00pm on Friday night!

This weekend we are going to a friend's restaurant opening on Friday night (Free Food!!!) and to another friend's house for dinner on Saturday night. Not to brag but our social calendar is full!

Dinner awaits...

Man those prostitutes can throw darts!

My posting schedule has slowed down significantly, I know. We have been really busy with school stuff since last Monday. Friday couldn't come quick enough.

Jess has a friend visiting from New Zealand, en route to England. On Friday night we were planning to take her to one of the sky bars (those really expensive bars at the top of tall buildings.) We left the building in a drizzle and arrived at the restaurant Cabbages and Condoms in a torrential downpour. We were soaked and Laura had torn her pants on a vendor's table. Yes, Cabbages and Condoms is the name - they give most of their proceeds to sex education in the provinces. Pictures to come. Needless to say, we didn't make it to the sky bar.

On Saturday night we went out again, first to Indus, a highly recommended Indian restaurant, with the intention of hitting a sky bar. But Jess and Laura's marathon day of shopping caught up with them and they went home early again. But not this boy. Oh no. First we went to a little sidewalk bar that some friend's knew about and polished off a bottle of Sang Som (80 proof Thai rum) amidst those poor, poor elephants and the prostitutes outside "The Hairy Pie Club" (I couldn't make this stuff up people.) From there we went to another pub, this time with a shuffle board table, dartboards, and a proper flushing toilet. After another bottle of Sang Som, and a couple games of darts with some ladies of the night, we retired quickly after learning that ringing "the bell" in Thai bars means you are buying the next round. I just thought it would be fun!? Really!

Sunday was a day of much needed rest.

We have one more day of in-service and then the kids arrive. Did I mention that I am teaching senior kindergarten? I have never been scared of a 4 year old. But I am rather frightened of 16 of them - running the gamut from little to no English (it's their 3rd or 4th language in some cases though) to developmental challenges. Rest assured that I will post again this week to let everyone know how it goes.

Whatever doesn't kill you...

I'm working for Dr. Claw

Well folks, I don't know if you ever watched Inspector Gadget but if you did, you will get the reference. I started work on Monday (a very sombre occasion) to find out that I will be teaching K2 (which is either like Canadian senior kindergarten or grade 1.) I wasn't expecting that at all - I am responsible for teaching kids to read for god's sake!?! I am warming to the fact and becoming less and less nervous about it all. I'm sure it will go swimmingly. Over the last few days at work I have learned the "ins and outs" of the school - what not to do, not to wear, not to put up, etc. A lot of nots really. The owner/director has a very firm idea of how her school should be run and everyone has been very helpful in acclimatizing me to the situation. However, I haven't actually seen the owner yet, only heard about her. It really does feel like I'm working for Dr. Claw - never actually seeing his face, just doing his bidding. Or "the management" from Carnivale. Here's hoping it all goes well when I do meet her...

On the weekend we went to a district called "Royal City Avenue." It's a strip of really trendy bars and restaurants, filled with the "Hi-So" (high society) of Bangkok. We went with some friends from school, one of which's girlfriend's friend owned a number of the bars. I have never been a V.I.P. before, and might never again, but let me tell you, it's kinda fun. At these bars you buy booze by the bottle - 2200 THB for two 26 oz bottles of Smirnoff and mix. But that was the last of the booze we bought all night.

Yesterday was Mother's Day - the Queen's birthday. We did some touristy stuff - saw the Democracy Monument, the October 14th Memorial, walked Khao San Road, took a water taxi to China Town, and wandered around China town for a few hours. It's so much work to do touristy stuff here! The heat, the congestion, the noise, etc. It makes me just want to sit in my air conditioned apartment and be a tourist at the pool and sauna once in a while. (Tempting anyone to visit yet?)

Gotta run, we're watching "The Kite Runner" tonight!

Photos!

Hey all, just added some photos from Bangkok on my Flickr page. Follow the link to the left.

The Dirty Post

It's been a busy few days since I have last written.

Firstly, we found a place to live through the good old internet. We came to see it on Monday and told the guy we would take it, then moved in by Tuesday. It's pretty awesome - 14^th floor in a brand new building, never lived in, spacious, close to everything necessary (restaurants, BTS, supermarket, Thai prostitutes...err, forget the last one.) But seriously, it is in the district called Nana which is the main prostitute district. Their cat calls are kind of cute actually. And, the best part is in comes complete with a very nice pull out couch for anyone who decides to make the trip over here! Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean...

One downfall of the place though, last night we started doing a load of laundry and then went to the grocery store to do a bit of a stock up. When we came back the living room was a swimming pool and every drop of water that went into the machine seemed to come out the bottom. Once we finished furiously toweling up the water, and spinning the clothes dry, I reached into the machine to retrieve our mentionables and unmentionables (how come “mentionables never really made it as a description for clothes?) and got a shock by the now electrified drum. Needless to say, we aren't going to be doing any more laundry very soon.

In setting up our apartment we went to a local mall called MBK. This place is the palace of comsumerism folks. Imagine a place 7 floors high, each floor dedicated to a different article (housewares, electronics, clothes, etc.) and packed with stalls like street vendors. I don't think I'm getting across how massive and confusing this place is – each floor is about half a kilometer long and always (I've been there twice now) packed with people. It really is unbelievable.

Yesterday was especially busy because we went to the immigration bureau to get our visas changed to “non immigrant B” visas – which we need to work. The cab ride there and back took about an hour, but we were only in the immigration bureau for about 10 minutes. Of course we didn't understand anything going on because the secretary from the school, Pornthip, did all the talking and we just sat there smiling and trying to look presentable. (Seriously, her name is Pornthip. For some unknown reason a lot of people seem to have the name “porn” in their name.)

As I write this I'm sitting in front of our huge windows, looking out on the scene below, and I keep thinking about all the crazy/weird/amazing/sad things I have already seen and I have only been here a week. There are people right now, outside this very window, bathing themselves from 55 gallon drums on the street level below. The beggars here are hard up – I saw a guy yesterday selling lottery tickets with no arms and only 1 leg! Everything you can imagine you can buy from a street vendor – religious amulets, bits of metal, airport metal detectors (the hand held kind,) fruit, brooms, wicker baskets, and more. Sometimes I feel very overwhelmed but most of the time I'm just trying to hide my amazement.

We have a pretty busy social schedule in the upcoming week – we had a get together for new staff last night, there is a “going away party” on Friday night, a costume party on Saturday night, and next Tuesday is a holiday so we are going golfing. I need a pay cheque soon!

Off the Sidewalk, I'm a motorist!

So lastnight we met up with some colleagues from Canada at a local watering hole. They gave us the scoop on all sorts of stuff about Bangkok – where to live, where to shop, who to avoid, who to befriend, etc. All of this was done at “The Dubliner Pub” - an Irish pub. It was interesting walking into the place and ordering a pint – it felt like you were at some pub in Ireland or England, or at least a good pub in Canada. I mentioned to Jess that it was a nice “respite” from Bangkok, to which she agreed. I think places like that are going to become ever more important as the time wears on.

On the way to the pub we were walking down the “not really a sidewalk, but the closest Bangkok gets to one” and a motorcyclist came barreling straight at us and yelled something in Thai. I can only imagine that it was “Off the sidewalk! I'm a motorist!” Apparently pedestrians no longer have any rights here.

Speaking of traffic, Bangkok has lots of it. We have seen some pretty precarious situations on the road, motorcycles swerving in and out of cars stopped at stop lights, all sorts of vehicles traveling on the wrong side of the road, what look to be ridiculously unsafe loads on top of trucks and motorcycles (including people) and many more. I was thinking about getting a bicycle or a scooter but my sense of self-preservation kicked in and has made me think otherwise.

While at the pub, in the midst of conversation about our new city, our friends asked “Have you seen an elephant yet?” We replied no, as it was the most logical answer – this being a city of 14 million people (last time we checked elephants live in the forests of Northern Thailand and the plains of Africa, not in dense urban centres.) They mentioned that you see them all over the place, usually at night, around Bangkok. The funniest thing is, as they finished saying this they looked out the window to the street and said “I think that is an elephant right there!” We ran down to the street and sure enough, it was an elephant, dressed in what looked to be a cellophane tutu, and his handler, a mahout. Apparently for 40 Baht you can feed them sugar cane. (A little exploitive I feel.) You can only shake your head sometimes...

P.S.- It is currently 4:30am on Sunday August 3^rd. Still reeling from jet lag.

P.P.S.- A car just sped by the apartment blaring it's horn. I can only imagine that he was thinking “Everyone wake up! I am a motorist!” WTF...

Intermittent Internet

All good things come with a price. For example, this morning we took a Tuktuk to the Grand Palace. The tuktuk was so fun but we were black from exhaust fumes by the time we made it there. Another example, the Grand Palace is “knock your socks off amazing” but there are lots of scammers and pick pockets in the area.

After the Grand Palace, and losing 2lbs in sweat, we walked to Wat Pho to see the reclining Buddha. Holy heck, that was a large, gilt Buddha. Words can’t describe the ornateness of the building and the Buddha within. I’m thinking of taking up Buddhism because of it.

We went to “MBK” for lunch. MBK is actually an acronym for this huge shopping centre. It’s about 7 floors and each floor is for something else – housewares, clothes, electronics, etc. Very overwhelming. We found a voltage converter, which we bargained down to $7. When we got it home and plugged it in however, it started billowing smoke and now my next to new iPod speaker doesn’t work anymore. (Honestly, who knew such a little electrical appliance could smoke so much. WTF?)

The apartment has let me down slightly as well. Just after the converter debacle I noticed a cockroach on the wall. Furthermore, we have been stealing internet from an unsecured wireless network. Jess seems to always get on easily – she has even been able to Skype her family. However, whenever she hands it to me the internet goes down. And finally, this must be the noisiest apartment in the whole world - we leave the windows open for a cross breeze but the street traffic makes you think there are trucks coming through the front door

We continued the apartment hunt today. We can honestly say we have beat the pavement looking. We went to about 10 places in the area of the school asking if they had vacancies. Either they only had 3 bedrooms available, or none available, or they were just too expensive. (You can tell the kind of place you are going into by looking at the cars in the parking lot – don’t expect anything under 50000 Baht if there are Mercedes or Ferraris in the parking garage.)

Well, I should wrap this up because we are meeting some people at a pub in an hour. Hopefully dinner and drinks doesn’t come with any downfalls. I will be sure to let you know if it does though.

Exhaust Fumes and Incense

Well we made it to Bangkok Thursday night at 10pm. By the time we got to our apartment it was midnight – the perfect time for a quick stumble around the neighborhood. The school had booked an apartment for us, which is directly across a small lane from the school. It is massive (too big for little ole’ us really) and came complete with Kit Kats in the fridge (thanks to our vice principal.)

And just so everyone knows, jet lag is no fun. Jess and I woke up at the crisp hour of 6:15am this morning and surprised everyone at our school by showing up just after 7. What else are you going to do really? The school grounds are really neat – a bit of a sanctuary amidst the hussle and bussle of Bangkok. Some buildings are ultramodern, some are teak and 100 years old. Looking forward to working there.

After our visit to the school we began to acclimatize ourselves to the city. We walked to the BTS (skytrain) and set ourselves up with passes, we found some grocery stores, and Jess found a mall. The city isn’t really what I expected (most experiences never are really…) – you can find anything and everything here if you look hard enough. Chuck T’s, Oreo cookies, Irish pubs – you name it, this city has it.

We started “The Great Apartment Hunt” today as well. We contacted an agent who took us around to about 7 different places. We were pretty excited about the last few but they are a bit far from the school, which means more money spent on transit. We are seeing more on Sunday hopefully.

“The Great Apartment Hunt” took us until 6pm so we treated ourselves to dinner and a massage. (It was either eat out or have P.B and J sammies because we have no cookware.) Thai food in Thailand just tastes better. (That should be a tourism add eh?) And for the equivalent of $7 CAD, we had a Thai foot massage that ended up being more of a full body massage, lasting an hour. I barely made it home on my own jelly-like legs.

That’s all for now.

C&J

The First Leg

So here I thought that the flight to Bangkok would be shorter than the flight to or from NZ. Well, I was sadly mistaken. Why do I subject myself to these dreadful experiences? 12 hours in the same seat can’t be good for anyone! And is it just me or do airlines try to make this the most painful experience ever? Hassling Jess over 0.5kg and 2 cubic inches, horrible lineups at check-in and security, and so on.

Anyway, I’m writing this in the Tokyo Narita Airport and so far I have to say that Japan has lived up to expectation. The randomest crap in the duty free store, radical vending machines selling next to everything, strange television commercials, and a language that must confuse people that have lived here for years (Pete?) (I really want to take some pictures of random Japanese stuff to put in this entry but don’t want to look like a total gringo tourist so everyone will have to imagine what it is like. I will leave it for a later date when I return to Japan.)

5 hours left until Bangkok. Hopefully Thai Airlines lives up to it’s expectation as well…

More to come soon.

The next step

Well, I have been in Canada for a little over 6 months, and as the original plan dictated, I am moving on. For those of y0u that don't know, I will be leaving July 30th for Bangkok, Thailand. I will be teaching at ELC-Bangkok for the next 2 years.

I am very excited and nervous at the same time - the prospect of moving to a country like Thailand (slightly more foreign than New Zealand) and teaching small children is a little daunting. Jess and I have been scouring the web for information on the country and quizzing friend's that have visited.

I don't have an address yet but once I do I will post it here so you can all send me care packages.

I will put all photos up on my Flickr site and I will also put a link on the homepage of this blog.

More to come...