My time is almost up

This will be my last posting from Thailand, as I will be returning to Summerland June 4^th.  I can’t quite believe that I will be returning so soon and that my exchange year is already coming to a close.  These past few weeks I have been going around with my second host family and enjoying a new family dynamic as I have two host siblings at the moment.

These final weeks have been great I’ve been able to go visit Khon Kaen a city 2 hours north of Korat, which was really cool as they have a nine story temple with a great view of the city and the lake at its center.  I also had my first traditional Thai massage while there and that was absolutely awesome as they stretch out every part of your body and massage out any knots you may have, so during it may be slightly painful but about 20 minutes afterwards it feels absolutely amazing.  Though the best part was it that it was only 10 dollars for a two hour massage! 

Friday May 24^th was a huge Buddhist celebration as it was Buddha’s Birthday, his day of enlightenment and the day he died.  That evening we went to the temple which was all decorated with the Buddhist flag and flowers.  At the temple we all sat while the monks prayed, then we walked clockwise around the temple three times holding flowers and incense and left the flowers and incense as offerings to Buddha.  The interesting this is that you have to rock clockwise because you only walk counter clockwise around the temple during a funeral and you carry their body with you.   During  this celebration at the mall in my town they had a convention room set up for this festival and you could go in and they had the history of Buddha’s life as well as famous monks came in and answered questions.  This continued on for the entire week. 

I also had the opportunity to a mushroom farm as well as the national park and hour away from my city with my host mom’s family.  The mushroom farm was really neat as you could walk around where they grew the mushroom but they not only sold fresh and dried mushrooms, but they had mushroom salad cream, hand lotion, ice cream and more.  The national park near my city is one of the only places you find uninterrupted green space so that is always wonderful to see,  we also stopped at the Khao Yai (name of national park) Castle which is actually a hotel but has been in a lot of famous Thai movies, as well as many other places to take pictures.

I had my last Rotary meeting here in Thailand yesterday and it feels surreal as I really believe that I will be back in Canada in a few short days, but I couldn’t have asked for a better end to my exchange then the one I have had. 

All the food for Chinese New Year.

Chinese fireworks and burning the money in the background

Decorations in the main square in Korat.

 A Swat Cat (Korat team) soccer game.

 My class at school.

 My shirt after valentines day at school, the students went around plastering anybody they could find with stickers. 

 Our school canteen in the morning, 

And at lunch.

What most students do at school during the day.

The eight floors of the main building at my school.

View of Bangkok skyline from the Temple of Dawn or Wat Arun.

The longest reclining Buddha at Wat Pho.

Wat Arun/Temple of dawn on the edge of the river.

The feet of the largest reclining Buddha inlaid with a design composed of Mother of pearl. 

January and February

The past few months in Thailand have been relaxing in a way; there have been no big Rotary events or trips.  It has been the time in my exchange when living in Thailand has started to feel normal and that I am not just visiting.  January and February were spent my last two months in school before it closes for their summer vacation, during these two months of school, I along with the two other exchange students from Canada at my school created a board depicting Canada and all of its symbols, as well as learning some new recipes in cooking class and helping out my classmates with their English.  During the last week of school the students put on an exhibition where they had booths and each booth was a different country in the ASEAN community and had food and pictures and cultural differences explained. 

Also in these two months I experienced Chinese New Year here in Thailand because a lot of the Thai people are half Chinese including my host family and most of the Rotary Club here.  There was a huge celebration in the main square of town where they had people dressed as dragons dancing around on top of poles and dangling off them as well it is was quite interesting.  They also had the ever present food stalls all around the main square as well.  The morning of Chinese New Year at my house here in Thailand we set off Chinese fireworks the reds ones in a line,  burnt fake money and gold for the ancestors and set out a tons of food and prayed so the ancestors continue to have a good life in the afterlife.

Here in Korat the soccer season is just about to start so I have been to see two games already, that were warm up matches for the season, the first game I went to see the Korat team played against the top ranked team in Thailand and the second was against the 2^nd top ranked team in Thailand they were both pretty good games.  The fun part trying to figure what songs the fans are singing, because they switch back and forth between Thai ones and English ones. 

At the end of February I had the opportunity to travel to Bangkok with two other exchange students and stay with one of the exchange students host family.  We got to go all around Bangkok see the largest reclining Buddha, the largest outdoor market, shock the locals in Bangkok that we could speak Thai, take a boat ride and visit some more temples.  It was a great trip to see some of the places you always hear about when people talk about Bangkok.   All in all these past few months have been great and I am enjoying the start of the hot season now.

Pandas at the Chiang Mai Zoo.

 The Mekong River.

At a temple over looking Chiang Mai.

Lampang elepahnt center.

Self-explanatory picture I hope.

  

 At the King's Mother's garden, one of the many different flowers she had put in around her Swiss style chalet.

 We got to go see a long necked hill tribe, they live in the mountains surrounding Chiang Mai and hand make the scarfs hanging above the lady's head in the picture. 

The White Temple.

Christmas Morning! we got to wander through these ruins.

My host parents using slingshots to shoot seeds over the edge of the mountain a fun stop we made on outing we made together. 

Northern Trip and New Year

Just before Christmas I left on my second trip with Rotary, this time we were heading to the North of Thailand.  This 10 day trip took us first to the Lampang Elephant center and hospital where we got to ride elephants through a stream and a jungle, as well as see an elephant show where the elephants painted rolled logs around, threw balls and many other normal human activities you would not expect that elephants would be able to do.  We then spent the night at the top of a mountain which is also a National Park and the morning was freezing you could actually see your breath in the air, it was really weird to actually want to put a sweater on and drink a hot drink, but other than that is was a nice change.   At the top of the mountain, which is the highest peak in Thailand, there was a temple and within it were pictures depicting the life of Buddha and his 4 stages of life.  It started with his birth, then his enlightenment, his first teaching and finally his death which he foresaw coming.  It was then off to Chiang Mai for three days, with a stop along the way to see a beautiful waterfall that had rainbows in its mist.  In Chiang Mai they have a great night market and seeing as we had three nights there we were released out in the market every evening to haggle for prices with the locals.  During our three days in Chiang Mai we visited another temple at the top of another mountain, this one had a great view of the city of Chiang Mai, we also spent and afternoon at a Royal Flower garden which had different sections for most of the countries in the world.  Another morning in Chiang Mai we spent at the zoo, where they have three pandas on loan from China and they actually look like giant teddy bears!  Our last night in Chiang Mai we went to a Northern Style Buffet where you sit on the floor, at long tables, have northern Thailand food as well as watch a Thai Dance performance which was really cool, they even danced with fire at one point.  As we were up in the north we went to the Golden Triangle and went on a boat ride on the Mekong River so even if we were technically in Laos and Burma we didn't actually need visas!  Interesting fact about Thailand is that gambling is illegal and that the Thais go to the Golden triangle to casinos on the other side of the border to gamble.  The following days we went to the garden of the King’s mother at the top of another mountain, it was quite a beautiful garden and chalet where she used to live, we also went to the white temple which is true it its name and is entirely white with a few sliver accents, but it was only remodelled to look the way it does 14 years ago and is still under remodelling as the artist had put modern touches in, he has added pictures of modern movies such as Avatar, Alien and Star Wars among other things as well.   Finally we made it to Christmas day and our second last day on the trip.  Christmas morning we spent going around a world UNESCO heritage site which, was a collection of temples and a monument to one of the first Kings of Thailand.  That evening they had a special dinner for us and our leader of the trip had been to Scotland the month before and brought us back a fruit cake so for all those you have had plum pudding it was a cake version of this and all the exchange students got to experience it.  Let’s just say the ice cream was more popular but most people did try it.  So that was our final evening of another great Rotary trip.

Since coming back from the Rotary trip I got to experience New Years in Thailand.  The funny thing about New Years is that the Thai people decorate for New Years as North Americans would for Christmas, so in the main square of town they had a huge Christmas tree with Santa’s sleigh, elf hats, people dressed up as elves all around the main square as well as the ever present food vendors selling delicious Thai food.  They also had a Thai pop star named Pancake come and sing, however, the most exciting part was when the countdown started and it was in Thai.  This was the most exciting part because because after 18 years of always expecting the countdown to New Years in English this was the first time that is was in a different language and it did not feel weird. 

Finally a little bit about Thai host families, they like to take you out for the entire day without any previous warning.  As my host family is no different one day just before New Year they woke me up and said we were going out so up I got and expecting it to be a normal day where we would go out in the morning and be back in the afternoon, however I was much mistaken.  We left around 10 am and visited a resort that they own and that they are going to get up and running in the next ten years as right now it isn`t worth the time and effort for them, then it was off to a flower garden, where the flowers were also made into statues of whales, seashells and other sea life (not quite too sure why the sea theme).  We also stopped along the way to visit one of my host dad's friends, we also had to stop for lunch and dinner.  Then seeing as the highway was busy with traffic back into my city as we were about two hours out from Korat we drove through a National Park and got home around 11 pm.  This is really just a typical outing for them, they think nothing of driving two hours out and then more to go see anything.  It was a great day out with my host family, even if it was unexpected. 

Loy Kratong Festival.
 

The Marching band at my school.

 The three Canadian exchange students at my school, with the principle and other important people from the school. 

 All the different colour groups created the signs at the top of the bleachers and had cheers to go along with the theme they chose. 

 The monks who came and blessed the opening of my host families new coffee shop.

My grade in front of the National Science Museum in Bangkok, the blue shirts and dark blue pants are our gym uniform. 

 The National Science Museum in Bangkok.

At Dream Land (amusement park) going sledding in Snow Town, an indoor sledding area.

The Start of December

These past few weeks have been filled with very interesting events, first off we had Loy Kratong festival a few weeks ago, which is the lantern festival and water festival.  It was raining this evening, so unfortunately were could not let off the lanterns, but another water of the festival is the sending off of a boat of flowers  with a candle in the middle, which is to give thanks to the water on the earth and to say sorry for polluting it.  I went with my host mom and sent off the little boats of flowers and saw a beauty and talent competition, where all the girls were dressed in Traditional Thai dress and sang a traditional song.  This was very interesting because it happened that the following day I was going to be dressed in a traditional Thai costume from the time period of King Rama 5 (late 1800’s) and get my makeup done the Thai way, with the pale face painted on and the eyebrows filled in and a whole lot of eye makeup.  I was dressed this way because it was sports day at my school and they had a parade at the start of the first day to introduce all the colour groups.  As a foreigner they were very excited to dress us up and make us walk at the front of the parade, carrying egg shaped things that represented the king and queen.  It was a lot of fun and the Thai students were so amazed that we (the three exchange students at my school) were dressed in Thai costumes and had our makeup up done it felt like we were minor celebrities, because they were obsessed with getting our photos but it was a lot of fun and I hope I get to where more traditional Thai outfits soon!

It was The King’s Birthday Wednesday the fifth of December, and a lot of people were out around town wearing yellow in support of the King, as well as there was a huge gathering of people in Bangkok in front of the palace, where they king who has been sick and in hospital gave a speech to the huge crowds, all the Thai people thought it was very emotional and were very happy to see the King out and about.  Today also doubled as Father`s Day so not only were the Thai people giving respects to the King, but to father`s everywhere.  My host dad went out and played golf on this day off, so a typical father`s day, my host mom also had a yellow shirt for me to wear so I blended right in with the Thai people, except the pale skin of course!

This past weekend, I was over at my friend’s house and her host dad came up to us and said it was time to go we are going to my friend’s house for dinner, no warning or anything, but it was interesting I met people studying in Bangkok, and another student of the 4500 at my school. However that is what some of my days are like, no warning and then we are off on an adventure around Korat or even the nearby towns. 

This past Monday was very interesting as my host family was having the official opening of their new coffee shop, the monks came and blessed the place, showered it with water droplets and then friends of my host family came and ate a lot of food ( as with any Thai celebration there is always lots of good food).  Then in Thai tradition the youngest of the family hosting the gathering get to wash the dishes, so as one of the youngest, myself and two others, sat around three buckets and washed to our hearts content.  It was actually quite nice to be completely immersed in the Thai culture enough for them to think of me as part of the family instead of a guest.

This week, was filled with interesting activities at school, on Thursday we had a day learning about religion from two monks who came to our school, so teach my grade about what Buddha had taught them and how to lead a good fulfilled life.  That evening there was a barbecue festival in Korat and in the town center, they had an entire western scene set up as the stage with life performances and meat cooking everywhere.  They also had Johnny Cash playing in the background which was a little strange to walk by the speakers and hear his voice coming out of it because usually they have remixes here that they play of all the famous songs.

Finally, Friday my entire grade at school went to the national science, IT and Natural History museums in Bangkok, we then went to Dream land, an amusement park in the afternoon.  At Dream Land, they had a snow town, so I got to go sledding and play in the snow for a bit then head back out into 30 degree weather, it was quite and experiences but a lot of fun! I got my one snow day in for the year.

I am now off to the Northern Part of Thailand with rotary for Christmas, so it should be interesting seeing how all the exchanges students react to not spending a Christmas at home.