Bangkok, Thailand

The first stop for my winter vacation was Bangkok, Thailand. I went there to visit my friend, Ellie, who had moved to Bangkok from Seoul. She is now teaching little youngsters like me! You can’t help but love the little Asian kids; they’re so darn cute! I arrived in Bangkok on Saturday night, Christmas Eve. I didn’t do much that night, just walked around a bit and checked out the area before heading to bed.

Thailand money, they use the Thai Baht

A major road in Bangkok at night

Khao San Road, a basically party street. My hostel was on this street. It was very touristy but there was lots to see and do.

Asian Ronald!!

Sunday, Christmas Day, I got to spend the day hanging out with Ellie. We met up at Mo Chit to see the Chatuchak Markets. The markets there are the largest in Bangkok, you can find anything there. It is super easy to get lost in that market, it covers 27 acres of land so you can just imagine how overwhelmed I was with this place. It was so nuts but fun. I ended up buying more than I had expected. It was so hard to say no because everything is so cheap! 

Stray dogs just taking a nap wherever... 

A little park area in the city

SOO many people in Bangkok!

When we were done wondering around the markets, Ellie and I went downtown Bangkok to the Siam area to admire the Christmas lights. The country of Thailand is extremely Buddhist. I think over 90% of the population are Buddhist so it was really surprising to me of how much Christmas decorations they had up for the holidays. They did a really nice job in the city of spreading the cheer. It was a much better job than Korea did, and there are a LOT more Christians in Korea than in Thailand. Anyways, it was fun to look around at all of the lights and fun festivities going on during Christmas. After seeing the lights we headed back to Khao San road where I was staying and had some western food for our Christmas dinner, I had a pizza and Ellie had some pasta. Even though it was 80 degrees and I was in Asia without my family, I had a really great Christmas. I was lucky to have a good friend to spend my holiday with!  

Ellie and I on Christmas Day

Super Asian, had to get a picture! 

Ellie opening her presents I gave her for Christmas! 

Traditional Thai clothes

My second day in Thailand, I decided to go on a daytrip outside of the city. The first stop was the floating markets. They were super cool. It is something that you see in pictures but never think people actually live that way but they actually do. Granted the floating markets have gotten extremely touristy but the actual idea of selling fruit and goods from a boat is how some people make their living. We got a bit to walk around the area and do a bit of shopping, I bought some wooden pencils that looked like sticks and had “Thailand” written on them for my kids. They loved the pencils from Julie Teacher. After seeing some of the markets we got to go on a long boat and get a tour of some of the houses in the back “water alleys” of the floating market town. It was crazy to see people just hanging out in their house that was located on this dirty river and that was their way of going anywhere. 

The floating markets! 

This old man was so cute, I had to buy a snack from him!

It was actually really good, a sort of vegetable dumpling.

The town...

The next stop on my daytrip was at Kanchanaburi. There I saw the River Kwai Bridge, which was built during WWII as a passageway to Burma. It was very historical and there was also a war museum located at this stop but I didn’t have time to check it out. 

River Kwai Bridge, Kanchanaburi Thailand

This train reads: During World War II - The Japanese used this train for the transportation of ammunitions to expand the fight into India & Burma

Our last stop of the day, after taking a lunch break, was to the Tiger Temple. It was so strange. It was like walking into a zoo kinda place with wild animals wondering around the land minding their own business but not behind any fences or anything and then there were tigers (that are drugged to tame them) wondering about with monks to go to tables for people to go take pictures with them. There was also a tiger cave area that had huge tigers you could take pictures with. The line there was really long so I didn’t go take a picture there because I already got one with a cute little tiger. It was interesting to say the least. When in Thailand… haha.

The little tiger! 

Delicious Pad Thai! I loved getting this :)

Tuk Tuk

            Tuesday, my last full day in Bangkok, I got up and meandered my way over to the grand palace. It was huge! Thais love their king, there are pictures of him everywhere you turn your head, no joke. At all times during my trip in Thailand, I don’t think there was one minute where I didn’t see a picture of the king. The palace was very extravagant. It was pretty. While I was there I met another wondering American tourist looking for the exit when I was. His name was Jim from Chicago. He had the same plans that day so we hung out and stuck together for the next few sites. We went over to Wat Pho, Wat means temple in Thai. This temple is a famous temple and has a HUGE Buddha lying down. After getting lost in some back alleys of the city we stopped at Wat Arun, it was a cool temple to go to because you could climb the stairs to the top and see a view of the city from the other side of the dirty river. 

Sprinkling water on you, not sure what it's supposed to mean but everyone was doing it. Probably some sort of blessing. 

The big lying down Buddha

Thailand uses two flags, the Thai flag and the yellow Buddhist flag.

The steps were SO steep!

The view from the top!

Wat Arun

            Later Tuesday night Ellie and Eric (her fiancé) met me right outside my hostel and we had dinner and drinks together. We ended up eating some street food for dirt-cheap. I tried some pretty crazy things like fermented pork… and it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve had in my life. We walked around the streets and finally decided to get an hour-long foot massage (costing us around 10 US dollars, not even) with a bottle of beer. It was a great was a great way to spend the night. I had such a fun time in Bangkok. I was so happy to see my friend Ellie, it felt very comforting to be around her during the holidays!

Eric and Ellie

Ellie and I

The doctor fish that take the dead skin off, it tickles a lot! 

Getting our foot massages

My delicious fruit smoothie for breakfast!

Being in Thailand I realized a couple of things, there are SO many tourists and people here so everyone speaks English pretty well. Thai people are positive people; they are always smiling despite what just recently happened to them (the flooding). The people here are also really friendly and willing to help you out. The city is very diverse with people of all sorts of race, and sex. Here you will see ladyboys whereas in Korea you would never encounter a ladyboy. There are some things that bothered me about Thailand; one is that the city of Bangkok is so dirty and polluted. The traffic also sucks, at any time during the day! I would be ok with the traffic if their subway system was advanced but it’s not, it’s a joke compared to Seoul. I guess I’m just spoiled now by Korea’s public transportation, it really is incredible! 

I found CRISPY M&M's! I've been looking for these for years... I was so excited when I saw them I had to buy a big bag at the airport! 

wonderland christmas

At Wonderland we celebrated Christmas on Friday before break (which was all of last week). It was a really fun and was a busy week before break for me at school. I made a Christmas tree with both my 6 year old and 7 year old classes. It took up an entire 80-minute class for each of them, which was spectacular! Haha. Thursday we had picture day for the kids, the 7 year olds are graduating this year so it was big deal, it took up almost all morning to take their pictures. I didn’t mind not teaching that day at all either! Then on Friday, we had activities planned for the kids to do in the morning, I was with Sharon and we made Christmas wreaths with each class. The other activities were making pizza of all things, and making a card for their parents. 

My 6 year olds around the tree they made. They're all wearing their wonderland uniform because I took this on picture day.

My 7 year old Ellen with her outfit for picture day.... Haha!

Sharon and I with the 6 year olds after they made their christmas wreaths! 

On Friday, I also received a gift from my favorite student Dylan. His mom gave me a box of yankee candles, which are very expensive here. They are so nice; I love them. She also wrote the sweetest card to me. She’s one of the parents who can actually speak a decent amount of English so the card was well written and I understood everything she was saying. When I read it I almost cried because it was so nice. I am really going to miss Dylan a lot. He’s a kid that makes me laugh constantly in class. Anyways, the festivities before Christmas were very enjoyable and a great way to end the year! Last week I spent my vacation in Bangkok, Thailand and Hong Kong. I had a blast. I will work on writing those blogs as soon as I can! 

My yankee candles and card. The box on the right is from a 5 year old student Ellin, it's filled with cookies! 

This is Ida one of my Elementary class students. I made christmas cards with their class and she stole my headband!

I received a package on Thursday from my friend Bridget. It was super unexpected, I was so happy when I got it. She is such an awesome friend! Speaking of mail I also just received a Christmas letter from the Sellmans. If you’re reading this, thanks Dave and Jan! I loved getting your mail even if it was after Christmas! 

 My package Christmas package from Bridget!

woomin's bday party!

The soccer team gave me an award of appreciation on Thursday. I was supposed to receive it at our banquet last Saturday that I was unable to attend due to Kalie/Julie xmas. So, they presented it to me during a team meeting on Thursday. It was super nice of them and unexpected. The plaque is in Korean but it also has the English translated as well. Apparently they got a Korean who has lived in an English speaking country for 6 years to translate the message. The translation reads:

As a foreigner, you participated in many completion with Hongcheongun Women Football Team in Korea and greatly congributed to the excellent results, Especially a lot of effort has gone into the growth of Honcheongun Women Footdall Team. In deep appreciation of your excellent work, we present this token of our appreciation and wish good luck to you.

Saturday was Woomin’s first birthday party (Sharon’s son). There was a huge buffet of a variety of fantastic food to select from, a video, and a few activities that they did. One of the activities was to having the select an item to determine their future with things such as a mallet for a lawyer, a stethoscope for a doctor, a pencil for a teacher… you get the point. Anyways, Woomin picked up the microphone; he’s going to be a little kpop artist! I wouldn’t expect any less from Sharon’s kid. We also got numbers before we sat down and Woomin drew out my number so I got to go up on stage in front of all the Koreans and get a prize (ceramic mugs). 

Woomin with his microphone!

After Sharon’s party, Chris (the teacher I replaced at Wonderland) Adam and I went into Seoul to hang out. We ended up going screen golfing and hung out all night in Gangnam. It was a fun night. Korean’s love screen golf here and this was the first time I have been…. Pretty dumb on my part, that’s for sure. Sunday I went into Myeongdong to do some shopping. I heard it was christmasfied as well so that was also a draw for me to go there. People were correct. It was very festive and I enjoyed it!

Chris golfing

Myeongdong at Christmastime...