Sa wat dee ka!

I made it safely to Thailand with all my bags YAY!  I think I'm already in love. The architecture, food, language and people and absolutely fascinating!

Lets start with the trip:

Each of my flights went off without a hitch and was on time to the minute, very impressive.  On my 13-hour flight from Chicago to Seoul I sat next to a very sweet lady from Viet Nam who would ask me to help her push her seat back each time. I watched three movies and probably slept for one hour. When I got off the plane I started to talk with a man who turned out to be from Cedar Rapids (small world) and was going to somewhere in Indonesia to get married.  I waited for him to have a cigarette in a smoking room and then he bought me a coffee and we chatted for a bit. He was raised Amish and had left when he was a teenager saying that it was more of a cult than anything. I would have never had pegged him for Amish, but people have a way of always surprising you.

By the Seoul airport is ridiculously awesome. They have everything from Burberry, Internet cafes, and Hermés to bars, sleeping booths, and said smoking rooms. The architecture is modern with the walls all of slanted glass. I didn’t really mind spending three hours there.

The next leg of the journey was six hours to Bangkok and a half hour taxi ride to the hotel. I sat next to the cutest Thai girl named Erng (I couldn’t pronounce it correct so she told me to call her “American” name). She has been studying in Washington DC for that last 4 years but is home visiting Bangkok for two weeks. She helped me with a few words and insisted on waiting for me to get my luggage at baggage claim and walk me to the taxi even though hers had come first. Have you ever hear that Thais are very nice people? It’s true.

After getting to the hotel around 1 am and waking up my roommate who later said she had taken a Benadryl a few hours before, reason for grogginess, I attempted to sleep with no luck. By that time I was just too excited and the pillow was too big. Lets just say the first day of orientation I think all the 80 teachers were struggling with jet lag. But we all made it through and are getting to know each other and having a great time.

Today we went to the Grand Palace, which is supposed to be the most beautiful temple in Thailand (and I can bet it’s true). We were split into groups for the tour and our guide Simon told us all about the history—fascinating. After that we had lunch at an amazing restaurant that must have specialized in seafood. Aroi ka! (delicious). Oh and last night my roommate and I were solo to for the search for dinner, which turned out to be no easy task. ALL the signs are in Thai. Not the Thai that we can sound out, but in that beautiful, impossible to read letters. We finally pointed at some fried rice and said “gai” which means chicken and had an actually very good meal. It was especially good because it cost $1. Then on the way back to the hotel I stopped and bought coconut water for 25 cents. FRESH COCONUT WATER is the BOMB! I’m going to live off it. And the girl thought I was very funny using my limited Thai when ordering, I’m glad to have made her night a little more entertaining.

We are now waiting to meet our school coordinators and have our welcome dinner, going to take a shower and wear something nice to make a good first impression!