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Kanchanaburi - Part 2

3/30/2015

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To celebrate the end of the school year, and I guess reward their teachers for a job well done Kasintorn takes all of its employees on a 3 day trip.  This year that trip was to Kanchanaburi.  If you follow my blog you may recognize the name because I have already visited this little town on the western boarder of Thailand, but I didn't mind returning because A - its a free trip, and B - there were things I handn't seen the last time, such as a gorgeous natural waterfall. Kanchanaburi town is only a 2-2.5 hour bus ride from Bangkok, but for some reason we only stopped for a short time in the actual town, where I assumed we would be staying, and then continued on deep into Kanchanaburi Province, into the hills another 3 hours.  Our hotel was this kitschy little place where all of the rooms were giant fruit. It was cool at first, but once the novelty  wore off we started to realize that we were stranded for 3 days smack dab in the middle of nowhere.  The resort had nothing to do, not even a pool, or well anything.  There was not even a 7-11 around for us to buy snacks or drinks.  This may not make sense to someone who has never been to Thailand, but to not have a 7-11 around is strange.  Even the most remote locations in this country have a 7-11 within walking distance. They did attempt to keep us entertained with dinners, dancing, a fancy hat party and karaoke, but by the 2nd night we were beginning to find our own means of entertainment. ie - drinking and having a sing along on the dock, followed by drunken durian climbing.  It was kind of nice on the docks because it seems at times that the school is doing everything in its power to segregate us teachers, and it was nice to have all of the Thai, Western, Filipino, and Chinese teachers in one place singing songs (or attempting to sing songs) in different languages, and just having a good time.
During the days they would bus us around to different locations around the province.  Everything took at least 2 hours to get to so we spent a lot of time on buses over those 3 days.  The communication was also severely lacking as they would tell us that we had 2 hours at a plce and then all the sudden that would change to 45 minutes and we would be dashing back for the bus.  Another time they didn't tell us that the bus would be picking us up in a different location than in dropped us off, so a few of us walked up this steep hill to get back to the bus to find that it wasn't there and so we had to practically run the other way to catch the bus before they left us.  This same thing tended to happen over and over almost everywhere we went.  I can also sadly report that I didn't make it to the waterfalls, which was a bummer.  Also, on the last day they told us we were going to the Tiger Temple, a place where monks live among tigers and you can pet and take pictures with them.  Instead we went to this other temple that granted, was very beautiful, but the only reason it was called tiger temple was because it had tiger statues all over it.
So in some ways this trip was a bit of a bust, but in other ways it was really nice seeing sights I would have otherwise missed, and spending more time getting to know the other teachers better.  Maybe eventually I'll get back to actually see those waterfalls.
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The fruit resort in nowheresville, Kanchanaburi
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The obligatory Spongebob picture
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the rooms were surprisingly spacious
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Fancy hat party...the Thais went all out. The western teachers didn't know anything about it because apparently there were flyers up at school but they were all in Thai
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Tim made a last minute top hat out of playing cards and won man of the year!
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Teacher jam session on the docks
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Drunken durian climbing...and yes, I am one of the ones at the top...
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...we are so lucky no one killed themselves

Sightseeing...

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Bridge over the River Kwai
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Another part of the death railway
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One of the many many temples we saw
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koonnnnggggg
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old wooden bridge...this is where the bus almost left us
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At some point a flood damaged the main bridge and so they built this floating bridge to replace it until it was fixed
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Made it to the boarder of Myanmar...such a tease to not be able to cross it
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3 pagodas
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The "Tiger" Temple
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stairs for the bottom...
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...and from the top
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Giant Buddha from the highest point of the temple
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Beautiful views of the country side
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caught a monk using his smart phone
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Holi - The Festival of Color

3/21/2015

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Holi, which is also referred to as the festival of color or the festival of love, is a Hindu festival to welcome the Spring and in the more spiritual sense the triumph of good over evil.  It's mainly celebrated in India and Nepal, and for years I have wanted to celebrate the holiday in one of those countries, though when I was traveling I was not in the right place at the right time to make it happen.  So, when a friend told me that they were holding the festival at the India-Thai chamber of commerce in Bangkok I all but jumped at the opportunity to go. I have to say that is was probably the best day that I have spent in this country since I landed in Thailand back in October.  The colors were beautiful and the people were happy, warm, and so friendly. 
It was such a blissful experience and I think the best way to describe it is through pictures...and there are a lot of pictures because they were all so beautiful and wonderful I could hardly decide which ones to exclude.  
Enjoy!
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Bags of powdered color were handed out for free at the front gate. It didn't take more than a few minutes after walking through that gate for several people to come up and smear the powder all over your face, arms, and clothes, wishing you a "Happy Holi!"
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Could these people look any happier.
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kids throwing water...
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...and shooting you with water guns is all part of the fun.
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Beautiful people and beautiful colors.
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There was a giant inflatable pool that started out clean but ended up looking like coolaid
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Then starts the clean up....or foam party...however you wanna look at it :)
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The fire department got involved with the clean up.
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Farrang
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Dance
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Party
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breaking it down....keepin it real....yes, I dance like a white girl
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Old friends and new....happy Holi!
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On our way home we walked through Lumpini Park, like the Central Park of Bangkok, and got the great stares and comments from passerbys. Might have been because of the color, or that we were acting like idiots on the exercise equipment.  The one woman even stopped us on the street, she spoke really good English, and she asked where we were coming from.  We told her and her response was..."Oh, I had forgotten about holi. When I first saw you I thought you were just crazy."  Hahahaha....I love how honest Thais are sometimes.


And just in case you were wondering, some of the color stayed on our bodies for days after.  Luckily I was able to scrub it off of my face at least before school the next day.  
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School Tour: Kasintorn St. Peter's

3/18/2015

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My first semester teaching abroad here in Thailand has come to an end, and summer school is about to start. It's a little sad, and in some ways I wish I could stay another semester. If I was staying I could move into the English program and choose which grade I wanted to teach, which all together would make for a much better experience. If you are wondering, hmmm, thought you were over there teaching English...wouldn't that mean you are in an English program? Totally understandable reasoning, but not so at my particular school.  Here we have 2 programs, Thai and English. The Thai program classes are taught mainly in Thai and English is taught a couple times a week as almost an elective.  Many kids don't really care to learn English and they don't really take it seriously. English program kids are taught almost all courses in English. They have a dedicated English speaking teacher, and their parents pay much higher tuition so they are more motivated in general to learn the language.  I was teaching Kindergarten 1, the babies.  All K1 classes are part of the Thai program, and then based on skill and whether their parents can afford it, they are placed in either English or Thai program for K2 and up.  For this reason, I guess I got the best of the Thai program classes, because at least some of my kids were still motivated in class, if you can call 3-4 year old's motivated. But what is really nice about English program is that you get a class that is your own, that you see every day. You can build relationships with the kids and really get to know them. I taught 11 classes of roughly 36 students each, so a little over 400 students.  I found it really hard to make meaningful connections with the kids since I only saw them twice a week, if classes were not cancelled, which they always seemed to be for one reason or another.  By the end of the end of the 5 month semester I only knew a handful of their names, which is kinda sad. Let's see, there was Monkey, an adorable little boy who really lived up to his name, Mona, the wild child who loved to give teacher shoulder rubs while I was teaching, Momo, itty-bitty little man who gave every single vocab word a sound (seriously - do you know what sound a Mountain makes? because I do!), Punchee, the rich kid that feels entitled to more Mickey stamps than everyone else, because don't I know who he is?!?, Pat and Bensin, both chubby little love bugs, super shy little Farsi, and super smart Viky from class 1, and the entirety of class 3 with their leader Zindear that drove me absolutely nuts but that the same time were the most affectionate students ever.
Honestly, I have really enjoyed my time teaching here in Thailand.  It was certainly challenging at times, but the students were adorable.  I remember before I started I said I was happy to have kindergarteners because it would be easy.  Ha! They showed me!
I actually have one more month to go, teaching summer classes in April.  I will be teaching K1 again in the mornings and Grade 1 conversation in the afternoons.  Looking forward to the challenge but also really looking forward to whats next...diving in Koh Tao!
Below is a photo tour of my school, Kasintorn St. Peter's.  It is a private Catholic school, though most kids that go here are still Buddhist. In morning assembly they mediate, sing the national anthem and say the Our Father. The look of it is not all that different from schools at home.  I am sure there are more rural, government run schools that could have given me a more authentically Thai experience, but this is what I got, and truth is its an authentically Thai private school in the burbs. 

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From the street.
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front gate
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St. Peter in the house
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The kindergarten building/ St. Mary's building
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My classrooms
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One of these was placed on the door of each of my classes.
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Outdoor play park
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Indoor gym
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This place has 3 pools and teachers cannot use any of them...lame
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This is where the teacher's eat - they feed us breakfast and lunch
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Obviously not my babies...I have subbed for grade 4 and 5 though
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    Kristen is a travel enthusiast looking to share her journey with the world, and maybe even inspire people to take the leap themselves.

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