christmas 2008

Christmas this year was... how you say... different than normal for Reffa and I needless to say!
Thailand has hardly any Christmas celebration- and we both worked on Christmas day but it was fun anyways. We got to teach the students about Christmas ! it was somewhat unsuccessful mindyou.. i taught the children about baby Jesus and they think that christmas is a celebration about "baby kittens" ...... hmmm ...... anyways. mai pen rai (oh well, nevermind... )

we had some lovely christmas parties at reffa's school where she teaches! lots and lots of food. mmm thai food. it's so good here! I love waiting for the fruit and vegetable stands to drive by with their bells so we can buy the cheapest most delicious fresh food EVERRRR
oh ps..
are you ready for this ?
this is a revelation..
it's huge..
are you sure you can handle it?

I LIKE BANANAS NOW
that's right. Jessica, I , like bananas. I eat about 3 or 4 a day. they are so so delicious. and you can buy about 20 for less than a dollar. you can pick them from your neighbor's tree if they're not looking- the thais fry them, grill them, bbq them, boil them, cover them in caramel, cover them in dough etc etc.... bananas EVERYWHERE. I love them. mmmm . weird eh?!

OH and our parcels came from home! I've notified most of you. but mom and dad's came and char and mag's came to me and reffa via motorbike!! it was SO exciting to get something from back home in the mail!!! eeeeekk!! we love our new underwear and christmas money and EVERYTHING!!! thank you so so so so much!!

okay I have to go catch a ride home. sorry this was rather brief. miss you all!!! will keep you posted as much as possible. we are happy :) love love love love love!! xoxoxxoxo
Jesse

Surprise Flood.

We woke up to the street being flooded today!?

I thought monsoon season was over!

Single Entry

Me and Jess both got approved for 3-month single entry Visas.
So im gonna take 3 months of Thai, and then we dont know what next.

We get 2 days off for New Years (but not Christmas) so we may go to Chiang Mai up north with Greg, Lorraine and Daryl our little buddies.
If all goes well, we may be able to make a 5 day trip out of it, and the bus should only be about 40$ there and back.

We dont care that much for Penang. Its ok, very hot though! But its extra civilized and like being in Toronto or a big city like that. we are looking forward to going back to our small town with our market and our "friends" (the people that say hello to us every morning)
=)

Miss everyone, except Kevin, just kidding!! HEHE

I hope that you are are enjoying the christmas season, and the cold weather that comes with it!!! Stay warm, wear your mittens! Its cool to be warm! :)

Love
Reffa

Malay

...kinda sucks. Its very expensive here!!! Like...very. Like...almost the same as Canada.
We are staying in a guest house called "Banana New House" (they speak English here)
and its got its own money exchanger (they use ringgets [9ringgets=1baht] in Malaysia) and they are doing our visas for us! In the morning, they go to immigration and take care of it for us!! So we lucked out.
The man told us that we probably wont get approved for a 1-year visa, and that nowadays its very rare. he said that some people who even own buisnesses have to leave the country every 3 months and ususally the odd time that people get 1 years is if they have a work permit with a company for a long period of time.
So... we're in Penang until 2:30pm on Friday. I think overall it only took us 12 hours to get here. And we stopped over in Hat Jai City(Hat Yai, Had Jai, Haat Yai...etc..its a different spelling everytime) which is in Songkla province of Thailand. There was a lot of nice little markets and vendors. and we sat down with some tuktuk drivers and practised our Thai with them. Then a police officer came up to join in. And he had a newspaper in his hand, and he opened it up to show us and he was on the cover of the front page, wearing his uniform and he stood the exact same. He was a really nice man and he was tall and skinny and he gelled his mustache into thin little curls (like the pirates do) bu tthen he got walkey-talkied to take care of something and left. But we had fun sitting there.

We went through customs at the border and they let me take 15 clementines, 2 apples and coconut water!

We really miss Chompoo. But Uncle said he'd take care of her for us! We we're trying to find her a home up until we left, but no luck.

Our friend Astch (pronounced Ash...which...im just going to spell it that way cause its easier) is building a house near us. Its actually in a very beautiful spot. He took me down to see it the other day and its right on the riverfront, and hes got a little gazeebo and a longtail boat and a really big lawn and then he has part of the jungley forest to do whatever he wants to, and its very quiet and secluded and he has no neighbours execpt for his parents. I want to live down there now. And he gets to hang out all day down there are relax cause he works mostly around suppertime for 2 or 3 hours. He works with football ( soccer) and he recruits people from all over Thailand and he trains them to play for this team (dunno the name)
But he brings them down by his house and they do all their training like running and stuff down there! Hes very cool. He took me and Jessica out for coffee the other day and picked jessica up from work , which is like a 20 min drive away. Hes got a sweet truck and he is introducing us to some really thai reggae music like Palmy and T-Bone! Check them out. Palmy looks like a younger, half thai version of Janis Joplin.

Back to Penang. We dont really care for it all that much. Its just like being in any other city except for everyone is frowning or staring blankly. I dont know why they arent happy.
:( we're just sticking around the guesthouse and playing it safe. Gotta hide from the mosquitoes too because they carry Dengue fever here. Can't take the chance right now! Although that powder stuff really comes in handy. It was less than a dollar and its like baby powder and you just put it all over you and it smells the same as baby powder but it scares away mozzies!

Ok time to go find a book.
xoxo

Visa

I sure hope that Reffa gets one longer than 15 days UGHHHHHH lol that would be so shitty. best case scenerio tomorrow: we both get a one year visa and we're okay to stay here in thailand until next December with no issues. Not even another visa run or border crossing =) keep your fingers crossed for us.

I heard that Gram's operation went well, i'm stoked about that. Congrats grammie!
Please keep the emailing updates coming, and lots and lots of christmas pictures please!! there is a sincere lack of Christmas in Thailand!!!

on my way to the market now to get some fried dough. mmmm.
xo

Penang

We are going to Penang, Malaysia tonight, to do the visa run. I'm hoping to get a one year so i dont have to come up with the money to do this again in 3 months time. Its kinda like lottery ....what kinda visa am I gonna get? 3 month? 15 day? 6 month? 1 year?? Nobody knows!!

They speak English in most parts of Malaysia, so it'll be a nice refreshing, head-ache free change! :P
Actually, its a lot of fun learning and speaking thai. In fact, I signed up to take it through a language school. minimum 10 hours a month.

So we wont know when we will be back, but we are hoping before Friday!

Still trying to find a home for Chom-puu. I took her to school with me yesterday, but i left her home today. She would be better off with someone who sticks around home a lot more, like a shop owner or something like that. Maybe I will ask the fruit stand lady if she wants her.
lol

puppy pic

champooh

chompoo is our new puppy. I have posted a video of her on facebook if you'd like to see!
we got her from a box of abandoned puppies found near scott's school. she's really really cute (and messy!!! )

daryl is coming to visit us for the night tonight YAY!!

miss you all. missing desperately the christmas surroundings snow, lights, trees etc. send pictures please!!!

ps. parcel has been sent home. costed 549876846321654654987 dollars. you better like your presents!!!!
xoxoxox

a nice little vacation

we had a really lovely weekend with our friends in phuket town this weekend , greg lorraine and daryl!! we went to the beach, shopped, ate a ton, saw ong buck 2 (WICKED MOVIE), went to patong to see our old friends and hung out . it was a BLAST a really nice break from our small thai town in surat.

we're back here in surat now getting ready to teach again in the morning.

this week we have wednesday off because it's constitution day so I Think reffa and I Are going to try to find a cool park or mountain or something to climb/hang out in / explore. we need to start seeing more of our hometown !! hehe

this weekend we might go to koh samui to visit our friend daryl and the weekend after that we're going to malaysia for a visa run!! then the weekend after that I Think we are going to go to chiang mai (if reffa can get this many weekends off in a row) . we all have new years weekend off so our fivesome of travelling friends might get together for a 5 day trip to northern thailand where the elephants are plentiful and the merchandise is CHEAP!

anyways, off to lesson plan. miss you all .
xo

housing and transportation

Bought a bike. push pedal bike that is.
have been riding the bike on main streets. have almost died 5 times so far.

just joking. but, not really.
It's crazy... but I have been getting around a lot faster and getting a lot more exercise and it's only been one day! it takes 2 minutes to go to the market instead of an hour, so that's awesome.

we are sleeping in our new house this evening. we bought a brand new bed (it costed about 120$ for the top of the line kingsize bed). we still are lacking everything else that a house should have, but I think we'll make it through with our bare minimum.
We will still be popping in and out of Scott's (so long as he doesn't mind) to use his computer/washing machine etc and take care of sebastien from time to time to help him out, but we officially have our own place!!!! empty and bare, but it's a roof to keep us dry from the monsoon at least!! hehe

pay day tomorrow for us both. it's our first payday in thailand.
This week I Will take pictures of downtown surat thani, our new house/ street / the market we go to etc etc. to keep you posted. it has come to my attention that we haven't been keeping you visually satisfied with our life as it is in Thailand.
tah tah for now!

ups and downs

thanks to Reffa for keeping our readers posted on everything.. I haven't been very good. hehehe
I am doing extra classes today and my other goals for the day are to buy a mattress for the new bed, and to buy a bike (just a push pedal) to get around town on.
I've decided against a motorbike ... it's just too dangerous. I might keep learning to drive Scott's little by little, but not to venture into the busy roads.

I'm very homesick this week.
I am feeling isolated in this town of non-english speakers.. and I can't help but think of Christmas Day when all of our friends and family are eating together and Reffa and I are working. I knew it was coming, and I knew I'd be sad but it doesn't change the fact that it's my very first Christmas without my family, without boxing day dinner, without even so much as a tree. =(
Mom and Dad aren't coming anymore either, so I can't even send home the presents that I've bought. I will try to send them by mail though (maybe that will be more fun for you anyways!! )

Don't worry... it will pass. I have these ups and downs of desperately missing home and being so overwhelmingly happy that I'm in Thailand that I'm tickled. It's a bit of an emotional roller coaster I suppose.

I often just want to hop in my car and go for a drive in the country though. I miss the freedom and independance that comes with a car. I really miss my craft supplies! hehehe I miss sweet brown bread (non existant here), I miss peanut butter, I miss KD, I miss my puppy very very very very much.

I love Thailand, but I love Canada too.
xox

Not so good news...

Uncle Dave and Aunt Reta had to cancel their trip over to see us because the Bangkok airport is closed for a while. Both airports actually. The protesters invaded the airports and police have been sent in by the gov't to deal with it in a non-violent way.
The news said there may be a military coup tonight. The protesters just wont give it up.
They voted in a not-so-smart P.M. because he offered 1000 baht to any of them who vote for him, so all the poor people up in chiang mai voted for him and he got in, and now the thai people dont like him and are trying to over throw him.
Now all the thai people in places like Patong and Pattaya are suffering beacuse they arent making money off tourists during high season.
The king isnt getting involved right now, but basically all he has to do is say "leave the airport now" and they will listen to him. I dont think its that serious yet, or else he would be doing something by now. But that doesnt change the fact that the airport is CLOSED.
Now we dont get to see them!! :(

Jessica tried calling the hotel they booked to see if she could get a refund and the girl says she "doesnt know"

We're still going to go down to see all our friends, but it would have been really great to see them though! Jess said they are going to come back in the spring, and bring ERIN! which will be even better!!

Its just bad timing, thats all.

The new House.

We arent going to put up pictures just yet, because its not homey yet.
but I will give details since a few of you asked.

Off the main road in Kuntale (khun-ta-lay) which is our neighbourhood, is where all the shops and markets are. There is a vegetable market open everyday until 10pm, there you can go and buy fresh veggies. Everything! (Bug Cucumbers, mini cucumbers, Carrots, Green Beans (and the green beans here are about as long as your arm!), mushrooms of every kind, lettuces, cabbages, onion, garlic, morning glory, tomatoes, jalapenos, chillis, string beans, papaya, etcc.) then there is a fruit stand thats a bit smaller , but it has all fresh fruits. No cherries though, cherries are very expensive here! You have to buy those at the grocery store for nearly 5 times the price back home!

Anyways, the market is about a 5-10 mintute walk up the road, so we can go there everyday and get fresh stuff.
And there is also little shops that do laundry, and hair salons, one massage place, motorbike repair shops, (the usuals) and then little corner shops that sell food.
Anyways, you turn down soi 16 (which is the 16th road in off the main road) and we have a big gate that can be locked with a little door, and the gate is about 9 feet tall.
All around the yard there is a tall concrete barrier like thing to seperate us from our neighbours. (which is good cause the lady next door to us is crazy!)

When you walk up its all covered concrete ground, and concrete stairs. theres a little corner by the stairs where you can put a little table to sit outside and keep out of the rain.
There is a bit of a garden, but not much. There is a mini wat temple ornament a little higher than the fence in the yard, its very beautiful.
When you go inside the house there is a big open living room area. off of that near the back door is the bathroom. The bathroom is very small with a shower hose and a toilet. The toilet doesnt flush. But there is a water basin beside it, and when you take your bucket of water to rise off after you use the washroom, the water goes down the drain. So it doesnt need a flusher, actually.
Thats about all thats in there, There is no sink either, But you can just wash your hands in the basin.

Um... After coming out of the bathroom you are in that big open area again, you can go out the back door which takes you all around both sides of the house, but theres not much back there except for lizzards and stuff.

Come back in that door and if you walk straight through the big room, there is another big room at the front of the house about the same size (so there is actually two living rooms)
Off of that, there are french doors that take you to the front deck. The front deck is made of porcelin, and all around it the legde is like a bench, so you can sit on that, rather than furniture. You can see onto the road from there and all of the house inside, except for the bedrooms.

There are 2 bedrooms, one is bigger than the other, but the bigger one only has one window, whereas the smaller one has two windows.
It came with a brand new King Size bed and a wardrobe with a tall mirror.
No mattress though, so we have to buy one before we sleep there.

And thats about it so far. Theres no kitchen. but we bought a basin to wash our veggies in (thai style!) and we are going to buy a little dresser thing to keep our dishes in. To wash the dishes we have another basin and a drying rack.
The rest we will have to save up for over time. But theres nothing that we NEED really besides each other and a roof over our heads. Which.....Check...and CHECK!
:)

pictures to come soon.

กอ้วย

The Banana's (pro-nounced gloo-ai) are crazy here. They have pits in them! Like the size of watermelon seeds and the texture of a peach pit.

there is this great treat and what you do is you take a banana, some sticky rice and some coconut and mash it and put it inside a banana leaf, then roast it over a grill or steam it.
After it cools off, peel the banana leaf away and you have this golden sticky sweet chewey coconut/banana treat! DELICIOUS (a-roi maak maak!)
Thats how i discovered my first banana pit, actually. I was eating one of those as fast as I could and i bit down on one. Now i'm more careful


I am gonna find someone to teach us how to make them.
I will hold and grill them over a match if I have to, thats how good they are!

maybe we will bring some to Patong when we go see Aunt Reta and Uncle Dave!

Survival Guide

Monsoon Season Survival Guide: Humidity Levels 96-98%

Laundry:
Only wash your clothes if necessary.
If you wash your clothes, hang them up indoors (because it's STILL raining outside)
wait about a week and a half for your clothes to be damp, rather than soaked.
If you are lucky enough to have a micowave, you can throw your clothes in (one article at a time) for 20 second intervals, until its damp, rather than soaked. But make sure that they dont have zippers or metal buttons!!
If you dont have a microwave, you can try and iron the water out of them. (It works, but looks really bad!!)

Bathroom:
Since there is no toilet paper, after spraying yourself or dumping a bucket of water on your bum, continue your day with wet underwear since nothing will air out with the himidity. (Or if you have time, throw them in the microwave or iron them)
Watch out to your left, because the toilet is bubbling and making monster noises, oh no, thats just the sewer flooding and starting to back up.

Transportation:
Shoes off. Parka on. Umbrellas out. Skirt preferred, or pull up your pants, and go.
Motorbikes and Bicycles go under a roof, they can't be driven until the rivers go away.

Food:
Bags of chips/crackers etc.. must be eaten indoors within 3 minutes or they will go soggy!!

Getting settled

Phew that was a nice long post by Reffa!
So, like she said, we're both working now. My job got me off to a rough start!! I felt like crying day in and day out for a few days. It was realllllly difficult. Here's how it went down:

I went to school on my first day with no lesson plans because they told me that it was introduction day and I just had to say my name and wave at the kids and I would start on Tuesday. I arrived at school (Tessiban Saam) via tuktuk in the rain. The tuktuk went the long way around and I arrived at 8:29 and I Was to be there by 8:30 (even though I had been waiting for a tuktuk since 7:15 am and my school is only 20 minutes from where I'm staying)... I Was stressed the entire drive. So I get there and find the one person in the school who speaks a bit of English, she's the one who is supposed to give me an orientation, take care of me, make me feel comfortable etc. I find her and she says "hiee miee naamee jrin" which is actually "my name is jarin" so that's wha tI'm dealing with.
she takes me around for a bit and then points into a classroom and says "here intradu yoursel" and so I go in and say "hello class! " and they wave. I turn around and Jarin has left me to my own resources and doesn't return for one hour. so, I taught english ... :S:S:S it was so scary and I was mad about the lack of organization.

so then she comes to get me when class is done , and takes me to another classroom and I do the SAME THING!!!! I had to do it 3 times on my first day. Then inbetween classes she says "you can live here relac" (which means, while you're waiting for your classes you can stay in this room if you want) . then I have to track her down after an hour of doing nothing in this random room I'm in and I ask for some sort of schedule. She brings me one in thai which I (obviously) can't read and points to it and then makes a face and goes "ooooo that wrong" and scratches stuff out etc so i have a messy, incorrect, thai schedule taht I am to follow (Which , two weeks later I am STILL using.)

basically about a million more things like this happen, disorganized, thai, non-english events which confuse me, make me nervous, etc. plus they hand me a hitting stick to hit the students with if they're bad (which I just can't do... ) .

I sit there with the staff and they speak thai, all eyes on me, and i just hear "felong felong" every now and then (foreigner) . and then one will try to use their broken english to ask me my name etc. they are warm and accepting, but they can't speak english and my thai isn't that good yet!!

so anyways I came home just about in tears. the kids were cute, but so badly behaved!!!
I thought about packing up and going back to canada. they speak english there. but I decided to force myself into another day.

It got better and better after that. still confusing. even now I'm confused most of the time, but I'm taking on the thai attitude , "mai pen rai" (don't worry it'll be okay) . at the end of the day there's no need to be stresesd about work becaus eI'm there to teach english and I know how to speak english and so it's no problem .

I'm quite enjoying eahc day now! I'm practicing thai, my lessons are better and better and the students don't look at me like i'm an alien anymore. (well not as much anyways... )
my kids are even more amazed by me than reffas. at her private school there have been foreigners before. at my school I Think I might be the first one.

hahahaha. omg. it's quite an adventure. I'm very happy now !
I will post pictures of our house later on today.
miss you all LOTS
can't wait to see mom and dad in two short weeks :)
xox

Kroo

So i just discovered that more people are reading this than I thought. So I will write a little more often now.
We decided to sign on at the schools in Surat Thani. Jessica's is called Tessaban Saam(3) and mine is called "Baan Pa Sa Ang-Grit" (Home of English)
Jessica's is a government school, she teaches young kids with up to 40 students per class. She teaches about average 4-5 hours a day.

My school is a private language school. The kids come twice a week for two hours a day, and its usually after they are done regular school or on weekends. So I work from 10am-6:30 pm and I only have to teach from 5:30-6:30. My boss teaches them English in Thai (yeah I know... doesnt make sense) but basically he translates words and gives them like 10-15 vocabulary words and then he lets me teach them how to make the words into proper sentences and teach them how to pronounce it properly.
Example: My Boss taught them all the ingredients to make a Spicy Papaya Salad, and showed them on a video how to make it. Then he made them write the steps on paper. And he gave me their worksheets with what they wrote and it said things like:

Step one: "scrap papaya rain on bowl" (which should actually be "scrape the raw papaya into a bowl") hahaha
And thats where I come in, I have to teach them how to make it into a sentence that makes sence.

it can kind of be a bit frustrating because the students are very shy, Thai children are embarassed that they may make a mistake in front of their peers, so they would rather say nothing at all , than make a mistake. So its very hard to encourage them to talk during class. Which, really...thats what learning a language is all about, is talking!! So It takes abit of patience.
But the kids are very adorable. They all have funky nicknames like "Benz, Wave, PingPong, GiGi, Boy, Guy, A (yes, the letter "A"), Fifa, Earth, etc..
Benz is my favourite student. hes this sweet little boy that comes up to me shyly every afternoon and says "Good Afternoon Teacher Reffa" and hugs my waist. And he always tries really hard in class. and when another student is too shy to answer a question in front of their classmates, he gets up from his seat and goes over to them and grabs their hand and comes up to the front of the class with them and helps them if he knows, and if he doesnt know, he just stands their with them and puts his arm around them and smiles at them to assure them that they can do it. <--- really cute kid!
Most of my students have never seen a white person before, so they are constantly asking me why I am bigger than most girls, and why my eyes are grey. They ask if they can look at my eyes all the time, and then they giggle amongst each other after crowding around and looking at my eyes in amazement. Sometimes out of nowhere, they will raise their hand and say things like "Teacher Reffa, how tall are you?" or "Teacher Reffa, what do you like?" and they are always interested in things about their teacher, so you get asked a lot of questions like how much you weigh, where you live, etc..

Right now, My boss is teaching me about Thai history, because he wants me to teach it to the kids so they learn about their country and culture. So I am learning about the royal palace, the different kings, buddhism and all the temples and their symbolism.
Some things I've learned so far:
The Marble Temple, in Bangkok (me and Jessica have a few pictures of outside of it) was made of white marble from Italy. Within it, there is a replica statue of the "Golden Buddha Image" (there is only one buddha, but there are many "images" of buddha and there is a statue for every one. Ex: Standing, Sitting, Emerald, Tourturing ) and the golden sitting buddha image is said to be the most beautiful buddha statue in the world. There is an original, and a replica. The original is made of pure gold, and the replica of brass. Anyone can go and see the replica, but you have to remove your shoes before entering the temple.
Outside the temple there are two white lion statues. They aren't fully sitting, and they aren't fully standing, they are there to "protect" the temple from bad things, which is why they are neither sitting, nor standing, they are in a stance where they can pounce at any time.
Just little neat facts like that. And like the royal palace was built for the 5th king, and there is a picture of it on the back of a 5 Baht coin. Nobody is allowed in the palace except for the royal family, and the symbol of royalty is a three headed Elephant with a Rahman God sitting ontop of it.
It can be interesting. But I think you would need to see pictures and stuff to make it more interesting.

Anyways,


It hasnt stopped raining here. Its very rainy but hot at the same time, its been 34 degrees some days but rain up to your ankles!! Not what we're used to.
Monsoon season will be over soon though, and then we will start complaining about how its too hot!!

My Boss told me something very eerie the other day. It keeps popping up in my head. He was telling me about how Thai people are very small/petit framed (which is obvious) and he said that he refuses to buy clothes from a second hand store. And I was telling him that I thought second hand shopping was a great idea, and earth friendly and a cool way to bring back old styles and have unique clothes from different places and he stopped me and said "I know, you never know where the clothes come from" and I didnt really say much and then he said "You wouldnt understand this, because you didnt live here during the tsunami, but before the tsunami came, you couldnt buy large clothes at the second hand stores... Now they are having Large Brand name clothing and clothes made in Europe and with European brand names... After the tsunami a lot of tourists died, and the poor thai people took the clothes of the dead bodies so that when they re-built their shops the could sell the clothes to survive and get back on their feet. Some of these clothes are still in the shops i'm sure, and I don't want to purchase them"

UHHHH Gross.

Anyways, a little weird...

Jessica and I decided to move into the house in Phorkuntale(friendly little quiet neighbourhood) Its near Scott (friend from school), about 2 streets over, and its a 2 bedroom house, with a front deck and a bathroom. No Fridge or AirConditioning, and no Stove....but we can be thrifty and creative.Especially for $100 a month! We will buy a fan, so we dont die.... but we want to build a firepit outside and cook outside every evening. We dont want to buy much, because we dont want to worry about the hassle of selling it later. Plus, we cant afford to buy stuff anyways!! haha
The price of the house is good for me, because I only make around 400 a month at my job.
Its going to be hard to save to travel around on our holidays from school, but we are going to head over to our homebase (Patong Beach) on December 5th, 6th and 7th to meet up with Aunt Reta and Uncle Dave for a few days, hang out on the beach and show them our favourite places.
We're looking forward to it. We'll take the 4 hour bus after Jess gets out of school and get there just in time for the sunset hopefully!

Thats enough for now. I am going to pracise my Thai. we are getting better, but we still haven't gotten the tones down pat. You have to have a sing-song voice sometimes to get the word right!

Miss everyone, LOTS. Hope you enjoyed reading. Whenever something interesting happens I will try and rememeber to put it in!!

Hugs and Kisses!!
Reffa

loy kratong

happy loy kratong!!

spoken exactly how it is spelt, this is a festival which takes place in thailand every November 12th. Everyone spends the days leading up to it preparing their "kratongs." these are floats covered in banana leaves and flowers. the leaves are all hand folded and decorated to look beauitful and they are very extravagant.

in the evening of November 12th, everyone gathers at the nearest fresh water (usually a river rather than a lake) and brings their homemade floats along. they put candles and insence on them and lgiht them around the same time, then together they place them in the water and watch them float down the river in the evening.

They believe that if you think of your wishes and hopes while watching your kratong with the others all lit up under the moon that they will come true.

sweet eh? the kids are all excited and I made a kratong today.

just thought i'd share. it's a cute day here.

xo dezzy (my new thai name.. many cannot say/remember jessica so i said jesse, and they say dezzy. i like it. hehe)

Surat

Surat Thani is pretty nice. We went to the vegetable market last night and we bought all kinds of vegetables (fresh&organic) and brought them back to Scott's. He bought some chicken and mushrooms and had a traditional Thai Barbecue. It was raining a little, because monsoon season isn't quite over yet, but he has a big covered area that we sat in. He invited over his 3 friends from down the road (sorry, I can't remember their names still) and we got to practice speaking Thai.
Since there is no English here, we think that its going to be good for us to pracice everyday.
Scott's son, Sebastien is 5 and he can speak both Thai and English... So sometimes we can just ask him "Sebastien, what is ____ in Thai?" and he can help us!
The people here are very friendly, same as Patong.
Still having trouble finding me a job.

home2

WE LOVE IT HERE!!!!
heheheheeee!!! so good!!
we were both feeling a little under the weather due to the previous days' going-away-party festivities and so we ate a fantastic sandwich down the road (where they make our sandwich as we walk in because they know what we're going to get... ) . after wards we said goodbye to everyone (no tears this time!) and made our way to phuket town.

thank god for the public transit!! let me just lay this out for you. everytime we had to go to phuket town (about 25 minutes away) and we had to go quite often recently for interviews etc, we had to pay 400-500 baht both ways, plus whatever we spent place to place once we got there. so about 1000 baht in a day to phuket town just for transportation, that works out to roughly 33$ . that's a LOT1!!! especially since a tank of gas only costs 100 baht (3.30$) and lasts like a week. ugghhhh such a tourist trap! anyways, so the public transit is 25 baht anywhere (less than a dollar) . we spent 50 baht instead of 1000!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! how good is that?!!??!?!!?!??!!??!!??!
we're getting the hang of this.. if someone told us this stuff from day one we would probably be about 30,000,000,000 baht richer. lol . acutally, this is sad. ... ..

we worked it out, and the amount that we spent on tuktuks (thai for taxi.. means cheapcheap.. YEAH RIGHT) .. could have bought us a motorcycle here. isn't that discusting?! ughhh sooo annoyyyinggggg. but then I think about how many cabs back home i got for 30$ ... i could probably have saved all those times and bought a cheap car so i guess it's kinda the same. but when you're not working... 1000 baht is a lot just for transportation. anyways that s my rant.

here in surat thani, a tuktuk costs like 20 baht to go for like 30 minutes. wayyy better.
but there's like, no english here so we're going to have to step up our thai a notch.

we ordered our lunch today in thai. it was a little rough and broken but they understood us , and we weren't served any meat so we're doing alright I Think!!
we are now staying with our friend Scott. he's really cool and has an adorable son named sebastian. so cute! huge beautiful home, and he's paying 7,000 baht a month (about 200$ ) ...... SO GOOD EH?!!?!
we love surat thani.
yay! will take pics and show you soon.

xox J

home

You know when you pull onto your street after a really long week and the familiarity of it all makes you smile and feel cozy even though the week didn't deliver? Or when you cross the rickety bridge of Elderbank backroad and suddenly remember that you have a hundred people on your team who will hug you and make you smile ? when you pull into the driveway of the big white house and know inside it'll be warm and full of love?

It's not quite the same, but that's how Nanai road has come to feel to me and Reffa now. We were bopping along on the public transit which is 25 baht instead of 400 (for a tuktuk), and the closer we got to what we now call home, the happier we felt to know we would see mum, our friends, our pub, and our bed soon. We were stuck in phuket town applying for jobs.. we just don't feel it. there aren't any jobs here right now. we're packing our bags and leaving tomorrow morning to go to surat thani. we might be a few days without a blog, just because we don't know when or where a computer might be.

will miss you. we keep hoping that surat thani will bring it's own home to our hearts.
xoxox

inbetween patong and thailand

We again, apologize that we're never on here. haha. we were on karon beach for a few days with our friend moisy. it was a nice break but we decided our best bet was to come back to hillside, where we feel comfortable, and try to find work otu of here where we have friends, connections , and free internet.

We've talked to a lot of bigwigs. we've had a few job offers but nothing that suits our fancy yet. either nto enough pay, too long of a contract, bad location, or too many hours. we're looking for somethign that's juuuusssttt right because in thailand you have to sign a years contract so we gotta make sure it's good.

we were offered the job we wanted at a school called kajonkietsuksa (here's the webpage if anyone's interested to see it.. .http://www.kajonkietsuksa.ac.th/en/mainframe.html )
we love the school but it's about 50 hours a week for a little less than average pay... most jobs offer you that but only 25 hours. big difference!!

anyways we have this giant dilemma.. . we want to stay here but it's too expensive and there are just no jobs...
we might go to surat thani. our friend scott lives there with his son and offered for us to stay with him a few days while we figure it out. he's areally cool guy who had his TEFL course with us and there's lots of jobs over there.

anyway. keep wishing us luck!!! xoxox we'll keep you posted
ps here's a pic of reffa's new BOYYYYYFRIEEENDDDD hahahaha they hang out and are so cute... it's justl ike jr high <3

last day pics..

lah gone

that's how you say "good bye" in Thai if it's going to be for a long time. lah gone.
it feels weird! we've been living with all these people 24/7 now for a month and we have to say goodbye.

we are going to stay for a few nights in kata, moisy is coming and I think greg and lorraine are giong to come too now!!!!
yay!!

it's weird. =(
Chai is sad.
we have many friends here now... thai and ferang alike.

All done!

We're all done school!! FINALLY. Those long days were pretty brutal. We haven't seen the sun hardly for a month! (bad grammar)
Speaking of Grammar, we got all our exam marks back today!
Jessica got a 96% in Grammar (95% for me)
100% in Methodology (same same)
100% in Teaching (same same)

Best grammar mark in the class was a 99%, so we did pretty good!

We were very fortunate for our final teaching class. at 10:00 I taught Poo and Bo, two very adorable Thai girls about the same age as us. then Jessica taught them a lesson at 11:00. They are so willing to learn and they try to practice everything we teach them, Jessica ends up getting my lessons vocabulary in her lesson because they try to use the words when making sentences.

ex: I taught them what "souvenirs" were today, in our lesson about traveling and tours. And then in Jessica's lesson, she asked one of them to make a sentence and the student threw in the word souvenirs. Jessica was surprised that she knew the word but then realized later, when we were talking, that they had learned it from me!!!
It was pretty funny.

When we arrived there today for our last class, both Poo and Bo came up to us and gave us flowers. Jessica's were orange, mine, purple. They thanked us for helping them and were very sweet.
During my lesson, I asked Poo to make me a sentence with "of course" and she said....
"Of course, if you go away, you will be in my heart forever"
My observer got this big grin on his face and looked at me, and I almost started to tear up.
She always says sweet things like that, shes very cute. I really enjoyed teaching her, as did Jessica.
One time Jessica was teaching the same girl, and she was asked to make a sentence with "groom" and Poo said "the groom is the most handsome man for his bride"
:)


Now we must look for work. The manager/principal of Kajonkietsuksa isn't there toady so we must wait till Monday. But it sucks because the kids all go back to school on Monday, so if we get hired, we may be a bit behind schedule because we have to do our Visa runs too.

The new students for next month are coming to the hotel tonight to get settled. Pin (thai mom) asked us if we wanted to stay here longer until we found a job, but we dont know if we can afford to, its like $20 CAD a night! But she told us she would say she has no vacancy so that we can stay if we want, and that she wont rent it out until we give her the "go ahead"
Shes very good to us!


Jessica has a throat infection.
We were going to go over to the doctor but instead we walked to the pharmacy nearby to see if they even had pennicilin. We went in and Jessica was able to buy 12 500mg capsules of Pennicillin for only 80 baht!!!! ($2.66 CAD)
Ususally in Canada you can't get pennicillin without a doctors written prescription! so Jessica basically self diagnosed and prescribed herself medicine. It was good!!

and we picked up those nose inhaler things we see everyone using. They look like a thing of lip balm but you hold it close to your nose and it clears up your sinus's. It is 95% menthol and then like 5% eucalyptus. So it can also help with headaches (because menthol/mint helps with that) so anyways, we figured we would pick one up because its so muggy here and stuffy from the rain.

You can tell when its about to rain. Its strange because you start to sweat, and everyone starts to complain that they are hot, and then within 5 minutes it starts to downpour. But the rain ususally lasts for only 20 minutes or so. But they say that right before it rains, it gets very warm.

I must go get changed, we are all celebrating tonight! Food, Drinks and Goodbyes with all our friends/classmates.

OKAY!!!

Hey guys!!
long time no talk. Sorry about that. I'm about to give you the downlo on our week.
so our days were long.. .as you know by now. Classes were fairly interesting but we were getting antsy to start applying for jobs!
High season is coming... only one week away. that means it is the time of year when everything is expensive because of the high concentration of tourists! translation... what that means for us is that we need to find a job and in turn an apartment ASAP so that we pay about 6 or 7 000 baht per month rather than like 15000 .... (that's about 180$ per month vs 450$ per month ish)

TODAY we did our final exam teaching. both reffa and I did exceptionally well. Most of our class did actually!! =) we all get along really well and everyone is a lot of fun. we're actually really going to miss our possi of 11 students!!! it's so easy just to run back and forth between the rooms to ask for something or just to hang out. it's been a lot (A LOT ) of fun!! =) it's like having that many roomates. plus the staff are like family, from day 1.
Reffa and I are applying for jobs now. We put our resumes up on Ajarn.com and we got tonnnes of response. lots of job offers (it's a two way website... people find jobs and jobs find people) but most of the offers came frmo bangkok and ref and iare open to going anywhere except bangkok and the south (due to political unrest.. ie war) . we want to stay in phuket I think! or else chang mai. check out our dorky pics to go along with our resumes.... AREN'T WE PALE!?!?!? god.. I can't wait till we have time to go to the beach?!

here's a link to the school that we're seriously hoping to work at. http://www.kajonkietsuksa.ac.th/en/mainframe.html

we love it there. it's close to where we are now, close to beaches, farther away from the tourists, cheaper than patong, and teaching young children (only 20 at a time vs 40) . so it's a great deal.
we met two children who went there and played with them ni the pool one night (see pics) and their father loved us so he's putting in a good word. it's really easy to get just any job in thailand, but reffa and I want THIS job. we kindof have our hearts set on it. <3 pin (thai mum) wants us to work there too so that we're closeby.

we took pictures of ourselves and renewed our resumes. we get our certificates this afternoon so we should be set to go. hopefully we'll be working at kajonkietsuksa by monday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tonight we're hanging out with everyone and saying our goodbyes.. we have to be out of this hotel (unless we keep paying.... ) by sunday afternoon. we might spend the weekend with moisy... our new best friend who we have to part with (there's gonig to be too many tears......) on karon beach. that way I can book a hotel for mom and dad too.... it's the most beautiful beach. there's a 5 star one on kata baech though thati'm going to check out too.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRAM!!!
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD!!!
HAPPY BELATED GRACIE POOOOO!!!!
miss all you guys.
we'll let ya know how our relaxing weekend goes. cross your fingers for sun! (we are in monsoon season after all....)
monsoon season doesn't hold a candle stick to the rain in canada this summer..... our rain was thicker, heavier, colder and WAY more often!! hahah! and we're supposedly in the rainiest part of thailand right now..

mmhmm..
okay love you all talk soon. call me!
0898785057
that's my thai number. in order to call it, you have to dial 01166 first , so 011660898785057.
I can't call out because it's super expensive (unless someone gets a calling card and emails me the number?) but you can get a cheap calling card and call me!!!

yikes

what a long week...
Sorry we haven't posted! we are too busy!! eeek. we JUST wrote two final exams, I think we both did well. we will know tomorrow.
we just have our teaching test tomorrow where someone watches us and marks us according to how we conduct our language class and how we handle issues with the students.
intimidating, we'll be aight though.
okay just wanted to let you know we're alive.
gotta go type up and prepare our lesson plans!!!!
xoxoxoxoxox

teaching

teaching is a lot of fun, but it's a lot of work too!
I have a japenese student this week and Ref has two thai students. We are both having a lot of fun, but it's really intimidating because every day we have two of our peer students watching us and filling out observation papers (3 pgs) on our performance as well as one of the TEFL instructors sitting there too.
we only teach 50 mins a day though so it's definately a good way to ease into it.

we are kindof confused about where we want to teach. we were thinking Krabi... we are going there this weekend so we'll let you know our diagnosis. Mostly we jut want to stay here for now because we've become really comfortable and we have friends here and we're learning the language.. plus we're by rain forests , mountains and beaches... we may have chosen the best spot first. just as i suspected.

anyways. off to prepare a lesson!
reffa's visiting our new favourite place up the road right now. we call it the bamboo bar because it doesn't really have a name, it's just a bunch of the beach thai boys and ladies who hang out there after their long days of parasailing and sea dooing on the beach. it's a pretty cool crowd and they are helping us learn thai in exchange for them learning some english.

xo

Phi Phi Pics

Phi Phi Island

Wahoo!!!! On Sunday we went to Ko Phi Phi on a tour. They picked us up at 7:45 am (way too early since we stayed up late laughing all night... ) and off we went to the boat station. When I say we I mean Me, Reffa and our very good friend Moisy. Great crowd if you ask me!!!! we got on this awesome little motor boat with about 30 other people and went for 50 minutes until we came to this gorgeous island. It was stunning. It's called Phi PHi and the water is a terqouise aqua that you can't even imagine - the pictures show it but it's not the same. There are amazing little tropical fish everywhere. Even where the water is endlessly deep it is such a clean deep terqoise that your mouth falls open. stunning.

I love the fact that my camera is underwater. We took lots of pictures of the fish and of us snorkeling. IT was SO MUCH FUN!!!! we got a great tan and everyone was all smiles all day long.
I think we were the only one with underwater pictures too- muahahahahahaha .

When we went snorkeling, the people on the boats threw bread in the water right beside us and the fish - hundreds of them- would surround you and it tickled and sometimes they nibbled you!! it's scared me, but it was the coolest feeling!!!!! I loved it.

After snorkeling we just walked around the very edge of the jungle for a bit and took some nice pictures (which you can see if you go on either mine or reffa's facebook.. I will add a few here but there are more on facebook). It was bright and sunny .

We got back on the boat and went to Maya bay, another island that looked just as amazing. There were MONKEYS on this island!! we got off the boat and were given banana bits and we FED THE MONKEYS!!!!! so so so cool eh? they took them right out of our hands. I don't support the people on the streets who hand you their monkeys and hawks and parrots for photos because I think the animals are abused (me and moisy had a big talk about it) but, these monkeys are wild and choose to come eat bananas frmo people on the beach!! it's really cool .

After a few short minutes we got back on the boat and headed for another shore on maya for lunch... it was all you can eat and there was lots of vegetarian food... MMM stir fry, veggies, rice, noodles, fruit, etc yummyyy.
after that we went for a swim in the water while everyone else finsiehd (because we eat twice as fast as everyone else hahahaha) and we sang "part of that world" from the little mermaid at the top of our lungs . Pretty sure we were the most annoying people on the tour. hahaha but I think we had the most fun too.

We got back in the boat and made one more leisurely stop on khai island for tanning swimming and more snorkeling. we just laid there while everyone offered for us to buy icecream and we just kept on saying, over and over, "mai ou kah, mau ou kah , mai pben rlai kah" hahaha no thank you no thank you, nevermind please!!! hahaha they are always really surprised when we say that, or anything at all, in thai.

So then we hopped on the boat and headed back home, on the way we saw a big patch of rain over the ocean in the distance- it was soooo cool, it was sunny over top of us. so so interesting. Made me a little emotional, just because of how amazing our natural earth is. Incredible.

We got home and we were exHAUSTED. which is good, except that our first lesson as teachers was TODAY!!! so we had to force ourselves to stay awake and prepare. we managed to get it done and we both did pretty well today (yay!)
we'll keep you posted. tomorrow we have to teach a class with two classmatse and a teacher observing-- talk about intimidating!!!
yikes!
anyways, gotta go work on that for a bit.
love love love xo

Yo

hey guys
we're still alive. We have a reallllllly long post on the way, but we start practice teaching tomorrow and we have a lot of work to do tonight!!!!!!!!!!
basically we had the most amazing day in the world today. Can't wait to tell you about it!
Chan Rak Thailand. (I love Thailand)
Chan pood ca sa Thai nid noi. (I can speak a little Thai)
Ra Tree Sowhat. (Good night)

phuket sunset

Sweaty days

I hear it's cold back in Canada?
that's crazy to imagine since we sweat our buns off every day. It's so hot out in the sun, we want to tan but we run the risk of going back to class in sopping sweaty wet clothes if we do so at lunch time!!! hahaha!!

We get a lot of heat for being Canadian frmo the Americans and we have no good comebacks.. they're ruthless. they say we're their "hat" and like, that we're just the attic of a good party etc... whatev. we know how it really is right canadians?

The days are so so so long... we're growing tired of them but today was our last day that we get out at 7 . at least when we get out from now on it'll be light out (it gets dark at 7).

We are learning lots of Thai. We tried a new restaurant today and spoke mostly thai to order our food and she was impressed that we'd learned that much in only a month (and it's acutally only been 2 weeks) so I guess we're doing well. our Thai teacher is really really nice, her name is tin. (well her nickname is Tin.. )

All the boys in our class are getting really really carried away with all the Thai girls. There are prostitutes everywhere, and even girls who just want to sleep with white guys ..... they love it . yikes! takes the pressure off of us to look good I guess though- there's no competing with these petite gorgeous little asians. We have to shop at tesco in the extra large section HAHAHA

Thai mum, Pin, even commented , as a joke (I hope) , "how many mons??" meaning... how many months pregnant are we. she tapped our bellies as sshe did this.. OUCH that one stings eh?? hahaha apparently it's not rude in thailand to ask about each others' weight and to comment on how "fat" or "tiny" people are. they also don't shy away from asking how old you are. hahaha it's a big change from at home. every adult is like "how old? how old?" and then they ask you to guess how old they are it's so so so funny . they ALL wihtout fail are like "how old you think I look" ? ?

hahaha

We are getting to be really good friends with a nice woman from our class named Moisy. she's really really cute and accepts everyone for who they are and she is goofy like me and ref. we have a lot of fun the three of us, but we might come home with an English accent!! AHAHAH we constantly catch ourselves talking like her and she talks like us accidentally sometimes too. we are way better at asian, english and irish accent impressions now lol (I am still no better at french accents though eh rich... ) hahahaha

I think this saturday we're going to go to Phi Phi (Pee Pee) island. it's only 30$ for an entire day tour with scuba diving, beaching, travel, food, etc etc so we're going to do that on Saturday. We'll have lots of pictures!!~

This monday we begin teaching English as student teachers. we get to watch each other. YAY but... kindof scary too. English is the hardest language in the world... grammar is impossible.

anyway, gotta go do my laundry now (and by do.. I mean, walk accross the road and have it professionally done dry cleaned and ironed for 4$ because theeres no such thing as doing anything for yourself over here... )

miss you guys!!!!!!
thanks for reading about our adventure guys..

Never Eat...

Street Meat!

Our teacher gave his dog some street meat and it KILLED the dog.
Also, Sam (one of the guys in the class) got mega food poisoning.
He ate for the first time in like 3 days today.

Aye yai yai!

The Weekend!

We went with Pin to the vegetarian festival this morning. She wanted us to see the preformances, where people put objects through their cheeks/mouths.
We got there at 7:00am, which was very earlier, because we went to the "disco" last night. It was a dance club, with English music. Very Fancy and extremely overstaffed.
We had a lot of fun. As you are walking in the street, they have it blocked off so no cars can drive on it, and there was a man with a iguana, and he asks for money and takes a picture for you and lets you hold it, or have it climb on your arm. We didnt give him any money but Jessica got to have it climb up her arm.
Our friend Lorraine took a picture, but she hasnt sent it to us yet. Maybe next week?

At the Vegetarian Festival, they had street food, or sit down restaurants. Everyone there had to wear white. And there was Yellow Flags everywhere. From what we understand, the three colors combined to symbolize vegetarianism are red,yellow, and white. red represents the blood,. and yellow and white represent puirity .
I was given a red,yellow and white handmade braclet that is supposed to bring "good luck" Pin said. It was given to me by one of the preformers who had a sword sticking through one cheek and out the other.

(this is jessica) We got there and the road was blocked off. Jess was expecting it to be kindof like the buskers but glorified where you go to where the "act" is and watch, but it was actualyl a parade from 7-1pm (so we had to get up early... even though we got home last night at 2am)... the parade is sacred. when you see somethign that you highly respect or are impressed by you have to waii (WHY), which means that you put your hands together in a prayer position at your chest and bow, depending on the age. It is tradition to put these things, wide, kinves, poles, odd things (one guy had snakes in his cheeks), etc because the mouth is the area which commits the initial sin of eating meat.

It was incredible. so we're standing on the side of the road as group after group after group of people come walking through. dressed head to toe in white, other than the "performer" him/herself. they are dressed vibrantly to bring attention to them and their sacrifice for the vegetarian festival.

the food was amazing too...mmmm yummmyy

one of my (jessica still) favourite parts of the day was when I Asked the owner of a vegetarian sit down place if he was a vegetarian forever and he said yes , and I said "me too" and he looked at me with an all new expression and reached out to shake my hand and said "congratulations".... it was really really touching and brought a tear to my eye. Someone understands? It's really nice to be accepted for who you are all the time.

(Reffa) Firecrackers were constantly going off all day. We stayed till about 11:00 and then Pin took us for a drive to see a few of the beaches that are further out of our town. They were less commercialized, and more private. Less expensive as well. They were AMAZING by the way

After we got back to the Hotel; Me, Jess, Daryl, Lorraine, Moisy and Greg went to Katon Beach and swam for about 2 hours. Then sat on the sand and talked and laughed and then all went out for supper together.

We had supper at a place that was right on the beach, it was right on the rocky shore near the forests.

A great weekend. Nice to have a break from our 11-hour school days!
Only homework we have is to practise our Thai.
To Swim- Waai nam
To Go- Bpai
um... (i'm trying to think of ones I used today...we are trying to use them when we talk)
Mai Tee Nee- Come here
Tee nee- Here
Tee nan- There
Her- Ter
I - Chan
Mai- No
Meow - Cat (hahaha)
Prong Nee- Tomorrow
etc..

A day at school.

Right now we are only taking 3 classes. Methodology, Grammar and Thai.
Our Methodology Teacher's name is Stefan. hes from Germany and he speaks German, French, English and Thai. Hes a very smart man and we are learning a LOT from him.
In Methodology he teaches us how to make lesson plans, and How to teach without confusing the student. Theres actually a lot of details that you wouldnt think of.
What we do is we make a "Drill Circle". In the class we have to try to make it 70% Student talk time, and 30% Teacher talk time. Stefan is a strong believer that language study should be entirely communicating amongst each other, that way the students are learning from each other. So basically we have to try and teach the class with as little explination as possible. He encourages us to draw pictures, or refer to picture dictionaries or to act out the verbs.
Once we create our lesson plan we want to do, we have to teach the class. What Stefan does, is he acts as a student as well, and he makes it difficult for is.
For example: I was chosen to teach the class today. I made my lesson plan the night before based on a story that Stefan printed out of a storybook. When I got up in front of the class, I tried to get the students to make a sentence using "Around" and the example I took from the story was "The train is coming around the bend"
When I asked stefan to give me an example, he said "This is a round watch" and pointed to his watch.....DOH!!!
And going by what he taught us, I had to try and explain the word "around" with as little words as possible (because the more you explain, the more confused the students get because you are explaining in a language that they dont understand yet)

Anyways, yeah. Its a lot harder than we thought. But we are all helping each other and we all have a little bit to contribute. Our creativity, Ideas and support combined makes us a really sweet class. We all get along really well too and when we go eat, we all go together. :)

In Grammar, basically we are learning our grammar all over again because WE TALK WRONG. And worst part, we are learning it by the Brittish Books. Us Canadians and Americans are like...."HUH?" when we read some of these sayings... Then it always turns into a class debate about which one is the proper way. All the Europeans defend their way, and how its the right or more sensible way to say it, And then the Americans and Canadians do the same for theirs.
It ends up being 20% of the class is actually practising our grammar and the definitions for the terms. The rest is us arguing and laughing. The teacher loves it. (Ray, who is also Canadian...from Toronto, married a woman from Nova Scotia so me and Jess are his favourites we say) He gets right involved and starts laughing and ends up telling a story and we end up telling stories for the rest of the class.
But not to worry, we make up for it at home. We are really good about doing our homework together.

Thai is mine and Jessica's favourite class. We learn SO much. And the Thai teacher (her name is Tin) loves hearing us try and say the words. She is always laughing and giving us the thumbs up.
She taught us proper Thai etiquitte.
-When you greet someone who is older than you, or more superior to you, you must put your hands in a prayer position up to your chest and bow to them only once. After that, you can greet them in a normal fashion.
-When you sit, it is not proper to cross your legs. Girls must sit with their feet flat on the floor and together. Men, can have their feet about 30 cms apart if they wish. Your hands must be cupping each other and resting on your lap, and you must not sit with your back resting to the back of the chair. You must sit up straight. This is how you must sit when you are a teacher and when you are in interviews or sitting with an elder.
-You are never allowed to stand over an elder or sit on a higher chair than them.
-You are never allowed to touch someone with your foot (wether to get their attention or to show them that they have somthing on them...it is the RUDEST.....er.....um...Most Rude thing you can do)

Just wanted to say that school is VERY fun, and we can't wait to start to teach. We have been finding out lots about our options and we can sign a 3 month contract with a school if we wish. And move elsewhere after that. That is one of the options.
Still looking into the visa runs and what we will do then, but thats a long ways away.

Chan Rak Khun

That means "I love you" in Thai. [Pronounced: Chan Raccoon]

tgtif .. thank god tomorrow is friday

School takes a lot of energy. we never get home until 7pm and we only get one hour break for lunch. we can't pack a lunch either so we have to eat out every day.
it's hot, it's tiring and we are losing our tans. wah.
good thing this is only for a couple or few weeks.

we have a test tomrorow so we have to study today.
We are excited for the vegetarian festival this weekend, and maybe the weekend after we might go to koh phi phi... a really awesome beautiful island. it's only 1400 baht for an entire day trip there and back with meals and touristy stuff. that works out to about..... 50$ ? maybe? 42$

our favourite person in thaialnd is Ya. pronounced YAH . he is SO nice. he's the sweetest little thing you'll ever see. never stops smililng. he is the one who drives us to and from aschool every morning and the one who bought us water, juice and a snack after our long hard bus ride.
he holds your hand to help you out of the car and carries your things everywhere. as a gentleman. soooo adorable.
<3 a really good heart.

gotta go study. poo. i want to go to the beach.

clammy hot

it's soo hot a clammy here. we sadly do not get very much time in the sun though.

we get up in the morning for school and go straight there, have ten minute breaks all day and a one hour lunch and then work away until 7pm each night. eeek!!!! then we have homework... and drinks with the hotel staff and customers. it's really really fun.
they have smirnoff ice (smirnoff is the devil eh mag, it folloewd me here... ) but don't worry grownups, I won't drink much.

we are gonig to the vegetarian festival this weekend where people put bikes and pipes and stuff through their faces and walk on hot coals etc. it's gonna be crazy.

sorry that there is a severe lack of update- it is due to the fact that all we do is sit in class all day!!!

we continue to meet amazing people everyday.
we learned a little about thai culture today and about proper behaviour- they are SO CUTE SO CUTE!!!!

<3 I love it here so so much. me and reffa are all the time looking at each other and hguging just out of pure joy of our surroudnings. I don't know if it's the people, the city, the great food or the amazing weather .. or maybe all of it put together but I do know one thing. Thailand is a dream destination and from what I've seen so far I Don't think I will ever ever stop coming here . it's so wonderful.

Student once again

day ONE of school.
We were picked up first thing in the morning (well... at 9:00am haha) to go to our school. I couldn't pay for the whole thing because of my stupid new visa that they tricked me into getting, it has a limit of 1000 $ so reffa is going to pay and I'm going to online transfer her the money -SO ANNOYING. anyways.

the school was quite small, but great nonetheless. there's a little sandwich shop right outside the school and it's GREAT. we ate belgium waffles this morning for cheapcheap with AMAZING juice. (have I mentioned that the juice here is freshly squeezed and perfect?)

it was a little boring today once we got into class though.
there are 11 students and everyone is over the top amazed at the high number this yaer (hahahaha) . last month it was 3 students, and we're the highest amount since like 5 years ago!!
but the course is totally legit!

we've only had two teachers so far. they were both really nice. we actually learned a bit of japenese today for the purpose of putting ourselves in the shoes of the language learner- it was intimidating but interesting for sure. we also learned a ton of grammar. that's a huge part of teaching english - I knew taht but not to the extent that it is. it's going to be a challenge- but in only two weeks we get to practice teach!! YAY!
oh and we CAN wear just jeans to school, until we practice teach.

we were also treated to a delicious lunch today midday (around 1... boy we were starving.) the lady who works at the hotel, Som is SO NICE we absolutely love her. all smiles and just adorable.

i haven't met a thai person I didn't like.
except mafia guy.

hahaha
so.
also, I am uploading pictures right now on facebook, i am sorry to those of you who have me and reffa on facebook because they're exactly the same. we will see all comemnts so it doesn't matter whose you comment on facebook but we both wanted our different friensd to see the pictures too. =)=)

please update us on stuff at home, we miss being in the loop. you know everything about us so maybe tell us what's going on back home!? <3<3

plus we haven't called yet, we don't know how.
this week, sometime, I will call?? ?? ? ?
we like everyone in our class! it's a lot of fun.
MISS YOU ALL, but it's lovely here. xo

Monsoon

So, it's a monsoon.
Reffa and I were going to explore the road that goes left from our hill, rather than straight (to the beach) because Patty (a guy we met here who is taking Thai language lessons) told us that there is an elephant sanctuary up there and we want to see an elephant so bad!!!! hahaha
We were also going to check out the other beach, because as beautiful as Patong beach is, it's filled with people buggnig you to go for a seadoo ride, or parasailing etc etc for baht. they never stop!!! we want to go to the quieter beach.
instead, we decided taht our hunger couldn't wait any longer at about 2pm because we didn't want to go out in the pouring monsoon rain. no beach, no elephant just wet walk to food.

but it was a really fun adventure!!! our new friend Moira came with us and we walked up the hill about 20/30 minutes and found an awesome market full of fruit and vegetables and anything else we might need (not to mention about 4093450938093 7/11's!!!!!! ) we bought some apples and pears for the morning, and kept walking. Moira baught us a cool Thai alcoholic drink at a side bar and then we walkd back home. even though all three of us had umbrella's we ended up SOAKED head to toe , so natually we put our bathing suits on and went for a swim.

we took my camera (underwater) and took pictures in the pool too. she is really fun, a mermaid like us!!!

anyway we are about to go watch a movie and settle in. School starts tomorrow morning!!!!
xo

Vegetarian Festival

Today is like a monsoon, lots and lots of rain. Yet its still hot and muggy.
The rain is calming down now, which is good because we are going to the Vegetarian Festival today. We will get some vegetarian food and watch the concession and the acts.

Here is a site that gives you the history and meaning behind the vegetarian festival.
http://images.google.co.th/imgres?imgurl=http://www.1stopphuket.com/images/articles/veggie_03.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.1stopphuket.com/articles/vegetarian/&h=336&w=440&sz=65&hl=en&start=1&usg=___P1rj6J5qvfq1u2_MfIxlQP2Vpc=&tbnid=Fp6GGLdUpgmA2M:&tbnh=97&tbnw=127&prev=/images?q%3Dphuket%2Bvegetarian%2Bfestival%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

We plan to go watch that in a bit, and while in Phuket town, buy some dress clothes at the market. Pin, one of the ladies here (who wants us to call her mom) said that you can buy dress shirts for 300 baht but they will try and charge us 700baht. So shes giving us tips on how to make them give us a bargain. ---300 baht is $10CAD.

Here, women shouldn't wear pants to school. They prefer if we wear skirts. We got suckered into buying a cashmere one while in Bangkok doing a coupon run for the tuktuk driver. So we have that. But Pin said we can get some at the market for 150-200 baht.

Watermelons

Remember when we said that the Hotel staff cut our watermelons into heart shapes?

We went back and ordered it to take a picture.

Cute. Cute. CUTE! <--- One word to Describe Thailand? that would be it.

Bus Ride from HELL

Well it wasn't exactly from Hell, it was a lot of fun.
But it wasn't off to a good start because we were supposed to get picked up by a driver to take us to the bus station at 5:00pm. At 4:45pm we went to grab something quick to eat, because we knew that during our 16 hour bus ride we would get a little hungry.
We told them we didnt have much time so , of course, being the sweetest people ever here, were running around and rushing and making sure that it was quick. As we were eating our driver shows up RIGHT on time. They see him and run out to distract him and make sure he waits for us to finish. I swear you guys... they are so sweet and so kind and treat us like princesses. They do anything for us, open doors, carry our bags everywhere, walk us across the street...etc..

Anyways, we get in the car and he takes us to what we thought would be the bus station but its outside of a Thai elementry school. He can't speak any english and keeps saying "cant park, can't park" as in..... "I have to leave cause I cant park here!"
We just stand there, not knowing what to do. Thinking "If we miss our bus, how are we going to make it to Phuket in time to start our classes??" getting all scared.
Then a man walks over from across the street and says "you need bus? to where?"
..."Phuket"
..."come with me"
He takes us across the street, through a back alley, past a market and around a building where we find 3 busses parked and a bunch of backpackers.
We give them our tickets and wait. As we are waiting a girl walks up and is talking to the girl taking the tickets and had a Canadian passport in her hand.
She was from Ottawa and was going to Krabi on the same bus as us.
So we talked to her for a bit and she told us about Chiang Mai (place with the Elephants we want to see) and we told her about Bangkok, since she was sick she missed out on the tourist celebrations.
As we were sitting there, a guy from Ireland named Alan comes and sits with us and he was going to Phuket too. So the 4 of us became "bus buddies" and sat together during our stops and told stories.
Sometime during the 16 hour overnight trip, we stopped at a checkstop on the side of the highway where they sell water, snacks and have a washroom. ( I took a picture of the washroom to gross everyone out. No Toilet Paper, No seat, just squat over a suare ceramic bowl thats on the ground that doesnt flush....and....if you wish... take the bucket of water to splash yourself clean when you are done)

we keep going along and then finally we get to the closest stop to Phuket. Which was the side of the road....not a bus station. Yes, Thats right... The bus doesnt go to Phuket. It stops 4 hours away and goes back. If you want to go to Phuket...you have to pay more money at the nearest bus stop or hire a cab!!!!!!!! :|
So we thought we were gonna be stuck 4 hours away from Phuket and have to hire a cab. But to our rescue a truck pulls up and we pile in the back. Me, Jess, Alan, A girl from the Netherlands, A guy from Italy and a guy from Indonesia. (Ottawa girl got on another bus)
They take our bags and put them On TOP of the trucks roof, and we all sit in the back of it. They drive us to a shuttle bus that is driving to Phuket.
---i know....really really confusing eh? we just went with the flow---

Anyways, this shuttle takes us down to Phuket but takes us the opposite direction of Patong Beach, and takes us to Phuket town, So that we have to pay him 200 baht to go the other way.
Lucky for us we had someone from the Hotel waiting to pick us up in Phuket town so we weren't suckered into paying more.
Everyone we talked to on the bus payed a different price for their bus ticket than us. It was kinad funny going around and finding out how much people payed. Its all about getting them to give you "Discounts" if you are a tourist, they try and get the most they can from you.
But we made it to Phuket town and Ya (guy hired to pick us up) found us and took us back to our WONDERFUL hotel which we stay at during our schooling. Its about a 10 minute walk from Patong Beach and in a safe area. Very touristy. (and it has a toilet with toilet paper!)

Ya was a really really Nice Thai guy that works for the TEFL school and for the Hotel. On the drive to the hotel he asked us if we were hungry and we said we were (because we hadn't eaten in 16 hrs) and he was like "soon we will be at hotel...15 mins" then he says "just one stop for me ok?" and stops at a 7-11. While hes in there Jess and me are trying to guess what hes gonna buy Water?Cigarettes?Coffee?Snack? We didnt know. Then he walks out of the store and gets in, Hands us each a "Strawberry Love Bun" which is a bread that has a chocolatey straberry taste to it, a bottle of cold water and a mango orange juice.
We both tried to hold back our tears cause we thought it was so sweet that he stopped for us. We tried to give him money and he kept saying "mai ben lai, mai ben lai" which means "nevermind".

There is a Reggae Bar across the street, when it cools down a bit we are gonna walk over and check it out.
Jessica is playing dominos with one of the staff here and then she is gonna come on and write the stuff I forgot.
Right now we have two seperate rooms side by side, we are gonna see if we can share one for two months rather than have two rooms for one month. Lets see if they'll let us.

We are learning Thai right now, a guy from England is taking a Thai course and he is teaching us common phrases and the hotel staff is helping him also, as he just started 2 weeks ago. In return, he teaches them english. We hung out with him by the pool and he taught us how to say a few things. He is going to take the TEFL course too, but next month. Hes staying for 8 months and plans to learn Thai and then Teach English. He worked in Postal in Birmingham and got sick of it so decided to come here and Learn Thai. Pretty cool of him!

Lots to read!

Pictures on Facebook for now until we can get the other camera to work on this computer.

Know whats really cute?

When we drive down the road, or walk, there are always little school boys walking together in their school uniforms and sometimes a boy puts his arm around his friend and they walk together or hold hands.

:)

MBK

We are going to MBK which is the big mall in Bangkok.
After that, we are going to sit by the pool in the hotel and wait for our shuttle to take us to the bus station, then we are making our way down to Phuket. It is a 16 hour bus ride.
It is 30 degrees and cloudy. The weather thing says "feels like 40"

Miss you all!!

Friend

We have a new friend Dave.
He is here with his friend Scott and they are from Scotland. They are going to Phuket on Wednesday so we are gonna be there a few days before them and learn the ropes and help them out when they come down.
Dave bought a guitar yesterday for 600 baht. ($30 bucks)

Hotel Lobby

So I was sitting down here in the hotel Lobby waiting for the pool to open. (we wake up really early...like 5:45am today and 4:00 yesterday..i think its the heat) but anyways and they were playing an english radio station and the song "Thank you" by Dido came on...and the guy at the desk was trying to sing along and I was somewhat singing along. And he shyly came over to me with a piece of paper and he was like "do you know this song?" and I was like "yes, its good eh?" and he was like "can you please write down for me? I like it"
And I did and he was sooo happy.
They are always happy.
I like that.

So Cute

Our server at dinner could'nt speak a word of English. And the only thing I can say in Thai is "hello, how are you?" "twenty-two" and "mai pen rai".
So it was really hard to order something. I did the whole point and shake my head while saying meat and pointing to the word "shrimp" and making a line on it....etc...
Luckily, the girl at the table beside us spoke Thai fluently and translated for us.
We tried to say thank you to him (still learning) and said it wrong. Then he smiled cause he knew what we were trying to say.
5 mins later he came back with a little piece of paper saying "Khob-Khun-Kha" and they symbols, so that we would know how to say thank-you.
He pointed at it and said "Thank you. Thank you." and walked away.
He was so sweet. Full of smiles.

Monthly friend

just a side note .
diva is a GOOOOOOOOOOOO =D=D=D=D so good.

Downtown Bangkok

It was so hot in the room last night that Reffa and I got up at 4am and didn't sleep again after that ahahaha we waited so so long for the continental breakfast to start (at 630 am) . we could have put on the air conditioner but we're trying to get used to the heat so it doesn't bug us. it's actually surprisingly not that bad! it's muggy, and very polluted and warm but the sun doesn't beam as hard through the smog and cloud so it's not too bad!

We went down to eat then as soon as we could. for breakfast we get two pieces of toast butter and jam with a plate of specially cut heart shaped watermelons -SO CUTE!!!!!!!! we didn't want to eat them. they took a knife and cut each one, not even a cut out. we also got tea... obviously we weren't FULL but we were satisfied.

Naturally, as any one who knows us well might have guessed, we went then to get our bathing suits on and spend some time playing in the pool. we were the only ones in there so it was really fun, we were just swimming and jumping in.. it was so warm!

We decided to get out of the pool for a bit and get ready to meet Tik (the cab driver from y esterday who was giong to cart us around all day for 1000baht ) but then we talked to this amazingly nice girl at the front desk who told us taht the ferry was 17 baht and a 2 minute walk from the hotel so we ditched Tik and saved a ton of money which we could later spend on other things =-D

off we go to the ferry and we went too far and ended up in this tiny poor residential area and a guy tried to get us to go on HIS boat for 500 baht and we were like NOPE and turned aroud and went to the ferry. he was disappointed. these people love taking advantage of ferangs (that's what they call foreigners) .
we made our way to the ferry and were bubbling over with excitement , giggling and taking unneccessary pictures. SOFUN and every person was smiling at us and waving ! a great way to start off our morning around 9am.
At one point the ferry hit the dock so hard that reffa and I jolted forward into the pole of it. really funny... they're CRAZY drivers over here.

when we got to our spot (gate number 8) we just walked and all of a sudden were in these awesome endless markets of food, designs, postcards, fabrics etc etc . it was really cool. a little overwhelming though at times, they won't let you just LOOK at the product they really make you feel as though you can't say no. it's hard.

luckily bottled water is only 10 baht... just under .3 of a penny canadian. the water here is perfefctly fine for anyone who was wondering- no problems! =D

We made our way down the road a bit , refusing rides from everyone when we crossed paths with a man who was curious about us so we chatted him up fora l ittle while and then he ended up telling us about the fact that it was a celebration of buddha today! and, as a result of the tourist depreciation lately in bangkok, there were TONNES of wicked deals for us ferang. we got into places for free, free food, and tuktuks for like 20 baht (under a penny) all day!!

I bought flip flops for 2cents canadian. AHHAHA this is soo cool!
in return for not paying for tuktuks though (a tuktuk is a type of cab which is crazy btw, i will post a picture in a few mins) .. we had to go to these places for the drivers so they could recieve redeemable coupons for gas etc... so we were basically con artists LOL ahhaha they'd ask us to go into silk shops and act interested for 10 mintutes at a time so that they could get a coupon for bringing us there. we actually ended up buying a nice cashmere/silk suit (together to share for now.. we can mix and match our other clothes). for a blouse and skirt tailor made best materials it came to 80$ cdn. wicked.
it started feeling a bit like a conspiracy at times though, the cabs in combination with the coupons in combination wtih the shops.... we got a little skeptical. especially when hahaa okay

so we go into the park to see the black buddha right, and there's a one hour wait to go into the temple. we didn't want to wait an hour, but we were tired so we sat on the bench anyways and cahtted with this guy. he seemed high or something - reffa offrred him a smoke and he made this weird relaxed face and kept talking casually. He was telilng us to avoid the ring shops because they were bad news, bad news he says watch out for mafia. and we are like AHH!!! so of course we casually slip away back to our loyal tuktuk waiting in the park for us and we shake it off and keep moving. all of a sudden we stop at this shop that the cabby wanted us to go to so that he could redeem one of his coupons so we're like sure whatever and we go in (this was like the 11th shop we went in for this reason so far right) so we're looking aroudn (all the while being bombarded by salespeople to buy stuff) and on our way out the door .... the mafia scary guy plays with his rings and gold bracelette while he's trekking up the stairs of this very ring shop so.. in conclusion we were talking with a member of the thai mafia :::: scary.

were good though. woah what a long day.
KohSanh road is apparently this huge backpacker central in bangkok- every cabby assumed we were giong there so we thought we should check it out-- it was the best road ever. think of the buskers and then multiply that awesomeness by about 5000. SO COOOOOLL!!!!
anyway, i'm gonna add some pictures and let reffa take the story from here--