Merry Kissma!

It was a lovely Christmas in Hua Hin. It was hot, and I had to teach three classes, and then perform for the Christmas assembly. It was pretty odd, but I feel like they do Christmas right here. It's all about games and songs and fun. There's no rush to buy a million presents and spend money and worry about calling them holiday trees. I think it works because adults don't care about the holiday, so the national understanding of it is based on children's perspective (read: Santa Claus and presents and snowmen whatever those might be).

I had a great time singing Jingle Bells with the kids, because they scream "Jingle Bells Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way!" and then mumble "Oh what mmm it is mm mmm m mm m m m mm m m m " then scream "Hey!". I realized quickly that it was useless to explain a "One horse open sleigh" as most American kids don't really know what that is.

The highlight might have been when I told the nativity story in the simplest English I could muster, and then gave a little quiz with prizes. First question: Who was born on Christmas 2000 years ago? The first kid sprints up, I give him the microphone and he proudly says "Santa Claus". See? Kids aren't any different here than they are in America.

A Little More on Laos

I wasn't kidding when I said that the bread in Laos was super exciting. There were sandwich carts all over the place, and we got the most delicious sandwich I've ever had! It was a baguette loaded up with mystery meat, various sauces (one spicy, one sweet), lots of cilantro, and some veggies. It may sound sketchy, but it was sooo good.

The other interesting thing about Laos (okay, probably the legitimately interesting thing) is that it is a communist country. There are hammer and sickle flags everywhere. The one touristy thing we had time to do was climb the Patouxai arch, a monument to honor fallen soldiers. It was a pretty impressive monstrosity.

Now we're back in Hua Hin, getting ready for the week. We have to teach all week. No Christmas break for us! Although we may or may not have Friday off, due to some meeting. I have been asked to choreograph the kindergarten Christmas dance for the Christmas celebration on Wednesday, and Richard is playing Christmas songs at his school. I had one dance practice so far, which involved ten tiny girls in Santa hats, lots of miscommunication, one child breaking down in tears, and a whole lot of Cute. Christmas is definitely recognized and celebrated, but more as a Western spectacle than anything else. I'm getting a little sad to be missing Christmas at home, but we have some friends here in town, so we'll make sure to celebrate. Happy holidays!

Visa Run

One of the big hassles of living in Thailand is the struggle to stay legal. Richard and I knew we'd have to do a visa run at some point. We got a 60 day tourist visa before coming to the country, but we need a non-tourist visa to legally work. We were always planning to get this visa in Bangkok. It takes about three weeks to process, so we were planning on putting in our paperwork, and then dashing to the Myanmar border for a stamp to renew our tourist visa while the non-tourist visa finished processing.

However. Our coordinator here insisted that we needed to go to Laos to get our visa. This was news to us, and was going to be a much more expensive trip than we had budgeted for. After explaining that we really couldn't afford to go to Laos, our coordinator offered to pay for a van to take Richard and me, along with the three other teachers from our program who are in Hua Hin. to Laos.

So, here we are in Laos! We took the van overnight, got to the border at 5 am, and spent the day until about noon waiting in various lines to get into the country and get our visa processed. After a nap, some food and some coffee, we're ready to explore Vientienne, but we've only got a night here. We pick up our paperwork tomorrow, and head back to Thailand.

Laos seems pretty cool. There are baguettes everywhere. Good bread is hard to get in Thailand, so this is very exciting. Apparently northern Laos is beautiful, but we have no time to see it. Hopefully we'll get a chance to come back. That's my only insight so far. Bread! Mmmm. I'm pretty sleep deprived.

Happy Monkey Day!

This morning, Richard informed me that it is monkey day today. So happy monkey day! Speaking of monkeys, Richard and I saw a bunch yesterday. We took a songtow to Kao Takiab, and there are monkeys who live at the Wat there. Kao Takiab is a mountain that juts right out into the gulf, and there is a beach right next to it, so after climbing a mountain and seeing some monkeys, we played frisbee on the beach. Living in a place with both mountains and beaches is pretty exciting.

Richard and I have both been at our schools for a week, and things are going pretty well so far. I haven't really had to teach yet, but I start for real tomorrow. Richard had to teach on his first day, with no time for lesson planning. But it seems like it's gone pretty well. We're both realizing that classroom management with kids who know practically no English is going to be challenging, but we'll do our best. I'll write more about my school after I've been teaching a little longer.

Now that we're not staying downtown, Richard and I are starting to really like Hua Hin. The weather has been beautiful, the beach is gorgeous, and the sea food is plentiful, delicious, and relatively inexpensive. Our coordinator here treated us to this meal last week. Mmmm.

And here's me on the beach at Kao Takiab:

Kids with a dog on the beach:

An elephant, just walking down the road:

And the principal of my school, with a dog in a car:

There was a random dog show at my school on Friday. My school is really close to the palace where the royal family stays when they're not in Bangkok. Apparently the dogs who performed were the grandchildren of the King's favorite dog. It was pretty entertaining.

So that's it for now. I hope everyone has a great monkey day!

Hua Hin is like Florida but more Thai, so don't worry

We moved into our apartment yesterday. It's a spacious studio apartment (oxymoron, right?) in a neighborhood full of students. I'm sure we'll take some exciting pictures as we spent 1500 baht at the local Walmart equivalent decking it out. It was interesting to learn that in Thailand, even in the most westerner friendly store in town, non-fitted sheets do not exist.

Our neighborhood is nice and Thai, people stare at us when we walk by instead of trying to get us to buy suits and massages. In short, it's nice and what we wanted.

Thanks for all the birthday wishes! My birthday was pretty fun. We had a bunch of people down from Bangkok for the weekend. We went out Friday night, I had a bit too much SangSom (it turns out, it doesn't take much), and did not win my birthday party, as no one should do.

Ouch

So, now I'm the girl who let her boyfriend climb out of a window in the middle of the night, and didn't even wake up when he left this hole in the roof about a story below us. Sorry, Richard.

The government was voted out! New elections! Exciting.

We're in Hua Hin now. It is such a beach town. So much like Florida. We're staying at a guest house until Saturday, when we get to move into our accommodations. And then we start working on Monday...

Crazy story

After a late night celebrating the end of our course we went to bed. At some point during the night, during a dream, I found myself climbing over something and reaching for the ground with my foot. I couldn't reach it, so I hung from the edge and let myself drop. After I found the ground, I walked around a little and scoped out my surroundings, then I tried to climb onto something else, and started falling. I caught myself, pulled myself up, and woke up.

After I woke up, I realized that I had climbed out my third story window, dropped onto the corrugated metal roof of a building just outside mine (breaking through the metal, walked around on it, tried to get onto the balcony of someone else's hotel room, fallen through the metal there, and pulled myself up. At this point I'm fully awake, in my boxers, bleeding, and stuck on top of this roof. I walked all around it trying to figure out how to get down, but short of shimmying down a palm tree, I can't figure anything out. So I lie on the roof until I hear someone walk by and I call out in Thai and English, "Help!" Eventually someone from our program hears my voice and calls the front desk. They come and let me into a side window and I scramble half naked back to my room.

It takes about a dozen bandages and gauze pads to get me covered up, by that time it was about 5:30am. I went back to bed (with the windows and doors locked) and woke up a bit of a wreck at noon. I eventually decided that, even though my cuts weren't that bad, I'd rather not get tetanus, so I went to the emergency room. There was no wait, and I got my cuts cleaned a tetanus booster, all for 100 Baht (about $3). I paid the hotel 800 Baht ($25) for the substantial damage to their roof and now all I have is a bruised heel, a handful of small wounds, and terror of falling asleep to show for the whole ordeal. I am really lucky that that's the worst that I've got.

As far as I can tell I've never sleepwalked before. I know my sister used to a long time ago. I talk in my sleep pretty regularly, but this is just crazy. It's good to know, I guess. I can make sure that I keep windows and doors locked. I could sleep handcuffed or in a tight sleeping bag or something, but that may be overkill. I'd be a lot more terrified if I hadn't heard Mike Birbiglia's story on this episode of This American Life.

Anyway, I'm fine now. Of all the weird things to happen in Thailand, I sure wasn't expecting this.

How Many Farang Can You Fit In a Tuk-Tuk?

At least six, but probably more. (Ben's up next to the driver taking the picture). And a teaser: Richard's got a crazy story coming up soon...