And this is Home

Quote of the Day: "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."

Prepare yourself for an epic adventure that may result in a super long blog. My apologies, But I can't decide what to cut out. I've met so many incredible people over the past couple weeks whom I will never forget but had to leave out of this blog. Sad story. So anyway...here we go :)

We've gone to a lot of really cool markets, some just locally that are open all the time, and some in the town that's a 40 minute train ride away. It's been really cool to see all of the beautiful carvings that they make and try new foods that they cook. Some of the girls even tried those tasty bugs....not me...not yet. The picture on the left shows a huge pile of a million coconuts. I swear, I never knew how delicious those thing were. 

 

I enjoyed my first authentic Pad Thai dish for about a 30 Baht= 1 dollar. It was exquisite, and then I had my second Pad Thai a couple days later...I'm sure it wont be the last. I'm allergic to peanuts so I google translated "allergic to peanuts" and then tried to copy it on this paper....but you know google translate...so I tried to draw a picture too. Haha anyway it's worked so far

We found these paddle boats at the Crocodile park and temporarily used our bicycle hamlets to  protect us from our wicked speed.

Oh and the middle consul had a face like this 

On Sunday we took a 45 minute train to Phitsanulok for church. The train ride itself was pretty awesome. I could see green hills with tons of palm trees, golden temples and tons of rice fields on the way. It was beautiful. Anyway once we got there, this girl named Mink met us at the train station and helped us get a tuk tuk to the church building. She learned English at school and was really nice. 

After church we Mink was showing around the Temples and these kids ran up to us asking if we spoke English. We talked to them for a while while there parents took pictures (very proud of the English there kids were learning at whatever school they go to.) adorable.

                          
These are some of the awesome temples we checked out. I really think I'm going to make all this gold paint a Thing in America. All of the people in the temples seemed so devoted. Buddhism is fascinating.

We were so excited about all the temples and markets that we missed our train. Mink was kind enough to let us hitch a ride with her friend who happened to have this spacious truck bed!

 So back in Phichit we were coming home from the bank and BAM. there is a parade coming down the street. Big floats, dancing people, music, these random bobblehead people, the whole works. It was awesome. It was kind of weird though because the people that were actually in the parade kept doing double takes of us and then telling the people next to them and waving at us. haha Later we found out that it was to begin this sweet festival in our town with a big market.

And on the way home I may or may not have gotten my skirt stuck in my bike. 

This Thai guy eventually stopped on the side of the road, got my skirt out of the bike, and then just drove of. Odd but very nice of him. 

 This adorable thing was a stray that got attached to us. it stuck around for a few days but one morning I woke up and found it in my shower. Stupid stray dogs got to it :( I was pretty depressed for a couple of days.

 

 We got pedicures after a super hot day of biking everywhere. It was much needed. Even though the lady told me like a thousand times how short my nails are :) That little boy is her son. He was super fascinated with my camera and scrolled through all my pictures three times :)

I have to bring up these fruit smoothie/icee things again because they are divine. We've gone literally everyday for two weeks to get them. Except sunday. They're closed Sundays. This quite family owns the shop and the dad Lee SiQow practices his English with us everyday. Today him and his wife invited us to a picnic at the park where they brought us fruit and Oragomy they made out of Thai money. Don't even get me started on how cute there baby is. 

Enjoying the incredible Thai sunset at the crocodile park. 

This is one of the awesome teachers I live with, Mckenzie! She got her mission call over Skype to Kentucky. Very exciting business

      And THENNN...there was this. We were walking down the street on our first week here and BAM, we see a white guy driving the opposite direction. Naturally we were excited so we just waved, called him a "Farang" (meaning Foreigner, that's what they call white people, not offensively) and kept walking. But he flipped around and came to talk to us. After small talk he invited us to his 60th birthday! We had to ask for special permission to go and him and his wife ended up having to write a letter with information and give copies of ID. Intense, I know, but its pretty cool that our program is keeping us so safe. but I digress...

We Did end up getting to go and it was SOOO much fun. He had like 50 people flown in from all around the world who were super nice. They all approached us wanting to know our stories and telling us there's. Along with his 50 British friends, there were about 100 Thai people there too. They served us like 10 delicious Thai courses and had Thai dancers and singers performing. It was a night that will never be forgotten.

Please excuse the incredible length of this post :)

Love from Thailand,

Nesha <3

Week 1

Quote of the Day: "What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it."

So this is where we live. It's great! It has like 23 windows that we can open to let the air in during the day and AIR CONDITIONING at night. Yes you heard right. We get spoiled with air conditioning. It's crazy because a lot of the time it's not actually THAT hot outside, mostly inside if you leave the windows closed. Anyway it's not actually in the school, but its like 200 feet away. (which is even better in my opinion)

There's a billion windows everywhere :)

So our Native coordinator, Tangs mom, whom we Also call Mom, brought us a huge basket  of fruit and a bag of this delicious Thai candy.  Some of the fruit was stuff I'd never seen before...Like this Rose-Apple (which kinda tastes like a pinetree :)

And this Dragon fruit (I realize we have these in the states, but  none of us had tried them, so it was a big deal :)

The Sunsets here are absolutely beautiful. (This happens to be behind the Buddhist temple across the street. When I took this picture we could here the monks singing and playing there instruments! Pretty awesome)

Nobody wins in Yellow! Guess what color my helmet is!! ha

We bike everywhere and this was before our very first bike ride, and  I'll be honest, it was TERRIFYING. In Thailand they don't really have traffic rules except stop on a red light, and they have NO idea how to use a round-about. haha There are a Ton of trucks and normal cars, there are also about a billion mopeds, but the trucks caught me off guard (especially when I was on my bike inches from them speeding by. Now I feel comfortable riding around town with the girls and its really fun. 

The day before class was crazy. We spend about 10 hours in this room writing our lesson plans for the upcoming week and preparing stuff for class. The last few hours got pretty loopy.

Especially when this little guy came along and we had a mighty adventure defeating him. 

After the first day of teaching (which was pretty scary) we really started having a ton of fun with the kids. We found out that they're pretty obsessed with Gangnum Style so we played it for them during their milk break

These are some of the absolutely adorable kids I teach. I have six in my other class. The kids that I teach are ages 6 and 7 but they are Super advanced for their age. They are in the highest English level that the Imperial Bilingual has so far so we can communicate pretty well, and let me tell you, they are pretty witty. They are suppose to call me Teacher Nesha but I've already received the nick names: Teacher Slow (I made them talk so much on our first activity that we didn't have enough time to finish), Teacher Baby (they think my water bottle looks like a baby bottle) and Teacher Toilet (I honestly don't even know). 

We get to babysit for an hour everyday for the kids who board here, which is only about 6.  We rotate so that two of us babysit every night and its SUPER fun to be able to just play with the kids with out worrying about how much English they're learning. This one is Mee-poo. His brother's name is Moo-pee (Horribly confusing)

Of course, as a teacher, I don't have Favorites, but if  I did..... (This is Phuvit (Poo-vit) he seems like he has an attitude problem at first but really he's just quiet and struggles with his English, he does get distracted easily but that's why its so excited when he's into a lesson!

Action shot. Taking pictures on a bike is quite an adventure!

May or may not be a tickle torture during babysitting 

My fellow teachers whom I Love! Gabby, Sarah, Mckenzie, Linsay, Michaela. We've had so much fun together and much to come. 

People always yell hello when we ride past of just stare, we get that a lot too ha And kids will sometimes run up and give us high fives as we ride past their houses. pretty awesome

Don't let the temporary lack of cars, mopeds and motorcycles deceive you . It's not usually like this :) Usually it's much more fun. 

We found this booth on the side of the road that make amazingly fresh and delicious fruit Icee type things. You just pick whichever fruit combos you want and the guy adds some Ice and a dab of some juice stuff, blend it and Viola....AMAZING. Today he pointed at Green Guava instead of watermelon to add to one of the drinks....genius. 

We stepped into the Market for like half a second because we had to get back to teach tutoring but  just enough time to find these super creepy manikins

Anyway, my first week has been incredible and we haven't even had a ton of time to explore yet! Teaching is so much fun in itself. It is very challenging sometimes but SOO rewarding and I love it. I love how the cooks, gardeners, parents  and EVERYONE we pass in the streets smile every time they see us and everyone seems so loving.

Love from Thailand,
Nesha <3