Christmas Day the Thai way!

As you can all probably imagine, Christmas does not feel the same over here! For one the religion widely practised here is Buddhism so Christmas has a different emphasis, also apart from Mort's aunt and uncle we have no other family members to visit, thirdly they don't do Christmas dinners like England, fourthly the weather! My list could go on but I'm sure you get the idea!!

So this year for Christmas we spent the day with Mort's aunt and uncle. They came to our hotel where we had a buffet, which included turkey but the potatoes weren't exactly roast potatoes. Mort loved the buffet as they had put out more dishes than usual and therefore included large oysters.

As part of the entertainment they had a singer, saxaphonist and a guitarist, a person dressed up in a bunny costume (I can hear children crying out 'where's santa? It's not Easter!') and 2 balloon sculpturists (!?!?!). The balloonists were fabulous. They would do whatever you asked for, sure beats the poodles in England!!

After our lunch we took a drive to the Crocodile Farm.

It was good seeing the crocodiles but they keep other animals and the conditions are poor and sad so I didn't take any photos of them. To round off Christmas day we went to Mort's aunt's for Thai food. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year. xxx

Quick photos

Sorry but you'll have to look sideways!

Koh Samet - Take two!

So, I was getting a bit bored having so much time away from work due to the threatening flood situation, which never materialised where I live. So we decided to take a short break for 2 nights to Koh Samet again. It is very much a beach holiday. We didn't really go exploring on the island, which isn't very big and just has other beaches and view points.

Here are a few photos.

Sunrise at 6 am

An exploring yellow ant!

View of a quiet bay just round the corner from where we were staying.





A wonderful short break and top up of my fading tan!

Koh Chang

We arrived in Koh Chang at 4pm after an 8 hour journey by taxi, coach and ferry. After finding accommodation and having something to eat we went to watch the sunset.

We went to have a drink at the hotel we stayed at on our honeymoon and happened to have some unexpected visitors close by!

We then returned to where we were staying to have a drink and watch the sea.

On Monday (and Tuesday!) we went on a trip to Khlong Plu waterfall.



Spot the rainbow.


On our return we stopped off at the toilets where I found this flying object crawling along with a dead spider!

We decided to take a detour on our way home and check out Lonely Beach.

Another evening, another sunset ...

On Wednesday I decided that maybe I should at least do a bit of cooking while in Thailand and what would be better than a Thai Cooking Class?? So, here are some of the photos...



We made 6 dishes and got to eat all of them! Yummy!





On Thursday we went on a boat trip to 4 islands to do a bit of snorkelling. We saw lots of amazing marine life but unfortunately it was all underwater and we don't have an underwater camera...yet!



My highlight was when a school of pipe fish (I think that is what they were) swam right in front of me :)



... yet another!

Photo update!

So...in my last blog I had difficulty uploading. Here are some pictures in Ocean World.







Fantasia Water Park, top of Bang Kapi Mall

Bowling at Ekamai Cineplex

Me joining in the running race at Central World, Siam

Sunset, taken from our hotel swimming pool

The next 4 weeks...

Well we have now been living in Bangkok for officially 2 months and 2 days!

I have nearly completed my first term of teaching, had an observation, written settling in reports and led a class assembly! Phew!

Apart from working, I have been doing many other activities to fill my free time, including visiting Ayutthia (which now has extremely bad flooding), Ocean World and Fantasia water park.
This is Ayutthia before it got even worse. As you can see, you can only see the top floor of the house, the bottom is under water.


Mort and I went to Ocean World, at the bottom of Siam Paragon shopping mall (http://www.siamoceanworld.co.th/). It was fantastic, plus I got us money off as I work in Thailand, ching, ching!!! Included in our entrance fee we got a behind the scenes tour above the big fish tank, a ride on the glass bottom boat, 4D movie, drink and popcorn, souvenir and happy feet (feet get eaten by fish!). There were lots of wonderful and exotic sea creatures.

Koh Samet

So last weekend Mort, myself and friend, Ben took a trip to Koh Samet for the weekend. It is an island south east of Bangkok and about 3 hours drive away, if the driver knows where he is going and doesn't stop for 20 or so mins for petrol!

We had a lovely time although there was rain alot of the time. However I still managed to burn!!!!! Eek!!

We got a speed boat across from the mainland and washed up on beach right infront of Tub Tim, the resort we stayed at. We slept in an air conditioned hut and had breakfast included.

Friday evening we watched a fire show and chilled at a bar and did a spot of dancing.

Saturday was a very chilled out day sitting by the beach at our resort and going for long swims in the sea. We also hired kayaks for an hour and kayaked along the beaches. Saturday evening is when it started to rain and barely stopped the rest of the weekend except for one hour when we went swimming on Sunday. So the rest of the time we continued to chill and eat at our resort.

Late Sunday afternoon we got totally soaked returning to mainland in a speed boat and then wading through flooded roads to get a taxi. Eventually we got home about 8pm.

All in all we had a super relaxing weekend by the refreshing beach, amongst many ants and I sure other creepy crawlies as well!

Photos will be added another time as they are not on this computer!

Interesting sightings!

Just happened to see this tiny snail that is nearly the size of my hand in the school grounds yesterday and thought it was a great photo opportunity!

So we've been living here for nearly 4 weeks...

First Impressions of Bangkok

Well I thought I'd start this blog to keep you as up-to-date as I can of our adventures in Thailand!

Since arriving in Bangkok I have been pretty much non-stop with work. When we arrived we were taken to a basic hotel close to my school, so it was handy. The following day after we looked at some different properties and eventually decided on the one for us. It is a fairly new condo called 'Four Wings'. We have fitness membership for the year which means that we have access to the condo pool, hotel pool, gym, squash, badminton, basketball, table tennis, yoga/aerobics classes and a couple of other things!! We are enjoying our comfy western style living!



We didn't move in til the Thursday so ended up staying in a really nice hotel for our third night.

On the Saturday I had the first of my 3 day Thai Culture course that was completed on Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I had school INSETs.

Impressions so far of teaching in a Thai International School
Let's start with the fact that I only have 15 children, quite nice when use to 30! I get at least one session free each day as I don't teach Thai, PE, Music or French/Mandarin. I have a break duty for morning break and lunchtime, however this is nothing like in England as the children seem very mellow and rarely (none!) any issues. There isn't actually a playground. The children play on a field, climbing frame or walk along the outside corridor. I buy my food from the canteen everyday with my coupons which is normally a choice of a noodle dish, rice dish or more western (which costs more) consisting of chips and some type of meat. Oh yes... I mustn't forget my daily shaved ice with a choice of 3 toppings and syrup!!

It has been quite frustrating at times, but I don't want to go too much into that! We have easy access to a B/W printer, but for colour I have to go to the office to print out. Also, photocopying has to be handed in at least 24hours before needed to the photocopying guy (so this means I need to be more organised - not sure that's a bad thing!!). Oh, and having access to laminates, a trimmer (not the nice ones we use in UK but quick pull down leaver while chopping off a few fingers in the process!!). I'll stop there!!!

One more thing that made me smile today and I had to resist laughing, when the children sing in a big group it sounds lovely and very American. My voice sounds so English amongst them!

Well I'll stop for now and let you get on with your own lives! Do leave any comments as I will enjoy reading them.