Feeling the Heat in Thailand Schools

I thought I would take the opportunity to update everyone after two full days of Teaching in Thailand, this is Josh by the way. I will be starting out this post and Beth will be finishing it.

Walking to school Monday took about five minutes. We have taken this walk many times in the past week but never like this one. The usually desolate sidewalk was filled with students of all ages. Many of the students were attending the school we were going to. Others were from an all girls school right next to our school. Our school, Wat Khema, has about 3000 students ages 12-18. Boys and girls attend our school but there are many more boys than girls. Not to many years ago our school used to be an all-boys school, hence more boys than girls, about 3-1.

As we walked into the school we saw uniforms on every student. There were many different kinds of uniforms but every student had a uniform. We saw customs of showing respect from the students as they walked in. For instance, many students would stand in a line facing what looked like a teacher and do a synchronized bow as a sign of respect before they entered the school. Other students walked past without bowing at all.

Beth and I made it to the Foreign Language Department before 7:30am. One of the few things that we were told about our job is "show up by 7:30am." We did and hoped the many questions about our job would finally be answered. When we arrived at the department we saw a few familiar Thai teachers that we had met in the past week. We also met some new people. We were now greeted and apart of the foreign part of the foreign language department. Included were many teachers from the Philippines, Australia, Africa, and America. All spoke very good English. A few teachers have been there many years and a couple for less than a year. We happily joined them as English teachers.

Our schedules were given to us around 8:00am on the first day. I had 19 classes and Beth 18. She will teach upper level students Math and I will teach lower level students English.

I will conclude my part by explaining a little bit about my classes and then let Beth finish the post.
So far I have had 6 classes. One had been in air conditioning, about 12 students aged 15, with decent English skills. Five of them have been classrooms with no AC (one without working fans), about 45-50 students in each, aged 12-13, who had little to no ability to speak and comprehend English. It seems I have my work cut out for me. I also want to mention a few elements that make my job a bit trickier. The typical temperature is 90-95 degrees Fahrenheit with high humidity. This will put any teacher into a sweat in no time. Especially someone whose body is not accustomed to this much heat. Also, there is construction going on at the school. An excavator (backhoe) equipped with a jackhammer was demolishing a building right outside one of my classes. If you could imagine 50 of my students being screamed at by a teacher they have never met, in  language they can barely understand, while listening to a jackhammer right outside the classroom. If I was their age I would have a hard time paying attention as well. Anyway I will leave it to Beth to wrap this post up.

A view from outside our office - all the crazy construction!

Beth now...
 One of the very few things I was told was that I am teaching Math. I have two English Program classes, one 10th and one 11th grade - these students take all their classes in English. I also have 4 other classes of special math (grades 7, 8, 10, and 11)- from what I understand students have a Thai math class and I will be teaching Math in English one day a week as well; I also understand it's the first time the school is trying this. On Monday, first day, I had no idea what I was suppose to be teaching in these math classes - and was told the Math teacher would be there Thursday to tell me. Lucky day for me, the math teacher was there today (Tuesday) but he was only able to tell me about one English Program math class. Later today the Thai math teacher came in and told me about another one of my special math classes - tomorrow I have a meeting where I am going to find out what I'll be doing for the rest of my classes. From what I understand I will not have curriculum for the most part - but I'll find out more tomorrow I guess.

I had 4 classes Monday and 3 today - one English Program class with about 13 students - nice! My others had around 30 students, one class had 49 students. Students were all fairly good, the class of 49 was difficult. As I am finding out I have students who have some English proficiency, so communication isn't as difficult as in Josh's classes. All my rooms except one, so far, have AC - I feel very lucky! My class schedule is much different than in the states - lots of office time! Today I had three classes in the morning and I was done at 11:40! But this differs everyday.

Bang Saen Beach

Beach to your left  - shops and food stalls on your right.

We decided to widen our exploring, and get some relief of the heat - so Wednesday we traveled to Bang Saen Beach near Chonburi about 60 miles outside Bangkok. We took a very long bus ride in heavy traffic to finally get to where we could get a ticket on a van traveling to Bang Saen. Once there we needed to find the correct table to buy this ticket - this turned into quite the wild goose chase. Each table we asked pointed us in a direction after about 15 tables (about an hour of looking) we finally found it! We bought a ticket and boarded the van. The van waits to leave until it is full, so some more waiting.

Van ride out was non-eventful. Got to see some interesting landscape on the way. Finally about an hour down the road we arrived at the beach! We had to walk through a wall of umbrellas to get to the beach. Funny thing we (Americans) like to be in the sun and get that great tan - Thai's do not, in fact they value more pale skin, so much that many beauty products have whitening agents in them!


After a quick lunch we hit the water! It felt a little awkward being the only "white person" on the beach in a swimsuit. Most conservative Thais' wear street clothes to swim. It wasn't the nice blue but it was still pretty and kids everywhere! Water was very salty!




At one point I was standing on the beach enjoying the view, with this cute Thai family playing near me. The father who was snapping pictures of his family told his little girl to come stand by me so he could take a picture - so we did! 

A storm is coming!

While taking a break from the water under our umbrella - the wind started to pick up and it started to downpour!! All the people, including us, hunkered under the umbrellas in attempt to stay dry. Then a big branch fell down through the umbrellas - so the staff started ushering everyone out. We dashed across the street to the bathroom. We changed and hoped it would let up soon - no such luck so we purchased sweet ponchos and walked to a coffee shop a few blocks away to dry off. Yummy warm lattes hit the spot!

Loving our new looks in the rain!

Later that night we had supper with a fellow Teach in Thailand teacher who was placed in Chonburi. Fun to chat with friends! We weren't sure how to get back but randomly some lady drove us to the van station - so we got back to the city. We then took a city bus back to our apartment.

Yet another adventure in the Deal books!

Wats, Wats, and more Wats

Lesson for the Day: A Wat is a Buddhist Temple.

Church of Santa Cruz - Catholic Church

Now that we have a better understanding of the public buses we decided to explore some main attractions in Bangkok on Monday. Our first stop was the Santa Cruz Catholic Church, it took some extra wandering but we found it. It was a beautiful church built in the 1900s on land given to the Portuguese community who helped Thailand in a war. Sadly the church was closed so we were unable to go inside; but it was still nice to see a this in the middle of all the Wats.

Sidewalk next to the Chao Phraya River running through Bangkok.

We then continued walking down the sidewalk next to the river where we stumbled upon numerous Wats and a river lock system. Our end point was Wat Arun - The Temple of Dawn. We were able to climb up the series of steep steps of this distinctive Wat and were rewarded with an amazing view of the city!

After much debate we decided not to continue up this ladder.

Wat Arun at night from across the River.

On top (ish) of Wat Arun.

After taking in these views and exploring these Wats we continued on down the river to catch a ferry across the river to Wat Pho. Wat Pho houses the huge reclining Buddha as well as numerous other Buddha statues. The Reclining Buddha was yet another great site to see - it is absolutely huge and all in a beautiful gold! We also wandered around the Wat grounds and found a temple with worshiping monks.
 

Flower Market

All Wat-ed out we decided to take to the streets and walk until we found a place to eat. We stumbled onto a massive flower market! At least 4 blocks of flower shops and all preparing for the celebration of the commemoration of Rama V's death the following day. All the flowers were gorgeous and smelled beautiful! It was in this scene we ran into a Pizza Hut! To feed our craving we had to stop in - and it was delicious!



With our bellies full and the sun gone we decided it was probably time to start finding our way back home. We wanted to take a river ferry all the way home - but we found out they had stopped running for the day. We had a vague idea of where we were and no idea where the nearest bus station was so we climbed in a taxi. The driver was very excited to speak English with us - this made for a very interesting ride home.

It was a great day of exploring! We look forward to many more adventures!

Yummy Yummy Pizza Hut!

Chatuchak Weekend Market

Josh and I ventured out to Chatuchak Weekend Market. A re-cap our our adventure...

The Bus Journey -
We researched which buses to take - turns out Google maps and the Bangkok map of buses isn't entirely correct. We thought it would take two buses - no it's three. The first bus we had correct, but when we got on the second bus they told us to get off - we're not sure why. A group Thais then helped us figure out the best way to go. We traveled with a women we were told to go with, at the stop she showed us the free bus to take to Chatuchak - she also told another man what we were doing so he told us when to get off. So we found it - thank you to all the Thais who helped us farangs (foreign white people- that's how I understand it)!

JJ Mall & Chatuchak Market
Next to Chatuchak Market there's a mall - it's more like a market in air-conditioning. We got some yummy DQ blizzards - taste the same! Then we traveled outside into the maze of shops called Chatuchak Market. This place is ridiculously huge and seemed to have no rhyme or reason - you can easily get lost in this place! We could have walked around all day and still not seen the same shop twice!

Clothing and food shops everywhere, pets, furniture, artist painting and selling, fabric, luggage, nick-nacks - everything is here! We even stumbled onto a western cowboy section with American country music playing! The market did have a pet section - cute little puppies, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, snakes, turtles, fish, guinea pigs, and I'm pretty sure we saw a baby monkey! Pure craziness to walk though this section! If in Bangkok on the weekend, one must visit this crazy market for the experience alone - also for plethora of shopping options, if you can't find it here it doesn't exist!

We purchased a new carry-on suitcase we filled with the rest of our purchases - dresses, purse, sandals, and a rug for our apartment. Josh also picked up a new hobby at the market - more details to come! We tried to head out of this crazy maze and get on a bus back to the station...  in our search we walked all the way back to the main station... oops!! We found the correct bus and headed back home. We were so excited to get home but the bus zoomed past our stop so we had to walk another mile back to our apartment. Turns out buses don't stop at the stop unless the button is hit - lesson learned!

If this wasn't enough shopping in one day we then went on a search to find The Pizza Company which was suppose to be close to us... we couldn't find it. (Side note: we found one today and it was yummy!)Then off to Big C for some more apartment supply shopping.

One busy Saturday full of shopping!! I'll leave you with a shot of my sweet new broom! (And notice our sweet new fridge behind me..happy)

Chang Chang!

Chang is elephant in Thai. We've had a very busy few days. We went to Kanchanaburi and stayed at a nice resort next to the river Kwai.

Riding "Nana" the Elephant!

Floating/swimming down the river Kwai - so refreshing!



The next day we went to ride the elephants then float on a bamboo raft down the river Kwai. Elephants were fun to ride. At one point our elephant trainer got off and let us ride on the shoulders - quite a bumpy ride there! On the raft we could jump out and swim, the river was very refreshing on the 90degree day! After this adventure we went to the Bridge over the river Kwai built during WWII. We were able to walk across it - very neat. Two trains a day still use this bridge. To finish off this amazing day we ate dinner on a floating open air dinning hall while a boat pulled us up and down the river. After supper it turned into a dance club! A great day to end orientation!!




The Japanese train used in WWII on the Bridge over the River Kwai.

Us on the floating dinner hall/dance club.

The day after we rode back into Bangkok to meet our school coordinator. Our school coordinator, head of English department, is abroad right now so the assistant head of dept. picked us up and brought us to our new apartment in the providence of Nonthaburi. She also treated us to supper near our apartment. We are in the city center of Nonthaburi and close to downtown Bangkok - very different from our house back home! Our school is very close to us and we are on a very busy street. We go to our school tomorrow to meet the assistant director (principal) and get our curriculum.....and we get a fridge tomorrow - yay!

Today we were able to venture our on our own to a Big C Store, like a Wal-Mart, to get things for our apartment. We were also able to do laundry - but no dryers so we hang our clothes on our little patio to dry. Pictures of our apartment coming soon...

The Grand Palace

Yesterday we visited the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew. It was an amazing site to see! Every temple is inlaid with black glass and 24 karat gold and most have a tile roof - all in bright and beautiful colors!
Wat Phra Kaew is the temple of the Emerald Buddha (pictured here on top of the mountain of gold and jewels). We had to take our shoes off to enter the temple - it was absolutely gorgeous! The King changes the Emerald Buddhas clothes every season - we got to see the golden clothes for the other seasons also.

Enjoy some more of Josh's awesome videos below!
 

Last night we also went to a live theater show at Siam Niramit. It was here that we saw our first elephant in Thailand (or chang in Thai).  It was a theatrical dancing show about the history and culture of Thailand.


Today, after sessions, we are headed out to Kachanaburi until Wednesday. It is here that we'll finish orientation sessions, ride elephants, and visit historical sites. When we return to Bangkok we'll meet our school coordinator and go to our new apartment.

Sa-wat-dee!

Good Evening! Orientation has been going quite well, and we're meeting many people. We've been taking Thai language, Thai culture, and teaching techniques/tips sessions. It's a little overwhelming because of the fast pace crash courses, but very interesting. Sa-wat-dee is hello in Thai. Thai language is difficult to learn and correctly pronounce we've discovered; but Thais appreciate that Westerners, or farangs, make an effort. It's already been VERY helpful knowing some Thai at restaurants!!


We had a Traditional Thai Welcome Ceremony tonight. Candles are lit and a special centerpiece holds white tread. During the ceremony Thai people will tie it around your wrist while wishing the person good luck and/or other good wishes. Below is a picture of Josh getting his tread (sorry it's not a great pic!) and the other is of the centerpiece.

Tomorrow we are taking a break from sessions and visiting the Grand Palace. Excited! :)

Orentation Starts Today

Good Morning! It's 5AM on Friday morning, our first day of orientation today! Lets see our outing on Wednesday was short lived - new and interesting smells and jet lag got to us feeling queezy and tired. We ate and came up a slept for a bit, Josh slept for lots of bits. I think we've readjusted our internal clocks, Josh took a few more naps than I did - I didn't have that crash that you hear of. The night before last I slept for a few hours but was up most of the night - not cool.  I spent most of my night like this... notice the clock - I had been up since about midnight.

Because of our insomnia, we were up quite early for breakfast, which did I mention... there is also a salad bar at breakfast - craziness! We met some new teachers, and headed out to the outdoor market in a quest to get some pants. Quite the experience - I found some I liked but didn't know if they would fit, so the shop owner said I could try it on as he handed me a large skirt. So I preceded to try on these pants under this skirt in the middle of the market. They were not a good fit. As we left the market the humidity and heat was getting to be a bit much so we were eager to get back into the AC! On our way back we stopped at the 7-11 for some snacks - oreos, popcorn, BBQ chips, and water. 7-11s are everywhere!

When we returned everyone was arriving so we met lots of fellow teachers, even some from Minnesota! We met a group and decided we would explore that afternoon with each other. We went back to the outdoor market - made my first market purchase a dress for about $3! I've since decided that dresses and skirts are a better option than jeans - it is too darn hot and humid to be wearing jeans!! Need a breathable fabric! We then decided to take the skytrain into central Bangkok to go to the mall. We had to take a taxi to the train station then took the train into town - a very packed train, below is a video at the train station of the parking lot.

We walked into the mall - food court central! We saw every types of restaurant; Mexican, Itailan, Thai - many American ones: McDonalds, Subway, Mrs. Fields - just about anything you could find! We ended up eating at a Thai restaurant, very yummy food! After lunch we, the whole group, traveled out onto the street and headed to the snake farm - a few blocks into our walk it started to pour rain! A few more and we found out it is closed - THANK GOD!! There is NO way I'm going to a snake farm - NO WAY! On our quest to stay out of the rain we walked down a neat ally way full of little shops. Our group ended up splitting up, everyone had their own things they wanted to accomplish. Josh and I ended up back at the mall for a while, then made our way back to the hotel for a quick nap and than some supper.

(Josh typing now)
Last night we ventured across the street for supper. Usually we have been eating at the hotel restaurant. It was quite the contrast. In our hotel most of the waiters/waitresses know enough English to communicate with us (always get our order right). This was not the case across the street. It took 2 waitresses, 1 waitress who looked like a waitress but spoke in a waiters voice (if you catch my drift), and another waitress who must have been 12 years old to take our order. The 12 year old know the most English. Beth enjoyed her meal because she got what she ordered. I had attempted to play it safe and get fried rice with pork. They gave me fried rice with sea food. I love sea food, but sea food here will take some getting used to as I found out. I was very thankful when we got back to the hotel and had some chips and Oreos to snack on.

Below are 2 videos I took...

The first is a tour of our hotel room narrating by me.

The second video is from our hotel room. Out the window they had stewardess training.
They are practicing putting out fires. It was very amusing.

Photo Update

Well we finally see Bangkok in the light. So here's an update of our travels here -

 Final Photo leaving Fargo, ND

 Thanks for bring us to the airport and seeing us off Dad! :)

 

Our first flight was quick from Fargo to Chicago - here's a picture of our airplane we'll took from Chicago to Seoul, South Korea.

 Korean Air had great service! It was a 14 hour flight - it seemed like we ate or drank something every 2 hours. We got pillows, blankets, slippers, and a toothbrush. The flight had ample leg room and touch screen t.v. screens. It was also neat because the airplane had cameras on the nose and belly of the outside of plane so we could watch the world. It was odd traveling 14 hours all in the daylight, we caught some zzzzs on this long flight. We had window seats on all fights - YAY! Below is us on the plane after we landed in Seoul.

We had a quick layover, about an hour, in Seoul. We watched the sunset in on our flight to Bangkok. 

 

We arrived in Bangkok around 9pm. Immigration was very quick and we got our luggage right away. Then we headed off to find a taxi, which was also quick and easy. The taxi ride was about 20-30 minutes to our hotel. Here's a short video of our ride.

 

After meeting some fellow teachers we slept for a few hours. Breakfast this morning was interesting, but good food. Rice, eggs, stir-fry type veggies and meats, cereal, coffee and juice. 

 View from our hotel room

 Sweet hotel room

 

 Just some light reading

 

 

Now we're off to lunch and to do some exploring near our hotel.

 

 

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Bangkok

Beth and I have arrived in Bangkok. We had less than an hour layover in South Korea followed by a 5 hour flight to Bangkok. Customs in Bangkok was very fast Both Beth and I got our checked baggage back (glad the airlines didn't lose them.) We then took a taxi to our hotel.
Tomorrow will be a free day for us because we arrived a day and a half early. The official checkin day is in 2 days and since we have already arrived and have checked in that will be a free day as well. We will be posting some pictures on some upcoming posts.

Flight to South Korea

We just got to South Korea from Chicago. We flew Korean Air and it was a great experience, much better than any American Airline we've been on. Below is a picture of the route we took. We flew right over Alaska. The flight took around 14 hours, twice as long of flight as I've ever been on.
We are very sleepy as it was hard to get any sleep on the flight. Can't wait to get to the hotel in Bangkok.

Packing

Well farming has finally slowed down enough for me (Josh) to make my first post. It actually didn't slow down, I just had to pull myself away from it long enough to pack and leave (They'll be just fine without me, maybe).

Beth and I spent the weekend doing last minute shopping, saying goodbye to friends and family and packing. I talked myself into taking a break from  packing to watch the Vikings game knowing it will be my last chance to watch live American football until next year. After watching today I feel a Superbowl run for the Vikes!!

We are currently packing and attempting to stay up all night. If we don't sleep we will be one step closer to adjusting to Thailand time. Thailand is exactly a twelve hour difference. Our sleep schedule will be completely backwards from what it is now. Hopefully we can sleep on the plane tomorrow during the day.

We are getting very excited to leave. Beth's dad, Pat, will be picking us up around 4:45am and dropping us off in Fargo around 6am. Our flight leaves for Chicago at 7:15am. From there it is 14 hours to Seoul, South Korea and than another 5 hour flight to Bangkok, Thailand.

We will be keeping you posted.

                                                          Josh Packing (really organized)

                                                           Beth Packing (what a mess)

VISA!

We've received our visas today!! So exciting to finally get our passports back with our new visas attached. Now all that's left is the packing and the see you laters. Thailand - we'll see you Tuesday! (wow - that's quickly approaching!)

Update: Josh has finished the tiling job - all laterals are in! Beet harvest has started so things are still busy busy. And for me - practice packing went well, I'm still trying to use up the veggies and apples, and still reading Thailand books.