Patong

Saturday night a big group of us headed out to Patong- one of the most touristy areas of Phuket.  Kind of a bummer that I was taking antibiotics and couldn't indulge in adult beverages, but I'd figure I'd tag along and see what Patong was all about.  It was an... uh.... entertaining night.... but I'll be honest, I have no desire to ever go back.  Bang la road is pretty much the third world version of Vegas.... not really my style.... actually, I'm a bit scarred by what I saw.... more lady boys than I ever expected...  Anyhow, I'll leave it at that.

girl picture before Patong

Birthday!

Well, yesterday was my birthday. And so is today....  It was a bit weird since it was my birthday here long before it was my birthday back home and it's technically still my birthday back home but its almost noon on the 15th here.  Anyways,  it was a good birthday in all- I've been feeling healthier, I kept thinking what an awesome presents Ax and my family had given me (a flight tour of Denali and a plane ticket to California) and my classmates all went out to dinner with me (we had class all day).  They let me choose the restaurant-  I picked The Dairy Hut (oh the irony ... I'm lactose intolerant) which, despite the very Western name, has amazing Thai food.  I had some pad see ew and some shrimp cakes (deep fried shrimp donut things) which are my current favorites. Ended up running back to our hotel through monsoon rains, laughing pretty much the whole way.  And today Ax surprised me with a phone call from his satellite phone today to say happy birthday (it was still my birthday there even though it wasn't over here- it was like having an extended birthday).  Poor guy had to ride a dirt bike to the top of a mountain to do so though and the connection was a sub par (I don't even know what the cost of a few minutes of talking was), but it was wonderful to hear from him and it definitely made me smile.

Kelsey, Jessyca and I at Dairy Hut for my birthday dinner

Week 2 of TEFL

Second week was definitely a bit more intense than the first.  Grammar work became more difficult, phonetics confuses the shit out of me, had to teach two lessons and we were assigned two big projects due in the fourth week.  It definitely didn't help that I got some sort of bug or food poisoning and was sick all week so in all my free time I just slept (or was in the bathroom).  And of course when your sick, that's when homesickness hits too, and Ax is out in the middle of nowhere with no form of contact at all (no phone, no skype, no internet, nothing).  I finally gave in and started taking the antibiotic the travel clinic had prescribed before I left.  I'm finally feeling better.... I just hope it lasts.  Doesn't make for the most exciting post, sorry if it was mopey, but figured I'd give an update.

Ko Phi Phi

Our class got out early on Friday afternoon and our instructors had suggested we take advantage of this by going to the island of Ko Phi Phi if we were planning on going there at all because the last ferry leaves in the afternoons on Friday so we would be able to go two nights instead of just one.  So most of our class (17 of us) decided to go.  Everyone I had met had been telling me 'go to pee pee!' since I've arrived so I of course went too.  We got an awesome deal on the taxi and ferry rides.... 500 baht per person (around 17 dollars): not too bad considering it was 2 20 min cab rides (to the ferry and home) and 2 2hr ferry rides (from Phuket island to Ko Phi Phi).

We got there on time for our ferry... but it was two hours late... but we did get on one eventually.  Here are a couple fishing boats that passed by as we were waiting.

Aska and I

Our ferry finally arrived and we were excited to be on our way- Can you tell?  I'm laughing so hard thanks to Pete, who had been sticking his tongue out right next to my face just miliseconds before this picture was taken.  Friggin' Brit.

Hachi and I on the boat.  She may have drank too much, but I still think she's awesome.

There's a Meg, Megan and Meggie in our class- we all want to go by Meggie and Meg so it's incredibly confusing.  This is the first time in my life that my name isn't the only one of its kind.  On an interesting note, Megan (in the picture with me) was named after the book The Thorn Birds... apparently our moms have the same taste in literature.

Riding along and there would be these giant chunks of rock sticking out of the water.  I want to climb them all.   Well, now I'm a bit nervous as I met a guy from London who on his last visit broke two vertebrae when climbing here about 10 months ago and has spent his fair share of time in the Phuket hospital.  He's back to get the screws taken out of his back.  His advice?  Wear a harness. Or don't climb too high.  I'm going to take his advice and climb the not-so-dangerous sections of rock.  On the same note, he said it was worth it- that has to be some epic climbing then!

 If that's not an awesome photo, I don't know what is.

Our ferry made it to Phi Phi!

It took us a little while to find accommodation (the place we had planned on didn't have enough rooms for 17 of us) but we ended up staying at the 'Harmony House' for the weekend.  The bathroom may have doubled as a shower stall (apparently is common here), but it wasn't a bad deal for 400baht (a whole 6 bucks a night).  Once we got settled, my friend Jessyca and I wandered around a bit together to  check things out...

 such an animal lover

 monkey!!

 Dragonfruit- Yum!

 Lychee- also yummy!

 The guy selling the fruit let me try one because I was asking so many questions.  I'm totally going to start buying these for snacks.

 Seafood buffet anyone?

 I still haven't quite figured out why, but there are these big trees with colorful cloths tied around them.... apparently its some celebratory purpose... a birthday for the tree?

 shrine

 fresh fruit

 adorable little Thai kids

 pick what you like and they'll cook it for you

 crazy lobster

Muay Thai is big here so we had to go watch some 

This is how they get people to fight- give them a bucket of booze.

5 countries represented in this photo- love it :)

After Jessyca and I had wandered around, we headed down to the beach where the rest of the crew were hanging out.  Finished out the night dancing on the beach.  Good times :)

 Breakfast smoothie!

We arranged for the next day a long tail boat tour.... it was AWESOME:

 Kayaks on the beach.  Next time, I'm renting one. (We just didn't have time this trip.)

 waiting for our long boat ride

 the boys all wore their beer 'vests' (aka tank tops). how cute.

 our long boat waiting for us

 all aboard!

First stop: Monkey Beach.

There were monkeys everywhere, and I'm not going to lie, they kind of creeped me out!

This one stole a beer from one of the girls in our group and chugged it all!

This is where we stopped next- to go snorkeling.  I normally wouldn't have signed myself up for this (I'm sort of terrified of water stuff)  but it was part of the boat deal so I had to at least give it a try.  I'm glad I did.... it was AWESOME and ended up being my favorite part of the trip.

These neon fish were my favorites!

I'm snorkeling!! 

so glad my friend had a waterproof camera

swimmingggggg

back on the sea, off to Maya Beach...

jungle

Maya Beach

This is apparently where they filmed the movie 'The Beach'.... Yep, my feet were on the same sand as Leo Dicaprio's, haha

There was a lookout point we climbed up to and these Burmese guys were up there playing music.  Even got them to play a song for us.

b.e.a.u.t.i.f.u.l.

postcard perfect

Last stop- the middle of the Andaman sea for sunset.

I just floated on my back most of the time.  

We made it back to the island, and as required by Phi Phi unwritten rule, headed down to the beach for drinks.  A lot of the bars have fire shows in which people do all sorts of crazy fire stuff- fire jump rope, poi, tightrope walking, and yep, fire batons.  For those of you that don't know, back in the day I did a little bit of traditional baton twirling (laugh as you feel necessary) and all I couldn't help but want to try twirling at least a little bit.  Don't worry, it's not as dangerous as you might think (the fire doesn't burn that hot and you can just drop it into the sand.  Oh, and I wasn't drinking yet, so it had to be fairly safe for me to decide to do it. Plus, twirling fire is on my bucket list and when's the next time I will have the chance?)  With a little encouragement, I went up to ask if I could try... they handed over a baton no problem (that would only happen in Thailand).... now I just had to figure out how to light it.  I quickly realized the dress I was in was probably a terrible idea so I took that off (I had on my bikini) and ran back up in my to have them help me light it and, low and behold, I twirled fire!  I'm sure it was terrible twirling in comparison to the pro's that do it every night, but hey, I did it.  My classmates were all a little boggled as to how I knew what to do, but I'm not gonna lie, it was kind of cool to be the girl who just walks up and starts twirling fire on the beach :)

(pictures of the fire stuff coming soon- they are on a friends camera)

The next day we made our way back to Phuket and to the hotel.... ready for school on Monday....sort of.

Week 1 of TEFL class

with some of my classmates outside our school

Well, we survived week 1.  It went by incredibly fast.  We have four different instructors, from four different places, teaching us basically four different things.  The toughest area (for me) is grammar, the most interesting is phonetics (I have to adapt everything into British English for my lessons since that's how our workbooks are) and the most fun is definitely our unknown language course (Thai).  I'm already getting to know the people in my class and am so thankful that they are all pretty cool, and funny, as it makes class a little less boring.  I figured we wouldn't teach until Week 2, but I was wrong... I was teaching a class of Thai students on Wednesday evening...I had only been in this country for five days!  It went well though- Thai's are awesome because if you mess up or they don't get what your trying to teach them they just laugh and giggle about it.   Like I said, the most fun part of the week for me was when Simon taught us Thai. He didn't speak any English at all and by the end we all were able to say and understand in context some basic phrases.  The purpose of the lesson wasn't just to teach us Thai, although that is obviously helpful, but to show us what it is like for our students when they can't ask questions or understand any verbal explanations.

School isn't nearly as interesting as other things so I'll keep this post nice and short.