Sunday, May 31, 2009

Crazy, Wild Dogs!

I actually feared for my life today! To me, the largest problem in Thailand is the packs of wild dogs everywhere, even in Bangkok!

This afternoon, after I finished grading my worksheets, I walked along Wat Wang Hin Road - the road my apartment building is on. "Wat" means temple, so I went up the other way - away from the main Sukhumvit Road - towards the temple, and then walked around all the back roads, all the way to the shrubs and bushes, where the road stops. There are some great neighborhood shots that I took - see the photo album.

However, three times today, I came across the crazy, wild dogs. The first time was by Wat Wang Hin. The dirt road split into a fork, and I chose one direction, clearly the wrong one. Wild dogs (about 10 of them) surrounded me and were showing their teeth and growling! I actually feared for my life. I knew not to run, or to express fear, so I attempted to confidently turn around. They followed me for a bit, but I just kept on walking, at a medium-fast pace. Obviously, I am still here and alive and okay, but I kept having this image of me being mauled to death by wild dogs in Sri Racha by a temple, nonetheless! It was really quite scary.

Later on, I turned down a side road and about 4 or 5 dogs came running out and formed a sort of line across the road. I said, "Ok, Ok, I'll turn around", and immediately turned around and walked back from the way I had just come. The third time was similar, and before the dogs even had a chance to bark, I turned around. I was so frightened at this point of even the sight of a dog, that I was not going to chance it!

Other than that, it was a good day of exploring, and I got a lot of great photos of my neighborhood - Wat Wang Hin Road, and of the outside of my apartment building - Pratya.

My apartment building's outside patio

My Apartment Building: Pratchya Apartments

Soi Wat Wang Hin (my apartment is just down the road where the green sign is on the left-hand side of the picture)

Day Trip to Bangsaen

On Saturday, Howard, Jacqueline and I went on a day trip to Bangsaen, a town about 15-20 minutes north of us, on the motorbike. Howard and Jacqueline rented motorbikes (the main Thai way of transportation) for the 4 months of the semester. I did not, originally, because I am scared! But, after getting used to riding on one, I think I might invest in this mode of transport as well, as it makes exploring that much easier. So, I rode on the back of Howard's motorbike to Bangsaen.

It was such a wonderful day trip, and you must just look at the photo album in Picasa. We first went to the beach, which is a popular weekend destination for Thais, and not for tourists. Because it is the rainy season, which lasts until September, the beach was not that pretty, nor did it seem that swimmable - although many Thais were swimming. But, come September, it is supposed to be lovely. The rainy season brings in a lot of trash with the tides.

Speaking of the tide, this coast line has the most dramatic tide line I/ we have ever seen! When we first arrived, the boats out in the water were sitting in sand/ mud, but when we came back down on our way home to Sri Racha, the tide had come in, and wow! It really came in far up. Again, you must look at the before and after photos...

We also went up a mountain, and saw lots of monkeys, which as usual, you could buy food to feed them. They were daring little monkeys, stealing bags of food left and right, but cute all at the same time.

We then went to the "Scandinavian Village", which was listed on our map of Bangsaen... and man, this was random!! Talk about T-I-T, what was this doing here? It was a gated housing community that had a tennis court, nice apartment complexes, etc.... but in the middle of nowhere! Very weird. And nearby was a Buffalo Bill's steakhouse?!? Along that random, middle-of-nowhere road, there were other gated housing communities as well, all with posh-sounding names, but all equally as random. They weren't even near the water! Very random, very odd.

Overall, Bangsaen is a very cute town with a lot of great neighborhood exploring... and a very short distance from Sri Racha. See the photo album!

See how far the tide is out!!??


I know it's monkey mountain, but really? What's this about?


Haha, look at how the guy on fence is sitting!




Naughty Monkeys: they tore that off!


J and H's motorbikes against the Bangsaen Sunset

Thais love their uniforms

Mondays - teachers, who were placed by the government, wear their government uniforms... a militaristic looking, brown outfit.

Wednesdays - Boy/ Girl scout uniforms. The last period on Wednesdays is boy/girl scout class, so all students and teachers wear such uniforms. (I will try to get some pictures this Wednesday)

Fridays - King shirt/ polo shirt day. All students and teachers are assigned to a color team, which I am unsure of how this is decided. But students and teachers wear, what we would call a polo shirt, their colored "king shirt" for the day, along with track pants and sneakers! So, the English teachers gave us green king shirts, as they told us to join their green team (not everyone in the department is on the green team, so I really have no idea how this is decided), which we wore on Friday.

Phys. Ed. class - when students have P.E. on a day, they wear their P.E. uniforms all day, other than that, they are in their regular school uniforms.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Dinner with Foreign Language Dept.

Friday evening, straight after school, Howard, Jacqueline and I invited Sri Racha School's Foreign Language Department (English and Japanese) teachers out to dinner at an all-you-can-eat Thai-style BBQ. About 10 teachers came, and we all had a great time. As is custom in many eastern Asian countries, when you invite someone to dinner, you pay. So, Howard, Jacqueline and I paid for the dinner, which for all of us only ended up being about 550 baht for each of the three of us!! Very good. Plus, the dinner was amazing, as it is a very sociable dining experience, and the teachers really seemed to enjoy it. We also got to know some of the younger teachers (2 of whom are Japanese teachers, one a student teacher, and the third an English teacher). They usually are pretty quiet in the office, which we believe is due to their age, and being around the older teachers. I think for us, this does not apply, as we are foreign, and the English teachers enjoy speaking with us in English. See photos below.


Thursday, May 28, 2009

"I live in KFC."

I started correcting my 'fill-in the blank' worksheet handouts today for my M1s (12/13 year olds). The worksheet was for this week's lesson: "All About Me", which focused on a student's name, age, where they are from, where they live, the color of their eyes, their type of hair, whether or not they are a boy or girl, and an "I am _____" blank.

I don't mind correcting 600 worksheets, because the answers range from being perfect, which is very gratifying in the sense that they understood the lesson and worksheet, to being very wrong - which is just downright amusing!

Some notable answers I got back today:
I live in KFC.
I live in the dog.
I live in the apple.
I live in football.
I have red hair. -- (This was one of my hair color examples)
I live in America. -- (Clearly, this student copied off of my template on the board)
I am smart. -- ("smart" was not even a word I introduced!)
I am unattractive. -- (This comment stuck with me the most. First off, it is an awesome word! I definitely did not introduce "attractive", and the fact that they put an "un-" with it is incredible for a beginner English student of 12 years old! But, obviously, it is very negative... so on the worksheet, for that completed sentence, I wrote: "Great word! You are beautiful! Please see me."

A note about this lesson -- it did not go over so well, but I am a new teacher, so this is to be expected, and actually, in a way, I am happy it went all wrong, because I am learning from all my mistakes. It is also showing me the end point of students' ability overall. And, of course, as the week goes on, the lesson is getting better and better. I suppose I was pretty hard on myself on Monday and Tuesday, being that it was the first two days I taught the new lesson plan... but I have definitely learned a lot from it.

However, my lesson plan this week for my M4s - "Me and My Family Tree" - has been terrific! The students (15/16 year olds) love it, as I draw my whole family tree, up to my grandparents, on the board, with little, silly cartoon drawings. I even draw my four cats on the board. As you may imagine, they are laughing their little heads off! I also have the great photo album that my mom put together for me before I left. It is a little book full of family and friend photos, which I pass around during class. I go over the pronunciation of each family word. They have issues with words like "father", "mother" and "brother". They tend to pronounce the "th" sound as a "z" or a "s".

Then, I have a student read aloud a notecard that a Thai teacher translated for me.. which reads: "You will present your own family tree next week to the class. This will be graded." Oh, the horror on their faces! And I nod my head with a big smile... but, I'm not that cruel of a teacher - I then make it clear that they do not need to go in depth, as I did, but that they just need to do their immediate family. I tell them I want names and ages of parents, brothers and sisters. I want them to do a "Hi! My name __. I am __ years old. I have __ brothers and __ sisters. Their names are __. They are __ years old. My father's name is __. He is __ years old. My mother's name is __. She is __ years old." And that is it! They are very relieved to hear this... and I am very excited to hear them present... and also to sit down for the class period and not sweat buckets for once. I then ask them, "Should I bring the microphone?" Thai teachers use the microphone in all their classes. And all at once, the students vigorously shake their heads back and forth, and simultaneously scream "NO!" I then sit down in the back row (depending on the classroom format) and put my finger to my ear and clearly say, "OK, but if I cannot hear you, you will use the microphone."

For my M1s, I will begin a simple family tree lesson next week. I will have them literally draw their family tree on a worksheet/ vocabulary sheet I am handing out. This week, I have started the M1 classes out with making nickname namecards. I bought index cards and string, and provided them with English Dept. markers... and had them each make a nickname card. They absolutely loved it! Remember, they are 12-13 year olds. It also very much helps me in putting faces to nicknames, and grabbing the distracted students' attention.

Speaking of nicknames -- to give you an idea, here are both some crazy and common ones that I have in my class: Reindeer, Arm (common), James Bond, Dream (common), Earth, Boy, Film (common), God, Cartoon, Ice (common), Mind (common), Golf (common), Joke, Ball, Nurse, Beer (very common), Air, Frame, Soda, Bank, View, Punch, Mouse, Dung, Oil (very common), Eye (common), Mint, Cake, Nut (common), Game (very common), Fame, Name, Ham, Cream, Gun, Rabbit, Ink (common), Milk (common), and Boss!!!! ... just to name a few...

Thanks to Howard for the blog post title idea, which he recommended when I told him that I had a student write "I live in KFC."

The "Hokey Pokey"!!

This morning, Howard, Jacqueline and I did our second morning assembly (we have to do one every week). It was another great success. We sang the "Hokey Pokey"! Both the students and the faculty loved it, albeit more because we looked silly and they love to laugh at us. As Howard put it once, when we walk through the school grounds, especially at Lunch time, we are like animals in a zoo! For right now, this is OK, but I can see myself getting annoyed in the future. Below are some select photos of us performing the "Hokey Pokey", which a Thai teacher took with my camera. To see the full album, go to the link at the top, under the blog title.

Howard and Jacqueline Discussing the Hokey Pokey


... and you turn yourself around...



... You put your left arm out...



Howard doing a "left leg" demo


... You put your head out...




Monday, May 25, 2009

Sri Racha and Ko Si Chang

Spent all day Saturday exploring Sri Racha - my city. I started out by walking over to the pier, which turns into Koh Loy Park - a beautiful little circle full of temples, food stalls and turtles! The pier is only about a 10 minute walk from my apartment! I first ate lunch at one of the food stalls, in which the menu was all in Thai... but, luckily there were some pictures, albeit a bit fuzzy. I ended up with a delicious, spicy seafood salad. Then I walked around the entire park, which is not very big, but has lots of different components to it. There is a large pool full of sea turtles, some of which were very, very large. As is common in Thailand, you can buy food to feed them, which many of the Thai families were doing with their children. There were some various shrines and temples, in which many Thais were visiting.

I then went to get the boat to head to Koh Si Chang, which leaves from the same pier, but it was 4:00 pm by then, which meant that I would have only had an hour on the island, unless I wanted to stay overnight. I had spent a much longer amount of time in Koh Loy Park then I had expected. So, I decided I would do Ko Si Chang the next day, and went off to explore the rest of Sri Racha...

I then walked around the waterfront, a beautiful park area full of groomed grass, palm trees, and playgrounds. I then walked up to the first avenue, and continued walking south, until I noticed a sign that read "Garden Seaview"... so I headed west towards the gulf, and ended up on another pier of sorts. Here, there was a lovely, but expensive restaurant, which I kind of got sucked into and had an early dinner there. It was too pretty to pass up. I then continued walking down the avenue, passing shops, homes, apartment buildings, markets, and many, many food stalls/ restaurants.

I came across this odd looking park, so I went in to explore some more. First thing I saw was a random, empty cage. There were stairs that led up a large hill/ mountain. I hiked up, and began to notice that the stairs were overgrown and it definitely did not seem like this was a commonly used path -- all the more adventurous! At the top, I came upon this very random (a common theme in Thailand) white tower and overgrown bathrooms and sinks. I figured the tower was some lookout point, so I went to go climb it, but then noticed that the bottom two flights of stairs were missing! As I walked down the other side of the hill, it occurred to me that the steps were probably intentionally removed. What kind of place is this? At the bottom of the hill, I came across a row of very colorful garbage bins, which were blocking the road - also probably intentional - to discourage people from going up... which I had already done. I then walked around and back down another side, and came across this odd pool of sorts. It was dirty, mucky water, but clearly used to be something, because it had this broken down, brick tower next to it and there was a walkway around the pool. Well, after shooting a bunch of photos, I moved on and came across the Sri Racha municipality government building - "Department of Public Health..." I walked out of the park and followed the road until I reached the main avenue (the route that can take one from Bangkok all the way into Cambodia, passing through Sri Racha, Pattaya and Rayong).

At this point, I just started to head back... but as I walked north on the main avenue - Sukhumvit Road - I realized how far I had gone! I can't really estimate how many miles I must've walked, but it took me about two hours, or more, of straight walking to get back to Robinson's Department Store, which is about 5 minutes from my apartment! It surely was an adventure, and I do believe I walked to just about the edge of Sri Racha!

Where I ate Lunch on Koh Loy Park


Tuk Tuk Taxis


Bad Monk: I caught him smoking...

Sunday -- Jacqueline and I had both planned to go to Koh Si Chang this day, so we met up in the morning and rode her motorbike, which she rented for the 4 month semester, to the pier. We got on a boat and headed off towards the fishing island of Ko Si Chang, which is about a 45 minute boat ride from Koh Loy Park. Along the way, we noticed how many enormous barges there were all over the port! I suppose we hadn't realized how big of a port this was until we were in the middle of it all! We then pulled up to a Korean barge (from Je Ju)... and Jacqueline and I both looked at each other, admittedly with nervous looks of "Ummm, what are we doing? Why are we pulling up to some huge barge in the middle of the gulf?" Of course, there were no answers to be found - T-I-T! But, as we pulled away, we noticed that three women were walking on the plank stairway up the barge... so we had dropped them off. Okay...
When we reached Ko Si Chang, Jacqueline and I made our way through the buzz of motorbike and sawngtao taxis waiting to take the Thai tourists around the island. But unlike most of the Thai (and Korean and Japanese) tourists, we actually wanted to walk and explore, so we headed off into some temple in the mountain. We hiked and hiked and hiked until we reached the top. What we actually came across was less impressive then the walk itself - another common theme in Thailand. What made it so interesting was that we were the only ones on the seemingly neverending flight of stairs up into the mountain. We were all alone in the jungle-like mountain hills of this fishing island.
After coming back down the backside, we ended up in a more local part of the island. I took some pretty great photos of the neighborhoods, which quickly turned into nicely paved roads and sidewalks, as we clearly entered the touristy part of the island. We got some lunch, cooled off, rested our legs, and then headed off to explore the cliffs on the edge of the island. For this part of our adventure, you must just look at the photographs I took. We ventured way past the end of the normal walking trail, headed into some brush and excluded ourselves in the midst of island jungle and the gulf! It was absolutely wonderful and perfect, and a bit scary with the violent sounds of the waves crashing up against the rocks.
After heading back, we walked through more parts and neighborhoods of local Ko Si Chang, until we found another mountain trail heading up to the yellow Buddha statue that we had seen from afar when we first arrived on the island. Of course, we decided to check it out -- where would these stairs lead us? Once again, we were the only explorers...
At the top, there was a sign that read "cave" with an arrow pointing downwards. We headed in to this unknown "cave", and founds ourselves utterly frightened! We had to pass this creepy, padlocked gate of sorts, which had torn mesh windows. As I passed it, I could not help but imagine a hand coming out and grabbing me! We hesitated the whole way down into the dark, rocky abyss, and I definitely shrieked like a little girl when bats flew out from under a cave hang. We finally made it to the bottom, and there was a little shrine/ buddha statue sitting next to some creepy, dirty pool of water. Again, I think we both imagined something coming out of the dark pool of water and grabbing us, and pulling us in! Haahahaa, well we survived. And just around the corner, at the bottom of the cave, just as we came out, was a little house where a monk was laying out some monk robes to dry. I believe he may have been the caretaker of this shrine.
We headed back down and found ourselves back on the road, walking through more parts of local, island fishing life. At this point, we wanted to head to the beach... at which we heard we could go swimming. We got to a part of central town, and began asking motorbike taxis how far the beach was and how much a ride would be... they quoted us way too high! So, we walked off to go find it on our own. Although, at this time the clock was ticking, since the last boat left at 5:00 pm, and it was already 4:00 pm. As we were walking, with a destination in mind but with no knowledge of how to get there, we came across one of the motorbike taxi guys, whom had just quoted us about 200 baht each.
He was helping two western men load a motorbike onto the back of a pick-up truck with a crane. As they were blocking our pathway, and since we noticed the motorbike taxi man (Nueng), we paused. The western man, who we found out was from Holland, then informed us that the beach was definitely not walking distance, and was up a large hill. He offered us a free ride, once his motorbike was loaded... so we accepted and all 3 of us got on one of his working motorbikes (Thai-style). We later found out that the man was here visiting his father, who has lived on Ko Si Chang for the last 20 years. They were loading the bike onto the truck, to get to the 5:00 ferry boat, and then load it onto another truck to bring it down to Pattaya for some special parts.
He was right.. the walk was far and all uphill. Not only would we have not made the boat on time, had we tried to walk, but our legs would probably have given in at some point. We were very grateful for the free ride. We got to the beach, and with not too many expectations, the beach was nothing to write home about - or even take pictures of. It was dirty, rocky and full of beach chairs laid out next to a couple of restaurants. There were a few Thai families swimming in their clothes (as they do here), but other than that, there was no point in staying, or really returning for that matter. We sat down and had some water, and then headed back to catch the last boat. We got another free ride on a sawngtao tour taxi, because he was headed in that direction anyway -- a nice, pleasant surprise... especially since the beach was not worthy of spending any transportation money.
On the boat back, we got to sit up top, with the nice, late afternoon breeze blowing the sweat and salt off our legs and faces. Sitting with us was the man from Holland and Nueng, the Thai motorbike taxi guy.
Overall, it was a fatastic, adventurous day full of awesome explorations through jungle mountains, temples, caves, and cliffs!!
Oh, and I later asked some of the tenants in my apartment building what that creepy park I went to the first day was... and they implied that it used to be a zoo - or "a place that kept lots of animals"! Clearly, from what I saw (and from what you can decipher from the photo album), it was very, very old. The random pool of water at the bottom used to have hippos!! Weird...
View from boat to Koh Si Chang


Up, Up We Go...


The Cliffside Walking Adventure


Yes, we actually walked through this bush to get to the other side... it was just too tempting


At a point where we could go no further


What do you think this sign means???


The Cave


This is what was at the bottom



What are they watching?


There's the weird tower I wanted to climb the day before in my Sri Racha walking adventure! (This is a zoomed-in view from the Koh Si Chang boat)

Koh Loy Park from the boat

First Morning Assembly a Success!

Jacqueline, Howard and I sang "If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands..." on stage in front of all ~3,000 students and faculty for our first morning assembly. We figured it was a win-win situation... either we would be able to get all the students interested and involved, or we would crash and burn, and the English Department would not have us do another morning assembly. Well, we were an absolute success! I started with the first verse, and Jacqueline then took the second verse, "If you're happy and you know it, stomp your feet...", and Howard closed with "If you're happy and you know it, shout woo-hoo...". While one sang into the microphone, the other two performed the song and motions on the two corners of the stage. To our surprise, the students knew the song and joined in right away. We then had the students all stand up... and mind you, they are all sitting outside on the ground in the hot sun at 7:45 am about to spend all day in class, so we were unsure of how this song and dance would go. We tried to have all of my students - M1s and M4s clap their hands, and all of Jacqueline's students - M2s and M5s stomp their feet, and all of Howard's students - M3s and M6s shout woo-hoo... but that became a little confusing. So, I got back on the mic and did all 3 motions in one verse, and we closed our first, very successful morning assembly!!

Below: Photos of Morning Assembly









Students shading themselves from the harsh sun