Settling

One of these days I am going to learn my way around google when I can't read a single thing because it's all in Thai. I really wish there was a language toggle, but I wouldn't be able to find it anyways! It's one thing that will probably always annoy me about google, even though it is a nice and international feature.

So, there has been a bit going on in my life since my first "woohoo I'm in Thailand" post but I just keep procrastinating.

The short, two day orientation is over, and I have moved out of the hotel in Bangkok into an apartment in Ayutthaya. It's about an hour north of Bangkok, depending on the transportation you take, and it is an old capital. There are ruins all over the city. It's quite interesting.

At the moment I have plenty of time to explore, although there is an unfortunate side effect called extreme heat in the middle of the day. I will be teaching in a prestigious all girl's school. I will be teaching M2 and M5 classes, which means 13 and 17 year olds. I'm doing mostly English conversation, as I understand, and will be teaching classes with about 50 students. Ugh. Not looking forward to that part. But I'm supposed to have another Thai teacher in the room, mostly to help with crowd control. Most Thai schools start around the 14th-16th of May, but mine doesn't start until the 21st, hence having plenty of free time.

 Wednesday was when the big move happened. One other person from my session is living in the same complex as I am, and so are two other teachers at my school and two others at his school, who came earlier. Most of them aren't around yet, off traveling with their free time. I plan on spending most of mine in Ayutthaya, with maybe a few day trips to surrounding areas.

Anyways, Wednesday. The company that hired me is sort of a middle man, placing foreign teachers in schools, so I am working for the school, but they are helping to arrange paperwork and everything. It has been very nice. Anyways, the manager came and picked us up, her name is Pook. She was very nice, picking us up mostly because she was afraid I would get lost if we tried to meet somewhere other than at the hotel. Which is probably true. We drove, stopping at Bang-Pa In, a nearby city where the other person from my session, Colin, will be teaching. We drove by his school, which was a very nice campus, and then viewed an apartment, which was rather bleak compared to where we are staying now.

We had lunch at a restaurant on a boat...it was anchored so we didn't go anywhere, but it was quite nice. Pook recommended the fish very highly, and it was a type of communal lunch, where everyone shares the main dishes. So we had some fried fish, fish cakes, some squid type dish, greens with crab legs, papaya salad and some chicken. I actually did try eating the fried fish and fish cakes. It was okay, but certainly not enough to make me like fish. The papaya salad was really good and spicy though. After that we drove by my school, and came and settled at the Grandparent's House, as it is called. Colin ended up deciding to stay here since the pros here outweigh the pros of being able to walk to school.

Thursday I went out for about 2 hours at 10. There are two sets of ruins pretty close to the apartment, probably about 5-15 minute walk depending on which one you're going to. I went and explored there, but of course by about noon the heat was killing me. When I got back I ran into the local helper for us, named Bum, who needed my papers to make some copies. She recommended against going out early in the day, and I tend to agree, saying that going out later is better. I will be trying that from now, the heat was rather intense. Colin had to go to the tailor later that afternoon with Pook and I tagged along for the heck of it. I got to see a sort of cloth shop, where they had lots of fun silk cloth. After we had dinner again at another nice restaurant. All in all, the later in the day it is out, the nicer it tends to be.

As for the next bit, I just plan to do more exploring. There are plenty of ruins to see and some temples too. They rent bikes at the apartments, so I will probably do that one of these times. But that about sums up my life these past couple days...enjoy the wall of text!