Saturday, December 16, 2006

Heres a brief recap of this months happenins:

Went to Koh Tao which is in island in the Gulf of Thailand. It was amazingly beautiful although it took nearly an entire day to travel there by bus and by boat from Bangkok. The water was clear blue green but the sand was not as nice as it was in Koh Samet but the island made up for this in the fact that there were tons of fish to see when you go snorkeling. We planned on going scuba diving but unfortunately we didn't have enough time to take the whole course (and I didn't feel like winging it when it could be potentially fatal) so we decided to go snorkeling instead. We saw tons of fish including clown fish (think Little Nemo), barracuda, angel fish and lots of other really colorful tropical looking fish. We hired a boat to take us to this place called the "Japanese Gardens" which is so called because the coral reefs supposedly look like a Japanese garden. The boat guy threw food in the water and all of a sudden I was surrounded by hundreds of fish that weren't scared to come right up to me. Another great thing about Koh Tao was the food. Lots of Westerners there so that means lots of Western food including yummy mexican and italian food.

School has been going well now that the nun has decided to stop talking to the foreigners. This comes after another incident of them "forgetting" to pay us and the foreigners threatening to "forget" to come to work the next day and drama drama drama. I decided I really love teaching and want to go to grad school for education when I come home so that means working on grad school applications and GREs and all that good stuff which I'm not really looking forward to.

Today I went to meditation classes at a temple here in Bangkok. It was quite an experience but different than I thought it was going to be. I'm glad I went because I want to learn more about Buddhism and get in touch with some sort of spirituality while I'm here. I'm just not sure if I'll go back to that same place again. After meditation classes I went to Wat Pho which had the huge golden reclining buddha statue. It was amazingly big and awe inspiring. I'll post up some pictures later.

Sorry if my posts seem a little rambling. I'm usually typing them at the internet cafe which has so much noise I can't normally think straight. Imagine Thai girls chatting with their foreign boyfriends in this obnoxiously high pitched voice, Thai music blaring and video game noises and you'll get somewhat of an idea of what I'm listening to right now. Miss you all!

2 comments:

Bailey said...

The Internet Cafes sound like fun! Are they Tai girls wearing their Hello Kitty backpacks? :-)

~de jung~ said...

hi miss lauren !! you are write very good.