Pictures and stuff

Hey all, haven't posted in a while. Working on a bunch of different stuff now.

I'm still living in Koh Samui, I've moved 3 times now from my original place to staying. I'm living for just under $200 a month which is pretty nice. Doing a lot of work in Koh Samui, 3 private lessons and working for one language school.

Hope everyone is doing well, here are a bunch of pictures that I've taken of Koh Samui.

One of the teachers of the couse I was on. Claudia. We now work together. She does look this angry quite often. 

A teacher in one of the courses I was helping out with. Two of her students that she worked with for a couple of weeks before traveling to her school. 

A beach that I frequent. The "salaa's" are really pretty amazing and very nice, even at night. You get a whole view of Koh Samui and of Koh Phangan, the neighboring island. 

Wouter and Claudia. Both teachers of the course for this month. Working on sorting through some papers.

More working...though I think this one was actually posed, so we were probably making jokes at this time =P

Driving home from work in Nathon, I stumbled upon this and just had to take a picture. 

Playing around with the setting and stuff on my camera. 

More playing.

Love this photo. 

The water level rises up to about where I'm standing, but then drops all the way down there. Very cool with the different tides. 

And the light rained down upon us. 

Standing at one of the easily accessible mountains of Koh Samui and taking a picture of a small island just off the main part of Koh Samui. It's actually so small I don't think it has an official name. 

Standing at a resort right next to my language school. Looking out over Koh Samui. 

Little Thai girl going for a swim. Ironically, though the Thai live on Koh Samui their entire lives, almost all of them are atrocious swimmers. Like, they can barely doggy paddle. I feel like such a professional when I get in the water.

Rolling coconut in the waves, tried out my continuous photo taking abilities. 

Lying on the ground taking a photo up through the grass. Hard to get the contrast right but I think it turned out alright. 

Looking down the road at the beach. The smallest dog in the middle is in heat and the dogs were going crazy. Massive battles and barking and such. Had to drive through them on the motorbike to break them up. 

Same thing as before, but this was when I was falling...

Sun was absolutely incredible. It was actually to bright to look at, but since I zoomed in so much, the sun became less bright, but it dimmed everything around it, so the clouds became really dark in the photo. I though that was a really cool effect. 

Same as before. 

A fishing net caught against the rock. I just liked the contrast between the water and the net.

Koh Samui!

Hello all! I'VE ARRIVED. And damn does it feel good to be arrived. So I'm not sure whether I detailed exactly where I am in my last post. I'm now living on the island of Koh Samui, on the northern edge of the island at a place called the Save Hotel (Save hotel? save from what?) It is absolutely beautiful here, of course. The beaches are amazing, the trees are great blahblahblah etc. It's not really worth talking about when I can post some pictures and show you what I mean. The trip here was one helluva trip though. 8 hours by bus from Khon Kaen to Bangkok, then a 2 hour taxi ride to the southern bus terminal in Bangkok, then a 3 hour layover in the bus terminal before a 12 hour bus ride from Bangkok to Sirrah Thani, then a 2 hour ferry ride from Sirrah Thani to Koh Samui. Truly a dreadful experience in all honesty. Nothing truly remarkable happened on the trip except on the 12 hour bus ride. So I specifically booked an overnight bus so that I could sleep through most of the ride, then just enjoy having the next day in Koh Samui. What I unfortunately didn't count on was the stop at the food mart at 1 in the morning. I fell asleep pretty quickly, thankfully, and was happily sleeping when my arm was jostled, then jostled again, and again, and again, etc etc, as every person on the damn bus filed out of the bus and into the shopping mart. I did not count on this at ALL. Apparently, the thai get extremely hungry in the middle of the night? As I found out, the mart actually pays the bus companies to stop there and therefore the bus companies can reduce the price of the tickets that they sell. So it's a win win for everyone...unless you're trying to sleep and its goddamn 1 in the morning. In any case, I obediently filed out of the bus and wandered around bleary eyed for about 15 minutes. Ordered some sort of strange noodle thing and sat down to let it cool and then eat. Of course, long before the thing I ordered was anywhere near cool, everyone started filing back on to the bus, so I quickly scorched my throat (hell no I'm not wasting 25 cents on my noodles) and leaped back onto the bus. The rest of the night proceeded quite nicely, though we may have stopped somewhere else, but I just didn't wake up. We arrived the next morning at the ferry and I nearly had a heart attack because they kicked me off the bus but wouldn't give me my luggage. Luckily, the woman that sat next to me on the bus dragged me away and told me they'd give me my luggage on Koh Samui. I figured that they would unload the luggage and put it on the boat in a storage container or something. Wrong again, apparently, its just easier to load the entire bus onto the ferry's car storage area. On the other side, they drove the bus off, unloaded our luggage and drove the bus back onto the boat. The decision-making process of the Thai often confuses me...
In any case, I had finally arrived.

I made my way up Koh Samui and was met by Philip who's in charge of the course here. He took me over to the Save Hotel where I got my room and had help moving all my crap into my room. Went back to the hotel bar where I met some people who were actually from the course before mine (the previous month's course) who were still hanging around the island before they left for their jobs or different places. Hung out with them for a bit though pretty quickly after met a bunch of people from my course. Honestly, these people are amazing. Interestingly, a large proportion of them are from South Africa, near Johannesburg (those of you that happen to know the geography of South Africa know where I'm talking about, those of you that are like me and would have difficulty pointing out South Africa on a map, Johannesburg is the capital). Many of them are from different parts around South Africa so their accents are all very different. Some of them sound British, some German, some French a little. Lots of different things. In any case, these guys are just a blast, and such a nice change from the loneliness I felt a lot in Khon Kaen. I finally have my English speakers! Whoo! Anyway, we've already had a lot of adventures, but I'm honestly so exhausted and I have school tomorrow, so I will save them for another post. Anyway, been having a great time all around, I'm so so so so so happy right now and I'm looking forward to every single day. I hope all of you are doing as well as I am now. =]

Living and LOVING
Mikolka

PS PLEASE, anyone, if you read this and you like a part or want me to elaborate or anything, PLEASE send me an email. I have difficulty being able to tell if there is anyone reading right now. So please send an email!

Moving

Alright, so I may have stretched the truth a bit about the every Friday thing. But I'm still trying to post more! So a lot has happened since I last sent out a post to everyone! I've decided to move! I'm going to be moving to Koh Samui and take my TEFL there instead of in Khon Kaen. Essentially, I've just been having a lot of trouble in Khon Kaen, finding enough to keep my attention held and getting things productively done. On top of that, there's just not a ton going on here in general. I've had a general difficulty making more than a just a handful of friends due to the fact that I just can't speak that much Thai which means it's really hard to communicate with people. So anyway, due to all this, I've decided to move to Koh Samui. I'm slightly worried about how it's going to be since it's been pretty built up. Definitely not quite as authentic Thailand as Khon Kaen, but I'm confident that I'm going to have a lot of fun there. Right now I'm just packing up stuff slowly and getting all my transportation arranged for going there. Fortunately, I really haven't bought that much for my apartment here in Khon Kaen. And, from that stuff, I can bring most of it (sheets and table lamp etc).
Anyway, on a different note, Caroline, who was visiting me for a while left on the 1st which has left me remarkably lonely. Surprise. But I'm muddling through, and will be OK =]. (To the elder generation reading this, =] is a smiley face). So, really not a whole lot to report. I'm currently working a class on Thursdays that is a conversation class. This involves me sitting with a bunch of girls trying to learn English while I essentially talk at them. They generally pretend to understand what's going on. However, it's totally fun because we always joke around and we have lots of food.

Honestly, this is the first time that I've truly been at a loss as to what to write about. So I'm going to tell you all about going to an official Thai business dinner.

After my class on Thursday, the owner of the school asked if I wanted to go to a semi-official business dinner, and that the teacher could come along with us so that she could translate for me. (The teacher I work with for the class is a fluent English speaker who does English lectures at the University). So we went to an open restaurant, meaning it wasn't inside a building but rather just under a roof. (So that I can use names to not confuse you with weird pronouns, the English translator is named Waen, the owner of the school is named Buun, I don't remember the names of the two guys we met with but lets call one the Creator, and one the Consultant) So we went to this restaurant and were introduce to the Creator and Consultant. We sat down, and they talked a little bit. No business talk but just small talk. Mostly they spoke in Thai so I couldn't tell what they were talking about but I know that it wasn't business. I found out that the Creator basically wants to market a product that is made in Japan, but he wants to market it in Thailand (they were little dessert sweet rice cake things...actually pretty gross) The Creator and Consultant had arrived at the restaurant before us and had actually already ordered food. This might be considered weird, but the way that we actually did the dinner was as a shared dinner. Much like when you share plates of food at home, but you would never do in a restaurant. But they ordered large dishes that everyone would dig their spoons and forks (and occasionally hands) into. I found this amazing because any sort of "fancy" business I imagine, everyone has their own very specific plate and you would hesitate to even share a salt shaker. Throughout dinner there was very little talking except between me and my translator. Though Buun was sitting in front of him, the Consultant completely ignored her and just watched the TV that was above our heads. I thought it was horribly rude, but I guess that it wasn't. After dinner was finished, there was a fair amount of time of just sitting around before they started talking about business. Something I found interesting was that the Creator was completely ignored. I mean like, staunchly ignored. I think throughout the entire conversation they consulted him once on something. The Consultant did all the talking with Buun and I assume they went over it. Anyway, just some cultural differences that I noticed between here and the US.

I know, not the most interesting post ever, but I'm moving on Friday so that should be rife with stories, which I will attempt to post this month ;)

Miss you all

Mikolka

Bangkok

So, since I've had difficulty motivating myself to write this blog with any sort of regularly, I think I am going to follow my friend Guy's advice and begin writing it every Friday (though if I get any sort of night social life it may become Thursday). Anyway, since I've arrived back from Katt's parents house with Caroline, we stayed in Khon Kaen for only a few days before we decided to travel to Bangkok. While we were in Khon Kaen we helped Katt teach a couple of my Thai friends English by simply conversing with them. This seems to be the preferred method of teaching English in Thailand. Simply conversing with the students and then occasionally pointing out new words or things like that so that they can understand. My main issue with it is that I begin to start talking like they do, meaning, I begin to stop conjugating verbs and using the wrong pronouns, simply so that I am understood. The problem with this of course is the fact that I'm then teaching them absolutely nothing, and I may even be impeding their learning. In any case, the classes were quite hilarious because all the class (which incidentally was all girls) wanted to talk about was boys and what Caroline and I thought of Thai girls and drugs and alcohol etc etc.
The day after class, Caroline and I traveled to Bangkok. We decided to go by bus because it is much cheaper than flying and honestly, a lot more comfortable. While a plane ride to Bangkok is around 250$ the bus was about 25$ per person. The buses are luxury buses and pretty much allow you to fully recline, which is very very nice. In addition, while the plane is about an hour, the bus is only around 6 hours long, which, in the difference in cost and comfort, is well worth it. Caroline and I arrived in Bangkok and decided to stay on a place called Silom Road. The general place for travelers to stay is a road called Kow San Road, but it is extremely touristy, cheap, and therefore a bit gross. Silom is more for the "higher class" travelers that decide to stay and therefore have much cleaner rooms and things like that. We found a place called the HQ Hostel which was actually really really nice. Though it was a hostel, we decided to splurge a bit and get our own 2 person room, which turned out be nicer than my apartment. Since we got in late we decided to just hang around the hostel for the first day. We walked outside and walked down the market that's near there, laughing at the hilarious English on the front of shirts (one was a pair of minnie ears that said "BITCH PLEASE" and another was "This machine accepts 5,10,20,50, and 100$ bills) and trying to decide what to eat. Unfortunately, because we were foreigners and young, we were offered pornography CONSTANTLY. It was extremely annoying. What truly shocked me was the fact that though most of the people offering it was grimy shady characters, there were also some men dressed in suits that would completely surprise us by suddenly turning around and opening their jacket (yes just like the movies) and pulling out pictures for you to choose from or something. After walking around for a while, we decided it was late and went back to the hostel to go to bed.
The next morning we got up and went to Wat Po (the reclining Buddha) it was absolutely spectacular and gigantic. The Buddha is close to 50 ft tall and probably 150 ft long and completely gold. The artistry around the edges of the temple was extremely ornate and beautiful. It is very intricately done and beautifully made. I'll post some pictures so that you can see what I mean. Caroline and I also traveled to Kow San Road which, as  I said before, is a total tourist trap and tourist place. It was actually pretty nice to see a bunch of white people there and we had a few conversations with people there which reinvigorated me English speaking, which has been slowly sliding downhill since not having anyone to talk to (besides Caroline of course). I unfortunately have run out of time to write the rest of this, I'll try to come back and finish it off (there's not much left, mostly us just hanging around and taking boats and stuff to and from our hotel. Then taking the bus back) but I'll post a bunch of pictures now.