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!
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Monday, September 5, 2011
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
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
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