Traveling. I'm in TAK!

I've had a long few days. On Sunday I had a 12 hour bus trip from Bangkok to Laos to get my non-immigrant B work visa. We stayed in Vientiane, which is right on the boarder. The whole town seems like it survives on boarder/visa runs. I didn't like the town that much. It was just as expensive if not more than Phuket. The Laos currency, kip, is out of control. The exchange rate is $1 = 8900 kip or 1 baht (Thai money) = 250 kip. I paid 47,000 kip for a pizza. On the plus side Laos has really good Italian and French food thanks to colonization. That pizza was the first good cheese I've had sense I've been here. I left my hotel in Laos on Wednesday at noon. Waited at the embassy for a couple of hours to pickup my passport with my work visa then we drove back to Thailand to Nong Khai. It took about 2 hours to cross the boarder. So many people trying to get into Thailand. From Nong Khai I took a bus to Udon Thani, then to Phitsanulo and finally to Tak. I got to Tak around 8:30am. Long day of traveling. The head of the English department at my school picked me up, but my apartment wasn't ready so I spend a few hours at school. I finally got to my apartment around noon.

So far I've walked around Tak for a few hours and saw one white family and no bars. This is going to be much different than anywhere else I've been in Thailand. Welcome to the real Thailand!

Teaching in Thailand

My last week of training has been teaching at Thai schools. The formate is that five soon to be teachers and one experienced observer spend the day in one classroom. Each of the soon to be teachers teach one lesson and everyone else observes and gives feedback. Easy enough right?

My first day was a little shocking. We walked into the classroom and only six Thai kids are there (Thai schools are on break right now so these kids are in school to learn from us farangs). The first girl gets up in front of the class and says good morning class. Crickets. One girl knew a few words the others little to no English. This was all of our worst nightmares. My lesson consisted me of reading simple sentences and the kids repeating them. I don't think they learned much, but they could parrot me.

The next few days went much better. We switched schools almost everyday and we spent time at a high achieving school and at a middle of the pack school. The high achieving school was so easy. The kids hung onto every word I said. They all really wanted to learn. The middle of the pack school got easier with each time I was there. My first day was a little rough, but nothing compared to the first school. Today the kids were great. The kids just needed time to warm up to the new teachers. I'm at the same school tomorrow and I'm excited to be there. I'm really interested to see the school I am going to teach at for the next 4-5 months.

Surfing!!!

I went surfing for the first time. Me and my four roomates, Bryan, Ryan and Joe decided to give surfing a try. Bryan was the only one who had surfed before, but he had only gone once. We got two board for the four of us for 2 hours. I got up probably around 10 times and rode 4 waves all the way in. It was so much fun, but I was so tired afterwards. It absolutely killed me. I would love to pick surfing up as long as the water is warmer. Northern California water is way too cold for me. We tried to go surfing another time, but the waves were too small. Forgot the camera so no pictures.