Review Week and Exams

The last two weeks of teaching for us at school was Review Week and Exams. On review week we were not supposed to teach anything new just review on things that we have already taught. We also had to send home a review outline telling the parents what their students needed to be studying. During review  week I had about 10 parents come to talk to me to specify what they should be studying. It seemed so strange for me to was that 8 year olds were studying for exams.

Exam week was also interesting, the students had to write 4 exams a day and some of their parents stayed at school all day to ensued that they were studying on their breaks. I felt pretty good about our exams going into them, I thought they were fair and that there should not be any problems for the kids writing them. The math exam was fine, but immediately after explaining the science exam, I freaked out because I thought it would be too hard for my students. During the whole hour I was panicking thinking that my students were going to fail. But surprisingly they all did fine. The English exam was a lot more difficult for the students I think mainly because of the amount of reading they had to do. I felt so bad for the students in my /3 class because they had no idea what was going on and when I went up to retrieve the exam the Thai Teacher informed me that it was a very difficult.

In these two weeks I learned so much about assessment and making exams, but I feel that these new skills may go to waste a little bit because I will NEVER make an exam or test for students below grade 5, but you never know what I will end up teaching in the future.

To let my kids relax for the last two days of me teaching them, I just let them play and build. One of my kids said to me "Ms.Alice, today is so fun!" Yep, that way they will miss me when I leave!

Pattaya

Two weekends I a row in July I headed to Pattaya which is supposed to be the scum of Thailand. What I actually found was that it is just a beach town that went astray. The first time I went to Pattaya was because the rest of my U of M homies were going. I was going to go to Sukkothai  that weekend, but decided that it wasn’t smart to go by myself. So I tagged along to Pattaya.

When we first got there we found out that we were staying at a hotel called AMBIANCE in the “Boyztown” District of Pattaya. At first it kind of sketched me out, but it turned out that it was actually a good place to stay. Boyztown is full of Ladyboys and male masseuses’. So it ended up being quite safe for 4 girls because no one was interested in us.

While in Pattaya I had 2 great runs in the mornings it was hot, therefore there were no dogs to chase me, also a saw quite a few dogs on leashes! For the remainder of my day on Saturday I walked around the main beach street and at night we met up with the guys from Campus 3 and went to the house they had rented. It was actually pretty fun. We made our way back to Walking Street (the bar district) but we had a hard time finding any open bars because there was an election going on and they aren’t allowed to serve alcohol during an election. After walking around for a while we stumbled upon a bar full of people and decided that they must have been serving drinks there. There was about 8 of us lined up at the seated bar for a couple of hours. We played Connect 4 against the bartender and she whooped us all, I was very impressed!

The next weekend was the marathon in Pattaya so I went back. It was a much different atmosphere that weekend because there was 10,000 runners taking over the city. As races go, Pattaya was a great host city. I didn’t end up feeling too good for the race but I still managed to run 1:30 for the half and they gave me 6000BHT prize money (200CAD) I was pretty pumped, the race winnings covered all of my expenses for the two weekends.

All together Pattaya did not live up to its negative reputation. Yes, there were some shading things going on with older men and young Thai women and Boys but I avoided it easily and ended up having a blast.

Chiang Rai

Wow, Chiang Rai was a cool place! I somehow messed up on my flight booking and it ended up costing me twice as much as it should have. Fortunately I had won a 50/50 draw at work that day. When we got the Chiang Rai I was still stressed out from the flight complications, but we managed to walk around and find a decent hotel.


During the day on Saturday I rented a mountain bike from a place called "Fat Free Bikes" so I knew it had to be good! The woman there ended up giving me a great bike/lock/helmet/tube repair kit and map for only 300 baht ($10). I spent the entire day riding in the mountains it was wonderful!

When I got back from my 6 hour ride, the other girls and I hopped on the back of pick-up truck and got taken to the coolest hotel you have ever seen! They were bamboo huts! It was so wild and the view was spectacular!

The hotal was called the Akha House and it only cost 200baht each for a night. It was an unbelievable place to stay. I thought the mosquitoes would bother me in the middle of the night, but it was no different than being at the cottage of something, I slept like a baby!

The next day the other girls went on a trek, but I had to go back to the airport early because of my messed up flights! On my way to the airport I got the tuktuk to stop at the White Temple which was a neat temple that was completely painted white with Spider-man and Batman painted on a mural on the inside, unfortunately you weren't allowed to take pictures of the inside!

It ended up being a great weekend minus the flight kerfuffle. 

Top Ten Weird Sights on Phet Kasem

Phet Kasem is the longest road in all of Thailand, reaching up to 1,274 km. Yes, that is the street we live on. There are ups and downs to living on such a busy street, but there are also some things that I have seen that have blown my mind quite a bit.

10. All these crazy Canadians walking around! Where we are living is not downtown Bangkok, we are actually more on the outskirts of town. So other than the 30 or so foreigners staying at Piya apartments there are not other Canadians, Tourists or white people and boy do we stand out!

9. No zoning laws: One thing that I had to get explained to me was the Bangkok was no zoning laws so that means that there can be a garbage yard, next to a school, next to a temple, next to market next to a car garage, next to beautiful house. People kind of just built anywhere they could and the result is a mish-mash of different sorts of places.

8. The rain: It is always raining on Phet Kasem at 5 pm. Even if it is clear when we leave school at 4:45 it will rain 15 minutes later as soon as we hit Phet Kasem. Also, the roads don't exactly drain that efficiently so the street floods super easily!

7. Motorbikes on the sidewalks: I don't know if it's the case everywhere in Bangkok, but sidewalks are not meant for walking (or running) there are motor bikes, bikes, pedestrians and so much more. Walking down the block to 7-11 you must watch where you are going at all times because no one is going to stop for you!

6. 7-11's: Every 300 meters (literally) on Phet Kasem there is a 7-11, yes it is convenient, a little over the top sometimes.

5. Phet Kasem Dogs: The dogs on PK of quite the interesting bunch! The nasty looking one closest to our 7-11 is constantly pregnant and the rest are quite territorial between 7pm and 6am (dark hours). I try to avoid running in those hours.

4. Grown up Mowgli: There is a man between the age of 18 and 30 that squats on the steps near our apartments looking starving and kind of sneaky. He is super skinny and shirtless with dreads and I can't help but think that is what The Jungle Book character is like when he grows up.

3. An elephant. Our residence is about 4 km from the city limits and sometimes I have run outside the city limits to get out of all the people. Probably about 5km from my apartment I saw a man walking an elephant on the side walk. It was one of those moments that I really wanted my camera, but didn't have it with me of course.

2. A rabbit. Not just any rabbit though, probably the largest rabbit in the world. It was the size of the perimeter of my arms together in a circle. When I saw it, I actually shrieked, I had never seen anything like it before. It was the fattest most gigantic rabbit ever. I'm sure it was a lovely supper for some local dogs.

1. Bus on fire: one morning I woke up early (5am) to do a workout across the the street at the South East Asia University and just as I walked out of our apartments, a bus sped by me with FLAMES coming out of the tail pipe! I was so startled and I look around to see if any one else saw it and lots of people did. The bus pulled over ahead with tonnes of smoke and fumes coming out of it! It was so crazy! The street smelled like burning oil for the rest of the day.

Alice's Thailand Top Tens

My Top Ten YouTube Tunes

My only source of music here is my iPod (with super old stuff on it) and YouTube videos so here is my list of my top ten most listened to songs on YouTube:

 

10. Princess Chelsea - The Cigarette Duet: I agree with the man in this video, I have this conversation sometimes with my friend here
 

9. Travelling - Paper Lions: Just a fun song!
 

8. The Honey Trees - To Be With You: Super cute song and video
 

7. The Sweet Serenades - Die Young: This is a fun song, I love duets, but the lyrics are a little depressing and the guy reminds me of my friend Scraggles
 

6. Tie: My Love by Sia/Bon Iver - I Can't Make You Love Me: Both horrible choices! Both songs make me depressed every time I listen. Probably the worst songs to listen to when you are away from the person you love. 
 

5. Sara Bareilles - Gonna Get Over You: This is a fun one that I get ready to in the morning
 

4. Mumford & Sons - Home: Probably the worst song I could listen to being thousands of miles away from home 
 

3.  Florence + The Machine - Breath Of Life: Intense pump-up song, it is the only reason I saw (and liked) the movie Snow White and the Huntsman
 

2. Ane Brun - Do You Remember: Ane Brun reminds me of my friend Megan in this video (I think it is the shoulder pads) I can't wait to see her again.
 

1. BOY - Little Numbers: I can't stand still during this song, my fave :)
 

*Honorable Mention: Fun.: Some Nights - I just found this song 3 days ago, I don't know if it makes the list yet, but I think I really like it 
 

Please stay tuned for my next list: Top ten funny things my students have said in Thailand

Koh Samed 2 - Same Same but different

I just got back from Koh Samed for the second time. It was a blast!(again) We got there Friday night around 11 and the logical thing to do would have been go to bed, so we did the exact opposite -we stayed up until 6am ;). I spent the weekend getting to know more teachers from campus 1 and 2, going for a lovely morning run, and just relaxing on the beach. During the past 8 weeks I have been to Samed twice, and it has been wonderful both times.

Ko Samed is an island about 3 hours away from Bangkok. One of my friends from U of Brandon pretty much planned the whole weekend for us, it was wonderful! If you get to Samed during the day you can take the ferry there, but since we always arrive at night we always have to take a special speed boat. The 10 pm speedboat ride is always a good time. I shared a room with a wonderful girl that I did not know before the weekend, and I think we made pretty good roomies.

Saturday morning I got up around 9 and did a run, it was much better than my run last time, being left alone by all the dogs :) I think the trick was to run in the heat. The dogs were not even interested in me.

I had a great weekend with friends, late night dance parties and just relaxing. When I go back to Winnipeg I will look back fondly at Koh Samed, especially on those -40 days!

Photo Cred: Joey Freedman

And yes that is a badass shark tattoo on my quad, just henna because I am so hard core, but it does look damn good!

Weekend in BKK: June 15-17

Yes, it's true, I spent another weekend in Bangkok. At least I had lot's of fun. On Friday night I went out with a group of U of W and BU student because it was BU's last  weekend of their placement. You see, the BU placement was only 2 months. For them it counts as practicum experience (which for us it doesn't) but they had to pay their whole way out here, meanwhile we did not. I do not know many people from Brandon, but I got a kick out of all 6 of the practicum students. I got to know some better than others, but they definitely made this trip more enjoyable!

So anyways, Friday night we went out on the down and spent the night enjoying each others company. Period.

Saturday morning I slept in (oops, I needed it) a large group of people went to the Grand Palace - which I still have not seen. So I slept until about 1 in the afternoon and got up and decided I was going to go on an epic walk. So I walked up to Big C, up to the next Big C and finally all the way to Mall BangKae (5-6km away). I went to a store called fresh mart, where you can buy North American foods like granola bars and rice cakes. Afterward, I walk home with all of my yummy new treats. All together, I ended up walking around for about 6 hours on Saturday and then going to bed around 9:30.

Sunday morning I was up at 4. I know, it's a god-awful time to wake up! I had to catch a cab to get to a race across the city. The race was at Suan Luang Rama IX Park which reminded me of Kildonan Park in Winnipeg. When I got I had to sign up for the race - 250 b ($7-8CAD). The race fee covers a cool singlet with a lion/dragon on it, food afterwards and awards. I didn't really know what to expect for a 14k race so I decided to try to run ~4:00km (it's only kms here no miles!) Naturally, I really wanted to catch the woman ahead of me, but she was going so fast! At the end of the race I went to go tell her that it was a good race, but it turns out the big bushy ponytail and slender shoulders actually belonged to a man. So I ended up winning. The bushy-hair man actually pushed me so hard!

After the race I waited around the park for awards and stuff and then hopped into a taxi to head for Central plaza Rama 9 Mall, which I thought would be very close, because they were both Rama 9.. wrong! It turns out there are tonnes of CentralPlaza Malls and I ended up seeing 3 of them Sunday morning until I actually found the right place. I was trying to find this mall to meet up with a girl in my class and her family. I originally thought the invite to go skating with the family was quite different but after thinking about it for a while, I agreed. I actually had so much fun! Her parents just wanted to meet me and let me have a great time with some of the students. This not something that I would do with students in Canada, meet up outside of school, but apparently it is normal here to have teacher/student interactions outside of school. Because the school is fairly competitive for grades, I was trying to be very conscious of bribery. At no point did I feel any sort of pressure to give information about school. The family was so nice, they asked me about Canada, they were impressed by my newly won trophy, and they just wanted to get to know me a little bit. It ended up being a super fun day, although skating would not be my activity of choice in Canada of Thailand it was really run to get to know my students better.

The second weekend I had in Bangkok was a blast! I saw very different parts from last time. I may stay one more weekend (July 6-8) to see the GPalace and the floating market, the national museum a lady boy show, or maybe I will head to the beach for another weekend. My time is ticking down quickly now, I must make every weekend count! XOXO talk soon!

Alice

Phuket all!

Actually, it's pronounced poo-ket. The weekend of June 8th to 10th the 3 U of M girls and ! headed to the island of Phuket. It was not the beach paradise I was expecting, but it was a very successful for me. I was running the Laguna Phuket International Marathon (half marathon). I ended up running very (1:27:26), even in the heat and placing 3rd overall (More pictures to come).

During the weekend we sat around our fancy resort - probably the fanciest Best Western in the world, around the pool. We made a day trip to a city called Patong that had markets and many tourist attraction. My faculty advisor said that this was not the place to do our souvenir shopping because everything is very overpriced, and what did I do? Souvenir shop, of course. Here is a picture of my teaching partner and I in our fancy hotel.

Prior to my journey to Thailand, I thought that Phuket was going to be one of my favourite places. I was wrong. The only reason I enjoyed my time there is because I ran well. I felt bad for dragging the other girls along for this expensive weekend. At least we had beautiful accommodations (with continental breakfast in the morning) for the weekend.

Chiang Mai for the Long Weekend

There was a Buddhist holiday on Monday, June 4^th so about 10 of us from U of W, U of M and 1 from Nova Scotia jumped on a plane to Chiang Mai, Thailand. The flight was only an hour and we left at 9pm getting to our hotel in Chiang Mai before 11pm. I must mention the dried mango that I discovered at the airport! It was mango puree that had been dehydrated and was super delicious! It tasted like fruit roll ups!

When we got to our hotel (SK house 2) we started getting ready for bed when we heard a knock at the door. The other girls had seen a cockroach in there bed! When they went downstairs to ask to change rooms another girl saw multiple large rats in the lobby of the hotel. What you must understand is that people in Thailand do not like to kill any living thing because of reincarnation. One time I killed a mosquito in my class and the student looked at me like I was a barbarian! The result of this is leaving all of the foreigners to deal with it! So while we have been in Thailand, my teaching partner has killed 5 rats and I killed 5 cockroaches. I think you have to be very brave and strong to kill a rat, and I won’t go anywhere near them because of rabies. I don’t shriek like the rest of the office does when one scurries across the floor, but it helps to have a rat-killed as a friend.

Saturday morning first thing I started the day with a giant banana pancake (yum!). Following the adventure of the pancake, we went on an actual adventure, zip-lining through the jungle with “The Flight of the Gibbon”. It was a great time, although it was a bit pricier. I find zip-lining fun, but not very exhilarating anymore (its too safe).

By the time we got back to hotel it was about 5 pm and I jumped in a tuktuk and went to the zoo. The Chiang Mai zoo is supposed to be amazing, but I actually never went to it. The zoo was at the bottom of the mountain, which I was planning on running up. My faculty advisor told me that he saw a man running up the mountain when he was there, so I knew it was do-able, challenge accepted! The run ended up being an unexpected hour and twenty minutes up the mountain and 50 or so minutes down the mountain. This resulted in the longest run I have ever done. Not the best planning on my part, considering I have an important race next weekend and it was rather dark by the end and was afraid to stop in fear of being eaten by some wild beast. By the time I got back it had been two hours and fifteen minutes. 

The next morning at 9:30 I got picked up for a day of mountain biking. I fortunately was not stiff from the day before. Mountain Biking Chiang Mai was the company I decided to ride with and it was AMAZING!!!! I had never been mountain biking before and I wanted to go on an intermediate ride. Fortunately, no one else wanted to go on the same ride as me and the owner of the business suggest I go on the 6x Eliminator Route :-O. I was very nervous on our drive up to the mountain because I was afraid I would hold the group back because I am such a novice. As it turned out, I was able to bullshit my way through the ride with my fitness. It was awesome! My leader taught me so great tricks right away, like to stand up while going downhill, bending my knees and leaning back. When braking, only use one finger with disk brakes, otherwise you will skid. These trips helped me survive the ride. I would HIGHLY recommend this ride to anyone who wants a challenge and a great day! 

I ended up getting back to the hotel at about 8pm that night, feeling fricken awesome! Then I walk down to the weekend market that was never ending through the streets of the old city.

The next day, because it was an important Buddhist holiday loads of people walked up the mountain to pay tribute to Buddha (yes, the same mountain I ran up!). So, there were like 80 year old monks, little kids and everyone in between walking up a 14km mountain (CRAZY!). So, we stayed away from the mountain that day and went to the TIGER KINGDOM. Tiger Kingdom is a tiger training facility. They have tiny little newborns all the way to massive adult tigers. I paid to go in the cage with the smallest ones and the biggest ones. The babies were SO CUTE! I was pretty close to smuggling one in with me. There is a lot of animal abuse in Thailand in certain places; I’ve been told that they sedate the animals with drugs or physical abuse. At this place they train the tigers with a wooden stick, which seems pretty humane to me. 

For the rest of the day I walked around the city looking for a market to by coffee to bring home for my family. I finally found it but it was massive and no one spoke English, so I just ended up spend 3 hours walking around in circles until I found a few bags of coffee (it better be good!).

We caught our flight at 5:30 pm and got back to our apartments in Bangkok before 8pm.

The weekend was fantastic. I might want to go back to Chiang Mai at the end of my trip to go white water rafting or kayaking when there are more rapids at the end of the rainy season, and I think I would go mountain biking again. If you ever get a chance to go to Chiang Mai, do it for sure!

Koh Samet

We spent the weekend of May 25-27^th on an Island called Koh Samet. I wasn’t going to mention it because the weekend was fairly uneventful, but all in all it was a very cheap week (I think I spent all of 2000baht on drinks, food, transportation and accommodation. It was an easy place to go to lay back, relax and just chill. I also rented a kayak with a girl from Brandon U and gave her a mini lesson, went for a hike, spent some time in the ocean and went for a few runs on the beach.

Notable: Jep’s restaurant was one of the best we’ve eaten at, they make everything from Macaroni and Cheese to Traditional Thai meals. The homemade iced tea was heavenly! Also, I got a massage on the beach for 150baht for an hour, I was so relaxed that I fell asleep.

Wat Pho and Ayutthaya

For some reason the weekend of May 18th to 20th everyone from campus 1 and 2 decided to stay in Bangkok. I'm not sure why people wanted to stay, but it was best for me because I was running a race on the Sunday.

On Friday night we decided to to just go hang out at Old Bar (local resto) it was fun to see everyone from both Campus one and two. After old bar everyone went out to another bar and I went to bed because I am a granny and it was past my bedtime.

The next morning we slept in (til 8!) and then went to the weekend market with the Brandon Practicum students (who are super cool). We spent 3 hours at the Chatuchak weekend market and I bought 2 pair or sunglasses, lol, everyone else bought tonnes of stuff because the market it is the biggest one you will ever see, which a booming 15,000 estimated amount of stores. I guess I was not in a shopping mood.

After Chatuchak we took the BTS-skytrain to the grand palace and Wat Pho. We decided to go visit the temple of the Reclining Buddha first. It was HUGE! I knew it was big, but I had no idea how big.

We did not end up returning to the Piya apartments until about 5 in the evening. 
That night, a large number of teachers were heading to a place called "Skybar". I unfortunately had to stay behind because I had to be awake at 4AM the next morning for the race. 

As I said, the next morning I was up at 4 to be picked up at 4:30. The race was a "quarter marathon" on a giant port in Bangkok. There were quite a few runners (maybe 400 or so) at this one. IT WAS ROUGH! about 2km in I knew I had started too fast, because I already wanted to stop. It was about 32 degrees and humid at 6am when the race started. As soon as the gun went off so did two super fast Ethiopian women. There was a Thai woman in from of me at the start who I passed right away, but at about the 3rd km she blew by me again, but I cased her for the rest of the time. She ended up finishing about 30 seconds ahead of me, not even looking tired. So I ended finishing 4th in my second race in Thailand, got another trophy and also won 2000 baht ($65CAD). You'll notice in the picture, I am the second tallest woman on the stage, I don't know if that will every happen again! My time wasn't great(45mins), but we couldn't find anyone with a garmin to actually confirm that it was actually 10.5km, I choose to believe it was more like 11k :). It was definitely the hardest 10k I've ever run, might even have been one of the hardest runs I have ever done, just because of the heat. The men's side winners were all from Kenya and super friendly/funny, as usual for Kenyans. They were telling me Bangkok is was hotter than where they are from(haha)!

By the time awards and everything was over, we got back to the apartments around 10am. Of course instead of going back to bed, I decided it would be a great idea to go out to the old capital city for the day. So myself and 2 other UofMers and Brandon girl hopped in a cab to the BTS, to the bus station where we took an hour bus ride to Ayutthaya. It was crazy. 

When we finally got to Ayutthaya, we found a tuktuk to drive us around for the day. We saw SO MANY RUINS, it was super cool. In Thailand, everyone is allowed to walk all over the ruins, I felt like I was going back in time. To be honest, the whole time I felt as though I was in the movie "The Jungle Book" and I actually watched it later that night (and now I am actually reading the book on my kobo). 

All in all, it was a great weekend, but not relaxing in the least. It was a rough way to start the next week. I was pretty exhausted -AND STIFF- to teach the next few days.

Ayutthaya was a fantastic day trip, but as you may be able to see the expression on my face in the pictures, it may not have been the best post race activity.

Kanchanaburi

Here are a few highlights from our weekend (May 11-13) in Kanch...

Friday night we drive from the Piya Pat apartments to our hotel called Pong Phen, which was very close to the Bridge over the River Kwai. That night we walked a few blocks down and grabbed a beer at a street bar called the "10 baht bar" - really shots were 10 baht there, but I didn't dare.

The next morning I got up and did a short run and grabbed a slice of french toast from the Pong Phen resto (amazing!) and jumped on a tour bus for 8am.

Our first stop was Erawan National Park, an amazing set of 7 tiered waterfalls. We spent 3 hours walking from the bottom of the mountain and walked up stopping and swimming in most of the waterfalls.

In my opinion, the 3rd waterfall was the most beautiful, although the 5th one you could slide down on your bum. The 7th waterfall was well worth the hike, what an amazing view!

After Erawan we were taken to the rafting portion of the tour, when they pulled us up the river and let us go. I thought it was going to be a white water rafting experience, although it ended up being a relaxing current ride down the river. 

As soon as we got of the raft we jumped up on some elephants and went for a ride. Riding the elephants was an awesome experience, although I don't think that I will do it again during my stay in Thailand. For some reason it seemed unethical for those huge animals to be stuck giving foreigner a ride around. Apparently the place we went to was actually more of an ethical camp for them. None of them had tusks because they were adopted after having been abused by poachers and stuff. I still felt bad (although my face does not show it!)

After the elephants we went to catch a train at a station on the death railway. The death railway (from Kanch to Burma) was made by slaves that were starved to death in the second world war.  They say that more than 90,000 people died in its construction. 

The train never came to get us...

Apparently it broke down that day and our driver had already left. So we had to walk along the tracks across a few bridges that were VERY high and not safe in the least - fun and scary!

Last stop on our tour was the Bridge over the River Kwai which was bombed in WWII. They rebuilt it and still use it today (when the train is working).

For the rest of the day we relaxed and sat around and ate. Many people went out on the Saturday night (a few of which got some Bamboo tattoos), but tame little me went to bed at 8:30.

Very fresh, I woke up the next morning and went for a long run. I ran along the highway and through ton. There are not nearly as many dogs in Kanch. :) During my run I saw a huge bull and a beautiful track, where they held some sort of Asian Championships! I almost wanted to run on in, but no there were guard dogs!

For the rest of the day I walked to the Kanch market and bought some jewellery. It was a great place to buy nice gems and such.

All in all I really enjoyed this trip. If I were to go again I would have seen the tigers at the "Tiger Temple" as well as doing the elephants the first day.

Weekend Fun in Pattaya and Hua Hin

Team Building in Pattaya

I guess it is time to fill everyone in on my awesome weekend in Pattaya and Hua Hin. My weekend started early Friday morning with a pool run and jumping in the cab to school as usual although, it was not going to be another day of planning. Campus 2 admin had planned us a wonderful team building day with the foreign teachers and Thai teachers. It started off with a car rally. For those of you who do not know, a car rally is a kind of scavenger hunt done in cars. The whole car rally was in Thai though so we had to try to communicate as a team and find the things they asked us to find. We were one of the last teams to reach the second checkpoint so that's when I got super competitive! We were supposed to have a meal together as a team but, we said that we should just do it on the road so we can be faster! It turns out that we were the first team to make it to the destination in Pattaya, but apparently in car rallies in Asia it doesn't matter who gets there first! So then we went out for lunch at a great Seafood place on the ocean. My favorite thing there was a kind a green curry with scallops and squid.

Once we git back to the resort, there was no time to mess around and we started all of the team building activities. The resort itself was pretty nice but we didn't really have time to relax. We played team building games all afternoon until 6. At that point we had a little bit of down tome before supper. That's when we took off for a run. Not a long one, but enough to see a bit of the town. Pattaya is a pretty neat place. There are lot's of tourists that go there, mainly coming from Russia, which seemed bazaar to me, but apparently it's not a lot weirder than Canadians going to Mexico. When we got back to the resort we had a beautiful meal followed by karaoke,which the Thai teachers loved, but none of the foreign teachers participated. I was in bed pretty early, exhausted from the long day.

Hua Hin

The next morning, if was raining, which was disappointing because I wanted to lounge by the pool, instead I went for a short walk. We left the resort in Pattaya at 9am and drove back to school. We got to the school at about 12 after some brutal traffic. We then got picked up by a different van and got driven to Hua Hin. We got to Hua Hin at about 5pm and went out for supper at a place called "Admirals" which had Thai and Western food options. After super we went looking for some Thai boxing, which unfortunately, there was not on Saturday. On the way back to the hotel we hit up the night market, which was a huge market(at night obviously). I didn't buy anything major at the night market, but it was still awesome. When we got back to the hotel the power went out in our rooms. It was kind of a sketchy hotel. There were bugs and our toilet kept letting out massive air bubbles that we thought was a giant basilisk! The next morning I woke up at 4am. This may seem a bit crazy, but in reality, I have been waking up at 5 or 5:30 most mornings. I got up at 4 to run a half marathon. Luckily my running buddy (lets just call him "D-Machine"), stayed with a friend the night before and they picked me up at the hotel at 4:15AM. D's friends were wonderful. They drove us all the way up to the start line and dropped us off. When I say "all the way up", I mean UP! The 9th annual Preserve Heavy Half Marathon started at 5:30am and went straight down hill for a km. D went off the line like a rocket an I hung back to be cautious. At about mile 8 or 9 I caught up to him, but he heard my bike chaperone (because I was in first for women) coming up behind hi so he sped up. On the last few downhills, he gapped me enough that I couldn't catch him on the final climb. He ended up finishing about 20 seconds ahead of me and I finished in 1:35. Obviously, not my best time, but I was happy with it considering the heat, hill and I had only been here for a week. For winning the race I got the biggest  trophy ever, it was actually quite embarrassing bringing it back to the hotel with me.

For the rest of the day, I went to the beach with the other U of M students and in the evening went back to the night market.The next morning, we headed to "Monkey Mountain", which is obviously a mountain with many monkeys. It was a fantastic experience, minus the insane amount of of stairs up to the temple. I unfortunately was insanely stiff from the hills the day before.

My apologies if this isn't very well written, I'm extremely tired, must go to bed!

It was fantastic weekend out and about. Miss you all back home! XOXO 

Alice