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.