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