School Trip

     So I left off with my last trip to a wonderful and relaxing island. Well a few days after that trip I had been invited to go with my school class on a trip to the southeast area of Thailand. I, of course, took them up on their invitation.
       We left in the evening of the first day, and we didn't arrive until really early in the morning the next. We arrived so early in fact that no one slept, and instead we all took showers and got ready for the next day. After eating breakfast we went to a not so well known temple. After that we went to the most famous temple in Bangkok and probably all of Thailand: Wat Phra Kaeo. Then after that we went to what I came to understand as a palace, but it was basically a museum to for the past royal ways.

This is the not so well know temple, but still beautiful all the same.

I was trying to take pictures of my friends, but they got one of me instead.

The entrance to the famous Wat Phra Kaeo

I had been to the temple once before, so I spent most of my time there just talking to my friends.

One of many temples inside the Wat Phra Kaeo.

I know, another sideways picture, I'm sorry. This is the palace that we went to. We couldn't take any pictures inside, but I did get this one of the outside.

     I think after all of the touring we went to a zoo as well, but it wasn't worth taking any pictures there. The next day we got up, and I, along with the rest of my class, got to enjoy the experience of visiting Thailand's capital building. It reminded me a lot of seeing Illinois' capital building because of how small it was. After that we headed back to where we were staying and changed into swimming/beach gear. We headed to the beach and spent the rest of the afternoon there. Then we went for a nice dinner at a pier and retired soon after that.

These were some of the important documents on display at the capital building in Bangkok.

This is what reminded me of the capital building in Illinois. They have the same layout and everything.

Afterwards we went to the beach. They all decided to gang up on me and try to push me in the water.

Beach time, alright! Except for the fact that I have a dorky swimsuit on it was pretty cool.

The Thai guys are all into playing the guitar, and they brought two guitars with them on the trip.

As you can see at the dinner after I was pretty tired.

   Finally on the last day we traveled back to Udon. On the way we stopped at a huge image of Buddha inscribed on a mountain side by a laser, and after that we stopped at a winery near by. Then went on our way home...

Glad to have at least one picture with me and Buddha.

This is just to capture the shear size of the Buddha.

At this time I was looking at some of the teacher chaperons and trying to point out that there was no walking on the grass, even though they were doing just that at that moment.

A couple of my friends walking down some rows of grapevines in a great pic.

1st part of summer vacation

   So summer vacation has finally arrived here in little old Udon Thani, Thailand. Aside from the heat that keeps becoming hotter and the lack of seeing my school friends everyday, this has been a pretty good summer.

     Within a week of getting out my friends and I had a trip planned to go to an island in the south called  Koh Chang, or elephant island (because of the way it looks from an areal view, not because there are elephants there). We stayed with a Rotarian family for the first night, and then we headed off to the island.  It was one of the most relaxing experiences that I've ever had. We had no agenda, we were the only one's staying at our resort, and after the payment to rent the place everything else was free. It was great!

This welcoming sign reminded me a lot of the Hollywood sign.

This was our sleeping arraignments. We were right above the water.

Standing on the deck of our lodging place.

They had snorkeling as well as the kayaking. It was a fun filled adventure for sure.

  After the island, we went back to the Rotarian's house, and spent another two nights there. The next day we went to an elephant park that also had a large garden and some exotic animals.

Before the elephant show there was show on Thai traditions. They even had some fake Thai kickboxing.

At the elephant show there was a variety of things, from elephants painting (above) to elephants playing soccer and basketball.

They even had elephant massage, which sadly I did not get to participate in.

But I did get the chance to be picked up by one. It was very interesting.

The other exotic animals included tigers (above) and monkeys.

This is part of the garden that I was talking about.

   After the elephant park, we went to the beach for the rest of the day and relaxed, but also had some fun...

The relaxation I was talking about. 

And the fun I was talking about.

After that everyone was pretty tired, and we all headed back. The next day we spent in Paitaya waiting for our bus to take us home at around 9 o'clock. We went go-kart racing (no pics seeing as everyone in our group wanted to race), to this high building that reminded me of the needle in Seattle, and went to a mall just to hang out for the rest of the time before we had to leave.

The sign telling us what we could do at the top of the tower. 

Before you do anything look at the next photo. It is the photo I'm taking in this very photo here.

Somehow I managed to get my camera out of my pocket to take this.

Nothing but blue skies and a little bit of clouds.

  After all of that we finally went to the bus station. We boarded the bus and took the overnight bus to a welcoming home and bed.  But my next trip was only a few days later, so be looking soon for a new update...

เกาะ (koh tao)

    So as I have said before finding the motivation to keep writing blog posts is getting harder and harder as my life here turns to routine, and everything in Thailand starts to become everyday normal stuff. But I'll try to keep it up. This month I'm sorry to say I only have one update, but it will be a good one. So... This last week I went on vacation (I know, I'm in Thailand. You would think that was vacation enough.) The family that is hosting me found out that my birthday and the two other exchange students' birthdays are all with in a three month period of each other. They decided to give the three of us a nice trip to an island close to Bangkok, called เกาะ (koh tao). I won't even try to explain what anything looks like; I will just leave it all up to the pictures..

      First we left Udon Thani (my cit) on an overnight train to Bangkok, and I had to sleep on a top bunk. Let me just say that if I was a few inches taller and a little bit more overweight then I would not have fit.

The website is still not letting me rotate pictures. If you rotate this one left you  will see my friend Joao  on the top bunk sleeping away.

   Once we reached Bangkok we had a few hours before we boarded the eight hour bus to the place where we were to get on a ferry. In that time we went to the big mall (mostly window shopping), and we relaxed at the house of my host mom's sister. At the mall we got an interesting experience...

We went to a fish spa!!!

I hope you can see all the little fish, but let me just tell you it was something everyone should try at least once.

Here is my picture to prove that I have tried it...

    Then we went to the bus pick-up point, and found that after we had checked in we had another two hour wait. Luck for us there was a "walking street" (basically a market on the street) very near. We walked the whole street, found some cool stuff, and then found a nice coffee shop to wait the rest of the time.

The many different clothing and item sellers along the street, but this was only part of the "walking street".

    Finally it came time to board the bus, and we headed off on another overnight trip. We finally got to the port for the ferry really early in the morning, and we found out we had another wait ahead of us.

The bus ride. As you\can see some of us were pretty tired.

    After the last weight (of mostly naps) we finally got to board the ferry and take another two hour trip to the island, but once we reached the island all the traveling and waiting we well worth it.

Getting on the boat... 

The trip over (after it had stopped raining)

One of the smaller islands that surrounded the main island.

    The first day we got there in the early afternoon, so we checked into our resort/hotel and walked to the beach. We basically relaxed the whole day and went out for a nice dinner afterword.

The water on the beach was really shallow for like fifty meters or more away from the beach.

And it was so clear you could see the bottom almost anywhere.

The three exchange students with our host mom.

These three ladies are my host mom (left) and her two high school friends. The one on the right lives on the island, while the one in the middle lives in Bangkok and set up the whole trip.

     The next day we woke up at an easy time, and we headed to the most famous part. The place was not connected to the main island, but was made up of three smaller islands. We spent the whole day there. We got to relax, play a little American football, and snorkel. It was amazing! That night we ate barbecue on the beach, and we went for a little walk and saw fire!

No we can't walk on water, but we did our best to make it look like we could.

The water was so clear, we did most of our snorkeling right there.

Get ready for the throw....

And there it goes... I hope somebody was ready to catch it...

The island had a nice relax space...

We all finally got tired, and we decided to head back...

That's right, a fire twirler. He was pretty good and even broke out double sticks a little bit later.

     After what seemed like a long weekend (even though it was only two nights and three days) we headed back home. The trip back took just as long and was just as entertaining as the trip to the island. I won't bore you with recap of the trip back, since all you basically have to do is take what I said about the trip here an reverse it. But once I got home I was really tired, and I just recuperated the whole day... I hope you all enjoy the pictures and details. Please keep on looking for my next update.