Meet the Thai Kids

Every week I teach Monday through Friday in the morning and on Friday one hour class in the afternoon. From 9:30-12:00 we have the main classes, there are five classes total, but we get three of the five classes a day it is a 40 minute rotation and 6-8 students in each class. On some days I have Pre-K so I end up teaching from 8:00-12:00am. The ages of the kids I teach are Pre-K, K-1, K-2, and K-3 on occasion.

This class has User, Sana, Ten-Ten, Kumpan, Kenny, Mix (Meek), and Irene. The grade of this class is K-1 so that means they are about four years old.

This is the K-2 class and most of them are five years old. The four in this picture are Mhew Mhew, Max, D-Day, and Kaow-Phot.

This is the K-3 class, most of them are six years old, but one girl is seven years old. I teach this class twice a week on Mondays and Fridays. In this picture there is Moopee, Tiger, Nest, Sun, Yipso, Pizza, and Basia.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays I teach Pre-K students, they are two-three years old and they are already learning a lot in school.

We are done teaching the main classes at noon, when we are done teaching the kids eat lunch, shower (they shower three times a day because of how much they sweat), and then have nap time. We always pass by and take pictures. :)

After the main classes some of the other teachers teach a class in the afternoon and then we have a catch up class for those elementary students who want to learn more English.

Later in the night there are about five students who board because they live far away from the school, we play with those five kids for an hour. We make crafts, go in the ball pit, read with them, etc. In this  picture it is Kaow-Phot and Pluem. 

Phitsanulok

We went to Phitsanulok to visit the girls that teach at the school in that city. They showed us around the city a little bit. The first thing we did this weekend was we went to see a movie, we saw the Kingsman. It wasn't the best movie, but it was really funny, I enjoyed it. We also found out that right now is Chinese New Year! On Thursday February 19th, 2015 is Chinese New Year which is the year of the goat.

After the movie we went to meet the Phitsanulok group at the old train station. Right away we went to see if there was watermelon juice on there bikes. This city is a lot bigger then Phichit so I thought it was going to be really complicated to bike through but it wasn't to bad.

After that bike ride we walked over to the night market, during this market I only bought a Thailand sticker.

When we were done we headed straight back to there school. 

The next day we went to Pizza Hut :), and we went to the temples that day, the temples almost looked the same as the ones in Phichit. 

We also saw the river that is close to Phichit and Phitsanulok too! The buildings below are guest houses on the river.

Sports Day

At Imperial Phichit Bilingual School the main coordinator named Tang made an event called Sports Day. It is a huge event for the school! I wasn't expecting it to be such a big event big, but it was really awesome!

They are trying to make these kids more active because Thai people are not big sports players and a lot of them are not that active so they are trying to get them into playing sports and trying new activities. Most of the time the kids go to school 8:00am to 4:00 or 5:00 pm and then they go home and sleep. Also on the weekends they usually relax because they are exhausted from school so they don't like to go out on the weekends. This event makes some of the kids want to play outside and stay active more!

Some of the activities they did was a parade around the school, they played football (that is soccer in America), tug-of-war, fun playful competitions, ping pong competitions, etc. 

For the parade some of the students had a ton of make up on, were dressed really fancy, and had whitening on there face because they like being white like we like being tan.

This is Cutie, she is five years old.

 These two are in elementary school even though they look a lot older from there outfit and make up.

 This is A-ya, she is four years old! :)

There were three teams on sports day that were competing, there was pink, blue, and green team! I was on the green team! 

 Football or also called American soccer, green team ended up winning both soccer games against pink and blue.

Tug-of-war.

Pink team ended up being in first place, blue team was in second place, and green team was in third place. This event at the school was from 7:30am-4:30pm it was a long time, all the little kids were exhausted by the end of the day! It was a good day! :D

Pattaya Beach

We were in Pattaya beach for Valentines Day weekend! The water was warm, there was no rain, and everything was going pretty well! They love celebrating Valentines Day in some areas. :)

The water is a lot warmer then California, in parts of California anyways!

I needed to take one of these pictures I like foot pictures!

We stayed at the beach until sunset, it was such a pretty sunset at the beach!

I actually didn't get burnt at this beach for some reason...which is weird because every time I went to the beach before I got burnt. Also which is weird at this beach is there wasn't very many teenagers but a lot of old touristy people with dark leathery skin... It was kind of different to see that, but it was a fun weekend at the beach!

I Left a Month Ago

I officially left a month ago! It went so fast once I think about it, I have enjoyed it so much here!

Random Facts About Thailand:

1. Buddhist temples play really loud music at five in the morning, the temple is across the street and down the road a little bit, it is still really loud. It woke us all up the first couple times we heard it.

2. There are a ton of mosquitos! I have had a lot of mosquito bites and all the itch creams I have tried are not working to well.

3. We eat rice everyday for lunch and dinner and toast everyday for breakfast.

4. They don't eat beef here! :) Mostly only chicken, pork, and sometimes tofu.

5. Geckos are like bugs here, they are everywhere! They also chirp really loud at nighttime!

6. We are literally famous here! Everyone says hello to us and some Thai women asked if they could take a group picture with them while we were swimming.

7. Almost every Thai man has once been a Monk in there lifetime.

8. Extra ligaments are totally accepted here! We know a kid who has two thumbs and a women who has six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot.

9. Everyone wears appropriate clothing here even though it is 95 degrees outside. They even wear long sleeves (we never see people wearing tank tops).

10. I live in the city that is the home of the crocodiles!

Floating Market and Reclining Buddha

Our day began at three in the morning on our way to the Floating Market in Bangkok! We arrived at the market when a lady told us right away to get out of the van and it was 300 baht to get on a bus to the floating market. We thought that our driver Gop was taking us all the way, but he actually did... It was the lady was mixing a bus with a boat. She was meaning to tell is a boat was going to take us to the floating markets.

The floating market was really cool, but trying to bargain here was more complicated then bargaining in Chiang Mai, I got a couple souvenirs but not many here.

To bring us to there market they grab our boat with a hook and pull us in, even if we look at there market they think we want to stop and look so they pull us in. They also won't accept no for an answer.

The person driving us stopped at a market because his wife and baby were there. We were planning on not buying anything from that market, but she told us "for the baby" and we felt bad so we bought picture of the floating markets.

Later that day we went to the Grand Palace and the Reclining Buddha or its also called Wat Pho. The grand palace is the kings residence and the Wat Pho has a lot of symbolism towards Buddhism. When we went to the Grand Palace we thought it was free, but we actually found out for foreigners it was 500 baht so we decided to stay on the outside and take pictures.

When we went to the reclining Buddha we found out that cost money too, but it was a lot cheaper. To go inside I needed to wear this long bright green robe because I was wearing a shirt that didn't cover my shoulders. When we went inside we saw the Buddha and it is so long and huge, it was also very crowded because it is a touristy place.

Bangkok is sooo busy! On our way to a mall we got in a taxi and we noticed that the drivers picture was of a girl, it was a man driving us, he was taking back rodes and he was talking a ton about a lot of random topics like Heidi Klum (i'm surprised he wasn't out of breath).The night out in Bangkok we went to see the movie called The Imitation Game, it was a really good movie and it was in English! On our way back our tuk-tuk told us a price before we got in his tuk-tuk and when he was driving us he realized how far away it was so he tried to increase his price, we said no so he dropped us off right where we were at that moment. It was only a street away from our hostel, but when were walking back to our hostel men kept asking us if we wanted to go to a ping pong show, it was the most awkward thing this weekend. Overall it was a good weekend in Bangkok!