In the past 3 weeks I've done so many different activities and have been super busy and trying to relax, I haven't had much time to write. So here goes probably the longest post you'll see/read from me all semester.
So the couple of days before Thailand, everyone had been craving Mexican food. In central (the ex-pat part of Hong Kong), one can find just about any store or type of food. There are of course a couple of taco places, american places, burger joints, salad places, and much more. The only problem with central is it takes about 25 minutes to get there. Its not an issue, it just means the food better be well worth it. Anyways we found a place called el Taco Loco. I ordered steak fajitas and they were pretty tasty.
After eating there, we thought we'd take a journey over to a Chinese New Years Fair. It was pretty neat to see "live infomercials" and all the cutesy type gifts that would be popular for this new year of the ox. I also got to try a delicacy while at the fair. Octopus...quite different than what I was expecting. I was thinking more of a squid/calamari type taste, but not quite as rubbery. Anyways that was enough excitement for me before my trip to Thailand.
Thursday was finally leaving for Thailand day! We stuffed our cheap knock-off "Oakley backpacks??" with shirts, shorts, a pair of shoes, and swim suits and off to Macau we headed. The ferry there was quite quick as was the taxi to the airport. A group of about 25-30 people had all decided to wait to eat dinner (it was about 8 pm) until the airport. Bad idea, almost everything was closed and there was barely food anywhere. Luckily we got the last chicken nuggets at a Chinese food restaurant before closing. We arrived in Bangkok luggage and all, to a humid, loud environment. There were 8 of us who booked rooms together and off we went in the scariest taxi ride of my life to our hotel ...the Ramada. After arriving, we encountered our first learning experience of bargaining with the taxi drivers. What an obnoxious business. Eventually we checked in and passed out.
We woke up Friday to our free breakfast buffet. We had Chinese donuts, eggs, potatoes, fried rice, fresh fruit, quite an assortment of pastries, cereal, omlettes (with everything minus cheese), bacon, waffles, toast, etc. All in all it was a pretty exquisite meal to start the day. The rest of the day was spent walking around, shopping, riding in tuk-tuks, and booking our train/bus/flight (whichever we chose) to whatever island we decided to go to. Eventually we chose Phuket by bus & minibus. That night we went to a night market, the biggest one in Bangkok.
Saturday we woke up and decided to see the Grand Palace and Golden Buddha before our bus ride to Phuket. It was pretty neat to see both of them. Here are the pictures from that day...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2568740&l=6b4f2&id=6844049
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2568752&l=050fc&id=6844049
Saturday 7 pm - Sunday at 11 am - Charter bus to mini bus to hostel. It was probably the 3rd most frustrating experience of our trip, but needless to say once we saw the ocean there were nothing but smiles on our faces. The rest of that day was spent on the beach soaking up the rays in Phuket. We ran into other people from our school and had dinner with them at a local restaurant.
Monday our friends who were staying at the same hostel as us joined us (except not til 6 pm. Their bus experience was quite worse than ours ...as it was 22 hours long). But before meeting them for dinner and a night of fun, we spent the day on the beach again. That night we went to dinner and strolled down the street of bars. We came into our first contact with a ladyboy, which was pretty crazy. In case you didn't know, Thailand is known for having lots of transgendered people, as well as all of the surgeries (just watch the Real World: Brooklyn). Well after that 1 minute of being followed by a lady boy, a couple of us went home, while the others went to an Aussie bar, but weren't really welcomed there. After all, we are Americans lol.
The next day we did a tour near Phuket which included riding elephants, a hike to a waterfall, a view of the Gibbons project, and a ride in a cart pulled by an ox. Clearly it is obvious to tell what part was the most fun. Our elephant care taker was hilarious. He let my friend Audrey from IU sit on the head. He barely knew any English but "Oh my god" and "bye bye." He was this cute little Thai man probably about 5'1 and weighed 100 pounds, but by far was so entertaining and had quite a sense of humor. After the elephant ride they lead us to the "ox ride," which I'm surely you can guess was so thrilling, no one took pictures. Anyways some videos of the Gibbons Project are below. It was pretty neat to see these "monkeys" in action. Our tour guide you could tell had 2 part time jobs as he led tours during the day, but was a lady by night. He barely knew English and didn't tell us much about the project, but it was neat anyways.
The last couple of days in Phuket were spent shopping for dresses (5<$25 U.S. dollars), swimming, aloe massages, and eating. On Wednesday night it was time to return to Bangkok. We packed our now completely stuffed backpacks with our new purchases and headed towards the "12 hour bus-ride." Which actually was only 12.5 hours, not a bad estimate this time. So Thursday morning at 7 a.m. we finally negotiated our taxi ride to our final hotel. Not only did we overpay by 10 extra U.S. dollars but our hotel wanted extra money for early check in. At that point we broke down and started crying. While early check in wasn't free, we definitely got a discount and good service from there on out. We sent Peter (a kid from IU, and me and Jasmine's accompanier) off to the airport (he was leaving early), while we took a well-needed nap.
We woke up around lunch time and headed to the best shopping area in Bangkok. After spending more money and getting pedicures, we met up with my friend who graduated from Indiana University in 2008 and lives in Thailand. She took us to this amazing local cheap Thai restaurant and then to a fancy mall close by. The mall had all kinds of local desserts and samples at every station. Of course we had to try. Our favorite was this green-goo that was spilled on to toast. Clearly if we had eaten that everyday we would have gained about 20 pounds on our trip. Good thing we didn't find out about it until our last day there :). That night we spent at the night market to get our foot massages and any last gifts needed.
Overall Thailand was amazing. The best parts about it were the cheap prices and the food. The food was by far the best food I had ever tried in a different country. I had fresh fruit in Phuket daily. I had pad thai daily and either green curry or fried rice for my other meal. We had 50 cent dipped cones for snacks to keep cool from the sun. I ate a waffle filled with bananas for less than a dollar. I tried a bit of a cinnamon/sugar crepe. We actually ate pizza (yes I know...). I tried a Singapore Sling and a Mai Thai drink. Overall it was a pretty great experience. If you are ever in Phuket and are on a budget, stay at Divers Den. It was a nice hostel across from a mall and a market and a grocery store. The best thing about Phuket was that everything was within walking distance.
Coming back to Hong Kong was nice, minus the significant change in weather (and lack of delicious food). We went from wearing swim suits on the beach to wearing winter coats to dinner. It was interesting to hear the others' experiences in Thailand. I heard no complaints except about the bus transportation.
On the Saturday I returned I had the chance to go up to The Peak. It was pretty cool, but I discovered my camera is not the best at taking night pictures. Here are some pictures from my trip up there.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=49106792&l=dbd5e&id=6844049
Anyways, this week was back to school through boring lectures. Wednesday afternoon was my first time meeting with my ELMS group. English Language Mentoring Scheme is an optional program in which people who excel in English help first year students improve their English. Throughout the semester, I get to meet with a group of 5 students and choose different activities to partake in. I get an allowance of $1000 H.K. dollars (about $150 U.S.) and front the money for activities and get refunded at the end (that is the only bad part).
My group has 2 girls and 3 boys, only 1 girl from mainland China, the rest from Hong Kong. We will meet for an hour each week doing various things like: bbqing, watching a movie (in English), playing board games, ice skating, and possibly badminton or table tennis. At my meeting, one of the boys decided to bring a friend, so I actually had 6 people. The first 30 minutes of my group meeting involved pulling teeth to get a single word out of these locals. I spoke about everything I could imagine, trying to get a conversation. I mentioned everything that I could relating to me: San Fransisco, Colorado, snowboarding, the mountains, Indiana, shopping, business, Ghana, Israel, Mexico, Thailand....still it was just me talking. Two of the boys had class, so they actually left a little early. Once it was down to 4 people, words started coming out. It was question after question, but at least they were curious and talking! Then one more boy had to leave for class, and it was down to BJ, Linda, and Dorothy. They asked so many questions we stayed for an extra 10 minutes. It was a neat experience and I look forward to teaching them more, and learning more about each and everyone of them. This coming Wednesday we'll be playing board games...I'll tell ya more about that next week :).
On Friday, some people from my Chinese Civilization class took our tour at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum. It cost us about 70 cents (US) to see a museum that had about 6 exhibits. We spent about an hour and a half before we got hungry/too tired. Our assignment is to write a 1200 word essay about one exhibit. This particular museum wouldn't let us take pictures, but at least most of the exhibits had brochures to help us jog our memory. After that we went to grab lunch. I had a fried pork chop, mmmm delicious!
Today is Saturday and I've just been catching up on school work because tomorrow we will be heading to Pontoi Island all day.
Everything is pretty great out here, but I miss everyone at home quite a bit!!! Sooo jealous IU had a snow day!! Misss yaaa!!
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