Lertlah life

It has been a while since I have written but I realised that I haven't written much about the school and life in school which is where a lot of my time has been spent. I know I have mentioned that I am teaching P4 Science. The last month or so have been quite interesting. It has been a lot of fun and challenging at the same time. I teach 5 different P4 classes Science as well as P4 and P1 homework class. Here school runs from 8:30 am to 3:30pm where most students leave however some parents pay for their children to stay an extra hour (till 4:30) for homework class. 30 mins of the 1 hour is designated English homework class time (so we help the students with any English homework; Science, Math or ELA) and the remainder of the 30 mins is designated Thai homework class time.

We also happen to have Saturday classes, where once again parents sign their students up for 3 hours on Saturday to come to school. This is a much laid back schedule where every week there is a new theme and you teach the theme. I have done 2 Saturday classes so far. For both the classes I taught P1's and P2's. One of the Saturday's had an animal theme and the second one had Healthy bodies as its theme.

In addition to that, I also teach photography club every Friday. So far a fellow teacher and I have taught the student four things ; still shots, candid shots, portraits and Photo voice. We are still working on out photo voice compilation. It is amazing how much these kids love to take pictures and enjoy themselves.

Hmmm Other things that have happened in the past few weeks....

Wai Kru day (in June) - Wai Kru day is a day for teacher appreciation and celebration. It is when the kids give us flowers and show us how much they appreciate learning. We had an assembly for every grade and it was quite different. Nothing I have ever seen before. It started off with some anthem and prays (which I did not understand). After the prayers it was time for the students to give us the flowers. Every students would come up to you, great you, bow down to you, you wish them well and finally they offer you flowers. It was really cute!. Wai kru day was quite an amazing experience, definitely not something you would see in Canada. Thai people definitely respect the teachers alot. It felt really good to be appreciated and recognized. According to the Thai hierarchy/ traditions, Teachers are considered the second highest in ranking after the Monks in terms of respect.

Canada Day (July 1st): because so many of the foreign teachers are Canadians, we celebrated Canada day here as well. Our Saturday class had Canada day theme and many of the teachers dressed in red and white. We also talked about Canada with our students and played a few Canadian games and activities in class. It was actually quite great. Along with celebrating in school, all the teachers got together and decided to have a Canada day pot luck and celebration. Felt good to finally eat some Canadian food.

Buddist Lent: In preparation for buddist lent, a candle making ceremony takes place in the morning a week prior. This is done so that the school may donate a candle to the monks. This was then followed by a lent ceremony where there was a Thai candle dance and some recital my the monks (which I did not understand). It was definitely a different and interesting experience.

I think that is it for now. I shall talk to you soon!

Luv ya all
- Shaz

Kanchanaburi

A great end to a school week and an even better start to a weekend. On June 14th, many of the English teaching staff headed to Kanchanaburi right after school. It was quite an amazing sight, at exactly 4:30 pm there was a long line up of Farang (Foreigner in Thai) teachers with their back packs at the fingerprint scanner on the main floor waiting to sign out and get ready for this trip. It was like a mob as every teacher signed out and walked over to the 7/11 where we were being picked up. Some of up made a pit stop at Mont Blanc, a cute cafe, to change out of our uniforms and into our shorts and tanks. The transformation was amazing! In less than 30 mins more then 30 individuals all dressed in uniforms and dress clothes were all in casual wear ready to hop into the mini vans. People were stocking up on drinks and snacks for the 3 hr ride to Kanchanaburi. Everyone was psyched, ready to enjoy an amazing view and party on a Barge. That is right a Barge!

The 3 hr ride was amazing with great people and of course a sing-along. No road trip is complete with out a sing- along. Finally after a 3hr ride or a bit more, most of which (or so it felt like) we were stuck in Bangkok traffic (Surprise, Surprise!) we finally made it to Kanchanburi. Most of us headed to our hotel rooms to drop off our baggage and freshen up before dinner. We were divided between 2 neighbouring hotels, Ploy and Phong Phen, both of them were beautiful with an amazing view of River Kwai. Finally we were all ready for dinner. Many of the returning teachers complimented this Pizza place down the street so everyone decided to head there for dinner. They weren't lying! The Pizza there was amazing! We indulged in some western food as we waited for a few of the staff from Campus 2 to arrive.

After dinner, some of us decided to call it a night and head to the hotel to relax and enjoy before the big day. Katie and I decided to head to the pool area. It was amazing! You could see the moon out and lots of stars and it was so peaceful and quiet. It had been really long since I had experienced quite. No cars buzzing around, nothing but the sound of crickets and frogs in/around the River Kwai. It was definitely relaxing and quite a beautiful sight. After a few minutes in the relaxing atmostphere I decided to call it a night and head to bed.

Had an early rise and shine the next morning. At 6 am went for a swim in the amazing infinity pool. The view was breath taking. The sun still rising, the birds singing, the river flowing, amazing mountainous back drop and evergreen plants, so peaceful and gorgeous. Follow that with breakfast close to the pool where you can still enjoy the view, it was great. After having an amazing morning, Katie and I decided to explore the street a little bit. We ended up walking down the street. Every few meters there was a massage parlour with amazing prices! It was insane, so we decided to treat our sore teacher feet with an hour long foot massage for only 150 bht ($5 cnd), amazing deal!

After the massage, we headed to our rooms to get ready for our costume party on the Barge. I went as a belly dancer with Erika and Jenna. There were some really creative costumes, it was great. The barge was awesome and once again the view from the barge was just as breath taking. Definitely glad I went.  The Barge took us down River Kwai and back. With music pumping, amazing people and a great view, this day couldn't have been any better. It also amazed me how a very small boat could pull a very large barge :S (see pictures below). After the party and arrival at mainland, we decided to go grab some dinner. After dinner, most people were poofed, including myself, and decided to call it a night and head to bed. It had been quite an eventful day.

Next morning after sleeping in, I decided to go for a Thai massage. My first one. It was amazing. Definitely unstrained my very tight muscles. It was a great way to end this trip before departure to Bangkok.

It was a weekend well spent with amazing people, food, spectacular view and some peaceful moments!

Here are a few pictures to show you some of the breath taking view. Enjoy!

Morning view of River Kwai from Ploy!

Morning view of River Kwai from Ploy! - Gorgeous

The little boat that tugged out Barge!

Astounding view from the Barge

How can such a tiny boat tug these many barges? - Amazing!

Astounding view from the Barge

Astounding view from the Barge

Pure Bliss!

Gorgeous view of River Kwai from the Barge

Gorgeous view of River Kwai from the Barge

Bliss!

Horses in Thailand! - A rare sight!

Breath taking - River Kwai

Sunset view from the Barge - Romantic :P!

Sunset view from the Barge 

Sunset view from the Barge

Enjoy!
Luv ya all - Shaz

It has been a month!

Oh my God! I cannot believe it has been a month since I have been in Thailand! Time truly flies...
It has been quite a month... full of meeting new people, adjusting, meeting my extremely cute and loving students, exploring Bangkok and Enjoying myself!!

I finally got my very first pay on May 31st!! FIRST PAY DAY!! WOHOOOO.... It was an amazing feeling. To honour our pay day some of us decided to start a new tradition, we would treat ourselves on our pay day with a Mani and/or Pedi following it with a nice dinner possibly with wine to celebrate our success and of course pay :P. Of course to start that tradition we needed to do exactly that, so after school on Friday we headed home and changed really quickly. Three of us decided to take a Song taew to Nawamin avenue city where the nail place is. This was my first time on a song taew it was quite an experience and very very cheap. Song taew means two rows. It is a little truck whose back has been converted into two rows of sitting.  It was only 7 baht which is barely 25 cents! Here is a song taew image I stole from a friend.

A Song Taew

Once we had arrived, we then looked for our nail place. You can guess what it was called... "nails nails nails"... No way right?! That was not obvious at all!! Once inside, it was soo comfortable and very soothing/relaxing! We got to sit on lazy boys and got free water while we got pampered! It was amazing!! And they played English music. Music we knew and understood!! It was crazy! The 3 of us got started, relaxed, gossiped and waited for our other 2 friends to join us. It was great! Definitely a tradition I want to keep up and this place was way better then the previous one I had gone to at Fashion Island. I will return to this place for sure!  Once our nails were all pretty we decided to grab some dinner. We walked around and finally decided to go to a place called Wine connection.

Can you guess why we went there?? haha it is because we wanted to show off our nails as we drank some wine ;) Hahah girls right!! That being said the food was good. I had been craving pizza ever since forever and I got Pizza!! I got a Margarita stone baked pizza. It was mouth watering delicious!

Delicious Margarita Pizza from Wine Connection!!

It was a great night! It was a great way to end the week and celebrate Pay day!!

The next day we decided to head to Chatuchak market, we all needed to check the market out and find costumes for next weekends Barge party. 2 of my friends, Erika, Jenna and I decided to go as harem girls :). That's right, we are pretending to be belly dancers  :D. After walking around for 3 hours we finally found all the pieces to our costume. Since we had looked around quite a bit we decided to head down town. There is a Sky train/BTS station right there so we took that to Asok Station which is on Sukhumvit Road. Sukhumvit is the longest street ever! And that is where down town is. Upon arriving and walking a bit we noticed the mall, Terminal 21.

Terminal 21 is a themed mall where every floor stands for a different country/cities. There is a floor called Tokyo, London, Paris, San Francisco, Istanbul and Bangkok.  It was amazing. unfortunately my phone was dying so could not take much pictures but I definitely plan on going there again!! After having dinner there which was from a place similar to Nando's in Canada, we headed to Nawamin City which is closer to home for some dessert. We headed to a place called Pancake Cafe to get some dessert! It was amazing! Here are a few pictures of our dessert!

Pancake Cafe @ Nawamin Avenue  City

Angels and demons pancakes - Chocolate pancakes with Vanilla Ice cream and strawberries.

Apple crumble Pancakes

Chocolate Banana Swirl Pancakes

Pancakes, coffee and tea!! :)

 It was a great way to end the night with our sweet tooth satisfied and our bellies full! :D

Enjoy!
Luv ya all - Shaz

 

Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya

Last weekend a friend and I decide to explore the City of Ayutthaya. Ayutthaya (in full called Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya) was founded in 1350. Ayutthaya was a prime location for trade due to its ideal location between China, India and Malay. It was a gorgeous city until the late 1700's when the Burmese invaded and burnt down the city. Today, only a few ruins remain that give us a glimpse of the Majestic city it once used to be.

Ayutthaya is actually an island surrounded by 3 different Rivers. Katie and I decided to take many different modes of transportation to get there and explore the city. We started off taking a cab to a train station called Bang Sue. After trying to explain the cab driver the station we were finally on our way. However, we did not realise until arriving at the train station that the cab driver had decided to take us to another station instead (we think because it is further away). We ended up at Lak Si station instead. There we took a train to Mainland Ayutthaya. Once in Ayutthaya, we took a ferry to cross the river and get to the island. The distance between the 2 ports was soooo close that I could have swam across the river because the other port was literally 1 minute away. We then walked around to see some of the ruins. It was so hot and such a long walk we eventually decided to took a Tuk tuk to look at the ruins. That was quite fun! :) On our way back we decided to take a bus to Bangkok. We arrived at Mo Chit bus station, which was really close to Chatuchak Market, the largest Market in Thailand. Since we were that close and had 2 more hours before it closed down we decided to check it out. Holy Molly! when they say it is large they are not kidding. We barely made a dent in the market in the 2 hrs we spent there. It was amazing! This market has everything and anything, it was quite spectacular. Once we were done we finally decided to head home. We did so by taking a cab. Half way home our stomach started growling so we ended up at a street vendor instead of home :). There using pictures, charades, the 5 Thai words we know and my phone we ordered some food. It was really good. I must say we had quite an adventurous day, jam packed with lots of cool stuff. Here are a few pictures of some of the Temple and Buddha ruins we saw. They are gorgeous and very impressive!

Wat Lokayasutha - Reclining Buddha on a Lotus

Wat Lokayasutha - Reclining Buddha on a Lotus

Wat Maha That

A stupa at Wat Maha That

Wat Maha That

Beheaded Buddhas by the Burmese at Wat Maha That Temple

Wat Maha That - Buddha

Beheaded Buddha at Wat Maha That

Wat Maha That

Wat Maha That

Buddha's head entrapped by an over grown Banyan tree at Wat Maha That

Buddha's head entrapped by an over grown Banyan tree at Wat Maha That

Wat Phra Monghon Bophit

Wat Phra Monghon Bophit housing the large Bronze Buddha Coated in Gold leaf 

Large Buddha at Wat Phra Monghon Bophit

Add caption

Smaller Buddha at Wat Phra Monghon Bophit

Wat Phra Si Sanphet

Wat Phra Si Sanphet

Beheaded buddha at Wat Phra Si Sanphet

Enjoy!

Luv ya all - Shaz

Rayong and Koh Samet

Last weekend was my first weekend away from Bangkok city. It was time to go and enjoy other amazing things Thailand has to offer.  It started off on Friday morning where we went on a team building trip to Rayong with all the wonderful staff at Lertlah Campus 3. It was amazing!! Being in a coastal city with an amazing ocean-view hotel was just what we all needed to end our busy orientation week, relax, recuperate and enjoy the beach. Here are a few pictures of the amazing view :)

Following that retreat, a few off us, 13 to be exact decided to continue our journey and head to a gorgeous island called Koh Samet while the others return back to the bustling city . Got a chance to enjoy the awesome sun, beach, food and atmosphere. Here are a few pictures from Koh Samet. :)

Enjoy!
- Luv ya all
Shaz