A full month already?

Wow. I looked at the date of the last post and realized how long it's been since then. I can't honestly say a whole lot has happened, though. Just same old home, then school, then home again. However, there have been a few highlights to some days. I'll start from where I left off.

Sorry it's in bulk. I hope you're up to reading...


August... something. I can't remember the date, really...

I went to the Complex (the 4-story mall) with Virginia and Holly. We ate some ice cream and drank some coffee at Swensen's, then Virginia had to go home and Holly and I shopped around a bit. I bought myself a pair of plain black "short pants." They're somewhat popular here. Yes, mom, I did haggle a little [and win].

PICTURES:
Ice Cream and Coffee at Swensen's. Yummm.



August 26

Rotary inbounds (exchange students to Thailand) met up. We had a big inbounds meeting; we call it "orientation." [laughs a little] Even though we've already been here for nearly a month. It was beneficial, nonetheless. They gave us each a backpack with the Rotary patch sewn on it; definitely hiking-style backpack. Looks quite durable. We also got two white Rotary T-Shirts and a Rotarian member was handing out bags of 4 loaves of bread in each. Not that lame stuff that comes sliced. I'm talking about the bread baked in those old oven thingies. It smelled and tasted like Avanti's bread, or La Gondola's (Monmouthians and Galesburgites - you know what I mean...). [Leaveth my categorizationalisms alone, pleathe!!!]

Anyway, we introduced ourselves, got RE-TOLD the 4 D's, and drank some tea. Oh, and I was shown a pool in the hotel (same place as the meeting) that we could swim in for free. I brought Holly along because she doesn't live that far from me, and we could both get in for free, being Vinai's guests. That and the mall is connected to the Complex, which, all together, is within walking distance of our houses.

Then we all piled into vehicles and went to a Korean restaurant and ate there.

Oh yeah. The restaurant had toilet paper. (That's pretty rare, here - you usually have to buy your own and carry it around.)



August 27

Julie left today while I was at school. She went on a mini-vacation, then back up to France. She's a host relative of mine somehow, but I can't put my finger on the exact "how." Neither can she; I asked...

I rode the bus taxi thing (It's hard to describe, it's much like a pickup truck with seats. I'll get a picture soon) home after school (again). This time was different, though. I rode alone.

And I made it in one piece.

I also had my first conversation with my host grandmother here. In case you don't know, that's a huge step. She doesn't speak ANY English at all, and we held a small conversation about bananas. It mainly consisted of: "I like bananas. Do you like bananas?" "Yes, I like bananas very much." I don't know it in Thai alphabet, but I could try typing in phonetics... I'll type in karaoke. "Chan chap gin gwoi kai kha. Kun chap gin gwoi kai mai?" "Kah. Chan chap gin gwoi kai mak kha." I tried my best.

I called Holly. We got together and went swimming at Robinson's (the hotel). It was pretty fun. Then we went inside the Complex and I bought some stay-in conditioner for my hair. We also had a couple donuts. Afterwards, we were picked up by Holly's dad and brought back to her house; we had a miniature Thai lesson there. It was pretty useful. Oh, by the way... Holly's host-aunt makes some killer noodles stuff. Yum. Chai kah; saeb mak kha.




September 2

I went to Nong Khai today with Holly and her host family. I only brought a few baht, because I'm saving to go on my vacations. I brought a little though, just in case for those 'emergencies' etc.
The trip itself was pretty good. I got to see the "Friendship Bridge." If you don't know what that is, it's the bridge that connects Thailand to Laos. In other words, I saw Laos too.
Kun-Meh and Kun-Pah came back from Malaysia today. Kun-Pah is pretty tired; Kun-Meh is, too. I was working on blog pictures when Kun-Pah came up to me and showed me a keychain from Malasia that was pretty cool; and he gave it to me then went upstairs to sleep. Now I need to get some safety pins to put it on my blazer.

PICTURES:
See the land across the river? That's Laos.
Left to right: Thailand, Friendship Bridge, Laos.
Holly models off a [fake] designer hat at Nong Khai.
More modeling.



September 3

Kun-Pah agreed for me to meet up with Holly and her host family nearly every day at 6 until 9 PM [until family switching], to have Thai lessons. I don't have anyone to teach me Thai, so he volunteered, and now he's teaching Holly and me.

One more thing - I finally figured out what my English name means in Thai. It's simple, really, but it only means this to girls and lady-men. "Mah-nee-Kha" means "Come here." [laughs]. That's why I've been getting so confused lately... to a guy to say "come here", who's not a lady-man, would be "Mah-nee-Krab." That's why it only means what it does if a girl or lady-man says it. Now that people are figuring that out, though... Guys and girls alike are doing it to me just to tease... [grrrrrr]



September 4

I killed a few spiders today during a break I took while I was studying Thai by myself in an office. That was a long sentence. So many spiders... So big, too...

I also found a piece of plastic while I was studying. It looked like a woman's profile, so I taped it into my miniature Chinese-Cat notebook and wrote a log for it right above and next to it. I then proceeded to write an entry in my diary about it.

I found the Soundtrack Channel on TV today. I love it. Best find yet. Much better than "Fashion TV." Plus, you get to see movie clips on STC.



September 5

It rained heavily today. Not your typical American rain, either. You know those rains you watch on TV where it's sunny one second, then half a second later it's sprinking, then not even one more second later and it's pouring? So laughable, isn't it? It's just not possible to happen... Wrong. It does happen, and it happens quite often in Thailand, especially during the rainy season. We were eating last time it happened. It was poouring so heavily that the huge gutters couldn't keep up and started overflowing onto the eaters. I pulled my umbrella out and continued to eat. Within 2 minutes of this rain, most of the grounds were flooded with a good 1.5 inches of water, even on concrete etc. The pouring bit only lasted for about 15 minutes, then it started to lighten up.
However, during this rainfall, let me not exaggerate, and tell you what I observed.
It rained so hard and fast that two raindrops landed in the exact same spot (one ontop the other) with less than 1 second in between each drop.
Umbrellas... nearly pointless 'less you're a dare devil. You'll still get wet, because the rain comes down so fast and hard it will either kill your umbrella or force its way through the very fibers of the umbrella and drip down upon you with its menacing raininess. I guess you should just be happy you don't get as soaked as you would without the umbrella.

When I got home later that day (when it was sunny again), I called Holly right away because I just had rice soup that was hot, and because of the rainfall, the humidity increased and made it all the hotter. I wanted to go swimming. I asked if she wanted to go swiming, but she ended up telling me she's going to Bangkok in 40 minutes, and she's barely packed and her family still has to eat. She forgot she was leaving until this morning. Apparenly Virginia's going, too, but alone on the over-night train instead. Virginia's going because her host family is going to Costa Rica, and she has to stay with her host sister (?) that lives in Bangkok. Man, everyone's leaving me, and on the same day, too! No one knows when they'll be back, either. I hope they have fun, though. Maybe Holly, Virginia and I can work something out where the three of us go to Bangkok on the train (cheapest way) and stay for awhile. Later in our stay, though, so our Thai is better.



September 6
Rainging again.
Rotary meeting. Looked at pictures from the Malaysia trip, and a tour/visitors VCD (movie CD) of Malaysia. I was also told that the upcoming two Fridays, 14 and 21, the exchange students (we all wanted to do so) are going to the athletics college to look into the possibility of Muoi Thai classes. [yay] I also stop Kanchanphisek on the 14 (which may end up being the 13 due to the Muoi Thai thing) and later start up at Ashiwa (vocational college, won't be as bored there - Thai cooking, Thai dancing, Thai dessert, Thai massage...). I can't wait!

PICTURES:
Rotary meeting.



September 7

Finally Friday. Kun-Pah made me a sausage-egg sandwhich for breakfast-on-the-go (in a baggie) because I was running slowly this morning.
School is getting very boring now because I don't have anyone teaching me anything and I'm not teaching much anymore. So now all I can do is look over my Thai words I already remembered and write or draw.
Kun-Pah picked me up after lunch, though. We went to Khon Kaen and drove around, made a few errands. We proceeded to go to pick up Thong from his campus. I feel so lonely now because his college campus, Khon Kaen University, is bigger than Monmouth; no joking. The number of students that attend are about 50,000; not including the faculty needed to teach them all, the offices needed, the officers and police station inside the campus, the dentist and doctor's office and hospital inside the campus, the moped and bicycle dealer in the campus, all three 7-11's in the campus, the farm inside the campus and the museum, and some more things that I'm forgetting to mention like the concert hall, the park and the aerobic dancing area also INSIDE THE CAMPUS; well, it's just bigger than Monmouth - let's keep it at that. Best part... 8,000 Baht for each term (semester). That's less than 500 dollars for each year of tuition and dorm stay - and the dorms aren't that bad looking at all!
Anyway, we picked up Thong and went to the mall. I though that Udon Thani's mall was huge when it had 3 full floors of stores and restaurants... No, Khon Kaen had 4 full floors of stuff, not to mention the floor beneath the first that we didn't go to, but still had stores in. Then Kun-Pah told me that this mall was nothing compared to Bangkok's mall... (drools at the thought).

PICTURES:
Going into Khon Kaen [left view].
Going into Khon Kaen [right view].
The mall. The picture doesn't do the mall's size justice. It's a huge mall..
The mall again.
These little police stations are set up every now and then everywhere in Khon Khaen.
Better view of the mini-station.
Blurry, but front view of the mini-station. The picture makes me giggle. I don't know why, though...



September 8

Went to feed Tennis, the dog that Kun-Meh took care of when it was a sick little puppy. Tennis got too big for the house, so they took it to Pleasantville where it gets treated well and taken care of.

Thong, Moei, Ahn + her family (Ahn is a host cousin - 'related' to me by her dad being my host dad's brother... I think), and me went to the night market. I think it's better than the mall. It's so much cooler at night; and I think there's a lot more stuff. Some of the lunch ladies from schools go sell food at the night markets, so the food selection is much larger than that of the mall's. Then there are the other craft dealers, electronics, etc. booths/rooms set up full of stuff to look through. It's really quite large and very awesome. We still had a whole section we still needed to explore. There's also karaoke rooms (karaoke is a huge thing here - there's tons of rooms in the mall, too) set up, and a huge television screen propped way up high like a baseball scoreboard that plays music videos and the music is played through most of the market that's outside. I didn't take any pictures because I forgot my camera. Next time I go, I'll take some pictures.



September 9

Got up late. That felt good. I counted my money that I have in my account, in my safe, what I have to spend, and what I need to convert to go on my trip yet. I also got some more pictures off of my camera and onto the computer that I need to put online in a "random pictures" blog soon, because sometimes I forget to mention things in previous blog/diary entries but have pictures for.

Now I'm updating my blog.

Now I'm done updating for now and I'll get back to work on the random pictures.

Toodles.

Monica.