Catch Up! Part 2

Hey guys! I have some good news - I feel better! :D Yay!

Okay, time for some serious catching-up.

My first "real" day of school was on Friday, Jan. 20th. We had our first language lesson with the teacher, which was slightly overwhelming - but in a good way. We dived right into the few things we knew in Thai and got the hang of greetings and introductions pretty quickly. It was a little intense, but we actually finished the lesson early and convinced the teacher - while Prof. Bob was out of the room - to teach us the elephant song! Bob had been promising to teach us on the train from Bangkok but kept pushing it off, and we were rather impatient. When he walked back in while we were learning the lyrics he just laughed. I can proudly say that I have since mastered this song! If you would like to see a video of me singing the elephant song, you should click here.

Or you can just watch the video right here!


I hope you liked it!

We also wore our awesome school uniforms for the first time.

Myself and Gina (my roommate): we look awesome!

Anyway, last Saturday we went to a few temples. Most of us weren't feeling the best, however, so we cut out early and I was a hermit for the rest of the day.

The next day was the best day ever: Elephant Day! I posted a picture of myself with one of the elephants in the last post, so here is one of my friend Ned getting a lot of elephant love!

So many elephants! The camp that we went to is called Maesa Elephant Camp, and it is a place where elephants are trained to do tricks and tasks - but NOT like in a circus. Most of the elephants have been rescued or rehabilitated, and are fed and treated very well - and seem to love their jobs, too. If you would like to see some videos of the elephants, I have several short videos up on my youtube account - which you can view here.

Monday through Friday we had regular classes that started around 9 a.m. We've really learned a lot language-wise in the past week. We can order food at a restaurant, define foods, say things that we like, and go a few places in song taos. I would say pronunciation is harder than actual grammar, since Thai doesn't have to modify its verbs at all and its sentences are simple and straight forward. Bob has been telling us we're doing really well, which is great!

We got to meet Bob's "daughter", who also happens to be our favorite language teacher! He calls her his daughter because she lived next door when he and his family lived in Thailand and would come over every night to play cards with his kids. She's super awesome, and also ended up giving us a mini-lecture on Lady Gaga music videos during our break!

I also settled on my independent study - which is translating Thai into English - and have been working on memorizing the alphabet, which is going better than I expected. I can read most of the consonants, of which there are 44, and have started to works on the different vowels and vowel combinations.

Well, I think I'm off to the Sunday market. That's pretty much all for now, so I'll talk to you guys later!

~Abby

Update

I am once again amongst the living, yay! Sorry for not posting for awhile - I have been feeling horrible. Most of the group has been down and out in some way or another - two of the girls have coughs, one of the guys had a "running stomach", and we're all pretty tired from getting used to everything here.

I haven't felt so great for the past few days and finally went the the clinic. Yay amoebic dysentery D: not fun! But the doctor was like magic and I got some medicine and already feel human again [insert Disney song here].

So, once I play catch up with my school lessons I should hopefully be able to finish my last catch-up post and start catching you up on everything else...

~Abby

P.S. For those non-Facebookers, I leave you with this picture!

Catch Up!

So, yeah, about updating my blog...

We have been running around like chickens with our heads cut off, to a certain extent. At the same time, our schedule has been lax. I've gone to update this blog a few times only to be drawn away by new and exciting things, but I'm finally sitting down and updating (which is funny since the internet just died and I'm writing this in word to be uploaded later).

We spend about three days in Bangkok and left on the evening of the 16th for Chiang Mai - by night train! The train was pretty cool because we had full food and beverage service (though the food was okay at best), and the seats folded down and a sleeping mat was put over them for a bed. There were curtains and night-lights and everything, and another bunk folded down from above. I slept pretty well, and when I woke up in the night I read on my Kindle for a while and fell back asleep (Kindle = <3). We arrived in Chiang Mai in the early afternoon on Tuesday the 17th, and Kun Krit - one of the International Studies heads - met us and rode with us to Mountain View Guest House, where we will stay our whole time in Chiang Mai. The guesthouse is gorgeous - the tables set up for eating are all outside under canopies and there are plants and trees everywhere. We have seen and heard some interesting wildlife so far, including the coppersmith barbet (if you can look up the sound it makes you should - I think that's where catchphrase got the sound for its timer), pinkish colored geckos, and lots of cats that are apparently in heat because they yowl like banshees all night. There are a mix of foreigners and Thais staying at the guesthouse, which has been pretty pleasant so far. The staff here is pretty good, there are tons of eateries all over the neighborhood, and everything is decently inexpensive. The day we arrived was a free day from school as there are graduation ceremonies going on and the campus was buzzing with activity. Bob let us settle in for a bit, and then took us on a bit of a tour around the area and to a few used book shops so people could get the books for out Asian Lit. class if they hadn't already. We also went to a new book store so I could get a Thai-English dictionary that I'll need for my independent study. Those of us that had gone to the new bookstore hung out at a cool coffee place for awhile before heading back and meeting everyone for dinner. We had our introduction to Thai language the next day, and met several of the professors and some students studying English. They all seem very nice, and our introduction was interesting. They taught us some phonetic symbols made to stand for sounds - which I assume is because otherwise we would get them confused if they used all English letters. I didn't think it would be terribly useful at first, but now I'm starting to see the benefits of it. During our lunch break, Bob took us to a uniform shop to get uniforms for school.

After that, we went out to lunch. (This blog is going to have a lot of eating moments).

Thursday we were off school again for the actual graduation (it's a many-day affair), so we went up Doi Suthep to see the temple, view the wares of the hill tribes, visit the Orchid Jade Factory, and get very close to being car sick.

Before I go into Doi Suthep, I need to explain a few things. The mass transportation in Chiang Mai are called Song Tao. They are basically pick up trucks with awnings over the truck bed and two long benches in the back facing inward.

We went up the very twisty mountain road in this at a decent speed. Ugh.

Doi Suthep was beautiful, though.

Well, my laptop's about out of battery and I need to take pictures of more things I want to show you, so I'll finish catching up next time!

~Abby

Boat Day and Market Day

I am fighting off sleep as I write this, so bear with me. Spent most of the day walking around in the heat, but I'll get to that later.

I think most everyone has gotten a chance to check out the pictures I posted on Facebook, and for those that haven't you can check them out here.

The first day in Bangkok was full of excitement and exploring. Millie, Cassie, Gina and I explored a local park on our own and walked the 2.5k track that went through and around it. Then we met up with the group and took taxis to a dock and got on a surprisingly rickety boat that took us on a tour of the waterfront. Bangkok has many river channels leading from the Lord River that people live on and use to get around or sell you things. We got off the boat to visit the snake farm where they milked a cobra right in front of me and I got to feed adorable Thai deer by hand - it tickles! Then we were off to Wat Aran: the Temple of the Dawn, where I think I climbed some of the steepest stairs known to man kind. It was a really cool place, and when we got back down to the bottom I treated by self to the best drink ever:

A chilled, freshly opened green coconut (oh my gosh, I'm so dead I was about to write pineapple). When coconuts are still green, they hold coconut water, which is sooo much better than coconut milk. They are ridiculously refreshing, too. I might have to order another one at dinner tonight...

After the temple we headed back to the Guest House, which has a website! Check it out here. We then hung out until 6:30 when we went to dinner at this awesome restaurant down the soi (street). I had some really good prawns, but the best part was desert: fresh Thai mango with sticky rice and coconut cream. Next time I have it I will definitely take a picture - it is nothing if not drool-worthy.

At the end of the day, I was happily exhausted and counted the three blisters on my feet as badges of honor.

On to today, we met around 11 a.m. and got on the Sky Train to go to a huge outdoor market. There were a lot of interesting sights to see that you can't catch in America (I totally saw a cart of roasted and fried bugs for consumption). My group got totally and completely lost and finally found our way to meet back with everyone at the local police station where the very friendly Thai policeman asked us about our trip and told us about himself. He was from Chicago - go figure! Super nice guy, and I found a map of Bangkok and a map of Chiang Mai there for free, so that worked out rather well.

I'm super sore from the long, hot walk around the market, and most of us were so out we were pretty much falling asleep during dinner (myself included). Tomorrow evening we leave for Chiang Mai on the night train. The trip is around 14 hours BUT I get to sleep horizontally! Wohoo! We should get to Chiang Mai Tuesday morning, so I will update you when I get settled.

~Abby

Arrival

Finally, after a full day of traveling, I have arrived in Bangkok safe and sound! My butt is sore from flying all day - my longest flight was fifteen hours, with a nonexistent layover that went straight into a five hour flight. Needless to say, I am tired of sitting.

My checked bag did not come as planned because our plane hit its maximum baggage, and so it is being sent with another plane that should have arrived at the airport around 11 p.m. (it is 12:12 a.m. at the moment). I will be shocked and impressed if it magically appears tonight, but if not we can get it in the morning.

We are staying at the Bangkok Christian Guest House, which is extremely amusing. They have a clock behind the counter that says "Jesus Saves" that I will totally take a picture of tomorrow. It is a gorgeous 79 degrees - I hope you guys are having fun in your winter wonderland, now that it finally started to snow! I think I'm going to sweat my brains out when we tour the city tomorrow, but I'm strangely looking forward to that. I have also just been informed that my luggage will be arriving around 3 a.m., which means I can at least have clean clothes for tomorrow! :D Oh boy!

Anyway, I'm safe and sound and sooo ready for a shower and bed. Our room is very sterile looking, but it's cool because you have to put the keyring into this slot in the wall to be able to turn the lights on. Did I mention I'm really tired?

I will update more tomorrow and hopefully be available for Skype.

Love you guys,
~Abby

Tomorrow

Okay, so the "oh my God, this is actually happening" hit me last night. It's an exhilarating feeling, really. Thinking back to my trip to Japan, the traveling part was the most nerve-wracking (earthquake excluded). This time thats all out of my hands, and it really puts me at ease. No worrying about whether I got the right tickets or filled out something wrong or have found the right terminal! So tonight I am happily resigned to my imminent departure and I can feel the excitement building in my chest. I've only studied the language for a short time now, but I already have the support network of some pretty awesome people that I am ecstatic to share the semester with.

Suitcase packed, carry-on ready, time for bed.

Here's to the bittersweet good-byes of tomorrow and the shining opportunity of the future.

Love you all,
~Abby

Forward

Hello, all! I thought it was about time to start up a blog for this trip and let everybody know what I'm actually getting myself into this time. Without further ado, here is my trip in a nutshell:

What: Coe Asia Term

When: January 12 - April 29

Where: Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia

Who: Myself, seven other Coe students, and our fearless leader Professor Robert Drexler.

Why: Because I'm a language-monger with the travel bug.

Asia Term is a semester long cultural experience. We start out in Thailand and will be there for about two months. The group of us will be studying Thai language and culture at Chiang Mai University in Chiang Mai, as well as participating in an Asian Literature course taught by professor Drexler. We also visit a few UNESCO World Heritage sites while we're there, hence the weekend trip to Laos! We leave Thailand in March to travel to Hanoi, Vietnam, where we will study Vietnamese at Vietnam National University. We will also have the opportunity to stay with a host family and become English conversation partners. We stay in Vietnam for less than a month, and from there we spend two weeks in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Then it's back to Thailand for the Thai New Year - and the three day long water fight! We leave Chiang Mai on April 20th and head back to Bangkok, where we stay until arriving back in the states on April 29th.

Does that sound awesome, or what? I'm super excited to get going!

For those unfamiliar with East Asia (myself included) here's a pretty good map that lays out the different countries.

Starting off in Thailand, we land in the capital - Bangkok - [insert witty pun here]. Then we travel by night train north to the city of Chiang Mai, where we spend most of our time. We study about a semester's worth of Thai during our stay, so I'll just outline the language briefly. Thai is a tonal language, meaning that saying a syllable in a high voice and then saying it in a low voice make for completely different words/meanings. There are five tones in all: high, rising, mid, falling, and low, which gives the language a singsongy quality to it. But unlike Japanese (thank God!) Thai has a system of 41 letters, which make up its words in a way similar to English. The difference here as well is that Thai adds in markers to show what the tone of the word should be. Also, the written language looks like a mix between Egyptian hieroglyphs and bent paperclips.

Didn't believe me? Shame on you.

As for Laos, we fly to Luang Prabang for a long weekend - the royal capita of Laos which preserves traditional Lao culture. (Which I totally just copied out of my handbook so I look like I know what I'm talking about.)

We remain in Hanoi for most of our stay in Vietnam, but we do get a field trip to stay on Halong Bay for a night! We'll learn survival Vietnamese . . . which has seven different tones . . . which are different than the tones in Thai. Bring it!

We head for Siem Riep in Cambodia to explore the ruins of Angkor Wat. Then on to Phnom Pehn to do more exploring and do some English teaching!

Excitement! Now to finish up some last minute planning and get to it! If anyone has any questions, feel free to email, Skype, post a comment here, or leave me a message on Facebook - I am still 100% accessible overseas. I will update again the night before I leave (Jan. 11th) and then again when I'm settled in Bangkok!

Wish me luck,
~Abby