Fine Lookin' Falangs!

Alright so time for a another blog already ahh!!!! time is flying far too fast for my taste at the moment.

So as I left off on my last blog we were preparing to head out to Khon Kaen by night bus. Well once finding the bus and saying goodbye to the host parents we headed out. The bus ride went from 9pm to 6am and this was a bad bus ride for me. I was still having back pains and I got maybe 3 hours of sleep. We arrived in Khon Kaen bright and early and found our beloved Brasilian Tylho and his wonderful host mom. Really his host mom is amazing, I am so jealous of him.

Anyways we drove from the bus station and Khon Kaen itself to his house which was half an hour away by car. Tyhlo lived in a auto parts store on the second and third story. Seemed nice enough and one of the best parts was that his bed was north american comfy, not Thai comfy. Alayna and I tried with no success to catch up on some sleep so instead we decided to catch a bus back into Khon Kaen to go to the mall. 

We were blessed and got to meet up as well with Merriam. The Mexican girl who’s awesome at dancing. There was much hugging and screaming and just general happiness as we hadn’t seen her since DC which was also held in Khon Kaen way back in March. 

After this we headed into the mall and went running around for a little acting like we always do. We even hit up the arcade and low and behold there was an ancient friend of mine. House of Dead. Its a zombie shooting game that I’ve played throughout my childhood and one of the few zombie games I could play. So I popped in a coin and got my butt promptly handed to m by zombies, oh its brought back great memories.

After a while I crashed losing all energy, it was at this point we decided to head to Merriam’s house and hang out there for a little, maybe even watch a movie. When we arrived even layed around and well I passed out at that point and found myself waking up 4 hours later with bead head and a fever...It was revenge of the sickness!!!!!! ahhh!!!! the horror!!!!.

Anyways we went back to the mall for Tyhlo’s mom to pick us up along with his host brother who had been at school. We said goodbye to the Mexican and rode in the back of the truck all the way home as I almost passed out.

I crawled to the bed where I went through shivers, pains, fever and god knows what else. It continued like that for the next day so I slept for most of the day and spent eating ice cream and watching the others play facebook games the rest. I finally got a little better as night came and though nearly passing out at the dinner table and having Tyhlo’s host mom fret over me and laugh when I chose to just eat ice cream. I made it to bed and slept slightly better. The next day passed much the same but with my facebook playing and oohing and aweing over the newest Glee episode. 

I felt bright and refreshed the next day which was good as we headed back to the wonderful, colourful and awesome mall to meet up with Oscar, Ryan, Lucas, and Heather to see Fast 5. It was nice seeing people again and outside of Rotary functions where we could go at our own pace. When we went to see Fast 5 I remembered why Vin Diesel was one of my first crushes. That series also got me a love for good looking cars. Anyways I came out generally thrilled and an urge to go hijack something. While me and Tyhlo ran off to go play a round of ‘House of Living Dead’, Lucas got a call from Top, the Rotex who had come to my Canadian district last year. He was wondering if we were interested in playing soccer with some of his Thai friends. I though ‘heck why not, the last time I played I only ripped off a toenail, what could happen this time?’

  We met up with Top (who is ridiculously good looking) and we piled into his car then headed off to a very official looking field. Only a few of the falangs wanted to play and since I was sporting flipflops I borrowed Tyhlo’s shoes and headed out. 

It was generally a really fun game, Got shouldered by Lucas, and I kicked a few guys int he shins but it was fun, maybe not the best after being so sick yet again, but fun. Though something happened about a minute in, I may have killed Tyhlos shoes. the front part of the bottom detached from the shoe and I was constantly tripping and cursing his lame shoes.

After the game and much ingestion of water, the original three of us headed back to the mall to be picked up, but first came buying new shoes for Tylho, which turned out to be a near hour ordeal. That man is so picky with his shoes. I am not a shoe person so this was slightly torturous for me so I escaped to Asia Books and crooned over the massive Star Wars books. We finally made it home in one piece and stayed up for many an hour trying to load Fast and the Furious 4 as I hadn’t seen it yet. 

I woke up early the next morning, well compared to the other two and sat around. We seem to do that a lot with Tyhlo. The day passed mostly like that, lazy people we are.

Alright Friday we actually got dressed and packed our bags and headed out. We were going along with the host brother to meet two of his cousins and some of their friends for a weekend in Chaing Khan. A tiny little tourist town resting on the Laos border. That meant a really long bus ride. We passed it with music and Mario.

We finally arrived around 7pm and waiting for us was one of the cousins. a Girl named Nee-Noy, she is a Rotex who went to Brasil last year and super fun to be around. She and her father took us to a restaurant to meet the rest of her family and have a nice dinner. We also met the other cousin, Moo, a cute boy who is my age, that woudl be coming with us on the trip. The meal was wonderful and we went around taking some silly pictures in the parking lot.

After they took us to a hotel where Alayna and I had one room. Tyhlo and his host brother one, and the two cousins the last. It was a simple place and just for a night. We had to wake up bright and early though to catch a large songtow for two hours to get to the place. We picked up two of the friends on the way. A tennis playing friend I dubbed glasses guy, and a really cute girl who’s name I completely forget. 

When we finally arrived we met the last group member who would be joining us. Noey. He’s nuts, in fact lets just call him crazy guy.

We headed to the homestay which is the Thai equivalent of a bed and breakfast. We dropped our bags off and most of us passed out for an hour or two. When we finally got on our feet an headed out we actually rented bikes and then went off on our adventure. We had to bike for an hour or so but it was fun with lots of bike kisses and Moo and I trying to push each other off the bikes. We had to bike all that way for a small tourist trap centered around boat rides on the river separating Thailand and Laos. This river was one that looked willy wonka worthy. We bought some food then headed out on an hour long boat ride. It was nice and thought the white people just played ‘never have I ever’ and had some good laughs. 

When the boat made it back to the dock we picked up our bikes and headed back which was slow and lazy and I got a bit of a tan in the 30+ weather.

When we made it back to the homestay I found that most people again passed out except crazy guy and a friend who had joined us for the day. Crazy guy was well crazy and drug me out to go buy snacks with him. He took me to the market and made me travel so many nasty things and i felt horrible but we had a good time. I found that crazy guy was surprisingly touchy for a Thai person. most people here would never touch a white person they had just met but well crazy is crazy. 

We made it back to house and it was starting to turn into twilight so we headed out intot he famed walking street. It was really quite with many of the shops having an old fashioned feel. We walked up and down talking about life. When we made it back we decided finally to go for some Thai BBQ which is always fun. It started to pour down while we were at dinner and I sadly did not get to go play in it.

Anyways After dinner we headed back to the house and started playing card games. I was generally pretty good and came out better then some people. It was a ton of fun and almost everyone joined except Moo and Crazy guy as they were strumming on a guitar. I learned one new game that I’ll be bringing back to Canada which made some people crazy pretty fast. We played these games for a few hours then we all just settled around talking laughing and being teenagers. Most of us didn’t get to sleep until 4 but hey, it was a simple night. 

we woke up groggy and we stumbled out the the songtow though we said goodbye to the cute girl and glasses guy as they needed to head home... through the morning it was decided we would not head back to Khon Kaen like first thought, we would instead spend a night at Crazy guy’s house, as he lived right next to the village in a hamlet. We got to his house and for the most part sat around. We were pretty bored but it was better then spending a good 4 hours on a bus in our state. I passed out early under the bug nettings.

The nest morning crazy guy took us to the bus station and we said goodbye to him. Then the 6 of us climbed on a bus and headed off. Nee-Noy and Moo got off the bus quite early on and we said our goodbyes to them which was a little sad as both of them had been really nice to us the whole weekend. We continued on our bus ride and finally made it to Khon Kaen. We were picked up by the host mom and taken home to some pizza and ice cream. 

The next day we headed strait for the mall. no relaxing for us. I finally decided upon some books to buy. I bought the classics of Peter Pan, PHantom of the Opera, and Alice in Wonderland. I love Peter Pan as it made me love the live action movie even more then I did. Alice I had to give up after a chapter as it was so confusing and the writing style made my head spin. Phantom is super slow and literally half the book is the last 15 minutes of the play. Its rather painful and I’m still trudging though it though I may be skimming the pages now.

After the book store we headed to the arcade and we tried our hand at ‘House of Dead’ 3, which gave us shotguns which made my hand and arms sore but we still had fun quoting ‘dick figures’ from youtube as we did it. 

After We decided to hit up another movie. Priest in 3D. my first 3D movie in Thailand. pretty expensive and well.. The movie was really meh. The entire movie was building up to the sequel. It made me pretty angry. Anyways it was a fun day and I rushed home to read my books.

We had another lazy day. dear we are horrible.

Anyways for our last day before leaving that night we again headed to the mall. This time Tylho and I went strait for ‘House of Dead’ and we both cashed in 100 baht for the game. It was awesome. We got so far and had so much fun doing it. Alayna and Merriam, who had come to visit us again were cheering us on and slotting in the coins every time we died. 

After an hour of zombies we called it quits and walked around doing different things. We also got to meet an American university student who Tylho knew. She seemed nice though we had very little in common and it was pretty awkward. For our last night the host family picked us up and took up to a steak buffet. It was really really good and we laughed over many things though Alayna was starting to tear up as this was going to be our final hour with Merriam who is leaving at the end of May before Bangkok. We had some good laughs about cheese as we drove to the bus station to drop us off and when we finally made it it was a hard goodbye but I didn’t cry. It hasn’t sunk in that its truly coming to an end in less then a month.

The bus ride was pretty good for me though I got to run off 3 hours of sleep again. We made it back to Sriracha in one piece. The trip to Khon Kaen was mostly us on the computers laughing over videos or watching movies together but it was actually a lot of fun. Now I’ve got one more week before the big Bangkok sheebang so I’ll be waiting for that... then its well kinda the end. You’ll get two more blogs for sure. one for Bangkok which i should try to stop all parental figures from reading for obvious reasons and one recapping my entire year and believe me when I say that blog is going to be so amazing long.

Alright I’m off to sleep on the floor of Alayna’s room as I’ve basically moved in here anyways

Kyouhei

<3

from the other side of the world

Avoid Crowbars...Or Not Doesn't Matter to Me

alright.

So I tried to do this half a month ago but my internet pooped out on me. So here I am to do a full month’s blog. This is going to be interesting for sure... where has this month gone?

Anyways way back on the last day of March. Alayna and I were taken to the airport by my third host family and we met with the rest of the YE students from my district and we started out on our fabulous 10 day Chaing Mai trip. We flew up to Chiang Mai and started our adventure with a fantastic dinner. In Chiang Mai we went a tiger zoo and an elephant camp. We also got to hit up the famous Chaing Mai night market where I got to spend lots of my money. After Chaing Mai, we visited temples, home stays, and the Himalayas. It was really beautiful and even though I got a little sick at one point it was okay.

When we finally made it to Chaing Rai we got to visit the famous golden triangle and we even got to cross into Laos and buy awesome knock off goods like sunglasses and purses. After we were taken to a museum that told the history of opium and Thailand’s involvement. We were also taken to see the tourist orientated hilltribe area. It was amazing to see something in person after seeing it so many times in photographs. The ladies really had the elongated necks and stretched ears. They were extremely beautiful in a ver exotic way. We were then rushed to see the White temple which had murals of batman and iron man (that part made me so happy). The temple itself was breathtaking and I’m so glad we were able to see it. The last stop in Chaing Rai was a famous garden dedicated to the princess’ mother.

After Chaing Mai we were driven high into the northern mountains to visit tea farms. We also got to play in the rain and act like beached whales. Traveling from there we got to take the extreme winding roads to Pai, a beautiful little hippy town where I fell in love with the walking street and bought sabai pants and books. I also got to watch the moon rise up over Pai with some of my closest friends.

All too soon we were driving back to Chaing Mai to spend one last night in the northern city. We spent it out on the town. The last day was spent at the Chaing Mai zoo which involved fish, falangs, snow, and pizza company. Before we knew it we were then back at the airport and figuring out plans for Songkran.

When we touched down in Bangkok everyone parted ways, though agreeing to have one last bash in Bangkok. 

I broke off with Alayna, Tyhlo, and Bryce as we headed for Bryce’s town of Korat. We would be spending the next week there for Songkran, which is Thai New year.

We took the evening bus and arrived late at the house. After a long sleep we hit the mall with everyone who would be part of our Songkran group. That included Cat, Susie, Giulia, Ray, Heather, Emily, and Inken. We went swimming and even met an AFS exchange student named Dom who was funny though so serious. 

We got some mexican food and went to Banana which was a fun time. 

finally Wednesday and the first day of Songkran rolled around. From the window the day didn’t seem that excited so me and Inken decided to go to 7 to check things out. We got soaked... alright rewind. lets all have a lesson on Songkran. Its a 3 day festival held throughout Thailand celebrating Thai New Year. it is a massive city wide water fight where people party in the streets from the crack of dawn till the moon is high in the sky. People will throw water on you or run up and cover your face in a baby powder/water goo for good luck. 

Our trip to 7 pumped us all up and we headed out into the streets towards the center of the action. We partied in fountains, danced when everyone was looking and had more then one creepy thai guy kiss us. 

We met up with some Rotex and their store became our home base, We soon found ourselves dancing in the streets and just generally having the best time.. I don’t even know how to explain how amazing it was.

Anyways when it started to get dark we headed back to Bryce’s house and got ourselves cleaned up by all showering together in our bathing suits in a space that was meant for a midget. 

The next day we woke up with energy to burn out on the streets so we headed out as early as possible. We found our way to the base and we started our day. This day was a little bit different. We spent it all at the  store which is on the side of a major songkran road. we stood with buckets of water tossing it at people int he back of the trucks as they passed us at a snails pace. Met a lot of falangs from all over the world as the day passed. Some people headed home early and the rest of us ended up in one hell of a dance party in the middle of the road outside a mall. It was tons of fun thoguh at one point there were too many creepy guys for our small group of girls but we made it out okay besides a face lick.

I got the fun job of escorting to Brasilians back to Bryce’s which was a hard job as it seemed every boy wanted to touch their face and tell them how beautiful they were. When we finally made it back to the house it was pretty dark. the rest of the day was spent showering, talking and just thinking about life in Thailand. 

The last day of Songkran rolled around and before we knew it we were back at the shop.This time we walked up and down the street just seeing everyone standing outside their stores and the happiness that seemed to ooze from everyone. We munched on hotdogs and KFC and  danced till we couldn’t dance anymore. People had drifted home in groups through out the day and I ended up going home by myself which was less scary then i thought it would be. After I had showered and changed Tyhlo and Iwent to 7 and were almost soaked again had we not shouted at the tops of our lungs for the man with the tub to stop. 

Songkran over all was literally the best time I’ve had in Thailand. It was three days of water, powder goo, dancing, laughing, It was magical.

We hit up the mall one more time with the songkran crew and went to see Rio which some of the Brasilians so it was a lot of fun.

Anyways we hit up Banana one more time having a blast. i even met with awesome Norwegian guy named Bent, we had some great laughs and talks and it was a great end to the week over all. 

All too soon Alayna and I were on the bus back home to Sriracha. Alayna was pretty sick with a cold and I was just bagged from all the traveling but we made it to her house unscratched. I found out that my third host family couldn’t pick me up for a week so instead I got to go with Alayna to stay a week with her second host family.

They took us out for dinner and were really nice and that night the host sister and even the host mom took us out to a club. The host mom came out with us. It was a fun time and the place played some good songs.

Most of the week we actually just spent around the house, but it was still nice. The family was all really kind and they let us play their playstation which seemed quite alien to these xbox hands. 

On the weekend the host family took us to Dream World which was a blast. We hit up all the rides, got soaked, played in the show world like true falang, and had a good time until the rain kinda ruined the party. oh well. We made it back to the house without any harm. 

The next day was mostly just packing and then the night market where I bougt some gifts for people which has made me wonder... should i buy gifts? If i buy gifts for one person i feel like I have to buy gifts for everyone. This trip is more about me, not about getting people something, right? I’m just in question right now about everything.

Anyways

After the week ended We were sent back to Alayna’s house where I was finally picked up by my host family and taken to Bangkok.. before being promptly being returned to Alayna’s house for the fact that we were going to head to Trat together. 

Trat is Jessica’s town and we were able to squeeze in to visit at the same time as Inken, Emily, and Sussie. We packed up and headed out for Trat, a four hour bus ride later and we were in Trat meeting up with the other falangs. We fuond each other then headed out to the island of Koh Chang. The island was gorgeous and we of course hit the beach as soon as possible. 

There was much swimming, lounging around, smiling, and CCCCCCCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLLLLLssss passed around. It was a great girls week though I got pretty dang sick with a fever, horrible back pains, and such a light head I almost started to float. Though it ended with me going to a pharmacy and talking with the really cute guy behind the counter. 

Bought another dress which i think shall probably my dress buying career. Actually I think my spending career is coming to a close so that I can make it through the rest of my exchange and still make it one the trips I want to go on. Let see how well my extreme budgeting goes.

Anyways the Island week passed ina  flash and low and behold I’m back on Alayna’s bedrooms floor waiting for the bus tonight to take us to khon kaen..

alright I know this blog was verbal diarrhea and was all over the place, but hey, at least its a blog.