Our journey begins...

James and I arrived Tuesday after 31 hours of travelling. It's now Friday night here and we just got back from our first real outing into the city of Hua Hin. My house is about 30 minutes outside of town, and feels even farther than that. Our "village" consists of about 10 western style houses in the middle of open land surrounded by cows, stray dogs, and oh yeah snakes! Big giant Burmese pythons, boa constrictors and the occasional cobra. There are marsh lands just down the road and apparently they live there, but like to venture out onto the street. Tonight we got home and Johnny (my student) rings the doorbell to tell us his dad caught a Burmese python. We checked it out and James held all 6-7ft. of it. I cautiously pet the back of it. :) Oh, and the Python pooped on James, he's in the shower now.

John also caught a Mongoose yesterday, so the kids are getting more pets everyday. They already have geese, ducks, chickens, rabbits, fish, a cat, a dog, and a bird! James and I only have a couple geckos that like to make loud screeching noises in the middle of the night, which I think I don't mind too much because I know they're eating all the spiders.

Our outing to Hua Hin was exciting and a little scary. They drive on the left side of the road here, which will take some adjustment, but more than that they drive crazy and don't follow traffic laws. Mopeds, cars, and trucks fly out of nowhere into the wrong lane, and pretty much do whatever they feel like. I experienced this before, but this time it's more frightening since James is new at driving here and at some point I'm going to have to drive. Today we strolled around town, ate lunch and checked out the stores. We went to the beach and people watched.

I start my first real day of class tomorrow, so we're home early so I can prepare. I had the kids for a few hours yesterday to get an idea of where they were at. They are very cute and eager to learn. They lived in Australia for the early years of school, and their parents are American/Thai, so they have a unique accent, which almost sounds English. When the kids walked into the classroom for the first time said surprisingly, "Wow, it's like a real classroom in here." Then, they saw all the books I put on their desks and quickly realized their summer was over and work was about to begin. I too, came to the same realization. It should be fun though, but for now I need to go get prepared. Will write more soon.

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