July Update from Chiang Mai Sawadee Ka, Brian and I thought it might be time for an update. Since we last wrote we haven’t experienced a whole lot of new ‘travels’ but life, nonetheless, has been good to us. I must say I do enjoy teaching. I’m not sure it is what I want to do for the rest of my life but it is certainly suiting the here and now. I remember those awful mornings at previous jobs where you’d walk in to hear about all the new crises that had to be addressed immediately, the stresses, the things that [View Full Entry]

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Visa Run to Burma via Chiang Rai and the Golden Triangle So…when Claire and I left the States we each had “one year, multiple entry non-immigrant B visas”. Sounds like we would be good for a year, right…cause that’s what the visas said. Well…there are many things that don’t make sense about the way Thailand works. There will be an entire blog on this at some point, but not now. Now we only need to say that many things here, with regards to immigration, visas, and deep fried chicken tendons, do not make sense (but congealed pigs blood mak [View Full Entry]

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Nesting in Chiang Mai Since Songkran, we’ve really had a lack of things to write about because more so than traveling, we’ve really just been nesting. During the Songkran holiday Brian and I had to decide which school offer to take. Brian chose Prince Royal’s College, a huge Christian school for K-12 grades. Brian teaches 10th and 11th grade English classes. I chose Sacred Heart College, just a block down from our apartment; it is an all girls Catholic school and I teach 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade English, Social Studies and Health in the school’s bilingual prog [View Full Entry]

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Songkran: Now this is how you have a water fight! Sawadee Pee Mai, Happy New Year! In Chiang Mai we just celebrated the coming of the Thai New Year, 2052. Songkran is known as the Water Festival and it is known to be the most fun in Chiang Mai. Water Festival, however, is probably better understood to Westerners as a huge water fight! The holiday lasts over three days. On the first day people will clean their homes and set off fireworks to cleanse and scare away any bad luck from the previous year. Then in Chiang Mai there is a [View Full Entry]

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Chiang Mai, Thailand; home for a while? So…in the end we had to go by plane to Chiang Mai. This turned out to be great. But in the beginning we wanted to go by train. You see, we have a lot of luggage, four 50 pound, bags, plus a computer and our two little backpacks. What! We moved here. What the hell do you expect? Anyhoo, Thailand has a pretty cool train system that runs from south to north (actually it goes all the way into Malaysia) with Bangkok being the midway transfer point for the country. I hear the trains [View Full Entry]

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Helllllooooo everybody. We're in Chiang Mai now and it's lovely. Claire and I arrived on Sunday afternoon. Monday morning we hit the streets to find jobs (and the internet). We have been spending so much time looking for work that we have not taken one photo of this great city even though it looks like it will be our new home for a decent amount of time. We will definitely get some photos going on and...we've come at a great time of year. The Songkran festival, aka the Thai new year, is set to begin on the 13th and last until [View Full Entry]

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So here we are with the course pretty much over and I am now just getting around to writing about our classmates. Oh well. It’s the night before our last day which really is consisting of a volunteer teaching practice at this bar we have been at every week. The girls at this place really appreciate the lessons and a little extra practice is nice for us. So a lil’ bit about our certification course. To sum it all up it’s been great. The course is solid and we have a really good group of students. There are six of us [View Full Entry]

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So I must admit that I'm getting around to posting this a bit late... we are actually in Chiang Mai now. We just arrived so I don't have a lot to say about it yet but if the city is like our cab ride from the airport to hotel, it will be great! Friendly people and beautiful scenery! But for now, lets talk about our departure from Ko Samui: Leaving Ko Samui Tomorrow we leave Ko Samui first thing in the morning to head off for what we think will be our new home for the next year, Chiang Mai, the [View Full Entry]

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Ko Samui Currently we are in week three of our stay in Chaweng Noi on Samui Island and I must admit it is not easy to think back and write about our arrival and first impression of the island because just as it is hard to remember what is was like before you could read or drive a car, it is hard to remember Ko Samui before I learned to love it. But I’ll try… I’ll start with the same preface that I faced before arriving. First, every word of mouth account of the island we heard was less than enthusiastic: [View Full Entry]

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So Thai Boxing is pretty cool. We had front row seats. Why? Because that’s where they want foreigners. It keeps them out of the way of the Thais that are busy betting and they get more money out of us. Welcome to Thailand. There is a two tier pricing system in Thailand and you can’t really do much about it. We saw six or seven matches and two of them were really good. No KO’s though. The ritual dances the fighters do before each match are very interesting. Each guy has his own deal and it’s kind of a combination of [View Full Entry]

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