Reflections On Our Year in Thailand

So it's finished. We've packed up all our things, said goodbye to this incredible country we've come to love, and headed back home. It's something I've been looking forward to for nearly a year now, but also something sad. We've had homesickness and job uncertainty as well as amazing adventures and wonderful friends, and somehow it seems nearly impossible to be back to our old lives in Canada.

We've talked several times together while we've been here about how our life here seems so totally separate from our life back home. It feels vaguely dreamlike in its dissimilarity. This has been really apparent whenever people come to visit us; crossing the divide between our Canadian life and our Thai life, but is becoming a glaring reality now that we're coming to the end of our time here. Will it all seem real once we're back home? Will home be everything I've been missing and longing for for? What will we miss about Thailand? Will we ever get the chance to come back?

Sometimes I feel like I'm crazy to want to leave this place; there is so much here that I love. But, there are a lot of things I love and miss about Canada too. Before I fall asleep I imagine myself going on a walk in the woods back home; with the crunchy earthy smell of the fall leaves all around. When I'm feeling homesick I think about sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper on a Sunday morning while enjoying a good cup of coffee. I always knew that I was kind of a homebody; that I am a person who needs to be close to my friends and family to feel really content; but this has come sharply into focus through the homesickness I've felt here in Thailand. I now know that although life sometimes doesn't take you in the direction you expect, I really hope that I can convince it to let me be near my community of people.

On the other hand; we'll miss a lot of things about Thailand. Shane will certainly miss the beaches and the surfing. I will miss the amazing food, the excitement of my students when I walk in the classroom, and how incredibly Thai everything and everybody is (sometimes amusing, sometimes exasperating but always opening my eyes).

So we're both happy and sad to be leaving and coming back home. We're so glad that we've been able to share our experience through this blog, and I hope that you have all enjoyed reading it. Who knows, maybe we'll have to start a "Shane and Hannah's Adventures in Canada" to keep up with our exploits back home? Overall, this has definitely been an experience that has helped us to grow as individuals and as a couple and I wouldn't trade it for anything. As we close this chapter in our lives we'll just hope that the next one is just as full of amazing experiences as this one was. "The straight way's short, but the long way's pretty."

Canadians in Thailand -Shane's first blog post!

Recently the two of us have been fortunate enough to have friends and family come to visit us here in Thailand. Our house has had quite the revolving door. We had my brother Nick in July, my friends Nathan, Suds and Hammy in August, and soon Hannah’s brother Tim in September. We love Thailand and are thrilled to share it with whoever is willing to make the trip half way around the world. It is hilarious to see the shock, delight and amazement on our friends' and families' faces when they see things that have for us become daily life: wild driving, delicious food, beautiful beaches, street dogs and chickens among many other things.

Here are a few pictures from our adventures with Nathan, Suds and Hammy.

Riding a Song Tao on the way to Krabi

Exploring sea caves on Rayleigh
As not much of a sea cave explorer myself, I stayed and watched the boats... this turned out to be a good idea as the tide started coming in and the boats tried to escape.





The boys extremely excited to be renting scooters. Thai roads had never been more dangerous.
I don't have anything to say about this picture, I'm still trying to repress these memories.





Suds and me conducting a fire show
To all of you who are wondering "who gave Shane and suds fire???!" I think that the guy was a little drunk. Also there weren't too many people around so I suppose he figured any damage would be to themselves rather than others? 

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Beach bar on Ton Sai where the boys spent the night despite having already purchasing a room.
Shane doesn't mention that this is a picture of Suds and Nathan taking a shot of rum which had a snake and a scorpion in it. The very chill Thai bartender keeps it on the bar to attract the kind of people who want to drink things filled with snakes and scorpions. The cat was just along for the ride. 

 Deep sea fishing where we caught 6 tuna and 2 mahi mahi.
Well, other people mostly caught fish. Shane and I mostly tried not to be sick... I was more successful than Shane. Seasickness cures offered to us by our friends were "beer and cigarettes".

To those of you who can’t make it half way around the world we are glad to have you all as readers so we can share Thailand through our blog posts.
You should probably just come out though... seriously.

Thai Street Food Extravaganza... Part 1?

One thing that we really DON'T miss about home is the VERY limited street food. Back home, you can get a sausage. That's it. In Thailand you can get just about everything...

We have been hoping to do a post about Thai street food for a while, but we just haven't had the camera with us during those quick street food runs! Tonight we decided to do dinner, street-food style.

 Mmmmmm fried chicken. Fried chicken in Thailand is SO GOOD with its thin crispy batter. This was fried in a BIG wok full of oil, over a propane burner on the side of the road. Perfection!

 Quartered tiny pineapples. At about 1/4 (or less) the size of regular pineapple, they are sweet and delicious; with none of the sour-ness in regular sized pineapple. These were for dessert.

 Noodle soup in a bag. One bag has the noodles, kale and bean sprouts and the other has broth and various meat (this time it was fish... not as good, we prefer chicken or pork soups).

 Steamed pork shumai, these are little dumplings filled with spiced pork. The bamboo stick is so you can eat them while walking down the street.

 A pork bun. This one was pork and preserved egg but our favourite is red pork. It is a rice-dough bun filled with spiced pork (or other delicious fillings). We often have red pork buns as breakfast on weekends.

 Dinner! Thailand gives out more than its fair share of plastic bags... what else are you going to serve take-away soup in?

 Here's the soup in a bowl.

Here is the chicken, pork bun and pork shumai on a plate :)

Hopefully we'll remember to take the camera out for some more pictures soon!

Driving

When we first arrived we said "we'll never do that". Now we brave Thailand's roads on a daily basis, along with numerous people, dogs, vendors and the occasional buffalo. It is not like driving in Canada. Here is an illustration of the average 7 minute ride to school. The bits in red are the things that happen.

Home Sweet Home #2

 The kitchen with a real kitchen sink! We keep saying how much better it is doing dishes in a sink than squatting in the shower!

 Dining room/ Shane's surfboard workshop. Much time is spent here polishing, waxing and otherwise caring for Surf Betty.

 Living room area.

 Our view! A beautiful mountain with a beautiful temple. We can hear monks chanting from the shower in the mornings and evenings.

 Bedroom

Our bathroom... nothing special but we thought we'd include a picture since this is a much more typically Thai bathroom. Notice that there is no shower curtain or anything, the shower is just in part of the washroom. This means that the floor is often wet, but does make it easy to clean!

Cold Snap Hits Thailand

Yes, for all our Canadian friends this must seem like a real oxymoron... but it is true! There is currently a big weather system in the South of Thailand (causing the worst rains in memory apparently) that is hitting our region with some unprecedented cold temperatures. At this time of the year we should be into the hot season, and the temperature should be around 40C fairly often... instead it has been hovering right around 20C!

In their kind Buddhist way, the Thais have sought to alleviate the suffering of some of those less fortunate around us... namely the soi dogs. Somebody (or possibly a group of somebodies) has been putting shirts on the soi dogs.

This little fellow is just one example of the several dogs that we have recently seen sporting shirts... We are pretty sure that it is due to the recent "cold" temperatures. We like his rugby style with the striped shirt and mohawk, so he has now become "Rugby Dog".

Creme Freche (Creem Freeche for the fans of Stan's Dad)

At home you can go to Zehrs and pick up a bag of perogies for about $2. They may not be the best perogies ever, but man are they easy! In Thailand, you cannot do this. We were craving some delicious perogies so decided to give home-made perogies a try... with surprisingly good results! Shane claims that he makes perogies as well as any old Eastern-European woman. I think this might be an overstatement but they turned out quite tasty!

We served these with a bit of creme freche, as one of the grocery stores around here is from France they have things like goat cheese, creme freche and pate at very reasonable prices.

Bollywood, brides and other everyday events

In previous posts we have mentioned the MANY brides that we see at our condo complex on a daily basis. The European inspired architecture is all the rage for wedding photos, as well as magazine shoots and the actual weddings themselves. Often we have to dodge a photoshoot on our way to the gym or the 7-11 and occasionally they close the pool or gym altogether for a big event!

We have seen commercials and other short film sequences shot at our complex before as well, but never a bollywood movie! Last Monday we came home from work to find the street blocked off for a full song and dance number. We watched them move around the complex shooting in different locations all evening, the stars even had their own trailers near our building.

Getting ready for the shoot... the dancers in the background are wearing clocks on their faces.

We aren't sure why, but they had two buffalo in a truck (mum and baby). They must have used these while we were away at work. They seemed quite happy, munching away in their truck.

Ladyboy Dance Off

This weekend we went to one of the big shopping centres around here to do a little birthday shopping... little did we know that by walking into the mall this Saturday we were walking into a Ladyboy dance off. There was a huge crowd gathered around a stage in the middle of the mall, watching group after group of Thai teenagers dance and lip-sync their little hearts out. Here is a transcript of a conversation we had while watching:
Shane: "This group of girls is really tall, wait, I think that one in the front is a ladyboy"
Hannah: "Um, I think they're all ladyboys... yup definitely ladyboys."
Shane: "Those ladyboys have way more feminine sex appeal than that girl group." 

Unfortunately we did not bring a camera!!!! So no fabulous pictures. Some of the groups had a lot of fabulous teenage attitude and some of them were great dancers, overall a very entertaining way to spend part of our afternoon... eating gelati and watching the dancers. So very Thailand :)

Wine and Wild Animals Weekend

Well, it was definitely a different sort of holiday from the island retreats we have been on recently! This weekend we headed northeast to the National Park, Khao Yai. We started off the weekend by waking up at "sparrow's fart" (a term introduced to us by our friends) and taking the first bus up to Pak Chong where we rented motorbikes. Then the fun could begin! We biked up into the mountains and immediately noticed the cooler temperatures and the clean jungle air, as well as the monkeys hanging out on the road! For our Friday in the park we rented tents, blankets and a "mattress" from the park office. Unfortunately the "mattress" was just a THIN woven straw mat, more useful for laying out on the grass for a picnic than cushioning your rest!

Once we had our tents set up we enjoyed some lunch, and got to see what Thai people do in a national park. Unlike National parks at home, where you would get fined for so much as THINKING about feeding the animals or dropping garbage, the national parks here are a little more relaxed. This picture is of some Thai people taking pictures of a deer, they then proceded to bring it all kinds of treats, including ice cream and bananas.

These kids thought that they wanted to feed the deer, but then they got scared.

We had a great day, hiking around following traces of elephants (elephant poop). In the evening we went out on a night safari. This seemed like something that we should do as tourists in Thailand, but we weren't expecting much. We boarded the noisy old truck and headed off with a Thai man holding a spotlight as our guide. Although we didn't expect to see many animals, we saw a ton! We saw: 3 kinds of deer (including a tiny baby barking deer, about the size of a cat! so cute) 2 civets, 3 porcupines, a wild dog called a Dhole and for the finale... 8 wild elephants at a salt lick! It was so amazing to see elephants in the wild, especially since there were quite a few resorts on the way up which has some pretty sad looking elephants that they were using for tourism... sad elephants are a really hard thing to see. It was amazing to see them in their natural habitat.

That night was a bit rough, since it was a long weekend the place was packed and there were people talking ALL NIGHT LONG! We woke up groggily in the morning and headed out on a long jungle hike. We were hoping to see some gibbons (another kind of monkey) but unfortunately they seemed to be hiding. No matter where we walked we always heard them 1 km or so behind us! However, we did have a great hike and saw some more signs of the elephants, although no luck seeing an actual elephant.

This second photo is from the observation tower at the end of our walk!

That night we headed out to a hotel, needing a little more comfort. After a much needed night's sleep we went for a tour around Thai wine country. We had no idea that this place even existed! We went to two different wineries, one of which had some really good wine! Hannah even took a turn driving the motorbike. We bought a bottle and then had to head back to check out and get back to reality... a great weekend overall!

It was one of those, "yup, I'm in Thailand" days...

I was sitting in the office, getting ready for KG this morning when one of the staff members came in with a puppy. Apparently it is one of the litter across the street who was nearly hit by a car. She was worried about it so decided to bring it over to the office where she plonked it on my lap saying she was off to get it something to eat.

Only in Thailand does someone put a stray puppy on your lap at work. Here is a picture of me at my desk with said puppy! Cutest inconvenience ever...

Parade of Soi Dogs

It's the moment you've all been waiting for! Live, coming to you straight from Thailand... the parade of soi dogs!

In case you aren't up on your backpacker slang, a soi dog is a street dog here in Thailand. The small streets branching off of larger main roads here are called sois, hence where the soi dogs got their name. These animals can be found sleeping on the freeway, cuddled up under a table in the school courtyard, hanging out behind restaurants and practically anywhere there are people (and therefore food). Some are friendly, some are not but overall they are a great source of amusement for us here in Thailand. We have nicknamed many of the soi dogs that we see regularly, and here they are for your viewing pleasure.

 This is Goiter Dog, so named because he has an unfortunate tumor on his right hind foot. In this picture it looks a bit like an oversized toe.

This is one of the many dogs that we call "Ugly Dog". We distinguish them by their colour and how much hair they have left... so for instance if we were to talk about this dog we might call her "ugly black dog with a little bit of hair on her back".

 One of the dogs in the monks' posse. We don't see this guy too often but took his picture because he looked healthy.

 Fat Dawg. This dog lives near a bunch of restaurants and is clearly the recipient of ALL the scraps...

 Sad Dog. This dog has droopy eyes, giving him a sad appearance.

Sleepy Dog. We ALWAYS see this dog lying down or sleeping, except on very rare occasions.

Puppies at the elementary school! This litter has been running around for the last couple of weeks. I am told that their mother is very fierce but the kids seem quite taken with them and bring them their lunch scraps daily.

 Soi dogs in a rare moment of play... They often choose their moment during the national anthem in the morning.

 Swim Dog. One of the healthier dogs at school, she is named swim dog because we always see her wet, after she has been swimming.

Tongue Dog. We think maybe this little fellow had a stroke, or the dog equivalent... One side of his face looks a little droopy and he can't put his tongue in all the way. He is one of our favourites!

Sneak Dog. This dog got her name because she is always sneaking into the area where the elementary school kids have lunch, trying to clean up scraps of food dropped by careless kindergarteners.

We really miss pet dogs back home, but at least all of these characters are good for a laugh!!!

A Cat-Like Robot from the Future

For those of you who are huge manga fans, I may not have to explain myself. If that is the case please stop reading now as this post will serve no purpose but to bore you...

For the rest of us, who believe that the purpose of a blog is to inform as well as entertain, this post will be about the cultural phenomenon of Doraemon.

Doraemon is a cat-like robot from the future, sent back by Nobita's (the show's main human character) great-great grandson. It is a cartoon that has been running since 1969 and remains hugely popular today. Probably 90% of the boxer shorts that my Kindergarten kids wear under their uniforms feature Doraemon, and he is also frequently seen on adults. Doraemon can be found everywhere, on any kind of merchandise... We have seen Doraemon themed cars and motorcycles. There is also a popular program at 7-11 here where you earn Doraemon stickers for your purchases which can be later put towards Doraemon merchandise (we are going for the flatware set). Kids go crazy if you print off a Doraemon colouring sheet for them... Doraemon has a pouch which, much like Mary Poppins' bag, contains any tool that is needed in any situation.

Also important to note. Doraemon had his ears chewed off by a mouse and subsequently developed a phobia of the entire species. Mice please take care not to alarm our blue cat-like friend. 

Other than these facts, we know very little about the mysterious Doraemon as it has never been translated into English. For more information, wikipedia is worth a look... as is Youtube. Even though you can't understand what they're saying, it is still pretty hilarious.

Kindergarten in Thailand

Now that we have been here for a while, I have been informed that I should post something about my KG classroom since it is different from back home. This is one of those cases of, when you see it every day it becomes normal so I apologize for not sending anything earlier.

This is a picture of my class at work (colouring pictures of the three bears). As you can see, no tables or chairs in the kindergarten classroom. I spend a lot of time sitting on the floor, and then a lot of time washing my clothes because they always end up covered in plasticine, dust or crayon that I have sat in!

Here is a picture of one of my students showing me his work. I hear "tea-SHA!" all day long! They love to show you everything that they do. I think this is a universal kindergarten thing though, not just in Thailand. If you look at the very bottom of the picture you may notice that I (and my students) are not wearing any shoes. Wearing shoes in the classroom is considered disrespectful so we all go barefoot. I have taken to wearing socks (like the kids) after a couple days of tracking black footprints home!

In this picture I am helping one of the little ones write his nickname in English. I am proud to say that most of them can write their names and after this week, nearly all of them can write their numbers up to 10! :)

I like this picture because it shows just how tiny some of these kids are! This is my smallest student (you may recognize baby Jesus from the Christmas play!) having to crane his neck up to talk to me! :)