Bangkok - Orientation Week

So most of you already know I have safely made it to Thailand!!!

The last few days before I left went by extremely fast and were filled with so many different emotions!!!! Between packing up the rest of my belongings, saying goodbye to all of my friends, packing for Thailand, and then having to say bye to my parents at the airport.... All in all, everything worked out great and I am here ready to experience possibly the best year of my life!!!

my Dad and I before I left Orlando

I was so lucky to travel with Ashley (fellow Floridian, new friend, roommate, co-teacher, and support system). We met through the CIEE Facebook page and started to get to know each other because we were placed at the same school in Saraburi.... Turns out she is from Sebastian, FL and booked the same flight as me out of Orlando....or so we thought. The first leg of the trip was out of Orlando Airport at 6pm on Thursday and got into LA around 8:30.. While on that flight we realized that we were actually on different flights for the next leg...my flight leaving at midnight and hers leaving at 115am....

Ashley and I

LA to Hong Kong was a longgggg 15 hour flight but luckily I slept through some of it, with the help of some red wine! Unfortunately I was trapped in the window seat and wasn't able to get up and walk around for the first 8 1/2 hours.....talk about going crazy!!! 

I arrived in Hong Kong around 545am on Saturday and navigated myself through security and on to my next gate. As I was walking toward my gate I noticed the few people that were already at my gate all standing by the window taking pictures.... I walked up just as the sun was rising from behind the mountains!!! It was so beautiful and a great first impression of Hong Kong! 

Sunrise in Hong Kong

Ashley arrived in HK about an hour later and then shortly after we boarded our last leg of the flight..... Only about 3 hours between us and our final destination!!! 

Getting on the plane we saw 6 other farangs (foreigners)....turns out they were going to Thailand through CIEE also!!! 

Once we got to BKK airport we exchanged our money (current rate: $1 = about 29 baht), and then headed toward immigration and baggage claim... Baggage claim is the only portion of flying that truly stresses me out....I always know that my bags will be the only ones that don't make it to my final destination. Between the 8 of us girls we probably had 14-16 pieces of checked luggage, and luckily when we walked up to the baggage claim all of the bags were right there waiting for us!!! Off we went to find the CIEE/OEG staff members that were coming to pick us up! 

After a crazy 30 minute drive we SAFELY made it to the hotel we would be staying at for the week of orientation. Once I checked in I found out that my roommate for the week had already checked in and gotten the key (yes, they only have 1 key per room)...

The rooms are very nice...completely westernized which is nice because it gives you that at home feeling, but definitely not what it'll be like when I get to my new home. I guess it's good as a transition to a completely new country and culture! 

The first couple of days here have been a complete whirlwind...in a good way of course! The days feel extremely long as we are getting up really early for our trainings and staying up late enjoying the city of Bangkok and the new friends we are making! 

Local Thai Bar

There are 218 participants this semester that are here in Bangkok through CIEE/OEG... we are split between 2 different hotels for orientation and then we are split down into 3 different groups for our training sessions. We have had sessions on Teaching Techniques and Expectations in the schools....and we have also been doing Thai Language... this is my favorite part of our trainings because I really never thought I would be able to speak the language and after only 2 language sessions I am feeling pretty comfortable with it. Don't get me wrong, I am NO WHERE CLOSE to being able to speak the language, but I am learning important phrases and words which are already helping me while exploring the city! Thai people are super sweet and understanding and they know that their language is hard for us farangs to learn.. They honestly just appreciate that we try and use the language even if we say the wrong thing because we perhaps used the wrong tone when speaking. They smile a lot and giggle at us while we are trying to speak because they are not only excited but they may be a little uncomfortable as well...maybe they don't speak English so it is an unknown for them also. 

Welcome to Orientation - Day 1

I have decided that I am not going to hold back with the language... I know that there will be times that I get giggled at because I mispronounce a word, but am completely okay with that because it will only help me get better and more comfortable with speaking to Thais. 

Thai Language Homework

The food has been awesome so far...We get an awesome breakfast and lunch buffet at the hotel and then get to go explore for dinner! The first night I ate at a restaurant that had great food and the menu had pictures which made it easy to just point at the dish you wanted to have.

Another evening we went to this restaurant called Hot Pots. We chose this because there were pictures on the windows with English dish names so we figured it would be a safe choice. Lets just say we were Completely wrong... Turns out it is a buffet of raw meat and vegetables and then you bring them back to your table and boil the items...Kind of reminding me of a Melting Pot type restaurant, but in Thailand....with lots of meats that looked unfamiliar and we really weren't sure about the whole thing. The people in the restaurant could clearly tell that we had absolutely NO IDEA what to do because we sat at our table for 10 minutes waiting on someone to bring us menus! Oops! Finally, after a lot of giggling from the employees, they brought over two full trays of different meats and veggies for us to cook (mind you, they speak no English...and we speak No Thai). It was super sweet of them but still took sometime to figure out exactly how everything worked. Sounds pretty simple but it was only our 2nd night in Thailand. The evening was full of tears from laughing so hard...we even had a table across the restaurant standing up to watch us because we looked so clueless! 

I feel like I've been rambling on throughout this whole post because I have so much I want to tell...and I'm obviously not the shortest story teller!

Most importantly I'm learning so much and am super anxious to get to my school! We get picked up by our coordinators on Friday and they take us home!! :) Can't wait! 

I will post more soon and try and keep the post more specific and less blabbing!! :) 

Sending lots of LOVE from Thailand! 

-LD