The city of tuktuks and Buddha day

Bangkok was a one of a kind experience. We spent most of our time there (2 days) trying to buy train tickets to Ko Lanta. And towards the end of our two days, avoiding all tuktuks and supposed TAT travel agents.

We stayed at New Siam II- a clean, cheap hotel with a decent room and a swimming pool (we didn’t use). It was about a 5min walk from Ko San road – a tourist trap with trinkets and overpriced food.

Finding train tickets to Southern Thailand proved to be relatively difficult, due to tuktuk drivers who refused to take us to the train station, fake TAT travel agents who lied and said all the tickets were sold out, and to everyone else we asked who said it was “Buddha’s day” and the train station was closed. Several hundred bhat later and a lot of frustrated sighs, we found our way to the train station via metered cab and found an honest travel agent that planned the rest of our transportation for us.

With tickets in hand we went back to our hotel, treated ourselves to a meal of fried rice in a pineapple, and prepared ourselves for some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

*We also visited Wat Pho while we were in Bangkok – massively ornate and beautiful.

Vann in a Tuktuk!

Stupas at Wat Pho

Oven free baking...It can't be!

Or can it! I'm here to personally testify to the delicious taste of baked goods conceived in a rice cooker. So far Naomi has made banana bread and lemon cake, but I have a feeling lasagne and turkey with stuffing is just around the corner. Me? Oh, no I'm just barely making rice. Take that oven!

Winter Camping

Naomi's post covers the details of English camp. I mainly played sports and games with the kids and I think there was a lesson about math or bones or something thrown in there. Oh, and I remember them chasing me with snowballs. Was that a lesson? It might have been.

I was impressed with their jumproping and ability to give a weather forecast but, I don't know, I guess I was just expecting too much from their badminton ability. One black note on the camp was that due to the snowy conditions throughout, there wasn't an opportunity for a soccer game. It did allow for ample snowball fighting though. Teacher vs. class isn't as one sided as you might think. Not with teachers like this. I can only hope summer camp is as much fun.

Final Note*You might not guess it but the kid in red was easily the best jumproper of all 60 kids.

EIC Camp

What’s so great about EIC camp? Oh, how I’ll count the ways… But first, a little background info on the camps. All English teachers in Gwangju are required to work two weeks of English camp during the first week of winter vacation at elementary schools. We chose to work at Yongdu elementary school – close to our apartment – about a 20 min walk. The hours were really great; 9am-12pm with plenty of breaks every 45min.

There were a number of subjects to choose from that we were allowed to teach, as long as it was taught in English. I chose cooking and art. I had a total of five lesson plans:
1. Mickey Mouse pancakes
2. Bookmaking
3. Paper folding costumes from around the world (It’s a little long, but I don’t know what else to call it)
4. Sandwich making w/cookie cutters
5. Recycles collages

Mickey Mouse pancake was the first class I taught, I had to start off with something really fun, and who doesn’t love food…I know I do! If I’ve learned anything from teaching, it’s that food is one of the best ways to bribe students and make them behave. That being said, the students loved this class. It was one of my favorites too! I think one group burned every single pancake but still ate them and took the leftovers home. Note: never underestimate how much elementary school kids can eat, they may be small but they ate enough pancakes for a small army.

After the pancake lesson, everything else was a breeze. Our co-teachers were really great, and so were the students. The students came to class every day and participated in all of the activities. We had little to no discipline problems and I truly looked forward to going to school every day. The closing ceremony was really sweet, a few students spoke/read a short talk on what they liked about the camp and we all watched a slide show of the two week camp. My EIC experience was awesome and gave me a fresh perspective of what English class should be - all English AND all fun (whatever, I know its corny).

*on our last day we had a "market day" and some of students bought goofy hats with their fake money, that's why some of them are wearing fuzzy, blue, fargo hats.