I hate goodbyes.

That dreadful day came and finally went - back in August, where the LanguageCorps Thailand group had to say goodbye to each other. If you know me at all - you know how hard goodbyes are for me.

Yes, I cried.

It's really crazy how well you can get to know an entire new group of people in a month. Granted, we were all taken out of our comfort zones and thrown into a completely new environment, but we found comfort in each other. We found a family in each other.

I will never forget the amazing people that I met through LanguageCorps. I hope with all of my heart that I will be able to see them all again one day.

On the last day of the program, all eight of us planned to head out for different cities across Thailand. I had long decided to stay in Pattaya, because of a job offer at an International School that came early. However, you may have guessed from my previous posts that I was beginning to feel a bit uneasy with this decision to stay in Pattaya...

With a month to spare before I had to start working for my school in Pattaya, I headed to Taiwan to visit some new friends that i met in Cambodia.

And thus begins my real story, the story I'm currently living.

Tales from Thailand: Part 3 (Work hard Pattaya harder)

Yes, I know it has been way too long since I last posted here. However, I do plan to continue my story where I left off... Pattaya, Thailand.

Now, all of my previous posts may lead you to believe that the TESOL course was all work and no play... However, it was quite the contrary. Pattaya is very much a playground for mischievous activity.

Exhibit A:
Walking Street... Perhaps what Pattaya is known for, or rather I guess I should say, "infamous" for. This street is filled with many westernized bars, pubs, clubs, and "ping pong shows". All fully-equipped with beautiful females of questionable legal age and dirty old men.

For more information - use google.

Despite Pattaya's colorful inhabitants my group still managed to have a wonderful time together. After all, Thailand is home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, so we all took full advantage of that (obviously).

The group took a weekend trip to a small resort island off the coast of Pattaya, called Koh Larn. It was nothing at all like Koh Rong in Cambodia - PRAISE HIM for that! The island was extremely beautiful and full of tourists, mostly Russians on holiday. We stayed at a really nice villa right on the ocean front where we enjoyed the nice weather, gorgeous scenery, and of course (per usual) free drinks!

Although there is a very dark and dirty side to Pattaya, much better suited for the lonely middle-aged man, the city is definitely not without it's charm. I met several wonderful people there and ate at several nice restaurants - sampling an assortment of delicious Thai food.

Needless to say - Pattaya was fun, but an easy place to find yourself indulging in the seven deadly sins a bit too often.

Tales from Thailand: Part 2 (My Little Monkeys)

Hands down my favorite part of the time that I spent in Thailand was teaching my three year olds at Baanklod. I had three different classes of almost 30 students in each class.

These are just a handful of some of my students. Aren't they precious??

We didn't really have a curriculum to teach. We were simply just given a subject area to work with. My subjects for the two weeks were ABC's and animals... Very vague... I'm fully aware. Nonetheless, I had a lot of fun coming up with the material to teach my kids.

When I went into the classroom on day 1 they had no English other than "Hello!" When I left... Here's what they could do...

Old McDonald

ABC Song

Five Little Monkeys

These videos can also be found on my Facebook if the links are not working!!

My little kids made me so proud every day. The way that they were all so genuinely excited to see me absolutely made my day. The very little time that I got to spend with these kids solidified the reason that I came to Asia to do what I am doing in the first place... It is 110% FTK (for the kids).

I wish that I could have had more time to spend with them...

This class thought I was famous after I sang the song "My Heart Will Go On" for them...

My three year olds...

More of my three year old class.. There was so many of them!

My four year olds...

Causing somewhat of a distraction for the boys in Maxie's class...

However, if you can gain any indication by the pictures posted above, the school that I volunteered at does not have the means to hire full-time foreign English teachers. Thus, this poses a detriment to the students actually obtaining any kind of conversational English with volunteer teachers constantly in and out every few weeks. Nonetheless, the attitudes of all the students are so positive that it completely makes up for it.

My two weeks of teaching in the classroom came to an end in Thailand, as it was all a part of otaining the TESOL certification. We were subsequently observed, evaluated, and given advice to implement in our teaching practice for our future endeavors.

On my last day at Baanklod, the school had a sendoff for Don, Brian, and myself, thanking us for the time that we had spent there (or so I'm guessing.. it was all done in Thai). Then they gave us goodie baskets and took our pictures. The whole process was very sweet!

I will forever be grateful for the opportunity that I had to teach at Baanklod in Pattaya, Thailand. If I am ever back in the area I fully intend to go there and visit the school that taught me so much. After all, it was my very first time teaching in a classroom full of students who didn't speak any English.

Tales from Thailand: Part 1 (Border hopping)

"All good things must come to an end..."

Sunday morning in Sihanoukville came and we all knew the inevitable was coming.. We must go our separate ways...

Florencia, Vicki, Steve, Don, Brian, "Iowa" Alex, Sam, and I to Thailand

Aly, David, Matt, "Smiling" Sam, Nick, and "Boston" Alex to Vietnam

And...

Rachel, Xorge, "Philly" Alex, Annie, Fred, Cam, and Joel back to Cambodia

Florencia and I cried.. Alot.

I knew that I would really miss everyone that I met through the program in Cambodia. It was such a surreal experience and I would love to do it again. It is very rare that you get such a large group of people together that get long so well, but we really were like a family.

I still miss everyone.

Once we left, we headed for the border in Thailand, which we walked across.. So awesome.

The first picture that I took in Thailand, while eating at a restaurant just across the border.

We didn't arrive at LC Asia Thailand in Pattaya until about 8:30 at night (another 10+ hour bus ride) where we went directly to our first class to receive our schedules and teaching assignments.

And meet our awesome instructors... Amie and Jam!

The LC Asia Thailand had much more of an apartment style feel compared to the Marady in Cambodia. This is where the boys stayed and where we took our Thai classes. There was a small downstairs lobby attached to a bar (of course) and a floor with desktop computers and a small classroom.

The girls stayed just down the road at a nicer apartment complex, called Greenvale. Greenvale was actually just recently built and we were some of its first customers. They are still working on building a spa on to the first floor.

My room was really nice (and heavily air-conditioned).

The location of our aprartments was really conveinant. There were several restaurants on our street, and a grocery store just up the block. We all worked at different schools, excpet for Brian, Don, and myself. We all worked at Baanklod every morning.

The school arranged a baht bus to pick us up really early and take us to our respective schools, where we stayed to teach until lunch time.

After lunch, we would take our Thai classes with Amie and lesson plan the rest of the afternoon. We all had our evenings off - free from work and class, so we often ventured to ...

Walking Street, which deserves a post all on its own.

Tales from Cambodia - Outtakes

Here is where I will briefly mention stories that I want to remember but they didn't quite make the main blog posts or they are the stories better left untold... But if you are extremely curious about something.. Just ask! I may tell you...

Pimp my tuk tuk
Smit's teddy bear present?
Pontoon
Heart of Darkness
Long Island competition
Happy Pizza
Beyonce and threading
Xorge's noodle stand
Xorge singing I can be your hero
The boat cruise
Cooking at LC
Khmer coffee
Orange paint
Bracelets, bracelets, bracelets
The famous fighter
"Buddy"
Star stomping
The wedding invitation
"Try this on for size"
Steve and his "guest"
Jackpot
The Blue Pumpkin
Korean prison
Don and the window
Annie's hospital visits
Bonding on the first night
Haggling at the night markets
Fish massage
"Lady, lady, lady"
Angry birds

Tales from Cambodia: Part 3 (My life is actually a bad lifetime movie...)

Many of you may have already heard the story about how I had to be rescued off a deserted island.. But, in the off chance you have not.. It goes a little something like this...

We arrived in Sihanoukville around lunch time and went to dinner just up the street from the hotel we were staying at where Indy proposed that on Saturday those interested should take a boat to a private island about an hour off the coast.

Now - call me crazy but when someone says "private island" I imagine something along these lines...

This was clearly mistake numero uno. Along with myself and the instructor Indy, the group for this little excursion gone "Rong" was Matt, "Smiling" Sam, Rachel, David, "Philly" Alex, and "Boston" Alex.

We were all in great spirits upon boarding the little boat that would take us out to the island - singing, dancing, carrying on, and what have you. The boat driver pulled right up to the beach and let us off on what seemed to be a fairly small island and communicated with our instructor that he was going fishing and would be back in a few hours to get us. The beach area was quite pretty - white sand, turquoise water... We should have stayed there and had a relaxing afternoon...

But of course.. Nothing can ever be that simple.

Just down the beach, Indy spotted a temple and went to go check it out. Of course, him being our fearless "leader" we decided to all follow him. The temple came and went - but we decided to continue to circumnavigate around the island, because at first sight it didn't appear to be very large, and group consensus was that we could easily explore around the perimeter of the entire island.

Rong.. I mean wrong.

The beach quickly disappeared and we began trudging through razor sharp coral and climbing up rocks/boulders that were covered in a very strange red cast-iron material.

Right.

RED FLAG!!!

Did that stop us... Any of us? Nope. We kept going. Let's just say that in the midst of our climbing excursion when I looked down in the crevices of the boulders and saw shoes, clothes, and HYPODERMIC NEEDLES my face went from...

To...

Very, very quickly.

However, the group came to a consensus that -"to be sure" we had been climbing/walking long enough (probably an hour or so) - that there had to be more beach somewhere up ahead... So we kept going.

Then... This happened.

It monsooned on us for a good 30 mintues... Keep in mind that we are all about 25-30 feet up in the air, overlooking the ocean, and all you see when you look down is death... I mean jagged boulders and more razor-sharp coral.

We all huddled together to try and minimize how wet we were getting and how wet our belongings were getting, but it was still pretty miserable. Once the rain subsided, we continued on our journey, but this time things got worse...

The boulders became steeper and steeper and the distance between each boulder became longer and longer... But to make things even worse... Now the boulders were slippery from all the rain. Somewhere in between David getting a concussion and everyone busting their asses at some point, our instructor decided it was in all of our best interests not to carry on...

Being the only person with a cell phone and the only person who could communicte in Khmer we relied on him to contact the man who had brought us to the island.

Matt, being the natural leader and geographer that he is, was right behind Indy, while both Philly Alex and Boston Alex were bringing up the rear with me.

DISCLAIMER: most of you who care to read my blog already know about my ankle injury.. For those that don't... To make a long story short... Several years ago I was in an accident that crushed my ankle. I had to have reconstructive surgery and I was in and out of wheelchair and on crutches for quite some time. Even though I can walk perfectly fine today, sometimes after strenuous activity my ankle will swell making it difficult for me to continue walking/running/whatever...

I seriously owe my life to Alex... Both Alex and Alex. They really helped me out made sure that I was okay throughout the entire process.

In the meantime - the Khmer boat driver had found our location on the island. However, since we were all pretty high up on these extremely jagged boulders our only option in getting back to the boat was to jump - and swim.

Well...

Come to find out Indy can't swim, so Matt had to think on his toes and come up with a plan to get us all back safely to the boat. He jumped off the cliff, swimming against very rough waters to fetch us life jackets and an intertube.

Matt swam Indy from the island back to the safety of the boat.

When it was my turn I seriously saw my life flash before my eyes as I shimmed down the large boulders and into the water. I got into the intertube to swim/be pulled back to the boat, but with every little bit of progress I made, I was thrown back up against the razor sharp coral that was resting off the coast of Koh Rong. After what seemed like an enternity we were all safely back aboard the boat.

As we sailed away we realized that we hadn't even made it a quarter of the way around the island. We compared our battle wounds and expelled the contents of our stomachs (that were now filled with salt water) as we processed what exactly we had all - barely - just lived through.

We were halfway back to the beach in Sihanoukville before we even realized that other than our bodies being competely cut and bruised up we had also lost an iPad, a bag, 2 shirts, and 4 cameras.

But we survived. That was the most important thing. We yelled at every single boat that we passed on the way in - warning them about that island. Each of us tried to explain the story
the rest of our group and our friends/family from back home, but somehow the fear always gets lost in translation.

Personally, I feel lucky to be alive. That was by far one of the scariest experiences that I have ever lived through and I hope that I have been able to convey at least a small fraction of how scared we all were through this post.

Tales from Cambodia: Part 2 (Khmer Excursions)

While my first post may have made it sound like the TESOL course was all work and no play - that was not the case whatsoever.  There were several excursions built into the two-week program. The first excursion was a tour of Phnom Pennh, including the Royal Palace, via tuk tuks - of course!

The Royal Palace was exceptionally beautiful and definitely a must-see if traveling to Cambodia.

Our second excursion was to Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat - often referred to as one of the Wonders of the World.  It took us about 10 hours to get there by bus on extremely bumpy roads.. Needless to say it was a very long trip! However, seeing this made it all worth it...

Regardless of your religious preference or beliefs, you have to admit that Angkor Wat is absolutely breath-taking!

Our group had a tour guide throughout the duration of our temple exploration. His English was really good, but he talked mostly about the horror that was Pol Pot. I had the opportunity to visit the killing fields while I was in Phnom Penh to learn more about the history of Cambodia. I am still in shock by how such a terrible event could occur in this day and time. I had no idea to what extent the killings were happening there and I still wouldn't believe it - had I not seen and heard about Pol Pot first hand.

However, even though these massacres and pretty much the destruction of the country happened very recently, Khmer people are extremely optimistic. I said in my previous post that one of our instructors referred to them as "people who think with their hearts, not their heads". I found this to be true time and time again.

Places in Cambodia, especially the areas that we visited during our course are really starting to rebuild. I have a lot of hopes for this country as the people are extremely positive and hard-working. It will take time for them to rebuild, but they will get there.

The last excursion we took was probably the most interesting. It was just as long of a bus ride as the one to Siem Reap was, which, trust me - was very.. very.. long. This excursion was to Sihanoukville - Cambodia's beach destination.

Well to put it quite plainly... In Sihanoukville, myself and seven others had to be rescued off a deserted island.

Yes. Yes, you just read that sentence correctly.

I was rescued off a deserted island..

To be dramatically continued...