Taken Hostage

    Another somewhat boring day. Starting to realized that the mornings will be rather bland in comparison for the spiciness of the afternoon. Had class with a terrible teacher today, he lost all of us by the end. It really doesn't help he speaks 99% of the time in Thai and used words we did not know that he expected us to. They were not even in the text book. He is an auditory type teacher who simply read out of the book. Compared to the other two amazing teachers we've had the ball was dropped into a pit where it was eaten by badgers. Basically, it was a stressful and confusing two hours. Not looking forward to him next week.

    After lunch we were given a lecture on Zen Buddhism, which is Buddhism without any supernatural ideas (like ghosts or reincarnation). The speaker was a former Chinese Buddhist monk for eight years. It was a very long two hours as we did not get a break. It was a very interesting lecture, I even ended up taking four full pages of notes. It opened up quite a few questions, such as why do Americans think that Buddhists believe in reincarnation when he so strongly stressed that they did not and why was the Naga, a Hindu dragon, so strongly featured on temples and Buddha statues around Chiang Mai??

    Because we had not had enough Buddhism today, four of us tried out the Monk Chat again. Today we got a monk from Cambodia who talked about Buddhism. And nothing else. For an hour. Three hours of Buddhism today. The worst part was that I did not sleep well last night so all I wanted to do was go back to my room and sleep, so my body decided to skip the first part and pass out right in front of the monk!! Who did not notice and just kept going on and on and on. I honestly have no clue what he was talking about, mainly since we had asked him about Cambodia (since we're going there) and he wanted to talk Buddhism, so that's what he did. His story was interesting, but it did not make sense. He said he had visited the  My savior was the dog from the last visit coming up and demanding I pay attention to her. She truly wins for best puppy dog eyes. Our first attempt to leave the monk failed. We tried to make it seem like we had somewhere to be, so he decided to answer our question about Cambodia. Which took another fifteen minutes. At one of his longer pauses we stood up and said we had to leave. He let us go after giving us his e-mail address in case we had anymore questions about Buddhism. We do not.

    We headed to our favorite pad thai and fried rice place, a vendor across the street from our guesthouse. Upon arriving we made one stupid mistake: we sat by the gutter. Which has rats. Which terrifies Karen, but terrify does not begin to describe it. She noticed them before anyone else did and soon was squatting in her chair because she was too afraid to put her feet on the ground. She maintained her balance by wrapping her arm around my neck (since I was sitting next to her) and holding on to me so tightly I had trouble breathing at one point. I felt like I was being taken hostage to protect her against the rats. She then alternated between grabbing my hair and holding my hand. The worst part was that the rats wouldn't go away. The little rascals kept coming back and it got so bad the people who worked at the stand finally figured out what was going on and began to splash water around to keep them away. It was one of those situations that should not be funny but even Karen was laughing at herself through the tears. But she was brave and stood her squatting ground until she had finished her meal and paid, then took off like a rocket.

    As I was getting ready for bed, the lights suddenly went out but you could hear a siren in the distance. Donna then said "It's coming to get you." This made me hop on the bed where I crouched waiting for something. What I got was the lights coming back on. I have since realized that what truly freaked me out was the siren and the lights, which is something that happens in Silent Hill, a horror video game I have been getting into recently. Whenever it switches between the 'normal' world and the world of nightmares you can hear a siren and sometimes the lights flicker. I feel justified in my bunny movement.
Lizard Count: 4

Meet the Ducklings

    Today, nothing extraordinary happened. In fact, most of us lounged around the guest house and took time to relax. After having something to do everyday, it was really nice to sit around without anywhere to be. There was a birthday in the group today so we went to a restaurant of their choice. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant called "Loco Elvis" where I tried my first mojito. The drinking age in Thailand is 18 and they don't card anyways. It's going to be my drink on my 21st  birthday. Checked out the Sunday market and bought a gorgeous ankle length skirt. Favorite purchase so far. My roommate and I were supposed to be back at nine so when we realized it was 9:05, we hightailed it back and met Drexler who was out looking for us. Then we gouged ourselves on this chocolate cake. I couldn't finish it and have some left in the fridge for breakfast :D.
    So, for some of you who have not caught on, the ducklings are the students on AT. It's because we follow Drexler around so closely it resembles a mother duck with her babies trailing after her. We call him Papa Duck (or bet, which is Thai for duck) because of this.
    Since the day was dull, I figured I'd describe the people I'm here with. I'm not using their real names, but some of you will be able to guess who they are. I really hope none of them read my blog.

• Deanna
• Deanna is a sweetheart. Her face usually wears a smile which suits her perfectly. While I am a rice girl she is into noodles, especially liking vermicelli, a type of really thin cellophane noodle. She and Karen wander around every morning and after we get back from school they coax Donna and I out to go explore with them. Although I have only seen her draw once, it was really good, which is good because she's an Art Major.
• Donna
• I'm rooming with Donna. We're both kind of shut-ins and she only leaves when someone asks her to go out. It's kind of grating for an invert like me who needs alone time but she's so funny that it's going really well. We get along great, even having fake fights and swap stories about our crazy families and friends (yes, I told her that story. You know which one). What's even better is that she likes lizards and is more than glad to chase them out of the room while I go hide in Deanna's and Karen's room. She likes to talk like the maid from Family Guy. For those of you who don't know who I'm talking about:
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIbvNsuUwuE
• Alessa
• Alessa is interesting. In the Midwestern way. At school she carried around a "bag of holding" and wears a medieval weapon around her neck. She has opinions and is not afraid to express them. All the time. Even when she's not in the conversation. Her name also sounds like mine which is annoying because my name isn't that common so hearing someone else being called by my name is incredibly frustrating. When we return she will be graduating.
• Karen
• Karen is always up for something. Whether it's going to see another temple or wandering around some poorly lit streets, she's there. If there are tons of cars coming she's dashing out into traffic while the rest of us are standing on the sidewalk. If anyone has watched Mulan she's very similar to the grandmother. She likes to be silly and will do weird things just for the heck of it. 
• A few posts back I talked about how one of us saw a rat and ran across the road after screaming her head off. This is her. Nowadays she has to hold some one's hand to walk by a trash bag. 
• Lilith
• I have really tried to like Lilith but after two weeks with her I can't. My thinking on it is she hasn't given a reason to like her. It's more like she tries to complain, storm off, be rude, and ignore the rest of us as much as she can. Her special skill is that she can walk anywhere in high heels. 
• Niko
• Niko is the only boy on the trip but he's handling it very well. Spending time in Germany has prepared him for being away from his family. He is a cat person as well so we spend time swapping cat stories (although his died in a fire last year. He choose to save his brother over his cats). He has two girlfriends at Coe, something that was very fun to try to explain to our Thai teachers. Since arriving in Chiang Mai he has been living off red bean buns and our leftovers because he doesn't want to spend money. Niko likes frogs and likes to buy items with frogs on them.

If You Give an Elephant a Banana

 Since I'm starting this pretty late and I'm not feeling real good, this post will be on the short side. For once. Hopefully. It helps that today was a pretty boring day.
    Except for going to the elephant farm today. We got to feed baby elephants mini bananas and sugar cane. You could also pose with the elephants. They would wrap their trunks around you for one photo and then put a hat on you. It was super cute. Especially when this one crazy lady (she was wearing leopard print leggings with five inch heels, far too much make up on, and a shawl. To an elephant park. Where elephants walk everywhere and go to the bathroom everywhere. Not the smartest outfit) who tried to feed an elephant a single banana. What happened was that the elephant realized that the rest of the bananas and sugar were just as close so he(?) went in for the buffet. She tried to hold on to her goods but the elephant won, much to her anger.
    Then I went up to pose with an elephant who acted like a curious dog. Basically, it smelled my butt, much to the amusement of everyone on AT. He(?) then placed a hat on my head so I tipped him 20 baat. You tip everyone in Thailand except waitresses.
    After that lovely encounter we claimed seats for the elephant show. The elephants showed off their musical skills with harmonicas, their painting skills, and their logging skills, then played soccer, basketball and darts. As we were leaving the arena the elephants came up to the edge (looking for tips) and one flung some snot at me. Not the souvenir I wanted to bring home. The most interesting thing I noticed about the elephants was their eyes. They're about the size of our eyes which makes them really tiny compared to their big heads.
    The oddest on this trio so far was that the bathrooms there were the best ones we have seen so far. There was toilet paper in every stall, along with the complementary butt hose, and soap at every sink. Plus paper towels to dry your hands. You would not believe how hard it is to find all these things.
    The rest of the day was somewhat boring. The ducklings took their first songthaew ride by ourselves to the mall to get some groceries. Because that's where they supermarket is, in the basement of the mall. All sugar here is super expensive which isn't good because I'm having major chocolate cravings. After grabbing some snacks for the room (I'm going to start investing in fresh fruit from the markets to nibble on instead of Oreos) we decided to go to Dairy Queen. The menu here is different from back home, starting with the green tea and red bean blizzard. Blizzards come in waffle cones here and they put sprinkles on the dipped cones. They also turn the blizzards upside down before giving them to you. Explored some more of the mall, decided that I will only venture there for food from now on. The clothes don't fit and the salespeople followed me around like I was going to shoplift. Not a great atmosphere to make purchases. 

I'm going to sleep now. Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. Morning everyone!!

^Some elephant paintings. They really like orange flowers^

Lizard count: 4

"May I have a pumpkin and orange shake??"

    I took a huge step today. It was about time too. Been putting it off for far too long. I finally attempted to do my laundry, which is still going on as I write this. At 10 PM. You can send clothes to the guesthouse, for a steep fee, which are washed, dried, and returned to you "in the afternoon". It's good if you need a couple items washed but you're short on time but not to be used for more than a few items. 

   

    Four hours of Thai lessons today with two teachers. My brain still hurts. It was from 9-11 and 1-3. We learned how to order Thai food: different types of noodles, meats, drinks. Everyone else in the class decided to order normal food that they would eat while I got creative with (these are the ways I remember how to pronounce these words, not the way the book says to) some-tom yaang when I was asked to order food, which translates to barbecued papaya salad, and  naam som fuktongue pan when I had to order a drink, which is an orange and pumpkin shake. My teachers were rather surprised at my food choices. 

   

    During break all of us set out to find the mythical  campus store. All the students at Chiang Mai University (CMU) have these cute little elephant pins and button covers so of course we American students wanted to show off our CMU spirit. Not really. It's a pretty nice accessory for our pretty bland uniforms. The adventure started by going off with two other ducklings on a campus wide search.After almost an hour and a half of walking around searching for it (the campus is ginormous!!) we located the grail. Got a dangling pin which attaches at the collar and a little chain hangs down. It's a bit more glamorous than the normal elephant pin. I still have no idea on how to get the button covers on. 

    

    Upon returning to the guest house, I noticed my laundry was not in the pick up spot. The manager of the guesthouse told me it would be done around seven so I decided to do the rest of my laundry. While wandering, two ducklings had found a do it yourself place. All you needed was detergent. But soft clothes are fantastic so fabric softener was bought as well. Along with some cookies. Then the machine I used took all my clothes and left some room but you couldn't control it. We pushed buttons but nothing changed. Which was probably a good thing since everything was written in Thai. The only issue with this place was that it didn't have a dryer so I hauled my wet clothes back to my room. The bathroom is strewn with drying clothes.The machines wouldn't lock either so one person was always with the machines to make sure our clothes weren't stolen.

    Went to dinner, came back expecting clean clothes since it was almost eight. Nothing. Now I'm freaking a little bit that the guest house stole my clothes. Or destroyed them. Went out again to get ice cream and give it a bit more time. While at the parlor I watched this show which I describe as Asian Supernatural but with one guy and a sword. Couldn't understand what they were saying since it wasn't about ordering food. 

    

    Finally got my clean clothes from the guesthouse. After nine. In the future I will definitely be going to someone who will do it for 30 baat and get it done by when they say it will be done. When I got back to my room I went to put away my clean clothes when suddenly:

 A COCKROACH, WHICH WAS STILL ALIVE!! 

    The little blob to the left of my shoe with the antennae, below the boomerang. That's it. It's not even the biggest one I've seen here. I'm ready to come home now. 

Again, sorry for the long paragraph post. Hopefully the extra spaces between the paragraphs help. Tomorrow is the elephant farm and if I can get my butt out of bed early enough I plan on getting a camera so pictures hopefully!!

Lizard Count: 4

Hotel for Lizards

     Today was not a very good day. It started out good with a plate of hash browns you could use as a frisbee and then I tried a whole bunch of fruit. Including rose apples, dragon fruit and watermelon. But then four little ducklings ventured out to the mall.
    Normally, the mall is a safe haven for girls. It's their jungle. They know how to navigate it, which stores to stop at, where the cleanest restrooms are. To give the best example, there were selling tents on one level. And a place to get some kind of plastic surgery done. Not at all the type of terrain I'm using to. Especially when the locals treated us in one of two ways.

1. Passively: We were a dangerous, somewhat unique and rarely seen specimen to be observed from a distance. Direct confrontation should been avoided at all costs. This was the case in every shop we visited. 
2. Aggressive: We were still dangerous but some salespeople took it upon themselves to corral us. It was very noticeable when we were the only ones being followed around. The worst case of this was when one of the ducklings was going to try on some clothes and a sales lady told her she couldn't because she "was too big". 

    We left the mall after that, I highly doubt we will venture there again. While there, we decided to have some Indian food for lunch. While one duckling decided to splurge, the others settled for 'chicken' samosas. I doubt the presence of chicken in them. They were really filling so two of us decided to wrap our leftovers up in napkins and carry them home. On the way home one duckling was almost hit by a pick up backing up while she was behind it then had another
    After resting for a few hours some of us gathered to go on a (pork) bun run. There's this awesome place a five minute walk from the guesthouse that has fresh, yummy buns. Tonight I discovered a love of red pork buns and milk tea (it's super sweet, almost sickly, so of course I love it). The second best part of the day was when the waitress misunderstood us and brought out three buns instead of one. Triple the yum factor.
    On the way back from the restaurant was the best part of the day. One duckling is scared of 'mice' (they're rats but "there's no such thing as rats"). I'm not entirely sure what happened, but it was one of those moments when you wish there was such a thing as instant cameras. All of a sudden she started screaming and running back the way we had just come. I didn't know why she was screaming but because she was and all of a sudden was running into me so I started screaming as which caused more rats to start running around. We could not stop laughing at her reaction because when she slowed down she was across the street and refused to come back.
    The second scare was me almost stepping on the biggest wild cockroach I've ever seen!! Thankfully I didn't scream because the last thing I needed was it to start running around. The third scare was when a lizard darted out and we thought it was another 'mouse'. It wasn't, so she calmed down but I took off running. Hate those lizards.
    When I got back to my room, guess what was waiting for me?? No, it wasn't a beautiful bouquet, it was another LIZARD!! My roommate suggested we start a lizard motel and put it right above my bed. I said no because they wouldn't pay.
    As I've been writing this I've been listening to music and breaking out in random dancing. My roommate, being fed up with my antics, has rolled over in an attempt to ignore me. It's working.
   Lizard Count: 4
 <-- Dragon Fruit

                ^Rose Apples^
Sorry for the long paragraph post. Did not seem that long when I was writing it. Hope you enjoyed it!!

Dogs With Eyebrows

    One day soon I will have a completely boring day and the post will be about 100 words. Until then, enjoy the details. The title today comes from the multiple dogs I've seen with eyebrows drawn on them. It's sad but really funny to see a dog with eyebrows and it doesn't seem to irritate them. I will try to get a picture of one up eventually. 

• Second day of class
• Technically the first day since we had a real lesson today, not just intimidating sounds and awkward tongue positions
• Learned how to say where we're from (down to the street we live on), and how to introduce ourselves 
• The teacher found our first names hard to remember (I was either Lessi or Nick, the name of the short blond haired pretty boy) and our last names impossible to pronounce (she had to write out Gustafson) 
• Teaching Drexler a Card Game
• We have started playing this card game called Fluxx and it's difficult to explain since the rules and the goal of the game are constantly in flux (it's a pun!!). The whole time he cracked jokes about knowing what was going on and kept an eye out for our ride to get him out of playing.
• Going to the Game Shop
• Nick and Other Alexis decided they want to rent Dungeons and Dragons while we're here from  a Thai game shop so the songthaew dropped off most of the group a distance from the school and left them to find their own way back. 
• Almost two hours later they came back with no D&D but with the whereabouts of a bun shop that has unique flavors like green tea and grape (buns as in pork buns). 
• Massage
• Thai massages are quite different than American massages in that they mix in some chiropractoring with the elbows and the butt massage. 
• It was very enjoyable and only about 8 dollars for an hour.
• Okay, it was a little awkward having someone sitting between your legs for a long time just wringing the stress out of your legs, but I'm just glad I didn't have the guy doing rubbing there. 
• Ahhhhhhh. :D
• Trying to find food
• Our little group (there was only four of us at this time) wandered around trying to find some food. We were so elated when we found a place with burritos and burgers but everything cost more than the massage so we turned tail and headed for the market (where food is supremely less expensive).
• The best fried rice ever!!
• Funny story
• We found a vendor that served both noodles (so sick of noodles) and fried rice. All of us ordered (three Pad Thais and one fried rice) and then the Pad Thai came out really fast. Including mine. The bus girl messed up. Next she brought me shrimp fried rice (for those of you who don't know, me no liky fish). Finally one of the chefs brought me some tasty rice. 
• Not only was it delicious, it was plated like in a fancy-pants restaurant. The coolest part was this egg that was draped on top of the rice. It was a mix of sunny side up and over easy but oh so yummy. The whole plate was demolished in a couple minutes. 
• This was a big meal because it was the first one I ordered completely in Thai without Drexler there to hold my hand.
•  Khaw pat kai (pronounced cow pat guy, which is fried rice with chicken). 

Fish Balls, Monks, and Oreos, oh my!!

    I don't want to subject you all to another post of big paragraphs, so here's some highlights from today. Kinda went into more detail than I originally planned but oh well. I will seriously try to condense my posts in the future so everyone will want to read this instead of looking at it and going "Too many words, not worth my time."

• Ate some milky ice
• It's shaved ice with a milky taste to it. Mine had Oreos (possibly going to become my favorite sugar source while here) and these weird jello things called pipo. It was delicious and I while definitely get it again. 
• Explored the campus
• There's a lake!! And we found a turtle who couldn't be bothered with us so it stuck it's tail out and went back to sleep.
• First day of class
• Today we learned how to pronounce the 22 consonants and 9 vowels in spoken Thai along with some grammar. Quick tip: they use a different word order and omit words that we use. Like we say "red shirt" or "you are smart" while Thai speakers say "shirt red" and "you smart". That was the only training we get before we are sent into the field. One two hour session before  90% of the class is Thai. 
• Devoured a whole thing of Oreos 
• Sometimes you just need to shove as many cookies as you can as fast as you can into your mouth. This is a bad idea and I don't recommend it. 
• No, this is not an American size pack of Oreos, it's Thai sized. It's only one row. 
• Finally got some mango and sticky rice
• Favorite Thai food. Can't wait to learn how to make this at cooking school. Yummy. 
• Talked to a monk
• One of the nearby temples encourages visitors to talk English with the monks for a while. My monk did not like talking about Buddhism or being a monk but liked talking about horror movies (he likes ghost ones) and his studies (he studies English). He then got monknapped by some Dutch people but I have added him on Facebook. 
• They really do wander around wrapped up in bright orange cloth. It' weird to see them on the street because all of a sudden ORANGE PERSON.
• There was also a dog there who loved getting her head rubbed and stayed by me for a good ten minutes. She looked so sad I couldn't stop!!
• Visited another temple
• The interesting thing about this temple is it's made of wood.
• Temple count: 6
• Tried a fish ball
• "It's a bunch of fish flesh rolled up into a ball. It's kind of like those bubbles in bubble tea and it doesn't even tast like fish." 
• Surprise announcement
• I'm being sent home for rotten behavior!!
• Just kidding, but that's what Drexler said when he said he had a surprise announcement for everyone.
• Instead:
• ASIA TERM 2013 IS GOING TO BURMA!! 
• This is a first for AT and it's due to poor communication which lead to poor scheduling.  

Another College Tour

       Today the ducklings went on a tour of Chiang Mai University. It started out with an introduction to the people we will be working with during our stay. We also got our class schedules which has our mid-terms in three weeks and our finals in seven. We undergo six hours of Thai language a week along with cultural studies such as local history and field trips!! To more temples!! Yay.
     Next we had a tour of the university. The students are allowed to ride their bikes/mopeds around in order to make it to class on time. The campus is that big. There's also a stream running through part of it, a shrine, and another religious place. In addition to the dozen or so academic buildings, three cafeterias, and dorms. Freshmen are the ones who occupy the dorms on campus. Three to a cramped room with no meal plan or TV. We have it good at Coe.
     Then came the uniforms. Girls have a choice of a short sleeve button down shirt in either lavender or white with a skirt. The skirt can be pencil or flowy, black or purple.  I own two lavender shirts and two black pencil skirts. They are very basic so I'm considering getting some fancy buttons from the store for the shirts. Boys wear white long sleeved shirts with black pants. However, from my observations on campus today, people do not stink to the uniform and even wear street clothes to class. It depends on the teacher, according to the guide. We can also buy a little elephant pin, which is the university's mascot, for 25 baat (almost one dollar).
     The guides showed us the main cafeteria which has multiple restaurants in it. Most everyone got spicy curry (on accident) while I sort of lucked out with some bland rice and chicken. The chicken was delicious but the most flavorful item on my plate was the cucumber.
     After the tour we couldn't find Papa Duck and wandered all over looking for him. After 10 minutes of this we noticed him sitting in an area we had passed at least three times. When asked why he wasn't there when we needed him he responded "I went upstairs to take a dump and when I came down you act like it's the end of the world because I'm not there." Some of us were not amused.
     Classes start at one tomorrow with our first Thai lesson. And we get to wear our uniforms so here's to another day of putting off laundry!!
   

The Road So Far...

So many cats and dogs roaming the streets
4 Buddhist temples
4 days of waking up before 6:30
3 flights that, with layovers, lasted 24 hours
3 meals that had it out for my taste buds
3 songthaew trips
2 missed dinners due to jet lag
2 lizards in my room in one day
2 Hunger Games books down
1 boat ride in and around the city
1 gay CIA agent's Thai house
1 tiny zoo with 1 really fat and lazy bear
1 temple where you can climb up towards the top and it's decorated with broken pottery pieces
1 Sunday night market where you can buy anything that can be hand made
1 songthaew trip up a mountain while sitting by the door
1 stinky overnight train ride
1 key per room

 and 1 very cuddly snake

   this is a songthaew