I have made it safely to Bangkok and have spent my first full day here exploring! I'll start with the airplane ride- super long and apparently Tokyo (my 2nd layover) doesn't sell any American candy. I didn't really sleep much because I was too preoccupied with all of the food and my personal tv. When we finally arrived in Bangkok it was almost midnight and we had a driver waiting for us. We walked outside to get to our van and we were hit with the Bangkok heat, 90 and humid! It was definitely a shock from the freezing cold airplane!
Once at our hotel (which is as beautiful as the website show) we were greeted by one of our program leaders, checked in and then went immediately to bed (at this point it was almost 2 am). We had to be up by 6 the next morning for breakfast and our full day of exploring! Our first few stops were to temples where the kings and royal family stay when in town. The design and colors of the buildings were amazing! In order to get onto the premise, girls had to have their knees and shoulders covered. Of course- since it was 90 degrees outside, I did not have on the proper attire, so I had to rent a skirt to wear. You will see in the pictures! ( I am having a tad bit of trouble getting the pictures to open on my computer right now- I am using my mom's Nikon and my computer is having me download a program which still has an hour left before complete since the internet is kind of spotty here, but I promise to add pictures as soon as I can get them to show up!) At the temples that we were allowed to go inside, we had to take off our shoes before entering. One of my favorite ones had a HUGE bronze statue of the Buddha that was built over 600 years ago. The native people would go there and kneel in front of the statue to pray. We participated in some of their ceremonial ways- getting blessed by a Monk and reading our fortunes.
Some of the other temples we went to were old ruins, ones that were built hundreds of years ago and have deteriorated over time. It was so neat to see all of the intricate detailing that went into the stone carvings and brick laying. All of the gold that had been there at some point, was melted down and stolen, so the ruins were just huge brick monuments. It was a scorcher yesterday, so we were all soaking wet from sweat after about 10 minutes in the sun. Our tour guide was a native who was so knowledgeable- we got really lucky with him, he taught us a lot! He recommended a restaurant we stop at for lunch, true local Thai cuisine. We ordered food for the table to share- IT WAS AMAZING! I ate a lot of Thai food when I was in in Australia, but this was authentic Thai and so much better! After lunch we went to some more temples, (when I have pictures up I will be able to give more detail on each) and then walked around their open air markets.
The next part was my favorite!!! I got to ride an elephant for about a half hour! The neatest part to me was that when we were crossing the street, the people on the road in cars and riding bikes/scooters- didn't even bat an eye! I was like- HELLO PEOPLE! IM ON AN ELEPHANT!!! So fun! I have some awesome pictures to show yall soon. After Elephant riding we tried to make it to China town for dinner, but China town is closed on Mondays because they shut down the streets to clean them every Monday night. It smelled horrible! We ended up just coming back to the hotel where I had dinner with the two other girls on the trip. (I hate to admit it, but I ordered a cheeseburger! Aunt Amy will laugh at that one).
Once I hit the bed I tried writing in my blog, but it got deleted so I just fell asleep. I had been going on 48 hours with no sleep so I was out..... until now! When I started writing this blog it was 4 am ! Apparently I am not all that tired- or my body won't let me sleep! In about an hour when we get up I will go to breakfast (which has the BEST fruit) and then head to our first day of the workshop at a local university. I am extremely excited to learn about inquiry learning and technology! I am hoping that they will have better internet there so that I can download the pictures fully and upload them for yall to see. I will also put them on facebook since it is easier to upload in bulk on there. So Check back soon!
LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL!
No comments:
Post a Comment