Sojourn a journey through life

My EA

Here is a photo of myself with my Educational Assistant, Vani. She has been born and raised in Singapore, however, her family is originally from Southern India. We get along great and she has taught me many things about things Singaporean and things Indian. She has worked at CIS for about five years and so is also very familiar with how things are run. Vani also has two couisins and one auntie that also work at the school.

Thanksgiving

This past Sunday, with the help of another teacher friend, I hosted a Thankgiving potluck for any and all from CIS wishing to attend a feast. There were thirty-three of us in total, and we sure had a marvelously warm, pool side feast with our new family and friends.

Prior to our guests’ arrival, decorations were layed out and created. I had bought a squash and collected leaves on a walk earlier in the day. Robyn brought some little pumpkins and dried corn. Andrea and Roger’s children helped cut out snowflakes for those of us missing colder Thanksgiving weather.

Our twenty-five pounds of turkey were ordered from Mr. Ho at the American School. This came cut up, with stuffing on the side and boat loads of gravy. Everyone signed up for a dish or two to bring. Everything was fantastic. Some of my favorites aside from the turkey were the cranberry sauce, a sweet potato/orange/walnut dish and a special death by chocolate dessert.

Even the little ones enjoyed the festivities!

Even though their decorations didn’t make the big leagues…Krista and Kim thoughtfully sent along special holiday napkins as reminders of home. These were much appreciated because I found ways they could be used

Krabi – Day Three

Well, our last full day in Krabi was definitely a goody. Carly and I signed up for a day-trip that took us to several islands around the area including the famous Phi Phi islands (one side of which was struck by the Tsunami last December) as well as a couple famous beaches. We hit up Maya beach which is where they shot DiCaprio’s film “The Beach”. Our tour operator noted that prior to the filming, this beach was not famous at all, and was a lot quieter.

At any rate, we were picked up at our hotel in the morning, and they drove us down to the beach from which we departed on a fairly large speed boat. We had 3 or so local Thai guide/driver/staff folks, and I would guess about 13 or so “tourists”. I heard a couple sitting beside us speaking in German, so I took my rusty Deutsch for a spin and the couple entertained me for a while before we both quite happily switched to English.

Our first couple of stops were some areas in which we did some snorkeling. Now, I haven’t done a lot of snorkeling in my day (once in Cuba, once in Malaysia) – but these snorkeling experiences here were by far the best. There were so many fish swimming around the boat that the only option for getting into the water was to jump in, and hope the fish got out of the way so you didn’t smash any of them. We tried to get a few pictures that could capture the sheer number of the fish, but it’s a bit hard unless you have an underwater camera.

I won’t give a mass running commentary about our day, but just try to touch on some highlights. Mostly because I can’t really remember the order in which we did things, or the names of all the places we went, so you’ll just have to look at the pictures, and maybe make up a story for yourself.

We stopped at one of the Phi Phi islands for some lunch, which was “ok”, and then proceeded to walk along with the German couple we met to the other side of the island where the Tsunami hit. Now, arriving to this side of the island was a little strange. Along our walk it was quite obvious that “Something Bad Happened” hear, mostly because of the tons of rubble and debris that still seemed to be all over the place. But when we actually got to the beach, and you just sorta look out at the palm trees and grass over towards the water, you can just feel that something “Not Good” happened hear. It was almost eerie how the life just seemed to have been sucked from everything. There weren’t many people on this side of the island, maybe a dozen or so that we saw at a few spots on the beach. There was quite a bit of building going on as I think they are still trying to restore a lot of the resorts and commercial establishments that once stood on this side of the island.

All in all, a fabulous day of beach trekking and snorkeling. We returned to Ao Nang, went home for a bit of a nap, and then met up with the German couple that we’d hung out with during the day for some dinner (any maybe a couple beers, too). Dinner was had at a beach-side Thai restaurant, just listening to the waves and enjoying the breeze.

Krabi – Day Two

Fewf. All of this typing and blog posting can be exhausting. Especially when you’re busy working, and trying to plan your trip to New Zealand at Christmas, and looking forward to the turkey dinner you’re gonna be having on the weekend. But I digress (I like that word, digress.). These first couple pictures here are a yummy fruit plate served to us for breakfast, followed by a shot that is taken just sorta outside the open reception area where our hotel is. That green roofed building was reception. This little road is the one we walked up and down between the hotel and the beach.

Day two in Krabi was awesome. A good portion of its awesome-ness stemmed from a fairly early morning wake-up, a good breakfast, and then being picked up by the Krabi Thai Cooking School folks where we were off for a half day of Thai cooking classes. I can not recommend this mini-course enough. The lady who runs it is absolutely fantastic (Ms. Ya). She’s been running the school herself (she’s quite the proprietor) for about 7 years now, she went to cooking school, and has held cooking positions in a few places around the world. She’s very kind, and fabulously entertaining. If you’re going to be in Krabi for any reason, call her up (phone number at bottom of page) or check out her web site.

At any rate, there were only four of us that day, Carly and myself, and an older couple from Wales. We had a stellar time.

Starting off, we made Red Curry Paste, Green Curry Paste and Penaeng Curry Paste from scratch. We got to cut all the vegetables and stuff ourselves. One of Ms. Ya’s favorite sayings was “Chop! Chop!”. We heard that a LOT. After making the curry pastes, we got to try them out with a bit of cucumber. Very tasty. After that, we carried on with our cooking endeavors and made Fried Rice, Pad Thai, Green Curry, Red Curry, Penaeng Curry, two types of Tom Yam soup, Coconut Chicken Soup, and last but not least, Green Papaya Salad.

Wow. This was a feast. We had an amazing type and the food was superb. Definite one of the top highlights of the trip.

Once our cooking time was finished, we headed back to the hotel, and then went for another walk down into Ao Nang to browse the shops a bit, and relax on the beach. We bumped into one of the teachers that Carly works with and chatted for a bit, picked up a couple of sarong’s from one of the local shops to use as beach towels, and read our books for a while.

A lady came along (chatting mostly) who wanted us to come to her shop for a massage. We’d already had enough Thai massage for the week, but that didn’t stop her from going back to her shop and bringing us back some really yummy fresh pineapple. We tried to pay her some money for it, but she politely refused.

For dinner we ended up walking down to Ao Nang again and had planned on meeting two of Carly’s co-worker-teachers for dinner. We ended up having Pizza. We were allowed, we’d had our Thai food allotment for the day.

After dinner we walked over to a little coffee shop for some dessert. It was 3 tiramisu’s for the ladies, while I had an espresso and some gelato. A pretty uneventful, but incredibly enjoyable day.

Krabi – Day One

So, this day actually started with a 5:45am Taxi ride to the domestic terminal at the Bangkok airport. Uneventful taxi ride, got us their quick at that time in the morning, and we sat down in the airport to have a bit of breakfast before jumping on our plane.

We flew Thai Airways from Bangkok to Krabi, and I just don’t know what to say. We had more legroom in this plane then I knew what to do with. Not that this is a very impressive statement since I have short stubby legs. But Carly happened to also have more legroom than she knew what to do with. This was something of a strange miracle, and we both kind of 1) stared at each other, then 2) looked at our knees, then 3) looked at the distance between our knees and the seats in front of us, then GOTO 1.

We got food on this flight, it was pretty yummy. Got off in Krabi and we had to go down the little stairs attached to the plane and got off on the tarmac where we jumped onto a bus. Now, you have to understand that the Airport in Krabi is small. Like really small. Um, it’s about as small as those 380 square foot apartments that they’re building on the West Side these days and charging $4 million dollars for (maybe not that small).

I think that the bus drove for about 13 seconds (maybe 100 meters, MAYBE) before it dropped us off at the door to the Arrival’s entrace. Once again Carly and I were reminded how most everyone here is deathly afraid to use their pedestrian abilities to walk from point A to point B.

At any rate, there was a friendly Thai guy there to pick us up and take us in a little van to our hotel. So far, we realize right away that Krabi is the complete and utter antithesis of Bangkok. It is quiet, quaint, relaxed, beautiful, and not densely populated. The drive from the airport to the town where we stayed (Ao Nang) took about 30 minutes, and the scenery was fabulous. Lush trees everywhere, limestone cliffs and rolling hills. Absolutely fantastic.

We arrived at our Hotel which had a really cool open-air reception area just on the side of this very small road. Just walking / driving on the road was an experience in itself. Very old-skewl small town homey feel to it. At any rate, the reception was great, a couple of super friendly Thai ladies checked us in, one brought us something yummy to drink (it was red, other than that, I have no clue), and then walked us down to our room.

We stayed at the Emerald Garden Resort, and the whole grounds here is absolutely stunning. They have two pools, trees and flowers everywhere, and well, yah. It was super.

Sad to say, this is the ONLY picture we took on our first day here (it’s a picture of our room, upon our arrival), because we were tired. Walking around Bangkok for three days made us want to do nothing but sit by the pool and read a book. So that’s what we did.

After several hours of maintaining a semi-vegetative state, we decided it was time to go get some food. Even though the hotel gave us 16 vouchers for free Tuk-Tuk rides town to the beach (where the food was), we walked. People couldn’t believe it. We walked. We walked TEN minutes down to the beach. But anyways.

We noticed right away that the little shop-owners (well, not really the shop owners, but the tailors) were a bit too pushy. Carly got a lot of “Hey lady, tall sizes, long sizes… HEY. Lady!” and I got a bunch of people with outstretched arm shaking my hand, calling me their “friend” and wanting to get my outfitted in a custom-tailored suit on the ASAP. After we passed all the tailor’s things were stellar. Very quaint little strip of restaurants and shops, ice cream and coffee places, a 7-11 (yes, a 7-11 here too) on one side of the street, and the Andaman Seaon the other side. The beach was beautiful, trees and cliffs, almost situated in a large bay. Several islands in the distance, and facing almost directly West, so it was an absolutely fabulous place to watch sunsets.

We grabbed a bite to eat at a Swiss/Italian/Thai place, and once again jumped into some “other” food that we were craving. We both had spaghetti and garlic toast.

I think that just about concludes our first day in Krabi. Very nice and relaxing compared to the busy-ness of Bangkok. Still more to come!

Bangkok – Day Three

Day three in Bangkok was probably our most “touristish”. Except for an absolutely miserable dinner experience (read on), the day was quite fabulous.

We woke up at a reasonable hour, had some breakfast, and once again got some help from the people working at the hostel. Today was our day to go around and see some of the temples, as well as the Grand Palace.

After about 5 minutes of advice, we headed out to the SkyTrain again where we rode it out to the pier at the Chao Phraya River which winds its way North-South(ish) on the Western side of the city.

There are a dozen or so piers along the river which are frequented by “express boats” that are a form of commuting and transportation for the local Thai people. For the tourists, there is a “tourist boat” that you can take up and down the river that stops at 6 or 7 (can’t remember exactly) piers, and you can happily get on and off as many times as you like throughout the day. Once the tourist boat stops running, you can continue to use the commuter boats that everyone else uses, which is also quite a good time, especially during rush hour. But I digress…

So we took the boat as far North as they went, listened to the commentary, snapped some pictures along the river (which was brown…dirty…wow…) and tried to remain as close-mouthed as possible for not wanting icky river entering any of our facial orifices.

On the way back down, we hopped out at the pier where the Grand Palace was located, and headed on in. From a distance, I have to say, there are so many colors on this place that one almost things he must be walking into a gaudy life-sized piece of plastic touristy trinket thing. But man, once you get inside, whole other ballgame. This place is ornate. It is architecturally astounding. So much detail, absolutely fabulous statues, and murals painted all along the outside walls depicting epic battles, interesting creatures, fabulous masks, and brilliant landscape. I particularly liked a lot of the statues; I’m not sure why the masks appealed to me so much, except for maybe feeling that I look a bit like them?

You could probably spend an entire day in the palace area, and look at things over and over again, but we were on a tight timeline, and pretty soon everything starts to feel a little overwhelming. We would highly recommend this as a “must-see” type stop to anyone visiting Bangkok.

After our tour of the Grand Palace, we wandered back over to the pier and grabbed a boat to Wat Pho. This was another temple that Carly and I wanted to stop at, mostly because it also happened to be the location of a Thai massage school inside the temple grounds. The grounds here were a lot less crowded that that of the Grand Palace, and it was quite relaxing to just walk around, see the monks walking around, and not feel like we were running off anywhere in a hurry. This is also the location of a massive reclining Buddha that is housed in a building not much bigger than the statue itself. The statue is quite impressive to see, 45 meters in length, it makes Carly look short. This dude’s smile is 5 meters wide. That’s a lot of smile.

Along the back-side of this Buddha are 108 little pots where, if you so desire, you can throw a coin in each for good luck and long life and all that other stuff. We figured we didn’t need any luck, and I enjoy pizza too much to live too long, so we happily skipped that part and carried on with our meandering.

The statues here at this temple were also super-cool. They were not elaborately painted like those at the Grand Palace, looking a lot more like plain grayish concrete. But what made them kind of funky is that they almost all had western/European style top-hats.

Onto the Massage school; Carly and I chalked ourselves up for a 1 hour full-body Thai massage that set us back 300 Baht each (give or take CDN$8.50). The building in which they provided the massage was quite different than one might expect in that it was very communal… Yes, communal massage. You lay down next to John Smith on your left, and Jane Bob on your right, as your masseuse happily gives you your massage on what might as well be huge beds. Not an uncomfortable feeling, great smells wafted through the place from some type of flower they were steaming, and you could just lie down and relax. Now, Thai massage (this is the first massage I’ve ever had, so I have nothing to compare it to) is apparently quite different from a “normal” massage. They tend to use a lot of pressure points and manipulation of the joints and stretches. I rather enjoyed it, but Carly ended up sore and bruised (bruises easily from pressure on her skin).

After our massage, we were both starving (again) and wanted to head out to a place called All Gaengs (Gaeng is phonetically translated from Thai as “curry”), so we managed to get to the restaurant, but it was closed. We were horrified. Instead of going to one of the other Thai restaurants we passed along the way, we were for some reason dumb enough to go to a “recommended” restaurant that we passed about ½ a block up the street. It was a seafood place, and though neither of us are hugely into seafood, we thought we’d give it a shot. The place was called Somboon Seafood, I tried some Crab Curry (which was mediocre at best) and Carly had some chicken curry (which I think she classified as repulsive). Our appetizers were a deep fried Tofu (really…bad…idea…) and some spring rolls. The service was probably the worst we’ve ever experienced. I’m pretty sure that the worst service I’ve had at McDonald’s was still better than what we had here. C’est la vie.

After dinner we bailed back to the hostel and packed up our bags. It was gonna be an early morning (5:45am) to get to the airport for our flight to Krabi. More on that soon.

Bangkok – Day Two

Next morning, we woke up bright and early to grab a bite to eat, and then we caught a ride from our hostel to the famous weekend market (Chatuchak market, more commonly referred to by the Thai’s as JJ Market). We began our wandering, and after a while I didn’t know which end was up anymore. Carly, however, seemed to know exactly where we were at all times as we zig-zagged through endless reams of merchants, food, clothes, bags, antiques, trinkets, lamps, decor, etc. etc. Knock-off North Face, Oakley, Abercrombie, American Eagle, Levi’s, and was easy to spot in every other shop.

We didn’t end up buying very much, Carly got one shirt (after trying on about 400 that just didn’t really work… Asian sizes don’t seem to quite cut it for girls who are 6′ 1″), and a couple other gifts and things.

We stopped to try a bit of food, grabbed some noodles from Mr. Noodle man here, and also managed to find some home made coconut ice cream, and probably some other stuff I’ve forgotten by now.

After a few hours of this meandering we were easily convinced by a lady offering foot massages that she could sign us up. So Carly and I sat in some nice comfy chairs and got about a 40 minute foot massage for about 140 Baht each (S$5.50). No complaints from me in the peanut gallery on that one.

When we were sick and tired of shopping at the market, we jumped back on the SkyTrain and boldly headed back into the downtown area where we stopped at Starbucks for an obligatory Caramel Macchiato and to purchase a sweet 16oz Bangkok City Series mug that I could add to my now-growing collection – and carried on to more shopping over at the night bazaar. Carly wandered while I sat looking at our Rough Guide to see where we would eat some dinner.

Carly completed her roundabout, and we jumped back on a train and headed to Phrom Pong which was just a couple blocks away from Lemongrass (the restaurant we wanted to grab dinner at). Now, I’m usually pretty good at reading maps, but we didn’t seem to be able to find this restaurant for the life of us. The map clearly indicated that the restaurant was on Soi 24. So we walked up and down (what we thought was) Soi 24 (and a rather seedy looking street it was), and then continued to walk up and down Soi 26. Then up and down 24 again. By this time, the infamous grumpy-hungry-ness had set itself deep (in both of us), so we decided to forget it, jump in a cab, and head to one of the other restaurants on our list that was about 1.5Km away.

This is when the english-speaking-taxi-driver-of-love-joy-and-all-things-pure-and-good magically came to our rescue. We hopped in and asked him to take us to the other restaurant, and then on a whim I just asked him if he knew where Lemongrass was. He said “Yah, right down Soi 24 here”, and he took us to the front door of the place. The street we had been walking up and down was not on my map, and was called Soi 24/1. I don’t know what the heck that means, but it was a mean mean trick that the engineers of Bangkok had played on us, we wanted some freakin’ food.

At any rate, Lemongrass was fabulous. Absolutely awesome. We sat in a quiet corner of the restaurant right by a large window that opened onto a beautifully lit outdoor garden. We enjoyed some Coconut chicken soup, and some super spicy chicken skewers that were fantastic, as well as some fabulous green curry. This restaurant is super highly recommended. Although it is exhorbetently expensive by Thai standards, Carly and I paid 1300 Baht (~CDN$36) for all our food, and we had each had a drink (Gin and Tonic for me, Rum and Coke for her).

So with some excellent food in our bellies we headed on back to the hostel to rest up for tomorrow’s day of sight-seeing. More to come!

Bangkok – Day One

Ok, it’s going to take a little bit of time, but we’ll get a bunch of pictures and commentary up here about our little trip to Thailand. So um, here comes “Bangkok – Day One”.

We jumped on the MRT (train) to the Airport in Singapore and had an uneventful flight from Singapore to Bangkok. Getting through customs at Bangkok was breezy, albeit time-consuming. Long lineups, but once you were up at the front, it was “smile, stamp stamp, smile some more, enjoy Thailand, bye”.

From there, we took a piece of advice that we got from the proprietor of the hostel we were staying at in Bangkok, and went OUTSIDE of the airport before trying to catch a taxi. Drops the prices from around 800 Baht (S$32.00) to about 200 Baht (S$8.00). Trying to communicate with the Taxi driver was almost completely useless. When you see “Thai words” written using our English alphabet, it doesn’t tend to do you much good, because the Thai’s have their own alphabet, so English symbols and letters mean nothing to many of them. On top of that, the phonetic sounds made by our language does not tend to even remotely capture what the words are supposed to sound like when spoken in Thai. Nonetheless, our Taxi driver pulled through, and we arrived at the Asha Guest House without any problems, I just had to keep pronouncing the English version of the address over and over in different ways until the driver figured out what I was saying. He was a good sport.

The guest house was great, pretty cheap (~USD$9/night), clean rooms with shared bathrooms. The owners and employees were fabulous and absolutely full of useful information and tips on what to do, where to go, how to get around, and how not to get ripped off.

After throwing down our bags and getting organized, we were out the door on a walk to Saphan Kwai SkyTrain station which was about a 10 minute walk from where we were staying. Our guest house is located in a very Thai area of town, and so if you ever had a desire to try stuffed pigs intestines from a hawker on the side of the road, look no further. Getting used to the many different cultural things and many strange smells of Bangkok is just part of the fun I suppose

We noticed that a lot of Thai words translated into their pseudo-phonetic-English are really quite funny. With SkyTrain stations like “On Nut” and “Mo Chit”, and about 200 other funny examples we found while in Thailand, it made for a good chuckle now and again.

So, we got off the train and happened to pass a Starbucks, so we treated ourselves to Espresso Frappucino’s to accompany ourselves on our walk. One thing that we noticed here while we had to cross a Very Large Intersection™ to carry on to our destination, is that traffic lights seem to have a mind of their own here. Either that, or something is just Really Messed Up. The little flashy green light that in North America (and Singapore for that matter) means that you as a pedestrian are safe to walk across the street – well – in Bangkok – if you listen to the little flashy green man, you’re dead. DEAD. We almost started to walk, and subsequently almost got hit by 78 motorcycles, 45 cars, and 18 buses. Caution was the word of the day.

At any rate, we continued to walk towards the Joe Louis Puppet Theater and the Night Bazaar where we wandered around some of the shops and also grabbed a bite to eat for dinner. We must have been feeling a bit Nostalgic, because I had a hamburger, and Carly had a club sandwich. All good – we would get our fix of Thai food yet. Following dinner, we walked past what I am pretty sure was the Rama V statue, and then Lumphini Park (quite a nice looking little park) and on to Lumphini Boxing Stadium. If we were in Bangkok – I was going to see some Muay Thai.

Next time, if there is a next time, I think we’ll try to get a local to buy our entrance tickets, because I think the tourists get ripped off on the entrance fees to see the boxing. We paid 1500 Baht each, and that just isn’t an amount that makes sense. It’s also significantly more than what any of the guidebooks (Rough Guide, Lonely Planet, etc.) have laid out as the prices (although they could be out of date).

Here is a good picture of some extremely good translated English. It’s still probably gooder than my English. Not sure if you can quite read it in the picture, so to quench your curiosity it reads “Any can and bottle does not allow to bring inside the stadium.”

The boxing was not quite what we expected. The fighters were young, REALLY young. Probably anywhere from 13-18 years old, and weighing in somewhere between 105-116 lbs. We did notice that there is a certain amount of ceremonial reverence in Muay Thai for the Thai people. Flowers around the necks of all fighters, and a bit of ceremonial dance before each fight. The music accompanying the fight was in a traditional Thai style by a small band, and is NOT what we would consider to be pump-you-up fight music. It was more like when-is-this-music-going-to-stop-because-it-is-making-my-ears-bleed type music (in our opinion, anyway).

The sportsmanship demonstrated between competitors was also fabulous, and when one kid got kicked in the head and carried out on a stretcher, his opponent was genuinely concerned about his well being. All-in-all, a good experience, and not quite as brutal as we had expected it to be. We did notice, however, that after training in mixed-martial-arts for a couple years (kickboxing/jiu-jitsu/boxing/muay thai) – that Muay Thai by itself seems to become a bit repetitive. A good experience nonetheless.

We bailed after the 7th fight (there were 8 scheduled) and headed to our hostel to bed. Tomorrow would come quickly – and there was still plenty to see.

Walking To and From School

I thought a nice way to share one of my experiences in Sinapore, namely my routine walking, would be to capture it through photographs. Here is what I see as I walk between our condo and my school.

Our street: Hillview Avenue.

A Nature Park

The Canadian International School of Singapore

United Nations Week

During the days of October 3, 4 and 5, CIS celebrated United Nations Week.

October 3 – Opening Ceremonies
October 4 – Food Festival and Passport Day
October 5 – Cultural Performance and Closing Ceremonies

There was much preparation involved in the weeks and days leading up to these special days. Many parents came into the classroom to share cultural stories or objects with the students, some even read and told these stories in different languages before translating into English. The Junior Kindergarten classes were busy painting t-shirts the children would wear for the second day of events, Passport Day. These t-shirts were decorated with a flag or flags of choice.

For the Opening Ceremonies, students wore something from their cultural background. I was uncreatively in a red tanktop and cream skirt though walking proudly for Canada. The students from grade one and up marched in with their flags during the Parade of Nations which marked the beginning of UN week. Many ambassadors from the different countries represented at our school were present as special guests.

The Food Festival was certainly a highlight for students, parents and teachers alike. During this time students traded in their tickets for various food items they’d selected from the plentiful tables around them. Sweets were certainly the most popular!

Daniel came to meet me for lunch as he couldn’t vary well miss out on excellent food prepared by parents from all over the world. Here is a look at our lunch, complete with the great tasting maple leaf cookie from the Canadian table.

Many classrooms were visited for special activities during the afternoon on Passport Day. I stayed in my classroom to receive groups ranging from Senior Kindergarten to Grade 5. They all seemed to enjoy my origami story telling.

By the end of these three days everyone was exhausted. It was a great time to head into our October Break.