Thursday, December 23, 2010

A Thai Work Christmas Party... A Liiiitle Bit Different From a Fels Christmas Party.

Monday, Jan. 3rd: I give you, the video of our performance at Thida, lovingly edited and added to YouTube by Anneliese:

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Here are some pictures from our Christmas party at Thida...

Janet's famous wink

Anneliese is SO excited to be at Thida at night time!

The really sweet dance that we (and everyone else) had to dance on.

They made this sh*t, amazing.

Many many Thai teachers of Thida.

Kru Plau and Janet... check out Plau's crazy bendy fingers.

Interesting appetizers...

Hmmmm what is that?

Some sweet Thai dance numbers were showcased.

Mitch and Peter

Some more sweet Thai dancing.

So many presents!  They gave us a blanket and cookies and 1,000 Baht.  Merry Christmas!





Sunday, December 19, 2010

Some Seriously Random Thai Stuff...

                  Hey Everyone!  Merry almost Christmas!  Last night I cleared the pictures from my camera in anticipation for Friday... when I fly to Bangkok to meet Ed and Joe Gallant!  OMG!  I can't believe this week is already here, that's so crazy.  I have heard that in both Philadelphia and Boston it has been pretty cold.  I can't say that I miss that.  It seems to get hotter every day now that the rainy season is finally dying out.  And man am I grateful for that; now maybe not everything I own will grow mold on it constantly.  So anyway, these pictures are super random and maybe not the most interesting... After the New Year, though, watch out!  I will have many many new pictures, including our Thida dance performance on Thursday night, my Noonoy kids at the Happy New Year party on Friday, and me and the Gallants trompin' around Bangkok, Koh Samui, and Phuket.
                     So first here are some of the very very few pictures that I took on our trip to Koh Samui...
From the ferry to Koh Samui...

Again from the ferry...

the main floor of the ferry...

Tristan, Brian, and Mitch all looking individually hilarious.

The incredible! Kanye teeshirt I bought in Koh Samui... I wonder if Mr. West knows about this?

The absolutely GIANT gecko in our bungalow... biggest one I've seen yet.  He didn't do a very good job of eating all of the god damn mosquitoes!
So now here are some pictures from this past Saturday, December 18th... Peter (my boss) took all of the Super English teachers to this awesome Muay Thai place run by this guy who used to be a prize fighter.
The remnants of the three delicious oranges I ate while this guy was talking to us...

Those old timey photos are from his days as a teenaged prize Muay Thai fighter... the Native American picture and the Sombrero are evidence of his world travel to teach Muay Thai.

The practice mats/bags and the older boys who were drilling the younger ones...

They don't look big but they could kick your ass!

jabs!

shadow boxing!

old style Muay Thai fighting...

He can kick high as sh*t!

Ah!  Knockout!

Annnnd he's down!

for modern day Muay Thai...

saaweeet butt dude.

Younger kids doing their traditional warm up before fighting...

Anneliese and Janet kicking some ass!!!

Badass chicks

Mitch enjoying Muay Thai very much.

Peter, John, Brittney and Amy

Peter bought us delicious Isan dinner!  This is Mitch, Janet, Amy, and Brittney saying mmm look at that.  In the right hand corner of the photo is Som Tam (spicy papaya salad) yummm.  Those little straw containers are full of sticky rice, also yummm.

Delish!

Yay Super English! 
Sooo this Thursday, December 23rd, all of the teachers who have classes at Thida (a Catholic school) are required to perform in the Thida Christmas show.  Which means we basically dance around so that Thai people can laugh at us.  We are embracing this, and dancing to "All I want for Christmas" by Mariah Carey, and the boys are dressing up as women, and we girls are dressing up as men.  Last night we had a dress rehearsal at my house, and some of the boys tried on a few of my favorite dresses, which they will be wearing in the show.  Enjoy.
Mike in this really cute black dress with white polka dots that I bought at a second hand store on Karunrat Road...

lmfao!  John in my most favoritist dress ever.

Mike and John lookin' sexaay

Mike looks bummed, but John continued to look happy in that dress...

Yes!  John lost the shorts!  LOL.  Nice stems.

Mitch is SO excited to have this dress on...

.... I think I should just let him keep it.

Amazing.  I will never look at these two dresses, or these two men, the same way again.

Hah!  Cass in a sweet dress/skirt ensemble of Brittney's/


Sunday, December 12, 2010

Love from 9,000 miles away!!!

I am almost crying right now... I got TWO packages today!  TWO!  One is from my mother and the other is from my Dorothy!  I am eating candy corn (yummm) sent by Dorothy... she also sent handisnax, trail mix, magazines, toiletries, socks, etc., and of course a lovely card.  My mother sent me a very similar package, but also with MY STOCKING!  Oh my goodness.  My stocking is right now hanging above my desk here at work... I cannot even put into words how happy I am right now, how blessed I feel right now, how loved I feel right now.  THANK YOU.  Now I feel like it is Christmas time... I was just missing some decoration, some American junk food, and some good old fashioned American love and kindness.  MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY HANNUKAH, HAPPY KWANZA, HAPPY NEW YEAR, HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE!!!!!!  I love you guys!!!!!

A weekend in Surat Thani...

     Woooooow!  First of all, I am glad that the Fels Family, and particularly the history department, are so well represented within the comments on this blog.  I effin' miss you guys; you totally rule.  @ Dave Rose: Thanks for all the love!  I am also glad to be having family come and visit me!  And thank you (in advance) for sending a Christmas card, that already makes me really happy and I'm sure will make me extra happy once it gets here... Now, @ Downs, Adams, and Louie.... wooooow.  First of all, I miss you guys and I miss Jeopardy and things like Trivial Pursuit.  I would love to come and play such games with you guys.  Although I don't want to get as drunk as Louie apparently did and like you've all said I am never over eager to visit Manayunk, because it does kind of suck.  Are you guys having a Christmas party this year?  Are you guys going to the Christmas party this year?  If the answer to both of those questions is yes I am so super jealous and sad about that... I will definitely be missing the Fels Holiday Party this year!  Yet I am not missing the weather... it is December 12th and I am wearing a teeshirt and shorts, awesome.
                      So almost everyone went away this weekend, either to the dam or to Koh Phangnan.  I stayed here and had a weekend in Surat Thani... on Friday night I really didn't do anything at all after eating dinner down by the river... I went home and watched some shows and then pretty much fell asleep.  Yesterday I woke up and went to the cow soi place... let me just tell you how cow soi is the most delicious thing ever made... it is a spicy yellow curry soup and it is indescribable because it tastes nothing like and better than anything else ever.  Then I went to this awesome mall type place called Pacific Plaza and bought my brother two really cool real crazy teeshirts for his birthday... which is in less than two weeks zomg!  Then for dinner Mike and I went to my favoritist rice lady and I got my chicken and rice dish, and then we went to the night market, where I bought myself a really awesome teeshirt.  Then we decided to play the basketball shooting game at Coliseum and while we were in there we were like, hey, let's see a movie!  And we ended up seeing this really rad movie about a Samurai in Siam based on historical events of hundreds of years ago and starring this ridiculously sexy Japanese model-turned-Thai-actor named Seki Oseki.  It was in Japanese and Thai but it had English subtitles so I actually understood what was going on the entire time.  The move was badass...  anyway... that's all I got.  Right now I am in a coffee shop but I have this annoying headache that won't go away so I think I will go home now and take a nap.  Miss you guys!!!!!

Based on a true character, the movie tells the story of Yamada Nagamasa, a Japanese warrior who settled in Ayutthaya in the 16th Century and became a soldier in King Naresuan’s army. After the battle with Burma, Ayutthaya remains in a state of unrest after a group of mysterious men stage a campaign of terror and robbery. Yamada investigates and finds that the men are actually rogue Japanese samurai. He then has a score to settle with his own countrymen.
Title: Yamada The Samurai of Ayothaya (ซามูไร อโยธยา)
Director: Nopporn Watin
Starring: Kanokkorn Jaicheun, Seki Oseki, Sorapong Chatree, Thanawut Ketsaro, Winai Khaibutr


Yamada Trailer... the movie I saw Saturday night....

Thursday, December 9, 2010

Two Weeks Too Long....

... I am so sorry!  I cannot believe it has been two whole weeks since the last time that I posted anything!  Both a lot and nothing much at all has happened over the past two weeks.  Last week was a full work week and I felt like I just ran around like a crazy person the whole time.  We had this Monday off, however, because it was Father's Day on Sunday.  It is Father's Day on December 5th because it is the King's birthday, so it is a pretty big deal.  I had to work at Super English on Monday night, but almost everyone had Monday off of work.  A bunch of us (Janet, John, Mitch, Brian, Tristan, Anneliese and I) went to Koh Samui to explore and to visit V and Victoria.  We left on Saturday morning; first we took a bus to the ferry at Don Sak, about an hour or so outside of town.  Then we took the approx. 2 hour ferry ride to Koh Samui.  When we first got to Koh Samui it was pretty nice out, but soon enough it started to rain.  On Saturday we didn't do much of anything during the day, just relaxed and hung out.  On Saturday night we went out for V's birthday... he has the same birthday as the King!  In Thailand this means that pretty much his entire life he has been in the same situation as my brother, whose birthday is on Christmas; it's kind of awesome because everyone is already celebrating but at the same time it kind of sucks because everyone is celebrating someone else's birthday.
                  First we went to a Mexican restaurant called Gringo's in Chaweng.  Chaweng is the really super touristy area of Koh Samui and I was really surprised by it for the most part.  I had thought that Phuket was kind of the crazy spot and Koh Samui was more of a "real Thailand" type of a place, but not in Chaweng.  There were a million white tourists, and most of them were not the sorts you'd ever want to hang out with.  There were also plenty of Thai prostitutes and lady boys galore.  We saw a bit of a lady boy cabaret show and it was quite entertaining.  Anyway, eating at Gringo's was a nice treat; I got to have chips and salsa, steak fajitas, and margaritas.  These are three things that I love dearly but could never get in Surat.  They weren't the best ever, but they were the best I've had in Thailand!  Then that night we went out to a few bars and clubs; it was interesting to see but not really my scene.  A lot of disgusting dancing between old ugly fat white guys and sexy young Thai girls who were clearly in it for the Baht.
                        Sunday was, in my opinion, a much more enjoyable day.  When we woke up we went back to Chaweng... we originally planned to go to the beach for the entire day but it was really cloudy and rainy.  Instead we went shopping... which was great.  There is some awesome shopping to be done in Chaweng, although the constant bartering gets old really fast. I bought myself this super rad Kanye West tee shirt and a whole bunch of Christmas presents for family at home.  I had a Mediterranean-esque sandwich on a real baguette for lunch and it was amazing.  I also had Starbucks twice and loved every minute of it... I don't care if that makes me an American monster, it was delicious.  Then we did go to the beach anyway.  It was yucky out but it wasn't cold so we went swimming in the ocean for a long while.  It rained while we were in the water and it was pretty cool to look around and see the rain drops hitting the ocean waves.  It may not have been completely ideal, but it was December 5th and I was in the ocean so I was pretty happy.  Then John, Anneliese, and I built (or more accurately tried to build) a snowman out of sand... a sandman.  I think it came out pretty great but some other people thought it just looked like a traffic cone with a face.  So we had a pretty great day in Chaweng.
                   Dinner on Sunday night was a real treat... we had Indian food!  And it was good.  It was good by any standards, not just because we were in Thailand.  It was delicious; I have been daydreaming about it ever since.  I ate a lot of food, but I figured it might be one of the very few times in the next ten months that I will have the opportunity to eat Indian food so I might as well take full advantage.  On our walk to the Indian restaurant it poured... I mean poured.  When we got there I was soaking wet.  I finally dried off by the end of dinner, but then it was time to leave for the movies.  We decided to go see the new Harry Potter movie because in Samui they actually show movies in English.  On the way to the theater I got soaked once again, and then froze for the entirety of the movie, being that I was then in extreme air conditioning.  It was miserable and so was the movie... not worth it at all.  I didn't like Harry Potter before and that movie certainly didn't change my mind at all.  On Monday we left Samui and came back to Surat.
                               Since then I have had a pretty easy week.  Normally at this time on a Friday I would be working at Noonoy... but today is yet another holiday; Constitution Day.  I, of course, still have to teach at Super English tonight, but for those teachers who do not they had a three day work week this week.  A lot of people went to "the dam" this morning or on the night boat last night to Koh Phangan.  I don't mind though, I spent almost 5,000 Baht, almost an entire week's salary, yesterday on mailing Christmas presents to the United States.  I couldn't really then afford to also go away this weekend.  This means that I will have a pretty quiet weekend and I will try to catch up on some work.  Two weeks from today I will be taking a plane to Bangkok to meet my father and my brother!  I cannot believe it's already that close, I am so excited!  Anyway, I did not take too many pictures in Samui because the weather was so bad so I didn't want to carry around my huge, really expensive camera and risk getting it wet or damaged.  Below are some pictures from Brian..... enjoy!  I hope you are all doing well and it's not too cold in the States!  Yesterday and today have been gorgeous days... not a cloud in the sky, a light breeze, and probably about 80 degrees; perfect!  Much love!
This is a photo of the crazy ass power lines in Samui!  Scary, right?!....

Tristan and V on the beach in Chaweng...

Janet, Victoria, and I in the water...

Anneliese and I sculpting our amazing sand snowman...

Starbucks (with snowflakes on the cups!) and shopping... aaaah America.

Haaaaaa.  I love this picture.  Mitch and I at the Indian food restaurant, not sure what the faces are all about.

John fully prepared to ride his motorbike in the crazy crazy rain.

Anneliese and I clearly none too happy waiting for a tuk tuk in the rain...