Our Second Chang-sgiving*

Happy Thanksgiving, loved ones! Funny to think that last year on Thanksgiving, Sam and I were in Bangkok at our now favorite go-to restaurant (Sit and Wonder) having curry and Thailand's beloved Chang beer when we received an official job offer from our current employer.

In case you forgot our beloved Chang
(which means elephant in Thai)

This year was quite different, spending most of the day at work, though admittedly it was pretty wonderful. One of our American parents volunteered to come in and share the meaning of Thanksgiving with our students and cook us a huge turkey with endless mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. It was so fun to have traditional Thanksgiving food and share the day with our students, most of whom had no idea why this weird food was on their lunch plate and preferred rice and soup anyway.

L to R: Kirstie (from Glen Ellyn!) is here!
With her awesome partner, Stefano,
and our friend + co-worker, Maddy

Not only did we get to eat our favorite foods, we also ended the day with a pool party. Because when you live in Thailand, you can have a Thanksgiving pool party without anyone really giving it a second thought. Won't we be too bloated to put on a swimsuit? No, because 1) you can't eat that much when you're simultaneously worrying about the needs of 10 2-5 year olds and 2) often, you just go swimming in a t-shirt and shorts, so no worries about showing the belly in a bikini!

Kieron's always got a cheeky grin and
Sam is very interested in something.

Adam and Dan - sports, sports, sports. Canada v England.

After a big day at school, we came home to greet our newly arrived AirBnb guests, a couple from France with their 2-year-old son. They were more interested in our pool than coming to an American Thanksgiving celebration while on holiday in Thailand, so we said goodbye and went to meet friends at said buffet. More about the free flowing wine, beer and sweet friends than turkey/mashed potatoes, we had far too much fun for a school night and loved every minute.

Playing with our amazing new gift from Ginger - this camera!

Stuff in a jar.

I hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating - we certainly missed being with our family for the greatest American holiday, but we were lucky enough to speak with lots of you throughout the week. Sorry to everyone else, but the highlight for me was having my eldest nephew, Lincoln, read 2 books to me via Skype. Totally made me teary to see him reading and explaining how he can read, but what a marvelous gift to share that time with him from so far away. Thanks, Nain and Taid (my mom and dad), for facilitating the call!

Lincoln even showed me the pictures! So professional.

*Credit to Jon Rathbone for the naming rights of Changsgiving. Brilliant.

Happy days!

So I never hit publish on this one. It was meant to be an intermediary update before the Great Parental InvAsian of 2014, but here it is after the fact. 

Ever since we swung into Birthdayyyyy Month 2014, life has been go, go, going and it's been fabulous but I've selfishly been catching extra zzzz's instead of catching up with loved ones along the way. The next couple of weeks should be more relaxed and I will do my best to see what everyone's up to (if you feel like sending an email or calling - please do!). In the meantime, I'll make some posts about one of the most wonderful holidays ever thanks to our fabulous parents.

Far too many B-52s for a school night.

Glen Ellyn reunion in Bangkok!

Greenery and fresh air in Cambodia.

Paradise in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Retro Illinois license plate in Bangkok!

Burger truck with friends and Abby the pup!

The beginning of 'Birthdaaaayyy Month'

Yay - another birthday on the blog! If anyone tried to tell me at this time last year that I'd be running a kindergarten in Bangkok when the next birthday rolled around, I would have called them crazy.

Indeed, it has been crazy. From celebrating my 25th on the beach last year in Vietnam, to meeting the newest additions to my family (hey, Anna and Eneko!) and spending quality time with all you other amazing people and settling into life/starting a school in Bangkok amidst a military coup; it has simply been the best year of my life. It certainly hasn't been all sunshine and orchids, I'll readily admit. But at the wise age of 26, I realize that even the difficult times have been so immensely meaningful that it's hard to contemplate all the ways in which I've grown this year.

While I would have loved to relive last year's birthdaaaaayyy month of wandering the countryside of Vietnam and Laos, celebrating this birthday in my new home, with my best friend has been incredible in a totally different way. We've still managed to do some sightseeing this time around, but the best birthday moments have been the hugs from people I love (hey, Sam!), phone/Skype calls from those I miss so much (hey, mom and dad and all of you reading this!) or whispers from students trying to keep the afternoon surprise party a secret but couldn't resist reminding me "today is your birthday."

Thanks to all of you for joining me on this journey and for sending your love from around the world.

Now, enjoy some pics from the beginning of birthdaaaaayyy month's celebrations and think about how much fun we're going to have next time we get to see each other because we'll have a lot of celebrations to catch up on. Sending love to you all today and every day. xx

View of Bangkok's Sukhumvit Rd and surroundings
from Zeppelin Rooftop Bar.

They threw a surprise party for me!
That's my student, loving his cake.

Tapas at Long Table on a cloudy night - October 1!

Steak and sushi buffet for the main event. Surprise cake!

Stay-cation at the Baiyoke Sky Hotel - tallest hotel in SE Asia.

A horrendous space theme jazzed up the viewpoints.

Godzirra.

Smog beat out the sunset.

Being tourists is fun!

A little more clear the second day.

Please do not spit or litter from the 84th floor.

Yoga. Green curry. Pizza.

These are three of my faaaaa-vorite things. And while I normally do my best to incorporate them regularly into my life, last week I managed to get them all into a one-block radius.

1. I brought yoga to school in the form of a rotating class for our kindergarten sports block (not sure how it will progress, so stay tuned). See the first one-on-one session below (one student was sick and the other sleeping at the scheduled time). We turned the practice into a story that helped the poses flow. The main character was a dog who liked to look at trees, climb mountains, observe cobras/eagles/etc and eat pretzels for a snack (enter seated spinal twist a.k.a the yoga pretzel).

This girl is already a pro.

2. Sam and I tried out a new restaurant near school for a great happy hour deal and got the owner to give us a discount on food so we opted for this green curry chicken pizza. Quite possibly the best decision of the month.

It was just SO good.

Love you!

Postcards + Packages

This weekend was a throwback to the days of care packages and letters at summer camp. We were doubly lucky to get a sweet note from Dan, Bea and Eneko and some specialty candies (read: Twizzlers) from Jon, Sarah and Anna - all in the span of 12 hours! Thank you for being so sweet (pun intended).

Great memories from d+b 2007 with this postcard!

One word: candy.

In addition to these special deliveries, we had a wonderful weekend exploring new parts of the city and relishing in the comfort of home. On Friday, we wandered to embassy row and rang the doorbell of JUSMAG, the Joint United States Military Advisory Group Thailand. After having our photo taken by the security cameras, going through some steel doors and putting our names on a list, we were transported to a land of free popcorn, cheap beer (tax free because it's technically US soil) and grandma's dining room furniture. I didn't want to cause a security breach, so rather than take photos, I indulged in ฿50 Miller Lite bottles.

To end the weekend, we found a gorgeous rooftop restaurant which gives an amazing 360-degree view of the city and bird's eye look at our neighborhood.

Loving our city.

After our Sunday stroll, we came home to watch a lovely sunset and be serenaded by The Beach Boys courtesy of a man called Taxi, who is apparently the former face of Marlboro in Australia. Yes, he lives in our building and no, I haven't seen the evidence but have heard several confirmed reports.

My favorite time of day.

It's here that I wanted to show the juxtaposition of life in Bangkok. We have this sprawling urban metropolis as far as the eye can see and directly below are the people who make it happen. Many migrant laborers from Myanmar and Cambodia live right outside our building in these tin-roofed, dorm-like structures. An attempt to comment on this contrast tends to leave me speechless as I contemplate the similarities: we're all immigrants here, we walk on the same streets and buy vegetables at the same stalls, beer at the same corner store. But at the same time our lives couldn't seem more different.

The varied worlds of BKK.

Koh Samet: A Quick Trip to the Beach

We finally made it to the highly praised and popular weekend getaway from Bangkok: Koh Samet. An island off the eastern seaboard in the Gulf of Thailand, it's about a 3-hour drive from Bangkok to the pier and a 30-minute ferry or 15-minute speedboat ride to the island itself. It's risky to take a beach trip during rainy season, but we got lucky on Saturday and had a wonderful day being lazy in the sun. Sunday was overcast so we had breakfast on the beach and came home to finish the weekend in sunny Bangkok and prep for the new week ahead.

A very rainy drive to begin with.

We left Friday from work at 3:30pm, hopped into a minivan and drove away in what was a surprisingly smooth departure. 3 hours and 160baht later, we arrived in Rayong city where we planned to spend the night. We wandered around the vicinity of our hotel which was just like any other Thai town - lots of street food, minimarts, karaoke clubs, salons and plenty of dogs and cats to keep you company along the way.

View from our hotel in Rayong City.

We got up early to enjoy the hotel breakfast and made the journey to the pier where we had been instructed to "go to the right." If you go to the left pier, they charge you double and put you on a boat that drives around to the right pier and puts you on the same boat you would have boarded if you went right to begin with. Oh, how I love tourist scams.

Seen at the ferry pier.

We are at the little blue dot in the
bottom right corner.

Here are some photos from our quick first trip there. We're hoping to visit again soon and see more of what the island and surrounding area has to offer. Cheers!

Taking a walk on the island.

I love the beach.

Wrestling ring at the Naga Bar.

Supply delivery to the beach (water/beer) from the speedboat.

Sleeping beauty and his new best bud.

Fresh coconut is so wonderful!

Candlelight barracuda BBQ on the beach.

Elephant Polo

The minute I heard there would be an elephant polo tournament in Bangkok, I had my mind set on attending. Having never witnessed a traditional polo match, I fully intended to have no idea what was going on, but just looked forward to seeing a bunch of elephants play around.

Cheeky elephants.

Due to the match being scheduled in the height of rainy season, it was of course raining all weekend for the tournament. Everyone came away with muddy shoes and legs, having drank more than expected as we sought shelter in the booze tents and without getting to actually see them play a game. The rain drove all scheduled matches to be decided by shoot-outs, which were sometimes exciting, but mostly painstakingly slow as the 'players' were quite unaccustomed to playing their sport on an elephant and took quite a long time to adjust their shots.

Buddies.

Each elephant has a mahout, trainer, who guides the elephant and in this case uses the prodder to get them to perform. The tournament claims to be benefiting elephants in Thailand and chooses elephants that would otherwise work in camps or on the street and provides them medical care and decent wages for the mahout. The tournament also claims not to force elephants to play - the thought is that most elephants like to play games and many catch on. Those that resist and seem unhappy are supposedly taken out without a problem. Again, we didn't have an opportunity to watch a game, so I can't speak too much about how that all works.

When in Rome...

At the end of the day, it was a nice adventure to the outskirts of town and I'm glad we were able to go. Not sure I'd be too concerned with going again, but maybe I just need to learn more about it all.
Here's a link to the tournament page: http://www.anantaraelephantpolo.com/ and here are some more photos from the day. Cheers!

This sums up my life here pretty nicely.

Behind the scenes.

Elephant polo strategy session.

Getting on the field.

Representative of H.M. the King (yellow is the King's color).

An elephant buffet.

I wonder what's going through all of their minds.

I could watch elephants for hours.