Adult Ice Cream and Thai Massage

It is so humid here in Bangkok. I'm constantly drinking water in an attempt to stay ahead of the dehydration factor. Matt, my roommate for the program, walked to a store this morning to stock up on bottled water for our stay in Thailand. Initially, I thought we overstocked on water, but now think we did not get enough for our stay. On the way to getting water, within 10 minutes of leaving the hotel, we were asked if we wanted a "Thai Massage" by an individual on the street. I think his idea of a massage is different than mine.

I met up with several other members of our group (Marissa from Hawaii, Gwen from NY, and Kristen from Philadelphia) and we went to a 4th of July celebration at the American Emabassy. They were holding it today because the 4th falls mid-week and wanted to have it on the weekend. The big hit of the party was "Adult Ice Cream" that was fabulous. It is Ice Cream made with 5% alcohol. I had the "screaming orgasm" which contained Amaretto and Kaluha. I'm not sure if it is named "adult" ice cream because of the contents or the flavor names. It definitely was yum in the humid, 90 degree weather.

Well, the program officially starts tomorrow at 10:00 am, and I'm looking forward to meeting all the other participants and starting our itinerary.
I'm headed to sleep as I'm getting up early to go run in Lumpini Park, the "Central Park" of Bangkok.

Arrived!

Hello everyone~ I just arrived to my hotel in Bangkok after nearly 26 hours of travel. My flight went from Atlanta to Chicago to Tokyo to Bangkok. The flight went well-a lot of reading, watching two movies (Catch and Release and The Shooter) and more reading. I met up with my roommate for the program (Matt) in the Bangkok airport as his flight got in near the same time as mine. He was coming in from NY.

Bangok is very HOT! The cab we took from the airport was very clean-almost new. It cost us about 1000 Baight ($33 USA Dollars). We had to go through a metal detector in the hotel lobby, which is a first for me. The hotel is really nice! We are on the 15th floor. It is 2:00 am here (Saturday) and I'm not really tired, since I slept a lot during my flights.

The program starts on Sunday, so we have tomorrow to ourselves. I don't have any specific plans other to eat some good Thai food. I imagine we will run into many of the other educators in our program tomorrow throughout the day. I also will want to run-the heat is going to kill me!

Our family stay assignments were emailed to us late Wednesday evening and my family is located in the Ponhea Leu district, Kandal province, the village is named Tep Pranam. The mom and dad are 39 and they have two children 19 year old son and a 17 year old daughter. An uncle also lives with them who is 26. The dad is an asistant principal at the local school and the mom sells food. I will be staying with them from July 12-17.

I have Internet access in my room so I'm typing this blog and watching MTV Thailand-the videos are interesting, but I don't understand a word that is being spoken.

I'm sure I'll have more to say tomorrow. The website of my hotel is www.pprincess.com if you want to see what it looks like.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with five needles!

I have created this blog as a mechanism in which to bring my experiences of participating in the East-West Center's Travel and Teach: Thailand & Cambodia program back to my community (friends, family, and The Galloway School). I hope you enjoy your visit and please come back often to see what has been happening throughout my journey.

In preparing for this trip, I went for my fifth vaccination yesterday (Japanese Encephalitis) and my nurse is only 30 and already has 5 kids! She said she has one every two years-kids, not vaccinations. Then she poked me hard with the needle.

I put together a list of things I still need to purchase before my trip and things to pack. Luckily, the "to pack" list was longer than the "to purchase" list. I'm still trying to find boots to purchase for the rice patties. I also looked up Cambodian wildlife on the Internet and found out that some of the most venomous snakes are in Cambodia, but my source also mentions that most snakes there will not bother you if you stay away from them-no problem there!

I also surveyed the list of participants for the program and found that of the 20 participants only 4 are male. That presents a unique dynamic in terms of gender perspective. It should be interesting!