I know you all have been anxiously awaiting my Blog, but it has taken me this long to figure out how to sign in to Ryan's Blog. So, here it is:
I arrived in Thailand on the 15th of March at 1:45 am, now keep in mind that I left Sacramento on the 13th. With time zones and all, it took that long to get there. I flew in to Tapei and made a quick dash over to the waiting airplane to get me over to Thailand. I was greeted by Ryan and it was an emotional reunion. Oh, how I've missed him. I greeted his family, his mom, dad, brother and grandparents all met me at the airport. We all piled in the car along with my luggage and we spent the night at a nearby hotel. Ryan & I stayed up past 4:00 am just talking and letting him open cards and gifts; he said it felt like Christmas!
The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel and we headed north to where he lives. We visited the King's palace (the King from 100 years ago), it was quite beautiful. And after that we stopped along the way to ride an elephant! What an experience that was, and it certaintly wasn't like riding a horse. We had many laughs along the way. While we were there, we also fed a Bengal tiger some milk...ok, a young Bengal tiger!
The next day Ryan & I caught a songtail (bus) to Khon Kaen where me met with other exchange students. We had lunch, played Guitar Hero and went bowling. Oh, we also went to Swensens and we all shared an Earthquake...all you Swensens fans will know what that is! We then hung around for the night market and got to shop around there for a while. That's where they have all the interesting fried bugs that you can eat. Did I? Oh no!
On Monday, we went to see Ryan's great-grandma. She gave me a bracelet which wished me happiness, richness and good health. So, if my bracelet breaks, does that mean they won't come true? Yikes!
We also went to see the property of trees that Ryan's grandparents own. They have Eucalyptus, Teak, Rubber and Coconut trees. We had a nice drive out to their tree farms.
I met Dr. Urot...he's the doctor that Ryan had shadowed at the hospital. Very nice gentleman and very young too. From there, I was introduced to Ryan's 2nd host parents.
We ventured back down to Khon Kaen and shopped at the mall, went to a temple with Meagan and Maria (climbed 9 stories) and we had Thai style iced tead when we finished at the temple.
That night we had a nice dinner with Ryan's 2nd host parents and their son. We headed to bed because we had an early morning trip planned. Ryan & I were going camping up at Phuk Ra Deung (National Park), so we got up at 4:15 to head over to the mountain.
So, it's Tues and we hiked the mountain. I believe it's 4,500 feet high and it took us 6 hours to climb it. It was hot and probably the most intense hike I have ever done, but we made it! We rented a tent, blankets and pillows so we didn't need to carry that stuff with us. We didn't have to carry our luggage either, a porter carried it to the top of the hill for us, those guys are animals!! Imagine carrying that stuff to the top, we barely made it ourselves!
We woke the next morning at 4:30 to watch the sunrise. It was quite incredible. We came back and crashed (slept) for a few hours to prepare ourselves for the next hike. We walked about 5 miles to this one location to watch the sunset but the weather was changing quickly and they didn't think there would be a sunset, so we headed back...another 5 miles. We ended up seeing a beautiful sunset on our way home and arrived back at the camp in the dark. We enjoyed a nice Pad Thai dinner and we headed to bed...only to be awakened in the night by either a deer or a boar that had a bag stuck on it's head! It was too dark to figure out what animal it was...we did see both animals earlier in the evening. Ask Ryan which one he thought it was!
Thursday morning we headed down the hill after we left our luggage with a porter to carry it down. A surprise to us was the fact that Ryan's host grandparents met us part way up the hill (the first rest stop up the hill). We walked down with them and had lunch with them and Tuk. After questioning what type of fish was in my soup, Tuk said it was Snake Fish...go figure! I'm not inquiring any more after that!
We went in to town to pick up a guitar case for Ryan and some things he needed for his Rotary trip to Phuket...that's pronounced Poo Ket by the way! We had soup for dinner that Atom (brother) picked up at the local restaurant, very good by the way!
Friday morning we were up early to visit with Ryan's possible 3rd host mom. She owns a stationery store just down the street from where they live. Ryan's 2nd host mom met us and we all had lunch together. We ran a few errands and said good bye to great-grandma and we headed to Korat to take Ryan to the location where all the exchange students were meeting to go on their trip to Phuket. Ryan and I had a tearful good-bye...ok, I had the tearful good-bye. It was hard to say good-bye again, but we'll see him in June!
We went to KFC for dinner, yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken! The only thing I can say is that the chickens aren't as fat in Thailand as they are at home. It was still good, but not fat on the meat! After dinner, we pulled up to the hotel in Bangkok called "Lam Park." Tuk, Atom & I shared a room.
The next morning we were up at 6:00 am to beat the morning traffic. We dressed up to go to the Imperial Palace, but found out that Atom & I couldn't go in to see the King's sister, because our clothes weren't black...only black clothing was allowed.
Oh, how I wish I was back in shorts and sandals! We still saw the rest of the palace grounds which was nice.
Tuk surprised me with a boat ride which I enjoyed. You ought to see these long boats, they are fast and the engine in them is huge, with a long rudder and propeller. We climbed to the top of a temple "Temple of Dawn" which actually gave a nice view of Bangkok. Afterward we had a nice lunch and then went to another temple.
We took Atom back to the hotel and Tuk, her friend and I went for a massage (Thai massage). Pretty relaxing especially after having hiked the mountain...I didn't realize how sore I was from coming down the mountain! We picked up her friends daughter and we all had a nice dinner at the mall at MK restaurant (suki soup).
Well, it's Sunday and it's my last day. We were up at 7:00 to go to the airport by 8:30. I got there in plenty of time for my 12:30 flight. We said good bye and it was difficult to say good bye to Tuk, she was such a wonderful hostess and I told her she has been a good mom to Ryan...I think we were both crying by then! So, I turned to go on my flight with Ryan's guitar in one hand and my laptop in the other.
It was a good flight home, long, but good. I left on Easter and came home on Easter.
I was greeted by Cody, Charlotte (our exchange student from France) and my loving husband Dennis. It was so good to be home, but it was also such a wonderful trip.
I've been filled with many delightful memories of sharing time with my son in Thailand.
I love you Ryan, give my best to your family in Thailand (parents, brother, grandparents, great-grandma and friends).Now it's his turn to fill you in on his trip to Phuket. I'm looking forward to hearing about it also.
Laurie (Mae Ma Li)
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Sunday, March 16, 2008
a short one, my trip to p/u my mom!
alright so as you kno2 my moms conig to thailand, early this week my h mom said that weed leave 2 days early, cause my host grand parents had to go to a meeting in bkk, so the great idea was that we would leave a midnight, and pack the car with both my host parents, my host bro, both my host grand parents, and me, +all our luggage!!
anyways we head out(our tires signifantly lowr than when we started)
alright so let me give you the ld on my host grand parents,
grandma
i don really know her name, i just call her grandma, the lady used to be an english teacher like 15 years ago, and speaks to me in english all the time, but the thing is that her thai accent is sooo bad sometimes that its actually easier for me to understand her when she peaks thai!
(sidenote, why yes, my thai has improved very much over these past couple weeks, most nights ill just sit in the front yard with mae tuk, and weel talk in thai!
its cool cause i really get to build my vocab with her!)
ok
granpa.
i just call him grandpa, cause i don actually know his name either!
one word kinda sums this dude up...
creepy
and i know its just cause hes an old dude, and its probly only wierd cause hes not actually related to me, but this guy is handsy...
alright ill show you
put your hand over your belly button.
move you hand to the left(yours not mine)about 4 inches
raise it another 3
thats exactly the place he goes for whenever he meats me, he just kind puts his hand there, says hi and doesnt let go till i kinda push him away, whatever
also every thing this guy says sounds like the thai word for butter, i really dont have an explaination, either he is alweays askin me if i want butter, if i feel like butter, if i want to see butter, or go to butter.
or my thai ist axs good as i think it is...
im leanin to the first.
anyways the main thing that happened is that we stayed the night in pataya, which i have to tell you guys, is probably the sketchyest place ive ever been.
people call it "the adult disneyland"
this place was like vegas in an improvished part of the country, stripclubs and "massage parlors" everywher!
talk about awkward....
anyways first night we drove for roughly an hour trying to find some resuraunt, i was half a sec away from snaggin the wheel and pullin into the next 7-11 that i saw when we stopped at this place that looked like it had half of the monteray bay aquarium in it!
there were thes bath tub sized...uh...tubs with just about every sized and specie of crustacion in them, all in all ti was a good dinner, even though ny host mom kept tring to make me eat shrimp brains(they look like a paste, that i can only describe as... rohrange
gross.
next day we went to the ocean to swim, and just like the city the beach was discusting!
trash eveywhere you know?
oh well, tommoro im headin out for phuket, where the water is like glass!!!
htat night we left to pickup my mom at the airoport, i was so excited that i ended up waiting at the wrong gate for about an hour, only to turn around and see my mom runnin twords me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
well thats where i leave you, you see my moms gonna write the next blog tellin bout our travels cause like i said ill be in phuket for the next 9 days!
peace, im out!
ryan
anyways we head out(our tires signifantly lowr than when we started)
alright so let me give you the ld on my host grand parents,
grandma
i don really know her name, i just call her grandma, the lady used to be an english teacher like 15 years ago, and speaks to me in english all the time, but the thing is that her thai accent is sooo bad sometimes that its actually easier for me to understand her when she peaks thai!
(sidenote, why yes, my thai has improved very much over these past couple weeks, most nights ill just sit in the front yard with mae tuk, and weel talk in thai!
its cool cause i really get to build my vocab with her!)
ok
granpa.
i just call him grandpa, cause i don actually know his name either!
one word kinda sums this dude up...
creepy
and i know its just cause hes an old dude, and its probly only wierd cause hes not actually related to me, but this guy is handsy...
alright ill show you
put your hand over your belly button.
move you hand to the left(yours not mine)about 4 inches
raise it another 3
thats exactly the place he goes for whenever he meats me, he just kind puts his hand there, says hi and doesnt let go till i kinda push him away, whatever
also every thing this guy says sounds like the thai word for butter, i really dont have an explaination, either he is alweays askin me if i want butter, if i feel like butter, if i want to see butter, or go to butter.
or my thai ist axs good as i think it is...
im leanin to the first.
anyways the main thing that happened is that we stayed the night in pataya, which i have to tell you guys, is probably the sketchyest place ive ever been.
people call it "the adult disneyland"
this place was like vegas in an improvished part of the country, stripclubs and "massage parlors" everywher!
talk about awkward....
anyways first night we drove for roughly an hour trying to find some resuraunt, i was half a sec away from snaggin the wheel and pullin into the next 7-11 that i saw when we stopped at this place that looked like it had half of the monteray bay aquarium in it!
there were thes bath tub sized...uh...tubs with just about every sized and specie of crustacion in them, all in all ti was a good dinner, even though ny host mom kept tring to make me eat shrimp brains(they look like a paste, that i can only describe as... rohrange
gross.
next day we went to the ocean to swim, and just like the city the beach was discusting!
trash eveywhere you know?
oh well, tommoro im headin out for phuket, where the water is like glass!!!
htat night we left to pickup my mom at the airoport, i was so excited that i ended up waiting at the wrong gate for about an hour, only to turn around and see my mom runnin twords me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
well thats where i leave you, you see my moms gonna write the next blog tellin bout our travels cause like i said ill be in phuket for the next 9 days!
peace, im out!
ryan
Sunday, March 9, 2008
t minus 3 days till mae ma meung thai!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
alright its been a while since i piosted, and i really dont remember th EXACT ordwer that things occurred, so ill just spill them out when i think of them kay?
hmm so earlier last week, may friend joelle, came to khon kaen from ubon to hang out for a couple of days, and zach came to hang out at my house, so one day all the kk exchang students came to namphong, and we just hung out in a resturaunt listening to music and eating all day, the resturaunt is pretty cool, the booth that you eat in, is a table thats in a sort of hut thing, thats on stilts above the water, and when you want to order something you bang on this metal pipe and someoohne comes out to meat you, we must have stayed there for a couple hrs or so!
over the next couple of days zach and i would go into kk and hang out with the girls, shop at the night market, and watch movies, i think the best ones were kill bill vol 1 2
but hey thats just me you know!
hmm i also got to go visit the doctor onwed and thursday!
it was kinda awkard, cause when i came to eat lunch with him on wednestady, he forgot to mention that he would be in a meeting, so i show up and hes all, comeon in ryan, here lets get you some food while all of the other people in the meeting stare at you!
later on he was doin an ultra sound on a man, and when he finnished, was suddenly possesed by the urge to persorm one on me, DESPITE all of my protests!
apparently except for my surgerys my insides look just fine!
after that awkward ordeal, i went out to the er with the doc, and found a man that had been in a motor cycle accident, and a pice of rebar was shoved into his heel, so the doctor asked me if id like to do the stiches, uh duh...
so i was able to do the three stiches to close the puncture on his heel the guy ws totalyy cool about it too, im pretty sure he had something to do with the temples, cause he had all these cool monk tatoos on his back and chest!
what else,
oh we got a cat!
yeah, its a little grey animal that has way too many sharp things at its disposal, tuk asked me what i wanted to name it, i told her ma ahan, which litterally means, dog food
she laughed, but decided she wanted to name her ryan
yep
ryan, cause when i go home there will still be a ryan at the house!
so far ryan has clawed me, bit me and peed on me!
(i was on the phone witha friend when it peed on me, i yelled some choice words, and megan freaked out for a sec)
well last friday i went to a confrence with all of the YES(youth exchange students)
i drove down with all three of my host parents atom and some other rotarians
the thing that sucked anbout the confrence was that we all had to wear our school uniforms, which ment shoes and socks for me, that was actually kinda the joke for all of us, cause last time we were all togetr and we were being told about the rules for the confrence, one of the leaders asked if we had any questions, i asked if we had to wear socks....
bad move ryan..
to this day we dont know why, but at that question siri EXPLODED on me!!!!!!!
yell ing i shopuld allways wear socks(and if you guys know me, socks are my least favorite article of clothing) and how im a bad YES if im not wearing them and got publicly chewed out by this dude for the next couple min. about the atrocities of my sans-sock lifestyle!
anywqays we all made sure to wear our socks and no one died!
so the confrence was sweet i got to meet all of my friends again, and when we had nothin to do wed just chill in someones room, play guitar, or skateboard(zach brought his from america, and started to teach me how to do tricks, i managed to land some, but my shins got hacked up...
oh so like i said in an earlier blog i was supposed to play guitar, but when i got there i found out megan brought her guitar we dicided it would we way cooller to get the band together again, so i taught her a song that i had written, nad vice versa and agreed to back eachother up on singin
we were so pumped id play my song first, cause well her song kinda blew mine out of the water, immean half the song was written in thai!
after a whole day of practicing and waiting for our turn to go up(oh some of my other freinds rotary clubs made them show off thai danceing! they did great and they were all decked out in traditional thai costumes and HEAVY makeup!
we did our firlst song, which was.... decent, her mics werent working, and my guitar was turned on full balst,but we had a fun time cause all of our friends had crowded the stage and were cheering us on
once we finished we were just about to start her song when the mc goes hey you only play one song!
even though we already told him and everybody weed be doing two, but he kicked us offstage, and that was all that we played that night, we were all really bummed, but hey well meet again in like 10 days, so weel how off her song then!
oh one thing about the confrence was freaking that dude from oklahoma was there, you know the guy who thinks im from"cali"
(shudder..)
it was pretty funny, cause joelle and i have voiced our opinions about the use of the word "cali"
(shudder...)
and every time he d=saw me he would inquire " what up cali?"
and evry time id have to restrain my self and reply through gritted teeth
"nothin much"
c'mon!!
who in thier right mind calls california cali???
alright
settling down.....
after the first night my rotary entourage tok off, and left me to fend for myself, so i got a ride home with this old guy who was goin to kk, and i swear i was in this van for 5 hrs with yoda, nice guy, but he could have been argualbly the single greatest jedi in history!
first off this guy was Short! i mean very SHORT somewhere in the ball park of 5 foot
secondly he had ll this kinda whispy innapropriate facial hair
an lastly every couple min or so heed maked these little grunting noises, like he was pondering the mysteries of the force or something like that
anyways it made for an entertaining car ride!
in other news conditions have greatly improved with my host bro, were getting alon real well, i actually founbd a book of his called AMERICAN SLANG, its really funny when he practices on me cause he dropps his coice really low an wiil in a super serious over innuniated voice ask
"whats the plan... Stan???"
so im tryin to help him there! its super funny though
hmmm
mae tuk is good too, she and i are speakin in thai alot more, its really fun hangin out with her!
the other night we stayed up and wathced horror movies on tv!
ummm
my host dfad is still a jerk...
dude wont say a word to me, but i guess i shouldent comlain, cause i am gettin a room to stay in!
welll like i said in the tilte ive only ogt like 3 days left till my mom comes to thailand, so next blog will have our adventures in it!!!
til then!!
ryan
hmm so earlier last week, may friend joelle, came to khon kaen from ubon to hang out for a couple of days, and zach came to hang out at my house, so one day all the kk exchang students came to namphong, and we just hung out in a resturaunt listening to music and eating all day, the resturaunt is pretty cool, the booth that you eat in, is a table thats in a sort of hut thing, thats on stilts above the water, and when you want to order something you bang on this metal pipe and someoohne comes out to meat you, we must have stayed there for a couple hrs or so!
over the next couple of days zach and i would go into kk and hang out with the girls, shop at the night market, and watch movies, i think the best ones were kill bill vol 1 2
but hey thats just me you know!
hmm i also got to go visit the doctor onwed and thursday!
it was kinda awkard, cause when i came to eat lunch with him on wednestady, he forgot to mention that he would be in a meeting, so i show up and hes all, comeon in ryan, here lets get you some food while all of the other people in the meeting stare at you!
later on he was doin an ultra sound on a man, and when he finnished, was suddenly possesed by the urge to persorm one on me, DESPITE all of my protests!
apparently except for my surgerys my insides look just fine!
after that awkward ordeal, i went out to the er with the doc, and found a man that had been in a motor cycle accident, and a pice of rebar was shoved into his heel, so the doctor asked me if id like to do the stiches, uh duh...
so i was able to do the three stiches to close the puncture on his heel the guy ws totalyy cool about it too, im pretty sure he had something to do with the temples, cause he had all these cool monk tatoos on his back and chest!
what else,
oh we got a cat!
yeah, its a little grey animal that has way too many sharp things at its disposal, tuk asked me what i wanted to name it, i told her ma ahan, which litterally means, dog food
she laughed, but decided she wanted to name her ryan
yep
ryan, cause when i go home there will still be a ryan at the house!
so far ryan has clawed me, bit me and peed on me!
(i was on the phone witha friend when it peed on me, i yelled some choice words, and megan freaked out for a sec)
well last friday i went to a confrence with all of the YES(youth exchange students)
i drove down with all three of my host parents atom and some other rotarians
the thing that sucked anbout the confrence was that we all had to wear our school uniforms, which ment shoes and socks for me, that was actually kinda the joke for all of us, cause last time we were all togetr and we were being told about the rules for the confrence, one of the leaders asked if we had any questions, i asked if we had to wear socks....
bad move ryan..
to this day we dont know why, but at that question siri EXPLODED on me!!!!!!!
yell ing i shopuld allways wear socks(and if you guys know me, socks are my least favorite article of clothing) and how im a bad YES if im not wearing them and got publicly chewed out by this dude for the next couple min. about the atrocities of my sans-sock lifestyle!
anywqays we all made sure to wear our socks and no one died!
so the confrence was sweet i got to meet all of my friends again, and when we had nothin to do wed just chill in someones room, play guitar, or skateboard(zach brought his from america, and started to teach me how to do tricks, i managed to land some, but my shins got hacked up...
oh so like i said in an earlier blog i was supposed to play guitar, but when i got there i found out megan brought her guitar we dicided it would we way cooller to get the band together again, so i taught her a song that i had written, nad vice versa and agreed to back eachother up on singin
we were so pumped id play my song first, cause well her song kinda blew mine out of the water, immean half the song was written in thai!
after a whole day of practicing and waiting for our turn to go up(oh some of my other freinds rotary clubs made them show off thai danceing! they did great and they were all decked out in traditional thai costumes and HEAVY makeup!
we did our firlst song, which was.... decent, her mics werent working, and my guitar was turned on full balst,but we had a fun time cause all of our friends had crowded the stage and were cheering us on
once we finished we were just about to start her song when the mc goes hey you only play one song!
even though we already told him and everybody weed be doing two, but he kicked us offstage, and that was all that we played that night, we were all really bummed, but hey well meet again in like 10 days, so weel how off her song then!
oh one thing about the confrence was freaking that dude from oklahoma was there, you know the guy who thinks im from"cali"
(shudder..)
it was pretty funny, cause joelle and i have voiced our opinions about the use of the word "cali"
(shudder...)
and every time he d=saw me he would inquire " what up cali?"
and evry time id have to restrain my self and reply through gritted teeth
"nothin much"
c'mon!!
who in thier right mind calls california cali???
alright
settling down.....
after the first night my rotary entourage tok off, and left me to fend for myself, so i got a ride home with this old guy who was goin to kk, and i swear i was in this van for 5 hrs with yoda, nice guy, but he could have been argualbly the single greatest jedi in history!
first off this guy was Short! i mean very SHORT somewhere in the ball park of 5 foot
secondly he had ll this kinda whispy innapropriate facial hair
an lastly every couple min or so heed maked these little grunting noises, like he was pondering the mysteries of the force or something like that
anyways it made for an entertaining car ride!
in other news conditions have greatly improved with my host bro, were getting alon real well, i actually founbd a book of his called AMERICAN SLANG, its really funny when he practices on me cause he dropps his coice really low an wiil in a super serious over innuniated voice ask
"whats the plan... Stan???"
so im tryin to help him there! its super funny though
hmmm
mae tuk is good too, she and i are speakin in thai alot more, its really fun hangin out with her!
the other night we stayed up and wathced horror movies on tv!
ummm
my host dfad is still a jerk...
dude wont say a word to me, but i guess i shouldent comlain, cause i am gettin a room to stay in!
welll like i said in the tilte ive only ogt like 3 days left till my mom comes to thailand, so next blog will have our adventures in it!!!
til then!!
ryan
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