Phura! Chop makmak! Suay yu hu!

So i went and spent a few days in the "mountains" haha! i was nice to get out of the city for a couple days! We went to a place called Phura! its a famous national park thats beautiful! And might i add it was cold. and dont call me a baby when i tell you the temp. i have acclimatized, i cant help it. well i thought my fingers and toes were gonna fall off one morning when it was like 10 hahaha it was cold after being in +30 for 4 months!! ahhh 4 months already! thats hard to believe!
So day 1 we left bangkok around 10 at night! then we drove...and drove....and drove. till 5:30 in the morning...which then we stopped and hiked up to phura peak in the dark to watch the sun rise! AHHHH beauty! dont laugh at the picture i was in a car for 6 and a half hours with barely any sleep haha! but it was amazing so beautiful! after our adventure to the peak it was breakfast and then nap time! haha so we all had a 2 hour nap and then headed out for some more adventuring. We next went to a vineyard...that didnt have wine for us to taste....wtf...a vineyard without wine...only in Thailand! saw some grapes wow that was just amazing....*rolling eyes*..... next we headed to a flower garden! it was real pretty lots of gorgeous flowers to look at and take pictures! me and simon being silly like usual! it was just fun to hang out! we went with simons host sister and her friends so getting to know some new people was really nice! The next day we went to the Laos border! haha so we got to see some different country...literally :p we didnt actually go into the country because the border was gonna make us have to make a visa if we wanted to go in sooooooo noooooo. o well we got to the border. Then we went to a market and a boat ride haha. i dunno what it is with boat rides here but alrite away we went. The next couple of days we adventured to different temples. The northern temples are apparently different from the southern ones....alrighty then! haha we saw the Buddha foot print! yup big hole in the side of the mountain in the shape of a foot so its automatically Buddhas footprint...kinda cool! so ya did some adventuring then had to come back to bangkok...sad i like the country to much the city is suffocating! o well! what can ya do!
Xoxo

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is the best thing to do!

Lately life in thailand has been well....interesting. Ive been having alot of up and down days....or should i say up moments and down weeks. We can start with my good friend dan. He went home last tuesday! One of the hardest things to do was to watch him walk away. He is probably one of the best friends ive ever had and saying goodbye hurt alot! But he had to go. He was going crazy here. His host family made if hard for him to want to stay here. and i mean if i wasn't afraid of disappointing people back home i might just have been getting on that plane with him. Things in Thailand are hard! its a hard culture to adjust to but, when you get treated like a 4 year old i think thats a little ridiculous. My one host mom holds my hand when we cross the street....ya my hand im nearly 19 and someone is holding my hand while i cross the street. come on! so thats a little frustrating!
The friendships ive made here in thailand are sometimes hard to believe! in three months i have made some of the best friends ive ever had and it seems like we've been friends for centuries....ok well i know im not that old but you get what im trying to say! It was a hard thing to say goodbye to dan but he had to do what he had to do! Dan's now safety back at home! i talk to him often on skype...along with his mom and brother! they are quiet the family! He was eating chocolate chip pancakes in front of me the other day! that was a little mean! even tho i dont even like pancakes i was still really jealous for some true american food! Seeing how happy he is at home made me realize that he really did need to leave. hes a very out of the box type of person and being stuck in the big city was really not his thing!!
So when we found out dan was leaving us we set ourselfs on high gear to do as much as we can before we had to say goodbye! so the week before dan left things we are little crazy!!
jeeze where to start! I think it started a week before he left on the sunday! Dan and i went for a sunday roadtrip with my host mom i guess you could say haha.we were going to go on a boat to cross the river to a little island where the unmodernized thai people live! its supposed to be really interesting! but it was flooded the day we went! theres been lots of rain up in northern thailand and its all coming to us down here in the south so lots of places close to the river are getting flooded! so we didnt get to see that! instead we drove for a while to a market!! yay!!! every host moms dream! to spend 6 hours at a market on sunday! and thats what we did haha. it wasn't to bad actually me and dan talked alot about everything! it was nice just to get a chance to hang out and talk! we went on a boat ride while we were there and we just goofed around and what not so it was fun!
From monday till about wednesday i may have left school a little early to see everybody haha but what can ya do right! so during the week we mostly hung out and just talked or saw a movie and had dinner a couple of times! On thursday we saw like 6 Muay Thai boxing matches! it was really cool! and pretty exciting! there was a girl fight but the one girl totally owned the other girl in the first round! hahah we all kinda did the ooooooooooo when she got knocked out after like 1:30 i think! ya it was intense! that was fun after we had something to eat like usual and just hung out!
Friday i spent the day at dans school with his classmates because i had no school because of an exhibition that was going on here! Dan went to an all boys school! haha yup so i was ike the only girl in his class in the university uniform to so ya i got some awesome looks haha! Dans classmates were really fun! After school was finished dan's soccer team had a game! So we all made our way out to the soccer feilds and i got to watch dan and is classmates play there last game together! it was actually really fun! and some of his classmates that weren't playing had there own match going and asked me to play so there i was running around in my skirt playing soccer like the tom boy i can be sometimes haha o well what can you do! it was actually really fun! after a disappointing loss but a good game we hung out and decided to go out for one last supper with all of dans class mates! not before we had a little snack! yaaa i ate a maggot....... and almost puked cause it was still slimy in the middle :| grosssssss never again. it was fried but not totally fried haha. me and dan we really grossed out while this other kid ate them like chips! ahhhhh you can buy like grasshopers and cockroaches ahhhh gross gross gross! i dont ven want to think about it haha! it was nastey. so after our snack we piled into a santong! its like a big tuk tuk haha. so we took 2 of those to a japanese restaurant! which was delicious! much better then maggots if you ask me! we met up with simon the boy from france so there we were all having supper like 20 boys and 1 little girl haha! somethings never change!
Saturday we all got together to watch simons rugby game. well not before getting lost for an hour and then walked like 30 blocks to find this place haha. it has to be in the most inconvenient place ever of course! haha. so we watched simon play his rugby but it didnt last long before simon has an accident! he twisted a muscle or joint in his ankle so it swelled up a lot! it actually its still swollen and purple now....he got the nickname blueberry foot or sausage leg now haha. we can be mean some times...but hes french...and easy to make fun of with his accent haha! Saturday night some of the kids from Angthong were in town so we got together with them for a couple hours to have dinner and say goodbye to another girl that was going home from brasil! she came in january of last year so shes actually finished her exchange!!
Sunday was a little bit of a sad day! dan Said goodbye to all the kids from Angthong because they had to go back so we hung out for the afternoon before saying some sad goodbyes! Sunday night the Bkk Crew all 8 of us went out for supper! at a pizza place that we like! we thought it might be the last time we were all together before tuesday at the airport but we were surprised when the club president of dans club asked if we all wanted to stay in a apartment monday night so that we could all go to the airport together so that was really nice of her!
So Monday it was like a first and last night in Bangkok for us all! it was so much fun it was unbelieve able! we spent the night doing whatever around bangkok! we saw a little night life and did some shopping and eating and more shopping and more eating and playing with elephants and ahh it was such a good night!! our theme ong was ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK haha it was really fun! so after adventuring the town we all piled into cabs and went to the apartment around 1. we had to leave the apartment at 4:30 so none of us really wanted to sleep! so we stayed up talking and laughing and having fun for the rest of the night! it was such a goodnight it was hard to believe that dan was leaving! soo 4:30 rolled around and o boy we drove to the airport everybody was pretty quiet! we all waiting till it was dans turn in line and then we had to say our goodbyes :( and then the tears flew!! one last hug and he was gone! real sad but we have o many good memories to look back on why dwell on that hes gone! so tuesday morning i went to my house and slept the day only to wake up with the worst cold in my whole entire life haha thats what i get for staying out and up all night!
So After dan left life got a little excting i guess. about 6 hours after dan left the bangkok airport...its got a sweet big name but i dont know how to spell it...the PAD stormed the airport and took control of it....flights grounded people stuck in the airport people stuck in thailand...and my other host mom stuck in japan...haha crap. This has been going on for about 3 months know but didnt really make news until now because the rioters took a big step taking over the airport. The airport is still closed today so its been a little over a week since they took it over, but im telling you it really doesnt affect everyday life here. The news only focuses on the bad stuff going on but what they dont realize is that i still walk down the street in the day and night..i still go to school i still hang out with my friends nothing has really changed..other then i guess i cant take a plane anytime soon but i mean i wasnt planning on flying for a while. i think people think its actually much worse then it is...there have been car bombs in the city and some people have died and such but theres nothing we can do to prevent that! simply wrong place wrong time kind of thing...its happened on totally opposite sides of the city so there really isnt an area that we should keep clear of. but mommy said people are worried! but dont worry about me! worry about the kids in india! they are in way more trouble then me sso dont worry!
So ya life goes on This week was a recovery week sleeping and relaxing and the occasional movie date with my girlfriends haha. we went and saw twilight the other day so that was fun! But yes life goes on so im not to worried about everything!
Today im off to the north with simon to spend about 5 days away! Thank god im going crazy in the restrictions of the city! argg anyways im off! enjoy the pictures!! :):)
Xoxox