Hey y’all just finished my first week of classes, it’s gonna be a great quarter. I really like my textbook, it explains grammar very well, my teachers are awesome and the new students are pretty legit. Although one thing, its still spring festival up in here so during the night it sounds  like a warzone with all the fireworks constantly going off around the city. Imma trying to go to sleep and im having flashbacks for all those highschool days I played COD, Yo was that a missile or just the world’s largest homemade mortar.

Anyways Chinese hasn’t gotten any easier I mean every time I feel I have learned more I talk with some Chinese people, or watch Chinese news and then I feel I haven’t made progress. Language learning curve I swear only steepens as I study. But its k, its just the first week and I’ve got a plan. So I keep getting pixar/Disney movies in Chinese. Most recent is how to train your dragon, ratatouille, and Mulan, YO all of the Mulan songs are in Chinese… that’s right. I can’t wait to rock “Be a Man” in the 汉语。 Back to the plan, each week im going to in depth study a movie, basically go line by line and write all the words I don’t know. As well as I have my textbook from western, I’m going to revisit. I’ve found the key to all this is how much you review. (I tried to put a Chinese word here but spent 10 minutes trying to express what it means in English, I’ll figure it out eventually)

What else, um went to a Beijing Frisbee meeting, and looks like im going to be overnight training it a couple weekends in the spring for some tournaments!

Little short, just a quick catch up, hope all is well, a more interesting entry incoming in about 4-6 days :D

Well I safely returned from Thailand. Who wants to hear about it? Right. So to me, the very interesting parts were getting there and getting back. Being in Chang Mai was all relaxing in 95 F degree weather…. I was melting, Im used to the temperate, and i would rather be cold then hot kind of thing.

SO getting there, Korean air treats you right, so much leg room, personal tv, watchin all the movies. 3 hour delays, end up in Bangkok at 12:30 AM, pretty tired, feeling gross, been on planes all day. Go to the airport taxi area. The guy has his meter hidden by a towel, with a miniature temple on top of it. I didn’t really think anything of it, I don’t know I was tired, get to the hotel the taxi driver over charges me by a lot, then has the nerve to yell at me for not getting him a tip. *sigh* great start right?

So next day, I have one mission, find train station, buy ticket, get on train. So I take hotel shuttle to airport to catch express rail into town, and get to talk with a group of Americans just starting their Southeast Asia trip. Pretty fun to talk with them. I found out during this trip that I want to travel more, purely for the part of meeting many different people. So I buy my train ticket and I have 8 hours to burn. What to do? Well I see signs for China Town…. When in foreign place go to something familiar right? (spoiler: ALL OF THEM SPEAK CANTONESE )  As I start walking there, this elderly Thai man starts a conversation with me, and  here is how the dialogue went.

Thai guy: “The wind from the river is really nice isn’t it?”

Me: “Yeah im dying out here”

Thai guy: “What you doing in Bangkok?”

Me: “I have 8 hours to burn before I take a train”

Thai guy: “Where you going”

Me: “I don’t know of anything to do so im heading to China Town”

Thai guy: “ You have a map?”

Me: “No”

Thai guy: “ Do you know of any of the main attractions here”

Me: “No”

Thai guy: “do you know where you are?”

Me: “No”

Thai guy: “where China Town is?”

Me: “….. No”

Then he tells me, I have to buy curry for my sister and have to walk through China town to get to Old town, you can walk with me if you like. Sure, why not.  Picture tour now

So we stop here so he can pay his respects to Buddha

And walk by the first street of Bangkok (he tells me)

And walk down streets

 

      

And to a 600 year old building? (he told me)

It was about this time, that I realized we had not made it to old town, and he was not making a lot of effort to get there, and I ask him and he says we need to take a bus. So we get on a bus, and walk about half a mile to a pier

 

And im like….. how much is boat to old town? He tells me 600 baht, which is about 20 US, (which is expensive ) and I tell the guy. Yooooo im not trying to buy a boat. So he says fine and puts me on a bus by myself back to China town.  And I sit in train station for a couple hours and finally am PAIGE/JOHN BOUND YUSSSSS

Train ride was awesome, hung out with this guy from Britain and we talked it up, I sorta slept, and was in Chang mai following late morning. Ride a  tuk tuk to the airport

And meet up with these lovely peeps!!!

this is our rooftop hangout at our guesthouse

First night, we go out to the night bazaar.

And then decide that it’s time to poach a pool, first hotel is closed, second hotel pool also closed, but we witnessed karaoke, third hotel also closed. We struck out :(

Next day we rented mopeds for 10 bucks for 24 hours, and rode them 15 km outa town and went to tiger kingdom and checked out tigers! So cool, and I never realized how big they were,

 

 

Then kept driving up the road to these waterfalls, they had about 10 different levels but we found one that you could swim in, thank god all I wanna do is swim

 

 

 That day was amazing!

Moving on, next day we chill and decide to go to a fish spa.. and get our feet eaten by fish. It tickles.

 

 

We needed support

I also got super cheap feet, back, and hand massages. It was soo bomb.

Went to another street market with more handicraft stuff.

 

 

Had street sushi

Next day, finally got the successful poach!

Chang Mai was fun, but not what I expected, it was super catered to Western tourism, everyone spoke engrish, food was meh, and a lot of the activities cost a lot of money. But the fact that I met up with friends, who last October we were talking about how we will both be in Asia and say oh we should meet up. The fact that we actually met up is surreal and was awesome. Im so glad I had the opportunity to do it.

This trip a lot happened and it’s hard to cover it all of it, I tried.