Thailand: Photos from my Iphone

I know I have already posted about my time spent volunteering in Thailand, but my mom keeps asking me when I will post about the rest of my trip. So in this post I'll be sharing some photos I took with some notes and commentary about my trip dispersed throughout.


Although it is nearly 10pm in late December, as I step out of the cab at Don Muang station, Thailand greets me with a smothering blanket of humidity. Surely this gesture is intended as a welcoming embrace, but I can't peel my layers off fast enough  (talk about a warm greeting!). According to my ticket my train should arrive at 10:20pm, but in reality I'm sitting at the station over an hour after my supposed departure time before I finally hear the low rumble that announces the trains imminent approach.

After depositing my belongings on my bunk I make my way to the food car and am greeted by Christmas lights and bros. From here the heat of Thailand is no longer overbearing, but I'm still glad I opted for the first class AirCon car. 

The view from the food car in the morning (morning used quite liberally as I slept in until around noontime). Those cars you see ahead are the lowest fare seats as you move back they become nicer and more expensive my first class (caboose)  fare was a staggering  900.00 baht, or just over $30.  But put in perspective, this is more than I spent on feeding myself on an average day.

This being my first overnight/long distance rail trip I'm fairly impressed with the experience. While I ended up stuck on an upper berth which doesn't afford me a window view or much upright seated room, I otherwise can't complain too much, it is certainly much nicer than the other seating options I passed on my way to and from the food car . Upon plucking up the courage to use the toilet (a 13 hour train ride means it can't be avoided) I was surprised to realize not only were the toilets cleaner than expected (of course, not up to Japanese standards) but also that the view my upper bunk lacked was more than made up for by the views from the bathroom. Not only could I observe the passing scenery from a small window, but I also got an excellent view of the tracks whizzing by below me as I whizzed down upon it.. 

I didn't take this photo, but this is an exact image of my train toilet experience.
photo courtesy of: http://gobackpacking.com/woman-guide-using-squat-toilets/ (this is also a very insightful article if you are unfamiliar with using a squat toilet).

Most of my stay while in Thailand, volunteering aside, was spent in Chiang Mai, the largest city in Northern Thailand. Being not particularly partial to very large cities, I greatly preferred Chiang Mai to Bangkok.

Alongside being famous for its temples, nature, and wildlife, Chiang Mai is known to host some of the most exuberant Night Markets in Thailand. There is the nightly Night Bazaar, the daily Food Market, the Night Market on Sundays, Walking Streets dispersed sporadically throughout the week, and of course the New Years Count Down and Night Market. Nearly everyday I was in Chiang Mai there was a night market going on.

I met these school girls about to perform a traditional dance while wandering through and sampling the different food stalls. At this point I hadn't found my favorite mango sticky rice stall.

Here I am snacking on some lemon flavored Ancient Ice cream. I'm not sure what makes it ancient, but it came highly recommended by a group of tourist I met on my train ride to Chiang Mai.  It was tasty, and more importantly it kept me relatively cool in the over 80 degree heat.

Here I am posing in front of Tha Phae Gate. Chiang Mai was originally surrounded by a wall  and moat that fenced in the city with 4 gates located at the cardinal points. The wall has since been torn down, but the foundations are still in place and serve as a visual cue that you are crossing over into the Old city. Tha Phae Gate is the most famous of the gates and is the starting point of the night markets held along the main streets of the old city. In Thailand appropriate attire for females consist of shirts that cover the shoulders and no cleavage(!) and bottoms that go down to your knees (at least. At some temples you must wear pants to enter). This can be challenging when trying to stay cool, this day I sweating it out in 90 degree weather.

In Thailand they celebrate the New Year not once, not twice, but THREE times! The Gregorian New Year, Chinese New Year, and the Thai New Year (Songkran). Here I am putting up a prayer at a Thai temple. These all serve as decorations for the New Year celebration. In preparation for the new year the monks were busy wrapping the temples in a yellowish/golden cloth for goodluck, I think.You write your wish and name on your Zodiac sign. Because I am born in the year of the snake and this is the year of the snake it is supposed to be a very lucky year for me. 

Doi Suthep Temple. The grandest temple in Chiang Mai. Being an idiot, and without time to choose a better day, I went on New Years Eve day, probably the most crowded day to visit this already popular temple. 

Khao Soy, the regional specialty of Chiang Mai and some Iced Tea (Thai style, lots of sugar, that's why the Thai are so sweet!). 

Mango sticky rice I made at Thai cooking class. Delicious. 

After a week of volunteering and a week of sightseeing in Chiang Mai it was off to Bangkok!

                              

                 The view of Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn) on the approach from the  water taxi. The attempt to catch the water taxi was an adventure, because if you wander onto the wrong port it'll cost you 100x's the cost to catch the longboats. They cost about 1300 baht (after haggling) the water taxi, a cool 15 baht. This is the most stunning temple I saw while in Thailand, the details are amazing, the entire temple is covered completely covered in statues and etchings.  It is a bit reminiscent of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, but more colorful and elaborate. I'll add more photos onto my flickr soon and link to it so you can see, but you can click that link for the meantime to get an idea.

                                     

          Alex and I celebrating our one year anniversary sans our wedding rings at the Thai Grand Palace. haha. No, in reality, I met Alex at the hostel I was staying at while I waited to meet up with my friend Ciara. But everyone kept assuming we were a couple so we started going along with it and telling people we were celebrating our one year anniversary, which got us many congratulations (which was the source of my laughter in this photo). 

On our last night in Thailand we decided to wine (more like fresh fruit cocktails, the passion fruit one was to die for!) and dine at the rooftop bar and restaurant Sirocco as made famous by The Hangover II

Roisin, Me, and Ciara with our diligent attendant Noppadol. He was so sweet and chuckled at Ciara because of her fear of heights.

In the evening we got a party tuktuk, met a new Thai friend, and even stopped by the infamous Khao San Road. Although we joked about going to see a ping-pong show, we DID NOT! Family members, don't look this up. I was so confused earlier when people who were volunteering with me made some comments about going/not going to see a ping pong show. I didn't see what the fuss was about  (on the travel sites it was recommended as something popular to do in Bangkok) until they explained it to me. 

I'll slowly starting uploading my 1000+ (mostly of elephants) photos onto my flickr soon.

AEIOUy: Awesome Event In Oshima, Umm, Yay!

aka I <3 Oshima

Hello Readers!
I think most of you know that initially (and most of the time) my relationship with my JET placement in Oshima was/is pure ambivalence. As time has worn on, I can`t say that our relationship status has necessarily changed, it is still somewhat along the lines of love-hate. But the most important thing is that I have learned amongst all the drawbacks of living on a small rural island I really do love Oshima.

As my past blog posts can attest I haven`t spent a majority of my free time in Oshima. Instead on the weekends I like to get off the island to socialize with friends. And so this past weekend I aimed to remedy that by inviting as many of my ALT friends to Oshima to enjoy the beauty of the island as well as get in some socializing. This event entailed enjoying some of the most amazing/awesome things that Oshima has to offer.
The event kicked off on Saturday evening around 5:30 and raged on until around 3:00 Sunday. Here are some of the highlights.

Cafe Misaki
After everyone made the long trek across Yamaguchi, their hungry bellies were rewarded with the delicious curries available at Cafe Misaki. Cafe Misaki is one of my favorite restaurants on Oshima. The food is delicious, the owner is very friendly, and the view from the restaurant is breathtaking!

The lovely Cafe Misaki (and me too!)
P.C. of Amber Brice

At Cafe Misaki!
P.C. of Kanae

Socializing
After dinner and dropping of our belongings at Matthew (Oshima`s highschool ALT) we all took a small hike up a mountain/hill to view one of the large Golden Buddha statues. Unfortunately by the time we got to the top the flood lights were turned off. But we did get a great view of all of the stars. One of the nice
things about living in the countryside, very little light pollution.
After our small hike we returned to Matthew`s to have some drinks, snacks, and gaming (Mario kart, Micheal Jackson Experience, Super Smash Brothers, nerdy card games i.e. San Juan and Dominion, and of course a riveting dirty nasty round of Never Have I Ever).

Awesome Yamaguchi ALTs!

My co-worker Kanae and her friends came too!

Oshima Nature
After a wild night of drinks and socializing Matthew and I woke our friends bright and early to enjoy some of the beauty of Oshima. Originally we had hoped to climb the wonderful Mt. Dake, but after a hard night of partying we could see many of our friends were not up for the challenge. So instead after a delicious breakfast cooked up by Matthew we piled into our cars and drove to one of the many beautiful beaches on Oshima to relax and soak up some sun.

Walking over to a nice little alcove in the bay.

Awesome ALT steph was the first brave soul to venture
into the semi-chilly water. 

 Buddha and Sculpture Garden
After enjoying the beach and hopefully getting a slight sun tan we next ventured to the super awesome Oshima Sculpture Garden and Buddha. This sight-seeing spot is tucked away on the opposite island from where Matthew and I live. I only happened to chance upon it because one of my elementary schools is located nearby. After a chance venture in March, I fell in love with the quaint ad quirky atmosphere. On the first glance it looks really traditional with the shrine and Buddha. But as you move deeper into the sculpture garden you see that it really is a quirky semi commercial semi traditional sculpture garden. Some of the more odd sculptures that can be seen in the garden are ultraman, evee (and other pokemon), as well as the Tootsie Pop owl.

Awesome ALT Erez LOVES
Oshima and the Awesome sculpture garden!

What a serene scene!

Oshima may have some faults but overall it really is a beautiful place and I am really lucky to have been placed here! Friends, please feel free to come and visit!!! There is plenty of crash space at my apartment. <3 <3 <3

In other news, I successfully managed to obtain my Japanese Drivers License in one try! Yippie!
And, in August Oshima will have a 3rd ALT! I know who she is, but I think it is still meant to be a bit of a secret, although my supervisor gave me the ok to send her a welcome email in the coming days!

Also, my uncle recently sent me an email asking how the new school year has been going (post all those crazy musical chairs school&teacher edition) and so one of my upcoming posts will likely talk about this!

Until Next Time!

Keri

P.S.

Here is where I`ve started to post all (or nearly all of my photos) that don`t have space to make it into my blog posts. http://www.flickr.com/photos/keri-berry/

Friendly Fish

Hello Readers!
This past weekend was Yanai City`s annual 金魚ちょちん(goldfish lantern) festival. And of course, this goldfish addicted girl just had to go! So I was a little ambitious in my goldfish festivity planning because I had decided to wake up and drive over to the train station at 9:00 so that I could be in Yanai enjoying all the goldfishy fest by 10am. At this point I had not been aware that the festivities wouldnt really begin until around 4:30, leaving me with about 6 hours to fill until goldfishing began.
So anyway, in an attempt to alleviate our 6 hour wait, Matthew and I (my fellow islander ALT) decided to wander around Yanai and take some more of the goldfish lanterns since it was such a beautiful day. While wandering around the main goldfish decorated street we found a little...I guess craft place...where we could pay 900 yen to build our own little goldfish lanters. And obviously I couldn`t refuse!!!! The elderly Japanese woman who was teaching us how to make the goldfish lanterns had a pretty decent handle over the English language, well compared to most of the people that I have met so far. She was really excited to learn that Matthew and I were both living in Oshima (a pretty close distance) and even more excited to learn that I would be teaching an えいかいわ (adult conversation class) twice a month starting in September, so we ended up exchanging information and she told me to please let her know once my classes started because she would like to attend.

After our arts and crafting Matthew and I ended up wandering for about an hour in the sweltering hot sun trying to find this delicious pizza/pasta restaurant that my predeccesor had recommend I visit. Everytime we asked someone if they knew where the restaurant was they said (in Japanese), `ahhh, I know (have heard) of that restaurant, but I dont know where it is`....and so we continued to wander in a mostly aimless direction in hopes that a) we would randomly run into it b) that we would run into someone who knew what and where the restaurant was.
Luckily, we did finally find someone who could give us some directions, and as it turned out, by that point we were only about a block and a half away.
The food ended up being super delicious, I got a basil pesto pasta with some garlicy garlic bread (yum). But the really awesome part of this was that while we were eating this young Japanese guy and some of his friends came over and started chatting with us in English. Turns out he had been living in Canada for awhile, so his english was pretty darn good, and he was hoping that we wouldn`t mind exchanging contact info so that we could hangout sometimes and he could practice his English. The reason why this qualifies as being `really awesome` is because as you may recall, my island is filled mostly with the 50+ crowd, so meeting a group of Japanese people in their mid-20`s who would want to hangout is kind of a big deal. I really really want to make friends outside of the JET group, not that the JET`s aren`t nice, but I think it will make my time here much more fun and interesting if I can befriend some Japanese people (preferably close to my age, but really any age is fine as well).

Ok I am going to skip how we spent the rest of our 4 hour wait, because it really isnt interesting (mostly hiding out in any place that had air conditioning) and skip straight to the festival.


By 4:30 there were huge crowds of people, and vendors lining the main festival streets. There were a couple of game booths that ranged from traditional Japanese Kyudo (archery) to fishing games. And the vendors sold everything from food, pokemon cards, to live goldfish. And by this time the actual streets were filled with a number of goldfish floats (see above). Matthew and I joined the groups of people thronging the streets so that we would have a decent view once the parade commenced, but then Matthew ovserved, `where the heck are these fish going? They are completely blockaded in up ahead`. And sure enough, there was no way there fish were moving more than maybe 1 meter because there was a huge crowd of people barracading them in. As it turned out, these fish got marched to right in front of the huge blockade and the taiko drums would begin playing and the crowd would begin chanting ( i couldnt make out the words) and all of a sudden the float bearers (for lack of a better word) would begin swirling the little fish around in circles for about 30 seconds and then stop and change direction. Every single fish did this once, then the blockade was broken up and they slowly proceded further down the street with continued chanting and drumming. It seems like it was a competition, but I have no idea how a winner would be determined.


(This was my favorite goldfish)



(A goldfish getting spun around)

I am beginning to feel more confident with driving. However there is one street that I HATE HATE HATE driving on. And the unfortunate thing is that this is the street that leads to the other ALT`s apartment and to two of the schools I will be teaching at. Here are the reasons why this road sucks: It is a super narrow road, it is the main road running through Agenosho (and thus is heavily trafficked), there are not many parking lots so people park on the side of the street, making it an even tighter squeeze, aside from the car traffic there are all these little obachans that are walking along the side of the road and also kids on bikes or scooters. Also, the crazy Japanese drivers come careening around corners without the slightest concern for anyone being on the other side. Huuumpph. Ughhh I hate driving here.
Luckily while driving there is this button that will pull in my car`s `ears` (side mirrors) which gives me a slight bit more space.


The worst road ever, it is much much worse in person.

Why are all my posts about fish?