ภูเก็ต - Phuket

This past week was our week long vacation. The kids were off of school and we were off to the beaches of Southern Thailand! We spent the first half of the trip on Patong Beach and the second half at Kata Beach but we were lucky enough to see four different beaches! I was sick so I spent the first day in our hotel room trying to keep food down but then after what I think was a 24-hour food poisoning I was feeling 100% better. Our first hotel was call "Time Out" and the check in desk was inside a Subway restaurant, right across the street from the beach. We would walk out of Subway cross the street and be stepping onto the sand of the beach. It was perfect! It was also a very touristy part of Phuket (The island all our beaches we were on) so there was Italian food, Indian food and American food chains everywhere, which we thoroughly enjoyed. It was a little of an adjustment being around so many white people though. Australians  Russians, Ukrainians, you name it, they were at Patong Beach. There were also many Indians who were VERY nice. Tailoring shops spotted the beach and we loved all the classy Indians who asked us if we needed a tailored suit of dress made. We had everything from brick oven pizza to crepes made my a street vendor, the food was fantastic each week!

Patong Beach:

Our view

Fish spa! These fish eat the dead skin off your feet! It tickled SO much

Russian food and tailors... Both were everywhere!

Loving the water

These vendors would walk up and down the beach trying to sell everything from 

sarongs to fruit.As you can see here the vendors were covered head to toe. Thai 

people like to keep their skin as light as possible and cover up even when riding

 through Phichit on their scooters. Lotion here even has whitening chemicals in it!

SUBWAY!

These shells covered the beach and one of the other teachers spelled out Thailand with them

One of our many sunsets on the beach

When it was time to change hotels we booked a tour to pick us up from one hotel and take us to the new hostel. We paid 1000 Baht (33$) to go to Phi Phi Island. We took a ferry for about an hour ride into the ocean to visit Phi Phi. Our tour also included snorkeling, lunch and a ride to our hostel. The tour was great and WELL work the money and travel time. 

Phi Phi Island: 

Our Ferry 

Front of the boat, topped with the Thailand flag

Finally we get to Phi Phi

Beautiful or what? 

The dock

On the small boat headed to the beach to snorkel!

Long Beach on Phi Phi Island: 

Our boats

LOVE this shot Charlotte took!

The storm that hit on our way back to Phuket on the Ferry.

Kata Beach: 

Our hostel was called "Rick N' Roll." An American singer and performer owned it 

and was very nice and helpful during our stay. We made a few friends during

our stay and also did karaoke night a few times there as well. 

Us ordering lunch at the hostel. The cook was the CUTEST thing ever!

Kata was BEAUTIFUL

Karon Beach: 

In the end, our vacation was JUST what we needed. We didn't book multiple tours or spend a lot of money but we relaxed on the beach and had a lot of great food! We enjoyed sleeping in, having AC and having fresh fruit smoothies everyday. The beaches were beautiful and the trip was over too soon, but as I post these pictures I am reminded about how I am truly blessed to be here in paradise. It feels unreal to still be here and after looking through these pictures I feel very humbled once again. I don't know why I was so lucky to have the life that I do and to have this opportunity but I know that am supposed to be here and for that I will be grateful for years to come! I challenge all you to find the beauty in your own lives. Find it in nature, smiles of strangers and your family or in the best way possible to find it: on your knees. 

วันฮาโลวีน - Halloween

The Thailand school terms end in October so in the four weeks that the kids we didn't have school we did a three week summer camp. For this camp kids from all over came. We had different classes and I introduced the younger classes to the alphabet. It was a very fun three weeks with new lessons and new kids and it ended with a Halloween party! Halloween isn't a popular holiday in Thailand but our kids have been learning English long enough to understand the traditions. We had the students dress up and we did Halloween bingo, line dancing, cracker owls and trick or treat bags. We also took the students trick or treating from classroom to classroom. It was very fun! And for the last week of break us teachers went to the beach for a week, but more on that later!

WINTER CAMP

Making clay letter R's

Moo Pee... and yes he is wearing full camo

HALLOWEEN 2012: IMPERIAL BILINGUAL SCHOOL 

The teachers!

Fei-Fei and Ongry... or should I say the spidermans

Ching Ching eating her owl eyes

The princesses trying to scare us

Trick or Treat!

Dance party!!

จัดงานแต่งงาน - The Wedding

Here in Phichit there are not many white people and we got excited one day when we ran into a guy from Atlanta, Georgia, Daniel and his Thai wife Pat here in town. They are SO nice and generous. They have come to the school, met the kids, brought them candy and taken us out to eat too many times!!  They were legally married around a year ago so Pat could go to America for Christmas but their traditional wedding was this past weekend and that is the reason we went to Bangkok. Pat and Daniel met on Daniel's first day in Thailand and they have been together ever since for the past four years. We had the privilege to attend our friend's wedding and it was BEAUTIFUL!! We are so grateful for their friendship and generosity! 

Us in our traditional Thai dresses in the elevator heading to the wedding.

The monks did chants and rituals for a couple hours, it was really neat 

to be a part of it. 

Bride and groom in Thai traditional dress

The couple changed into their western attire, Daniel giving his speech.

Cute Thai wedding party, all in traditional dress. The girl in the blue was running around all 

afternoon taking pictures of everyone and everything, she was SO cute!

So we were at the wedding in our Thai dresses that we rented and relized within minutes that we were over-dressed so we took the elevator up to our hotel room and changed into our western dresses. It was pretty funny, and we felt much more comfortable anyways. We decided to do a photo shoot back at the school after our Bangkok trip. 

More of the wedding: 

We used these flowers as part of the ceremony when Daniel, the groom, entered the room. We used the flowers as a block way and Daniel had to give us money and answer a question we asked correctly in order to pass. He was followed by all his friends holding gifts and flowers, the friends would holler and howl

when Daniel would pass one of our thresholds, it was SO fun to be a part of the wedding!

Photo shoot at the school: 

All six of us!

These are shrines in front of the school. Offering are put 

on the front pedestals almost every week. 

The two K3 teachers

Beautiful fabric!

This is guard in the black and our gardener in the green they were following

us around taking pictures of us, it was SO funny!! They are both

sweet men who take good care of us and the school.

A little sunny but I had to represent Phichit!

The dresses were BEAUTIFUL and even though we didn't wear them to the wedding we were glad that we rented them anyway!

Thanks again Pat and Daniel for being such great friends to us!

CONGRATULATIONS on your big day! We are all very happy for you both!