School let out for the pending Buddhist holiday on July 16th and 17th (Tuesday & Wednesday) and we were notified by our school that we also had Monday off. Bangkok seemed the likeliest destination to explore with its endless supply of temples (over 400), tantalizing food, night life, and markets. Day 1 I started my …
Continue reading "Five Day Holiday (Day 1) – Bangkok Temples & Food"A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to visit a teacher’s home. The backstory is he lives in a small farming town of approximately 400 people in the province of Phetchaburi, Thailand. He had been living in this village with his Thai wife for the past 12 years and was one of the only …
Continue reading "Thank You Tha Yang for Culture Shock 101"Had a rough morning trying to get myself motivated. I fell asleep the previous evening around 8:00pm which tells me that I’m feeling some of the strain of teaching. Started my morning off by researching tattoo’s by Ajarn’s in my area. I ended up finding one through a Facebook search and used Google Translate to …
Continue reading "Temple Healing"Last night, I was discussing my experience at the temple with my roommate (Jonathan) and he said that he wanted to go to the morning prayer/meditation session that started at 4:30am. We woke up at 3:30am, walked up to the temple (Wat Khao Ittisukkhato) and met an elderly named, “Mama” who asked us about our …
Continue reading "Early Morning Riser"Started the morning with TESOL training and picked up a lot of new tricks that I can use in the classroom when teaching English. After that, I had an interview with my agent (Angel Ha-BFITS) and it went really well. She confirmed I would be teaching intensive English to 7thand 8thgraders in Pathum Thani at …
Continue reading "Spiritual Touch"It’s in the books. Visited three temples (Wat Pho-Reclining Buddha, Grand Palace-Emerald Buddha, Wat Urun-Temple of the Rising Sun). While visiting Wat Urun, three Thai grade-school girls interviewed me for a school project. Further, I was walking the Wat Urun temple grounds and two monks approached me. One of the monks tenderly grabbed my right …
Continue reading "Booking it Thailand style!"