In the morning, Jonathan and I took a taxi from our hotel to SSP1 Tower in Bangkok and met with our BFITS agent (Angel Ha). She was kind, spoke fluent English, and provided three of us with our contracts for the duration of our teaching experience (35,000Baht per month plus 2,000Baht in travel money). I …
Continue reading "Getting Hired"Had breakfast at “Breakfast Story” in Bangkok and ordered a stack of pancakes. It was a restaurant designed to serve American breakfasts to English speaking persons. Afterwards, a group of us figured out how to use the overhead and underground railway systems (BTS and MRT) which cut the transportation costs to an unbelievably low amount …
Continue reading "Bangkok Public Transportation"Had to wake up today at around 7:00am because we had checked out of Glory Place in anticipation of going to Bangkok. All of my group is being split up and heading to different regions in Thailand to teach. After checking out of the hotel, I was placed in a van with six other group …
Continue reading "Making the Move"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"Walked to the office and had coffee at Waggin’ Tales cafe. Waggin’ Tales cafe is a business run by Xplore Asia which supports a non-profit organization in Hua Hin that spays and neuters dogs. It is a clean smoothly run cafe that provides a wide assortment of food and drinks for reasonable prices. I had …
Continue reading "Learning how to Function"I woke up early again which was not a bad thing because I was able to read, collect my thoughts, and write. I also decided I was going to walk back and forth to the main office where we do the training which was approximately 1.5 miles one way. I wanted to immerse myself in …
Continue reading "Experiencing Hua Hin"To say this was a full day would be a massive understatement. I met the group I was traveling with in the morning and we traveled in vans (separated into groups of six) from Bangkok to Hua Hin (2.5-hour trip). Our hotel that we are staying at in Hua Hin is called Glory Place and …
Continue reading "Transitioning"Had trouble sleeping through the night. Woke up at about 4:00am and was apprehensive that I had made an appointment at 9:00am with Mr. Laem to go to Ayutthaya for 2000 baht. Went on the internet and found this was way too much money plus I was nervous that he might try to sway me …
Continue reading "Missed Appointments"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!"