First week of school- No classes!

I've never made one of these before, but I think it may be easiest to link some photos with a Picasa album. Here are a few pictures from the first few days, hopefully I'll take some more pictures later.

http://picasaweb.google.com/noahkittner

Classes were "supposed" to start this week, but so far everything has been pushed back to next week, which was expected. Over the past couple days I have made a lot of new Thai friends, aided by having a cell phone. There is a city park really close to the apartment complex which has cool trails, fountains, and is the place where many locals do aerobics in the morning. During the weekend I met some kids who wanted to play basketball which was a funny story because they didn't speak English and we didn't speak Thai. They had a basketball and were walking around and we said hello, and then the kids came up to us with a phone so I answered the phone in English. The other end said "Hello, How may I help you?" Nobody knew what was going on although we could infer that the kids wanted to play basketball with us. After a lot of laughter on the phone because of utter confusion, we followed the kids across the street to a basketball court, where there were about 10 other people playing pick-up basketball. Ricker and I played for awhile and it was really fun. We went out to a bar on Saturday night in the area with Pai, our TA. Then on Sunday we ate food and it rained a lot, so then Pai and Neung invited us over to their apartment to play some video games. All of their video games are Japanese bootleg copies, although neither the Thais nor us could speak Japanese, but they were fun nonetheless. This trip is so much different from any other foreign country I've previously been to because there is no rush whatsoever. I don't feel like I have to cram in every single thing to do in one week to experience the country, I have plenty of time. Especially since our classes provide for a lot of free time, I will be able to do a lot of traveling on weekends throughout the semester.


Transportation in the area is so much easier than anywhere in North Carolina. There are skybridges to cross the street safely due to the erratic traffic and the combination of buses and converted pick up trucks with seats in the bed which cost 5 baht to go wherever you want make it simple. There is no waiting and it's efficient, whereas before I came to Thailand I was working in the Plant Ecology Lab in Chapel Hill and taking the TTA bus every day which I had to wait up to 30 minutes sometimes just standing around.

Yesterday we wanted to buy some chairs and additional seating for the apartment at Tesco/Lotus, and we initially knew where to go and had the right idea, but then we decided to ask somebody to make sure. Since they couldn't speak English, they actually just confused us more and we followed where they pointed which was a bad idea. We ended up at a convenience store version of Tesco, which is not the large store that would sell chairs all the way across town. Neung luckily helped us out and we found our way to the large Tesco in Thonburi, a section of Bangkok across the Chao Phrya river. We bought a stool and a mop and then ate some lunch. The rest of the day we explored some of the area within walking distance of our apartment. Then, we came to campus and played ultimate frisbee with some of our fellow Thai friends. They were introduced to frisbee by former UNC students on this program and hadn't played since the last group left, so it was a big deal for them to play frisbee again. About five minutes passed, and most people realized how out of shape/tired they were so the game turned into a pretty slow paced friendly game which was still fun. Then Pai showed us an organic food store across the street from our apartment, and the owner was very welcoming and spoke English well. I talked to her for a couple minutes and bought some small plum-like fruit native to Thailand and juice. We thought we would have class today, but we don't so most of us will head into some of the areas of Bangkok that are touristy, just to do it. We may see the Grand Palace or Emerald Buddha.

Also, the other day the apartment owner came and brought us some welcoming gifts such as a fruit pronounced ngo and mangosteen. She offered to show us around Bangkok in her boat on the Chao Phrya river which would be awesome, but I am not really sure how serious she was. It might be weird, too, to ride around in a boat with our landlady. I'm sure she is great, but it was pretty funny.

Another observation is that in Thailand I am a farang (foreigner), and pretty noticeable. If a Thai person came to America, nobody would really notice, but in the incredibly homogeneous Kingdom of Thailand, all eyes are on white people.

Some of the UNC students and I talked about going to Khao Yai National Park in a couple days and then we head to the beach with Ajarn Rich (our UNC professor and Director of the program) when he arrives on Thursday night.