Zign Hotel Chon Buri

... I cant bring in candy because I have too many kids, I cant send them out in the hallway because they wander. This is definitely the biggest challenge of school and I think I will be dealing with this up till the day I leave. 

So as I said today I have no classes, but even if I have all my classes each week I only teach 20 hours. But I still have to be here from 8-4:30 every day. They basically dont care what I do with my free time as long as I am at school. This ...

Today we were in Thailand. Our ship landed in Laem Chabang which is a port city located less than two hours driving time from Bangkok. Thailand is a small countryof about 60 million citizens that was known before World War II as Siam. If you remember the movie or play; "The King and I" you will remember the country when it was called Siam. One of our photos shows Harriet standing in front of a statue of the King of Siam. It was this king that was one of the central figures from ...

... five weeks of traveling. The water was warm, which was a nice change from what I had been used to growing up in California, and we were able to watch the sunset from the water. That night we watched a fire dancing show on the beach, which seems to be one of the most popular pastimes for young Thai guys. Everywhere we've been in Thailand there have been fire shows, using poi (fire-lit balls on the end of chains) and staffs (sticks lit with fire on both sides of a handle ...

... she has been quite nervous about getting close to any of the animals. However, for the first time, she wanted her picture taken with a tiger cub. This cost 150 baht for an instant picture in a nice frame. You can also take as many pictures as you like with your own camera. She even posed again later with two baby crocodiles for another 150 baht. She could have also posed with an orangutan, kangaroo, snake and even scorpions. But you have to draw the line when it ...

... a different part of the city. This one, the thieves market, I was told started around the Vietnam war, primarily targeting US soldiers, for cheap stolen goods. Nowadays it's full of fake brand-name t-shirts and a seemingly unnecessarily large number of "used" power tools. I'm not sure the reason for all the power tools...but if you need a cheap drill this is the place to go.

... as over the years they've lost a lot of their authenticity due 2 throngs of camera toting tourists pouring off tour buses every day. BUT if u get your timing right then for about 90 mins from 7am onwards u can still understand what all the fuss was about when they origionally became famous. We went out to the village the night before and stayed in a huge musty hotel where we were the only guests (shades of The Shining again)! We were up with the crows and ...

... goodtime partying dude here. and he had to hail a cab back to the hotel. He couldn't even walk 500 meters or so. Ian and I managed to must a stroll down the same street right at midnight but I was still recovering and thus dry for the night (when was the last time THAT happened) and Ian was feeling run down. By the next morning, Ian was feeling run over. Homeboy was sharing the room with me (Huy had the comfort of having Mom on the road with us; he slept on her extra ...

... in Bangkok. We took a water taxi on the main river to some temples around the palace.  It was great to watch my mom's eyes light up at most everything.  It was like taking a kid to Disney World and watching them trip out at seeing Goofy or something.  She was really cute.  It was nice to see, as Kelly and I are perhaps getting used to seeing strange and exotic things, if that's possible.  After getting our fill of Buddha's and jeweled pagoda's, we took the boys to a temple of ...

... another massage (no happy ending!!) This place is absolutely chaotic..........1000's of vendors selling everything you could possibly want or need and more. Shouting, Bargin hunting, wall to wall people! OK........this entry has to be brief because our driver is scheduled to arrived in the next 10 minutes. We hired a tour guide and it was just explained to us that we ...

with the schedule of my flight arriving in bangkok at 11pm and the departing flight to tokyo at 6:30am next morning it might have been the perfect oppotunity for a night tour of bangkok. that was my wishful thinking. i dragged my kite gear and heavy luggage 500meters from the domestic to the international terminal. they won't let me check in my luggage until 4am, so i went looking for a luggage storage place. none to be found. i can't really tour bangkok with two gigantic pieces of ...