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Just a quick update on my first few days in Bangkok. After being scared stupid about getting on the plane, I absolutely love the place. I did think the culture shock was going to be huge but everything actually seems fairly normal now.
What follows is a completely rushed lowdown on everything I've been up to the past couple of days.
After writing the other blog, the other people who are doing the same teaching placement as me arrived and we all went to look for somewhere for dinner. After wondering round for a while one thai guy stopped to speak to us and told us an area where there would be restaurants open. He even then managed to get us a cheaper taxi, and they hike the prices up a bit when it's tourists (especially ones on there first night who have no idea that 80p is an expected price to pay for a 10 min taxi journey). So we went to this place and managed to find a buffet restaurant where you picked you food and cooked it yourself at your table (see the picutres). As we were eating, some guy rode past on an elephant. Very bizzare, but also quite disturbing as the elephant looked really uncomfortable and the guy had some axe-type thing in his hand that he kept poking him with.
Yesterday, we went to Jim Thompson's house, who was an american man who came over to asia and basically re-established the thai silk industry. He also built his own traditional thai house and filled it with loads of thai artefacts. It was a lovely house. It feels very wierd though because, when you go inside the house, and also the temples we've visited today, you have to take your shoes off. In the afternoon we went to a massive weekend market, where you could buy pretty much anything. There were so many animals around for sale again, and they had tiny rabbits and chipmunks dressed up in clothes. Again, it was all pretty horrbile from a animal cruelty perspective. Also, one of the girls here is petrified of cats and dogs, so that was not a great experience for her. For dinner, we got taken for our welcome dinner at a traditional thai restaurant, where our guide, Subai, ordered loads of dishes for us sp we could try everything. A lot of it was quite spicy but I just had lots of rice and lots of fruit punch to try and handle it. After that, we took a tuk tuk to Kao San Road. The tuk tuk was very scary, especially because we took two between us and they decided to race each other. Argh! But we made it in one piece and decided to go and drink a few buckets (yes, that it right, actual buckets) of drink. It was a very good night.
Today, after getting up nice and early after our heavy night out, we got taken to the grand palace and wat po. Both were stunning, the pictures do not do them justice at all. I never imagined them to be so huge. Again, you had to take your shoes off to go into the temples and you also had to be covered up. A couple of the group had to wear some of the clothing that was available to cover up at the temples, which was very fetchng.
Tommorow we start out teacher training. It all sounds quite intensive....
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