Monday and Tuesday 23rd & 24th

7/23 – Monday. We thought we were going to make a lot more progress Monday than we actually did.   We went over to Deyla’s house.  We had a wonderful lunch of Pork on a stick (really good!!), sticky rice (which you eat with your hands, I had no idea.), chicken and mushrooms with Italian seasoning on a bun, and some carrots.  Altogether a WONDERFUL meal. I was very impressed.  I guess I need to back track a little. Once we arrived they realized they did not have all the ingredients for lunch. So Moe got to take his first motorbike trip. While out he saw lots of interesting things… specifically a 2 pigs heads sitting on top of the counter while the butcher was chopping up the body.  It was quite the experience for him and he is very sad he did not have his camera.  ((Matt Austin he thought of you the whole day!! Not sure if you even read this though))

After lunch we relaxed at their house and talked about all sorts of things. It was quite nice to be comfortable in someone else’s home. Hopefully we will have more of those experiences soon.  We took a walk around their moo ban (neighborhood) looking for houses that were for rent and took a couple pictures of places that were available. 

Then we called Principal and asked him to help us call places and find a few more options.  He picked us up and took us to the grocery store which has a bulletin board of available rentals.  We also went to Airport Plaza to see about getting my phone hooked up to Thai times but that is a story for a later date!  Airport Plaza is the huge mall in Chiang Mai.  It has 5 floors and is wicked nice.  But apparently another mall is coming soon (Thai time soon so who really knows when) that is supposed to be even nicer. We had dinner at the food court. I had fried chicken over rice and Moe had something… he wasn’t sure what! It had veggies and rice and chicken I think. We also tried some chicken on a stick with peanut sauce and pork egg rolls. Both of which were very good. The mall was huge. It was very interesting to see. I hope to go sometime and actually shop, even though we were told that most of the stuff you can get cheaper elsewhere.  

the top two floors of the mall

7/24 - Tuesday.  It is raining. A lot. Apparently it is supposed to be like this for a few days now. I am very very thankful that our first couple days were not like this. I guess I am going to have to get used to the rain!

Today we had a list of places to potentially rent that we wanted to call and find out more information about.  We had NOOOO idea how to move forward on this as we know nothing of the language and the city. The school was so helpful though and using us as guinea pigs to figure out how to prepare for the other newbies coming soon. The principal met us at the school and talked to the office people.  They ended up taking our list and made phone calls for us today. They said that tomorrow they will take us around in their van to all of the viewings that they will have set up!! It is unreal how nice they are and happy to help us.  Hopefully I will be able to be equally as nice and learn their names!

We then got to see my classroom as well as some other classrooms which we did not get to do the first time around. Throughout the tour we met lots of other employees which all greeted us with a smile and warm welcome!

My classroom is lovely.  Here are some pictures.  There were some bean bags in the room that they told me were being taken away but if I wanted some they could get me some! I jumped at it; I even got to pick my colors. I also was asked if I wanted a teacher stool and jumped at that as well.  I did later have to fill out a form for the stool. Who knows why or what that means but I will soon find out I'm sure.