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I know I really have been neglecting this blog, but nothing too adventurous has really happened.  It’s been pretty mellow I would say.  You know we do our thing, we go out to eat, we chill at home, we go to school, homework :P bleh, and just hang out.  Well last Thursday and the past Thursday and Friday I went out all three times with different friends to the bars and clubs.  The hotspots seem to be Sam Sam and Rich.  Sam Sam is this cute little bar thats connected all these other restaurants, bars and mini clubs and all.  Rich is just a club, almost like the Complex I guess, just instead of all gays there’s all Asians.  Anyways the picture above is me with a lamp at Sam Sam, they have some weird things in that place, such as this lamp, with naked barbie dolls glued all around it, some of them are missing heads…  I just had to get a picture of it.
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I know I really have been neglecting this blog, but nothing too adventurous has really happened.  It’s been pretty mellow I would say.  You know we do our thing, we go out to eat, we chill at home, we go to school, homework :P bleh, and just hang out.  Well last Thursday and the past Thursday and Friday I went out all three times with different friends to the bars and clubs.  The hotspots seem to be Sam Sam and Rich.  Sam Sam is this cute little bar thats connected all these other restaurants, bars and mini clubs and all.  Rich is just a club, almost like the Complex I guess, just instead of all gays there’s all Asians.  Anyways the picture above is me with a lamp at Sam Sam, they have some weird things in that place, such as this lamp, with naked barbie dolls glued all around it, some of them are missing heads…  I just had to get a picture of it.

For those of you who are familiar with the melting pot this is pretty similar to it, its just not fondue.  This is the seafood buffet we went to.  It was all you can eat raw everything and then you cook it all yourself in these heating pots.  You can either cook it or boil it.  The food was pretty good though, the price ended up being a little outrageous because of how much they charge for a bucket of ice and water.  Also if you don’t finish all the food you took, you’re charged an extra fee, but luckily it didn’t really come down to that.
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For those of you who are familiar with the melting pot this is pretty similar to it, its just not fondue.  This is the seafood buffet we went to.  It was all you can eat raw everything and then you cook it all yourself in these heating pots.  You can either cook it or boil it.  The food was pretty good though, the price ended up being a little outrageous because of how much they charge for a bucket of ice and water.  Also if you don’t finish all the food you took, you’re charged an extra fee, but luckily it didn’t really come down to that.

THIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN BY JAMISON FORD (WEBSTER THAILAND STUDENT!) okay, so you all must be wondering, why is this photo taken by someone else other than Laura Schilli?  I can explain, but you won’t like the answer.  I forgot the battery for my digital camera on my charger back in the Condo, but luckily I still had my film camera so I still got some awesome shots of that day at Moneky Mountain.  Yes Monkey Mountain was where we went.  Monkey Mountain is in Khoa Tekiab, its really close to Hua Hin, we took a small blue bus (basically a taxi) for only 10 Baht (thats hellllllla cheap).  So we get there and we walk up basically all these stairs up the mountain and on our way there were little stops where there were monks and little worshipped areas where you pray and make wishes.  We all each donated some Baht and we got these bracelets that were colorful string bracelets, you wear them for good luck.  And so then we got to where all the monkeys were and there were just some monkeys you know hanging out.  Camille, Akshay and I were a little freaked out when they got a little too close to us, but then Camille was like “Okay guys, I’m going to face my fears.  I’m going to feed the monkeys.”  So you know we are like okay cool, we each put in 10 Baht to feed the monkeys, but I didn’t really want to feed them, I just sort of watched.  Well then the Thai women brings out this giant bucket of bananas and peanuts and literally 40 other monkeys came running out of no where and were all over the place, this is where it all went downhill…Akshay and I got freaked out and stood over in the corner watching while the rest were giving the monkeys bananas.  One jumped on top of Kevin’s head which was pretty funny.  Then Camillie was feeding the monkeys and handing them bananas, okay cool, but then a monkey jumped on her shoulders….and then a monkey climbed up her back onto her other shoulder….and then another monkey was on her head pulling her head.  She was freaking out I swear I almost saw tears roll down her eyes and they were pulling her hair as well.  Well then while Natasha was holding the bucket, some gigantor King Kong, ruler of Monkey Mountain suddenly decides to come and smack the bucket out her hands all I kid you not, THERE WERE LIKE 50 MONKEYS GOING IN FOR THE KILL!  It was like watching giant rats all piled on top of each other scavenging as much food as possible, Camille and all of them are like screaming and begging for mercy, Akshay and I are in the corner screaming bloody mary, I even grabbed Akshay so I could prepare myself to throw him to the monkeys if they came after me!  I know that sounds horrible now, but its survival of the fittest here.  Those monkeys were out for blood…So within seconds they all cleared out and there was no banana or peanut left insight.
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THIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN BY JAMISON FORD (WEBSTER THAILAND STUDENT!)

okay, so you all must be wondering, why is this photo taken by someone else other than Laura Schilli?  I can explain, but you won’t like the answer.  I forgot the battery for my digital camera on my charger back in the Condo, but luckily I still had my film camera so I still got some awesome shots of that day at Moneky Mountain.  Yes Monkey Mountain was where we went.  Monkey Mountain is in Khoa Tekiab, its really close to Hua Hin, we took a small blue bus (basically a taxi) for only 10 Baht (thats hellllllla cheap).  So we get there and we walk up basically all these stairs up the mountain and on our way there were little stops where there were monks and little worshipped areas where you pray and make wishes.  We all each donated some Baht and we got these bracelets that were colorful string bracelets, you wear them for good luck.  And so then we got to where all the monkeys were and there were just some monkeys you know hanging out.  Camille, Akshay and I were a little freaked out when they got a little too close to us, but then Camille was like “Okay guys, I’m going to face my fears.  I’m going to feed the monkeys.”  So you know we are like okay cool, we each put in 10 Baht to feed the monkeys, but I didn’t really want to feed them, I just sort of watched.  Well then the Thai women brings out this giant bucket of bananas and peanuts and literally 40 other monkeys came running out of no where and were all over the place, this is where it all went downhill…Akshay and I got freaked out and stood over in the corner watching while the rest were giving the monkeys bananas.  One jumped on top of Kevin’s head which was pretty funny.  Then Camillie was feeding the monkeys and handing them bananas, okay cool, but then a monkey jumped on her shoulders….and then a monkey climbed up her back onto her other shoulder….and then another monkey was on her head pulling her head.  She was freaking out I swear I almost saw tears roll down her eyes and they were pulling her hair as well.  Well then while Natasha was holding the bucket, some gigantor King Kong, ruler of Monkey Mountain suddenly decides to come and smack the bucket out her hands all I kid you not, THERE WERE LIKE 50 MONKEYS GOING IN FOR THE KILL!  It was like watching giant rats all piled on top of each other scavenging as much food as possible, Camille and all of them are like screaming and begging for mercy, Akshay and I are in the corner screaming bloody mary, I even grabbed Akshay so I could prepare myself to throw him to the monkeys if they came after me!  I know that sounds horrible now, but its survival of the fittest here.  Those monkeys were out for blood…So within seconds they all cleared out and there was no banana or peanut left insight.

So here I am about to start my third week in Thailand.  Today is Sunday and I am pretty exhausted and feel really lazy today.  I started classes on Monday last week and they were great.  I love all my teachers.  My Thai class has this women who’s just really upbeat and got the whole class out of their shy comfort zone literally the first day.  Then there’s my Roots of Religion teacher who is straight up everything what you would think the typical Italian man would be.  He even looks like the part and he moves around a lot and always speaks with his hands and has that thick Italian accent, sometimes it isn’t that clear what he says when he talks fast, but then when he finishes his sentence it becomes pretty clear what he is trying to say.  My Photoshop teacher is this Asian guy who does speak pretty clear English and he is pretty young too.  I think he said he was still working on a degree in Graphic Designing…I don’t know, but he’s pretty chill.  Then my History and Comp teachers are these white guys from America.  My History teacher was retired for a while and then got bored so he started teaching at Webster, I forgot what he said he did prior to that, but he’s still pretty cool and then my comp teacher is like this dorky guy who looks like he wears a toupee, that I’m not sure, he talkes really funny too, but I love him.  He’s so weird and they makes me love him even more. I also met a lot of people at school.  So far the crew I’ve been hanging out with his Camille and Jamison (they’re a couple) and then there’s Kevin who is half Thai and lives literally right next door to me and then Akshay, who’s this Indian kid, and he’s only 18 and a freshman this year.  Then there’s some other people that I’ve seen around and are also very nice.  First off, I must say everyone at school is soooo nice.  People you seem to recognize at least once always if they pass you by at school or at the Market Village always smile and say hello to you.  It’s such a friendly environment.  It was way easier than I thought to make firends. So Friday night, I don’t have classes on Friday, but anyways our group went bowling and this guy Ross paid for an hour or so of it and bought like I think two things of beer for everyone to drink.  It was a group that I felt very comfortable around so I go ahead and let myself have a few drinks.  I was bowling pretty good at first, but then after having four beers in my system was when it went downhill for me.  Everytime I was up to bowl it was worse and worse ;).  And since the bowling alley we were at was in the mall, in order to get out obviously I had to walk through the entire mall…plastered…Then we were on our way to the Jazz fest.  The entire time I was holding onto Kevin’s bag while Camille and Jamison were holding onto me like a child because I was walking in zig zags the whole time.  If I tried to stand still, I would literally fall over…Oh what a night.  So we get to the Jazz Festival and it was on Hua Hin Beach.  It was great, Ross bought three more drinks for us, I had my last one.  Kevin and Akshay bought food for us.  I remember Kevin was trying to sober me up and I remember like food kept getting like shoved in my face.  The food was good, it was these glass noodles and then there was fried tofu…verrry good.  After that we were on the 9pm bus on our way home.  I was pretty tired the next day, but we still went out and I took it very easy.  We went shopping in the outdoor Markets and had dinner.  I had padthai with seafood in it, shrimp and squid mainly.  For dessert I ate Guava fruit that had sugar and artifical coloring in it…that was really good too.  I also bought 4 pairs of earrings for myself that was 80 Baht (about $2-3), in the US, a pair of cheap earrings usually cost like $5 or $6.  Then I saw this most amazing Lady Gaga t-shirt and I wanted it soooooo badly!  There wasn’t any in my size :(  I was going to buy it so Ben would be so jealous of me when I got back home, but in the end I was a little disappointed…that’s okay though.  After shopping we went home where I just relaxed while talking on the phone. BTW, the photo above is of this so cute little Thai girl who was so fascinated with us and our cameras.  She was the cutest thing in the World, I wish I could have taken her home with me :D.  I also took a lot more photos with my Film camera.  I’m really excited to develop those when I get home.
Zoom Info
Camera
Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XS
ISO
800 		Aperture
f/5.6
Exposure
1/8th 		Focal Length
86mm

So here I am about to start my third week in Thailand.  Today is Sunday and I am pretty exhausted and feel really lazy today.  I started classes on Monday last week and they were great.  I love all my teachers.  My Thai class has this women who’s just really upbeat and got the whole class out of their shy comfort zone literally the first day.  Then there’s my Roots of Religion teacher who is straight up everything what you would think the typical Italian man would be.  He even looks like the part and he moves around a lot and always speaks with his hands and has that thick Italian accent, sometimes it isn’t that clear what he says when he talks fast, but then when he finishes his sentence it becomes pretty clear what he is trying to say.  My Photoshop teacher is this Asian guy who does speak pretty clear English and he is pretty young too.  I think he said he was still working on a degree in Graphic Designing…I don’t know, but he’s pretty chill.  Then my History and Comp teachers are these white guys from America.  My History teacher was retired for a while and then got bored so he started teaching at Webster, I forgot what he said he did prior to that, but he’s still pretty cool and then my comp teacher is like this dorky guy who looks like he wears a toupee, that I’m not sure, he talkes really funny too, but I love him.  He’s so weird and they makes me love him even more.

I also met a lot of people at school.  So far the crew I’ve been hanging out with his Camille and Jamison (they’re a couple) and then there’s Kevin who is half Thai and lives literally right next door to me and then Akshay, who’s this Indian kid, and he’s only 18 and a freshman this year.  Then there’s some other people that I’ve seen around and are also very nice.  First off, I must say everyone at school is soooo nice.  People you seem to recognize at least once always if they pass you by at school or at the Market Village always smile and say hello to you.  It’s such a friendly environment.  It was way easier than I thought to make firends.

So Friday night, I don’t have classes on Friday, but anyways our group went bowling and this guy Ross paid for an hour or so of it and bought like I think two things of beer for everyone to drink.  It was a group that I felt very comfortable around so I go ahead and let myself have a few drinks.  I was bowling pretty good at first, but then after having four beers in my system was when it went downhill for me.  Everytime I was up to bowl it was worse and worse ;).  And since the bowling alley we were at was in the mall, in order to get out obviously I had to walk through the entire mall…plastered…Then we were on our way to the Jazz fest.  The entire time I was holding onto Kevin’s bag while Camille and Jamison were holding onto me like a child because I was walking in zig zags the whole time.  If I tried to stand still, I would literally fall over…Oh what a night.  So we get to the Jazz Festival and it was on Hua Hin Beach.  It was great, Ross bought three more drinks for us, I had my last one.  Kevin and Akshay bought food for us.  I remember Kevin was trying to sober me up and I remember like food kept getting like shoved in my face.  The food was good, it was these glass noodles and then there was fried tofu…verrry good.  After that we were on the 9pm bus on our way home. 

I was pretty tired the next day, but we still went out and I took it very easy.  We went shopping in the outdoor Markets and had dinner.  I had padthai with seafood in it, shrimp and squid mainly.  For dessert I ate Guava fruit that had sugar and artifical coloring in it…that was really good too.  I also bought 4 pairs of earrings for myself that was 80 Baht (about $2-3), in the US, a pair of cheap earrings usually cost like $5 or $6.  Then I saw this most amazing Lady Gaga t-shirt and I wanted it soooooo badly!  There wasn’t any in my size :(  I was going to buy it so Ben would be so jealous of me when I got back home, but in the end I was a little disappointed…that’s okay though.  After shopping we went home where I just relaxed while talking on the phone.

BTW, the photo above is of this so cute little Thai girl who was so fascinated with us and our cameras.  She was the cutest thing in the World, I wish I could have taken her home with me :D.  I also took a lot more photos with my Film camera.  I’m really excited to develop those when I get home.

Okay, let me say that yes I know and can see that there are an excessive amount of typos in my blog entries, however, I am repeatedly saying the exact same stories over and over again since I got here whether it was on here, in my journal or when I am trying to answer so many people’s questions.  Speaking of answering people’s questions, I am not going to do that anymore and if I do it will be in very little detail.  I mean c’mon people!  I’m writing this blog for a reason!!!!  And as for my journal, well I’ve decided it was for my eyes and my eyes only, even though it says basically the exact same stuff as I am writing in this blog. Now like I was saying, since I find myself in deep thought when writing this blog and I try to type fast to get it all over with, yes I will make some grammatical and spelling errors and yes I will have run on sentences and talk in circles and then switch the topic randomly at different points in the blog, and yes I may use the same words over and over again like anyways.  Anyways, the point is, these posts are so long and when I get done typing them I am done with it.  I want nothing else to do with it anymore.  In fact, I refuse to go back and reread what I wrote.  This is not the most important essay I am writing for my college career.  This is a blog about my personal life.  ANd for that matter, I believe that the errors and run ons are all perfect for this blog since when I speak, I make so many flaws in my speech and my words always get twisted and turned and I don’t make sense three fourths of the time when I open my mouth.  This way you all when know that I, Laura Schilli, am actually writing this blog rather than someone else. That is all I have to say for now. Oh wait…by the way, Zoe and I were swimming (yes swimming) in the ocean yesterday (yes the ocean).  I know its hard for some of you to believe that I actually got the courage to go out there.  Trust me it was her idea.  It was amazing though.  I loved it, I might actually want to do it again.  We were so far out and were only able to touch our toes to the ground.  It wasn’t until  Zoe yelped because she stepped on something that felt soft and kinf od stung her (later we concluded it was probably a jelly fish) and we freaked out, okay well I freaked out, and I was like screaming ‘OH MY GOD OH MY GOD WHAT IS IT WHAT ISSS IT! WE GOTTA GO WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE!’ And we both started swimming panickly and of course I’m still yelling and freaking out and running my mouth.  It wasn’t until then I realized, why are we swimming, we can touch the floor….. (Laura Schilli problems)  All in all Zoe is okay.  We might end up going back in there, but it may take us a while to cope with what just had happened.
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Okay, let me say that yes I know and can see that there are an excessive amount of typos in my blog entries, however, I am repeatedly saying the exact same stories over and over again since I got here whether it was on here, in my journal or when I am trying to answer so many people’s questions.  Speaking of answering people’s questions, I am not going to do that anymore and if I do it will be in very little detail.  I mean c’mon people!  I’m writing this blog for a reason!!!!  And as for my journal, well I’ve decided it was for my eyes and my eyes only, even though it says basically the exact same stuff as I am writing in this blog.

Now like I was saying, since I find myself in deep thought when writing this blog and I try to type fast to get it all over with, yes I will make some grammatical and spelling errors and yes I will have run on sentences and talk in circles and then switch the topic randomly at different points in the blog, and yes I may use the same words over and over again like anyways.  Anyways, the point is, these posts are so long and when I get done typing them I am done with it.  I want nothing else to do with it anymore.  In fact, I refuse to go back and reread what I wrote.  This is not the most important essay I am writing for my college career.  This is a blog about my personal life.  ANd for that matter, I believe that the errors and run ons are all perfect for this blog since when I speak, I make so many flaws in my speech and my words always get twisted and turned and I don’t make sense three fourths of the time when I open my mouth.  This way you all when know that I, Laura Schilli, am actually writing this blog rather than someone else.

That is all I have to say for now.

Oh wait…by the way, Zoe and I were swimming (yes swimming) in the ocean yesterday (yes the ocean).  I know its hard for some of you to believe that I actually got the courage to go out there.  Trust me it was her idea.  It was amazing though.  I loved it, I might actually want to do it again.  We were so far out and were only able to touch our toes to the ground.  It wasn’t until  Zoe yelped because she stepped on something that felt soft and kinf od stung her (later we concluded it was probably a jelly fish) and we freaked out, okay well I freaked out, and I was like screaming ‘OH MY GOD OH MY GOD WHAT IS IT WHAT ISSS IT! WE GOTTA GO WE GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE!’ And we both started swimming panickly and of course I’m still yelling and freaking out and running my mouth.  It wasn’t until then I realized, why are we swimming, we can touch the floor….. (Laura Schilli problems)  All in all Zoe is okay.  We might end up going back in there, but it may take us a while to cope with what just had happened.

For Those Who Are Rain Watchers

The rain is just amazing here.  Okay let’s start by describing the scenery; tropical trees EVERYWHERE, mountain range in the far distance and literally right to your right side is the ocean and beach.  The rain is pouring so hard, so freakishly hard.  It’s everywhere!  However, it’s not scary and it doesn’t give you any kind of insecure feeling.  It sounds exactly like showers, even as hard as its pouring, the noise is as calming as ever.  The sun is still out, but still hiding behind some white clouds.  It isn’t dark and gloomy and there is no lightening or thunder.  It’s simply beautiful.  Where the mountains are you can see a white fog below the peaks of them.  The ocean looks like it hasn’t even been touched with a drop of water.  The rain falls stright down rather to angles where it can get into people’s eyes and make it hard from them to see.  The weather is very comfortable.  Right now I’m wearing jean leggings and my thin navy sweater, buttoned up just a little bit.  The city in the far background is hardly even noticeable.  The only thing you really notice are how green the trees are and the trees are EVERYWHERE.  It feels very nice to sit outside.

I tried taking a photograph of this, but it didn’t really turn out well.  I’m going to try with my tripod after this entry and if it turns out then I’ll post it up here for everyone to see.  If not, then it wasn’t meant to be.

Today Zoey, Shelly and I went to the Market place today around noon.  We bought school supplies and I tried to get a pay as you go phone, but didn’t because it was a little complicated trying to figure it out.  It’s not like there’s a walgreens where I can just walk in and buy it out of the package.  I don’t know how it works here.  We also had lunch at this steak place that Shelly wanted to eat at.  I had spaghetti with chicken and mushrooms.  It was good.  I felt my mom could make better. The main reason why we were at the Market place is because Zoey and I wanted to buy a rice cooker that we could make rice, noodles, veggies and all this other stuff in.  You can cook basically anything in a rice cooker from what I’ve learned.  We also bought some other groceries along with rice, sauce and vegetables to cook dinner tonight.  It was funny yet difficult to shop with Zoey because she was so indecisive and stopped at basically every aisle asking if she needs that or should we get that.  With five minutes before the bus came, we finally got to the bus stop, went home and just relaxed some.  I started watching The Devil Wears Prada on my laptop while Zoey watched the Big Bang Theory on her’s.  As I was watching I realized a problem…how were we going to get the can of sauce open and how do we heat it up without a microwave?  We decided to go down to the front desk and ask if they could open the can for us because thats what this other Chinese student, LJ, said we could do.  Well they tried…they had this janky ass can opener that didn’t even work.  I mean I’m very appreative of them that they tried, but that can opened was probably 1300 years old.  So then Zoey had this bright idea that we walk down the street to the restaurant the Tik Place where everyone eats at because its so convenient.  It’s literally right by our hotel.  We walked down there and asked them very polietly if they would open our can of sauce for us and prayed they would mention anything about charging us considering we didn’t bring any coins or money with us and people in Thailand will charge you for the littelest things…like using the public dumpy bathroom…  Luckily they did not charge us and they ended it up opening our can of sauce :)  Those people at the Tik Place are always very nice. So we get back to the room and then we Googled how to use the rice cooker and can we put sauce in it.  Yes we cook the sauce in it and as we were reading the instructions on Google, Zoey realized it was the same way as they do in China…well yeah of course its the same hahaha.  I love her.  By the way there was an instruction manuel with the Rice Cooker, but it was all in Thai and neither of us obviously couldn’t read it. So basically Zoey cooked the rice and as it was cooking it began to look like the water was going to overflow all over the place and I immediately jumped up from my bed and was like “WHOOOOAAA! WHAT’S GOING ON! WHAT DO I DO!”  Zoey was like “it’s suppose to do that…”  So then I’m like “Oh.”  :) Then Shelly came by our room and she joined us for a nice yummy dinner of rice, vegetables and pasta sauce.  :)
Zoom Info
Camera
Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XS
ISO
400 		Aperture
f/4.5
Exposure
1/60th 		Focal Length
47mm

Today Zoey, Shelly and I went to the Market place today around noon.  We bought school supplies and I tried to get a pay as you go phone, but didn’t because it was a little complicated trying to figure it out.  It’s not like there’s a walgreens where I can just walk in and buy it out of the package.  I don’t know how it works here.  We also had lunch at this steak place that Shelly wanted to eat at.  I had spaghetti with chicken and mushrooms.  It was good.  I felt my mom could make better.

The main reason why we were at the Market place is because Zoey and I wanted to buy a rice cooker that we could make rice, noodles, veggies and all this other stuff in.  You can cook basically anything in a rice cooker from what I’ve learned.  We also bought some other groceries along with rice, sauce and vegetables to cook dinner tonight.  It was funny yet difficult to shop with Zoey because she was so indecisive and stopped at basically every aisle asking if she needs that or should we get that.  With five minutes before the bus came, we finally got to the bus stop, went home and just relaxed some.  I started watching The Devil Wears Prada on my laptop while Zoey watched the Big Bang Theory on her’s.  As I was watching I realized a problem…how were we going to get the can of sauce open and how do we heat it up without a microwave?  We decided to go down to the front desk and ask if they could open the can for us because thats what this other Chinese student, LJ, said we could do.  Well they tried…they had this janky ass can opener that didn’t even work.  I mean I’m very appreative of them that they tried, but that can opened was probably 1300 years old.  So then Zoey had this bright idea that we walk down the street to the restaurant the Tik Place where everyone eats at because its so convenient.  It’s literally right by our hotel.  We walked down there and asked them very polietly if they would open our can of sauce for us and prayed they would mention anything about charging us considering we didn’t bring any coins or money with us and people in Thailand will charge you for the littelest things…like using the public dumpy bathroom…  Luckily they did not charge us and they ended it up opening our can of sauce :)  Those people at the Tik Place are always very nice.

So we get back to the room and then we Googled how to use the rice cooker and can we put sauce in it.  Yes we cook the sauce in it and as we were reading the instructions on Google, Zoey realized it was the same way as they do in China…well yeah of course its the same hahaha.  I love her.  By the way there was an instruction manuel with the Rice Cooker, but it was all in Thai and neither of us obviously couldn’t read it.

So basically Zoey cooked the rice and as it was cooking it began to look like the water was going to overflow all over the place and I immediately jumped up from my bed and was like “WHOOOOAAA! WHAT’S GOING ON! WHAT DO I DO!”  Zoey was like “it’s suppose to do that…”  So then I’m like “Oh.”  :)

Then Shelly came by our room and she joined us for a nice yummy dinner of rice, vegetables and pasta sauce.  :)

Just so everyone knows, these past landscape photos have been taken from my balcony at around 7 in the morning here in Thailand.  It’s beautiful, there are so many trees and I have never seen the ocean and the mountains so gorgeous and almost so close! Yesterday I had orientation with the study abroad students and I met so many new people and some people that I sort of already knew or just happened to have recognized from the Saint Louis campus or on the plane ride here.  There are 16 of us in the study abroad program, four of the students are from Europe, the rest of us are from the US, but not all of the US people go to the home campus in St. Louis, there are a few people who go to school in different states. At orientation they gave us speeches and introductions.  We met our teachers and then we had to introduce ourselves.  Then we watched the most cheesiest Thai video ever it was about all these Tourists having a good time and the theme song they kept playing over and over again was “Thailand, Once In a Lifetime!”  I honestly wish Ben was there because it just reminded me of sitting in the back of a classroom with him in High School and cracking all jokes about whatever stupid movie we were watching or just anything we thought was hilarious (which we are quite easily amused people). After the video we had a lunch buffet.  It was really nice.  First of all, this was all being taken place in the 5 star Sheraton Hotel and Spa.  The hotel was verrrrrrrrrrryyyy niccce.  And the place where we ate lunch was a banquet hall with a buffet of different Thai foods and desserts.  The only thing bad about a Thai buffet is when you are so sensitive to spicey food like me, then you have to take the chance and eat something that may be very spicey…and thats what happened.  I also tried these green fish balls, they tasted fine, they might have been a little spicey, I couldn’t really remember.  What I did remember was how terrible the smell was once I put it in my mouth.  Oh gosh, it was disgusting.  The desserts weren’t bad though. Then we went over some more stuff after lunch and we got a tour around campus.  Webster University in St. Louis is already a small private school, but then Webster Thailand is even smaller.  There are two buildings, the hallways are outside and its basically in the middle of no where surrounded by jungle trees and bushes.  They also warned us to make sure to keep the doors closed so snakes don’t get inside….I know wtf right? After that we went and played a couple beach games at Cha-am Beach.  That was where I experienced public toilets in outdoor shops….Worse mistake of my life probably.  First you pay 5 Baht to use, thats not so bad, thats almost like 5 cents in America.  Going into the restroom was the nightmare.  For starters, there was three of us walking together, this guy and girl whose names I can’t remember went with me.  There was a tiny little open section where the urinals were before the women’s toilets…it wasn’t private at all, but I wasn’t a guy so I thought you know, whatever.  The girls toilets were little pots on the ground, no toilet paper, no sink.  You had to squat down to pee and when you were finished, there was a small um..concrete box thing filled with water and a bucket with a handle in it.  You had to fill the bucket up and pour it into the toilet after you peed to clean it out and whether or not that was the last step to it , I had no idea, but I’m going to do my best to never ever go through that again.  Well despite all that the beach games were fun and afterwards we got a tour of Hua Hin. The day ended with me meeting a lot of new people and I super excited for classes to begin.  They were suppose to begin next Monday until I got an email saying classes on Monday were cancelled so now I don’t start till Tuesday.
Zoom Info
Camera
Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XS
ISO
400 		Aperture
f/5.6
Exposure
1/80th 		Focal Length
28mm

Just so everyone knows, these past landscape photos have been taken from my balcony at around 7 in the morning here in Thailand.  It’s beautiful, there are so many trees and I have never seen the ocean and the mountains so gorgeous and almost so close!

Yesterday I had orientation with the study abroad students and I met so many new people and some people that I sort of already knew or just happened to have recognized from the Saint Louis campus or on the plane ride here.  There are 16 of us in the study abroad program, four of the students are from Europe, the rest of us are from the US, but not all of the US people go to the home campus in St. Louis, there are a few people who go to school in different states.

At orientation they gave us speeches and introductions.  We met our teachers and then we had to introduce ourselves.  Then we watched the most cheesiest Thai video ever it was about all these Tourists having a good time and the theme song they kept playing over and over again was “Thailand, Once In a Lifetime!”  I honestly wish Ben was there because it just reminded me of sitting in the back of a classroom with him in High School and cracking all jokes about whatever stupid movie we were watching or just anything we thought was hilarious (which we are quite easily amused people).

After the video we had a lunch buffet.  It was really nice.  First of all, this was all being taken place in the 5 star Sheraton Hotel and Spa.  The hotel was verrrrrrrrrrryyyy niccce.  And the place where we ate lunch was a banquet hall with a buffet of different Thai foods and desserts.  The only thing bad about a Thai buffet is when you are so sensitive to spicey food like me, then you have to take the chance and eat something that may be very spicey…and thats what happened.  I also tried these green fish balls, they tasted fine, they might have been a little spicey, I couldn’t really remember.  What I did remember was how terrible the smell was once I put it in my mouth.  Oh gosh, it was disgusting.  The desserts weren’t bad though.

Then we went over some more stuff after lunch and we got a tour around campus.  Webster University in St. Louis is already a small private school, but then Webster Thailand is even smaller.  There are two buildings, the hallways are outside and its basically in the middle of no where surrounded by jungle trees and bushes.  They also warned us to make sure to keep the doors closed so snakes don’t get inside….I know wtf right?

After that we went and played a couple beach games at Cha-am Beach.  That was where I experienced public toilets in outdoor shops….Worse mistake of my life probably.  First you pay 5 Baht to use, thats not so bad, thats almost like 5 cents in America.  Going into the restroom was the nightmare.  For starters, there was three of us walking together, this guy and girl whose names I can’t remember went with me.  There was a tiny little open section where the urinals were before the women’s toilets…it wasn’t private at all, but I wasn’t a guy so I thought you know, whatever.  The girls toilets were little pots on the ground, no toilet paper, no sink.  You had to squat down to pee and when you were finished, there was a small um..concrete box thing filled with water and a bucket with a handle in it.  You had to fill the bucket up and pour it into the toilet after you peed to clean it out and whether or not that was the last step to it , I had no idea, but I’m going to do my best to never ever go through that again.  Well despite all that the beach games were fun and afterwards we got a tour of Hua Hin.

The day ended with me meeting a lot of new people and I super excited for classes to begin.  They were suppose to begin next Monday until I got an email saying classes on Monday were cancelled so now I don’t start till Tuesday.

So Wednesday was when I got here at 4am, slept for a couple hours and then I woke up at around 6.30am.  I was very anxious to talk to everyone so I got up early and didn’t bother sleeping in.  Good thing, because my facebook was blown up with messages and Likes and wall posts.  I was even able to Skype Justin and see the faces of Drew Zacher and Sean Duggan which is always quite a lovely sight to see.  Zoey actually had to take an exam that day so she was gone for a few hours after i think 10am maybe.  I don’t remember.  Anyways so instead of doing anything I started to unpack, well I had soooo much clothes and didn’t realize until now.  Of course I’m one of the few people that has two luggages, a duffle bag and a back pack all filled with everything….everyone else had like one or two bags and maybe one carry on :P So after unpacking I decided to check out where I was living so I wondered around the hotel and what I found was a coffee shop, a small convenient store, a pool table room, a ping pong table room, a little library/study room, the laundry room and the pool.  The pool was very nice and if you walk just to the other side of the pool you’ll find the entrance to the beach.  You walk down these stairs and your feet are then sinking in the sand.  Sometimes the water gets high though to the point where there isnt any sand to walk on without getting wet because its all the way to the stairs. After my little self tour of the hotel I then took about 1 1/2 hour nap and then Zoey came back home.  By this time I’ve probably had around 2-3 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours and very little food to eat.  
Zoom Info
Camera
Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XS
ISO
400 		Aperture
f/5.6
Exposure
1/40th 		Focal Length
86mm

So Wednesday was when I got here at 4am, slept for a couple hours and then I woke up at around 6.30am.  I was very anxious to talk to everyone so I got up early and didn’t bother sleeping in.  Good thing, because my facebook was blown up with messages and Likes and wall posts.  I was even able to Skype Justin and see the faces of Drew Zacher and Sean Duggan which is always quite a lovely sight to see.  Zoey actually had to take an exam that day so she was gone for a few hours after i think 10am maybe.  I don’t remember.  Anyways so instead of doing anything I started to unpack, well I had soooo much clothes and didn’t realize until now.  Of course I’m one of the few people that has two luggages, a duffle bag and a back pack all filled with everything….everyone else had like one or two bags and maybe one carry on :P

So after unpacking I decided to check out where I was living so I wondered around the hotel and what I found was a coffee shop, a small convenient store, a pool table room, a ping pong table room, a little library/study room, the laundry room and the pool.  The pool was very nice and if you walk just to the other side of the pool you’ll find the entrance to the beach.  You walk down these stairs and your feet are then sinking in the sand.  Sometimes the water gets high though to the point where there isnt any sand to walk on without getting wet because its all the way to the stairs.

After my little self tour of the hotel I then took about 1 1/2 hour nap and then Zoey came back home.  By this time I’ve probably had around 2-3 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours and very little food to eat.  

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