Leaving Bangkok with a Bang

The last few days in Bangkok were spent having fun with all of the camp leaders. Brittnii, Emily and I bonded with Andrew and Waymon during our three short weeks in Thailand. We spent so much time with them. They were just as thankful as we were for each other. They told us numerous times how much they enjoyed having us visit them for three weeks. a big thanks also goes out to Andreas for running the camp. He was a great leader and very helpful. He is a great role model with all of the success he has had in Thailand.

            This trip was yet again a great success. I want to thank Dr. Park, Jeff Constant and Dr. Rugsaken for everything they did to make this trip possible. I learned so much about teaching during the week-long camp. I know that as I move on into my next phase of life I will be more prepared thanks to the RMUTP English Camp.

            Getting the opportunity to experience a different culture is something one should never pass on. In the end you learn even more about yourself. On this trip I learned that I am capable of being a teacher, I already felt that I belonged outside of the US and still continue to feel this way. Being in a foreign country you learn to make friends that you would not have otherwise. The 5 that I mention over and over in this blog will always hold a special place in my heart. We spent 24 hours together day in and day out, it was very hard saying good bye to each other.

            After landing in Atlanta I could not wait to get on another plane and start another journey. If everything goes as planned I will be leaving in late August to teach for a year in South Korea. So watch out for another edition of my blogs.

Last Weekend in Bangkok

Friday morning the van picked us up for the closing ceremony of the camp. During the ceremony each camp leader received a group picture of the camp leaders and campers, a nice leather bound RMUTP portfolio notepad and DVD of the opening ceremony. Lunch was served buffet style in a dinning hall. I sat with my group. The gave me a shirt that said, “I’m Corbin” with group 1 on it. They also made Waymon one too. The group also made me a collage of picture from the camp and activities we had done together.

After everyone finished lunch Brittnii, Waymon, Emily and I were the only ones that decided o partake in karaoke. We preformed a few songs including “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog”. It was requested by one of the executives of the school.

After we finished up with lunch we al headed back to the hotel. Waymon had just found out that he had a presentation to do at the Prime Ministers office next week so I went along with him to get a suit tailored for him. We went to the Nana stop on the BTS in search for “Rajawongse.” It was fairly easy to find. Once we got into th store he started pinning fabrics he liked. He ended up choosing a grey suit and four shirt colors, 2 white, one pink and a orange/yellow color. Very nice selection of fabric and design of color. He then put down a payment of 5000Baht, it will cost 16,000Baht in all. That is around $530 for a custom suit, four shirts and a tie. As a token of appreciation Victor gave Waymon 12 beer glasses that are super nice. I forgot to mention while he was getting measured I read different article they had framed on the walls. The to brothers, Jesse and Victor, have been making suits for years. Their company produces 30 suits a day and 180 shirts. They employ 250 workers. A big claim to fame is them making suits for President Georgia H.W. Bush, President George W. Bush and Governor Jeb Bush. No big deal, haha, pretty awesome to say you have a suit made by the same brothers that made suits for the Bush family.

After the suit experience we came back for the hotel and crashed until Andrew came in from work. We all told him about the day he had missed. The group decided to order in room service before we went out for a little while. Room service at this hotel is great.

After we finished eating and getting ready we headed out for a few hours on KhaoSan Road. We called it an early night because we were to be picked up early for tours on Saturday.

Saturday morning the van and Andreas picked us up at 10 for to different tours. We first went to the Dusit throne hall. In this beautiful part of palace grounds there are different types of throne the royal family has used in the last 60 years. There are also gifts the family has received. I couldn’t help but get caught up in the ceiling of this palace. It was breath taking. Many of the thrones in this hall, actually all, were covered in gold and diamonds, then a layer of beautiful beetle wings. Beetle wings covered everything.  In this hall women had to buy a sarong to wear. All royal grounds women are to wear dresses or skirts. That has been my only complaint about the trip is wearing pants and skirts in 90 plus degree weather.

After throne all we went to a great barbeque restaurant. It is said to be the best barbeque in Thailand, and I would have to agree. We had chicken, fish, crab and prawn. The sauces were delicious. Vinnamek Teak Mansion was next on the list of tours. It was one of the summer homes of King Rama V. He had this brought in piece by piece from an island. This house is massive.

After a long day of tours Emily, Brittnii, Waymon, Andrew and I took a short nap. At 7 I went with Waymon for another fitting for his suit. It was so cool to see how they pinned the suit to hit him and then add the sleeves. Suit making is an art for sure. After the fitting we met the other three at Paragon for dinner and to see Men in Black 3: 3D. The movie was really good, I enjoyed it even though I’ve never been into the other MIB movies.

Sunday morning started bright and early at 8:30 with an hour long ride to Autthaya. Once we got there we toured another palace ground of King Rama V and still used to this day for Royal entertainment. It was beautiful. On these grounds were many gifts that we buildings. One from the Chinese Business Bureau and another building given by Muslims. King Rama loved Italian architecture and you can see this in the building that he had built. They are very European looking compared to the Thai style of other places. The next stop was the old ruins of Autthaya. This was the old capitol of Siam. Through the years since the 1300’s the place has become dilapidated. The floods of last fall almost took out the entire ruins.

It was only around 3 when we got back from the excursion. So once again we all crashed. After a wonderful nap we decided to head to China Town for dinner on the streets. When I talk about street food it isn’t something terrible. All of the best food and great prices come from street vendors. Literally tables places in the streets for you to eat at. We all had chicken and rice for 30Baht, that’s a whole dollar. The best $1 meal I’ve ever had. After dinner we walked around to see what else Chine Town had to offer. We then headed back to the hotel because we bought “The Devil Inside” on iTunes. Needless to say after watching that movie we were scared to sleep.

We are now in the last few days in Bangkok. I am very sad it is coming to an end so soon. 

Temples, Fun Times and Making Memories

Tuesday we all met up with our students. My group along with a few others decided to go to the museum of Siam. It was pretty interesting. I don’t know much about Thailand’s history but after the museum I understand it a little bit more. Now I know why there are many different look sin Thailand unlike other Asian countries I have visited. There are many different Southeast Asian countries that make up the genetic composition of Thai people. After staying at the museum for a few hours we went and met up with other students and Waymon. We then went to a delicious restaurant where you cook your own food. We boiled beef, bacon, chicken, shrimp and udon noodles. It was all you could eat for 195 Baht, that is less than $6. After finishing up with dinner a few students and leaders decided to go hangout and play pool together at a happening, fun place near the restaurant. It was great to get to spend time with the campers outside of camp.

Wednesday morning we met the van around 9 to be taken to two different temples. Wat Saket is a temple build on a hill full of corpse. It is something to compare to the Native American burial grounds. But this is an actual building built over the grounds. On the way up they have many bells you can ring to send up to spirits. There was a great view from this temple. We could even see the building, which is featured in The Hangover: Part Two when they are exchanging money on the rooftop of the gold dome building. Pretty cool to actually see it in person.

After that we took a short ride to a beautiful marble temple, Wat Benchanabophit, it was Italian style. It was absolutely gorgeous. The outside had many different statues of Buddha in different positions. Andreas explained many of the different ones and what they represented. The inside did not do the outside justice, although it had gorgeous marble floors and stain glass windows. After that half-day of touring in the heat we returned to the hotel for naps before getting street food for dinner and relaxing. We attempted to download The Hangover 2 on iTunes, but it took 5 hours to download.

Today, Thursday, we met with the campers to rehearse for the closing ceremony on Friday morning. After a quick run though we took the BTS to Paragon mall and got a bite for lunch. Andreas then met up with us and took us to a ritzy part of town to a British put for an afternoon beer. We then went to Emporium. A super nice mall in that area and looked around. One thing I have learned, the malls here are more for window shopping that our malls in America. Brittnii, Emily, Waymon and I decided it was time to watch the movie we downloaded the night before. So we came back to the hotel and began the movie. Through out the movie we would say, “Been there, did that.” It’s so cool knowing we have witnessed pretty much everything that movie has in it in someway. Even the scenes in the movie we have been to. After movie time was over with Andrew arrived from a long day of teaching. The 5 of us went down the street and dined street side on Som Tam with pork. This is a wonder papaya salad that is super spicy. I usually eat sticky rice with it to cool the spiciness of the salad. After dinner us girls decided it was time to finally get a Thai massage. We each had an hour-long Thai massage for 200Baht that is $6. It was wonderful, painful at times but wonderful. I will definitely be getting another one before I leave here. 

Teaching in Pattaya... a short synopses

It has been a week since my last update because the Hotel in Pattaya had very little free wifi and we were very busy from the break of dawn and through out the night. Early Sunday morning at 6:30 we met the students at the university to ride some pretty sweet charter buses. They were double decker. So Waymon, Andrew, Rachel and I sat on the bottom level. It was so nice because it was made to sit 12 people so we could stretch out. On the way to Pattaya we made a few short stops for the restroom and at a market but we did not get out because we were scared we may get left. Once we arrived to the Sigma Resort we went into the conference room and then headed to lunch.

All of our meals were served at the hotel. For breakfast it was a buffet. But Lunch and Dinner the camp leaders sat at a table and the servers brought out plates of food for us to have on the table. Most meals consisted of white rice, spicy pork, noodles, veggies, chicken and other various things.

The meals at the hotel were very delicious. After the lunch on Sunday we then went back to the conference room where each group had a huge table that was white board so you could write on it with white board markers. Also each table had a marker board too. That after noon I taught lesson on out of the lesson plan book. It was about getting to know the students and just learning their language skills.

Since I did not blog everyday this week I am going to make this short and sweet. Each day we did the same thing basically. Breakfast was served at 8 every morning. We taught our groups from 9-12 with two short breaks. Lunch was served 12-1 and then it was back to the classroom. My group of students were wonderful. I had 7 girls. They were all very sweet and excited about improving their English skills. They all were on a different level with their English, one of the girls did a lot of translating for me when I couldn’t break it down simple enough. But all in all it wasn’t too hard getting directions across. My most favorite part of the lesson plans were the sections were the students had to do sounds drills. Many of the letters are hard for the to pronounce, I could tell a difference through out the week with each student. It made me proud. I loved reading the writings I would have them do everyday. Each student was very eager for me to correct their work. Learning English is one of the most important, if not the most important thing, they can do to get a better job. During the evenings after the camp was over with we would all swim, eat dinner shower and get ready for a fun night. Each night Emily, Brittnii, Andrew, Waymon and I went to walking street. It is where all the bars, restaurants and shows are. To put it in a mature matter it was an enlightening experience. I felt that we became regulars in most of the places because we mad the same path every night basically. In order to get to Walking Street we took a Baht Bus, which is the back of a pick up truck with a cage around it. You may remember the guys riding in a Baht Bus in Hangover Part Two. It cost us around 40 Baht a person one way which is about $1.30. Spending time together at the night was what all of us camp leaders needed after a long day of teaching. But then we were back up and at it every morning at 8:00.

While teaching we would play a lot of word games like hangman, categories and other fun games to break up the intense learning. One day we taught them hoe to play Marco Polo, but it was very loud so that was a one time game. Each lesson had many different parts to it, but all centered around the same general idea. A big thing I did in my group was tell the students about how that particular subject we were talking about was in America and then they would tell me about in in Thailand. I would ask questions if they didn’t have much to say. After each discussed it in detail I would have them write about it. One thing I really enjoyed was the lesson on geography and lifestyle. First I drew a map of the US and labeled things then I got the students to name things so I could tell them where they were located. The Thai students also drew a map of Thailand for me. I did a similar thing with houses. It was interesting to hear and see a floor plan for a Thai house or apartment. I really enjoyed getting to know each student and teaching them English.

It is now Monday afternoon in Bangkok, yesterday we went to the Largest outdoor market in Asia. It had 1500 vendors. Talk about mind blowing. It was super hot even though we went at 8 in the morning. We stayed half a day and them came back and all crashed and took naps then hit the pool. Ew all decided it was a bit early to et a fun night started so Emily, Brittnii, Logan, Waymon, Andrew and I went to see America Reunion. It was hilarious. We had super reclining seats, which was wonderful. Before dinner we had KFC, I know that sounds bad but we all had a  yearning  for American food. After the movie we went to KhaoSon Road for a fun night. Today we got to sleep in. at ten we went to the Grand Palace of Thailand. It was very colorful with gold leaf and mosaics every where on the building. There was a very large emerald Buddha in one of the temples here. His clothes are changed four times a year.  If I heard correctly the clothing he had on today cost $1000000. Afterwards we went to a temple that had a statue of Buddha laying on his side that was the size of a house. I will post pictures soon. Once again I apologize for the lack of blogging, I am just taking in everything Bangkok and Thailand has to offer in this short time that I am here. 

KhaoSon Road

I feel like it had been a whole week worth of activities since I blogged earlier in the day. After our short break, Andrew, Waymon, Brittnii, Emily, Logan and I took BTS to a pier. We got on about taxi for about 15 minutes. It was a good ride, we saw what we believe is the palace, and lots of neat sites. We got off at this really cool restaurant. It was the type like in Korea where you cook the meat yourself. It was a buffet of raw meat (fish, pork, chicken) another unknown things. You then placed it on the hot plate surrounded by boiling water t cook it to your liking. Most everyone enjoyed it. After watching the sunset we walked across the brindle to make our way to KhaoSon Road. This is the place to be after the sun goes down. Street vendors are every where along its great drink specials. We went into a frozen drink, slushy type place. W each ordered a small pitcher of a flavor and shared. It was so refreshing after the 100 degree weather all day. After fishing the pitchers we explored the vendors to see what they had to offers, some will make crazy good stories to tell after I get home. We then went to 999, this is bar/lounge where a group can reserve a bottle of liquor until it runs out do they keep it for your next trip. There was a great house band. I believe us Americans were the first to get up and start dancing. After that experience we went to "The Club" and danced to nothing but techno music basically. It was then time for us to get taxis back to out hotel, as we have had. An extremely long first day. Tomorrow we meet the campers and go over orientation things.  Until next time.   

Greetings from Bangkok

It took us 22 hours of trekking before we made it to hot hot hot Bangkok. Starting off in Atlanta on Wednesday at 1:15, with a flight to Incheon, South Korea that last 14.5 hours. After that we had a 5.5 hour flight to Bangkok. Korean Air was the best flying experience I've ever had. The service was top notch and beyond what Delta or another airline has ever been. We got very little rest on the long flight, I crashed for most of the flight to Bangkok though.  Where arrived in Bangkok after going through immigration, customs and baggage claim we were greeted by Andreas, Waymon and Andrew. We had to search for them because they couldn't not come past a certain point but we finally met up with them. They had us each a bag with a camp polo, map, BTS (Bangkok Train System) card, cellphone with minutes on it and a few other essential items. After an hour Mr. Murphy arrived. He flew separately and went through Hong Kong.  A van then too jus to the hotel. Bangkok City Hotel is very new and comfortable. After getting room keys  element over times to be down this morning. Everyone showered and went to sleep because we were so sleep deprived. That's she gist of our travels to get here. This morning we all woke up early, I think our body was still in short nap mode. Breakfast was served buffet style in the lobby of the hotel. It was very Thai but delicious, lots of fruit, rice and noodles. At ten Andreas, Waymon and Andrew met us to take us around the town. We got our first experience using the BTS by going to the area of the Jim Thompson house. From what I have gathered Jim Thompson was in the US army and fell in love with Thailand while stationed here. He went to Princeton to become an architect. After his army years he resided in Thailand where he build a compound of his own. He restored the this silk industry. His house is comprised of different buildings from all over Thailand. From what I gathered he would go to places and say he wanted that and bam he would have it dismantled and sent to Bangkok for his home. He is a legend in Thailand. The silks In his stores are unbelievable. There are many Jim Thompson stores through out Thailand. He disappeared in Malaysia in 1967 and was never found. I need to read more on the stories but his house was amazing and beautiful.  After we toured his home we then took the BTS to a shopping area. We went into a food court so we all could get a bite to eat. After a short lunch we went to the cheap mall and then on into the high end mall. There was a Lamborghini dealership in this mall if that tells you anything. Puccini, Marc Jacobs, Hermes,  Ferragamo, Burberry and anything else you can imagine. Sadly we didn't purchase anything in there. Due to not have bother taxes there is a 300-400% luxury tax on these brands.  We have now taken a break. Andreas went to pick up Mr. Rugsaken at the airport. The rest of us are about to head out to a very lively, happening road. Andrew and Waymon have many stories of this place. By the way, it is very hot here. Not humid luckily but really hot and sunny. I'm going to have so mean looking tan lines on my feet from my chacos.  I know tonight will be fun getting to understand the culture and lifestyle of the young life in Thailand. I will update as soon as I can. We have wifi in our room but the log in only works on one device, I logged in first with my iPad. So I am having to type this from it. So please excuse any mistakes. I will take care of them when I get a log if or my laptop. Also I will upload pictures as soon as I get my laptop log in.  

Brief Hello

Hello! My name is Corbin Childs. I am from Elberton, Georgia and recently graduated from Lander University with a BS in Mass Communications. While in college I was very involved on campus. One of the biggest parts of my college career was being a sister of Zeta Tau Alpha.

I have always been interested in other cultures and traveling. In high school I spent 2 weeks in Mure-Cho, Japan and lived with a family. I then hosted a student, for 2 weeks, in my hometown when I returned home. I have also traveled to England, France and Italy.

In the Spring of 2011 Lander University signed agreements with several Asian universities in South Korea and China (and adding Thailand in 2012). As part of the promotion of the new Asian study programs I was one of four students chosen to spend 5 weeks in South Korea. One week was in Incheon with the University of Incheon and the other 4 weeks we were hosted by Dong-A University in Busan.

During my time in South Korea I fell in love with the people, culture and everything Korea had to offer. After returning to the USA I knew that I was meant to spend more time in Asia. In the Fall of 2011 Dr. Park talked with me about this wonderful opportunity to teach in Thailand for 3 weeks at Rajamangala University. I along with four other Lander students and a professor will spend 3 weeks in Bangkok/Pattaya teaching 3 hour classes to college students. We will be joined by two Lander Alumni: Waymon Cassell and Andrew Love. They are already teaching at the university. The English camp trip will be May 9-31.

I am very excited for this journey. I am hoping that it will pay off because I will probably going back to South Korea for a year to teach English in a public school.

The Office of International Programs has offered me so much in the short time it has been at Lander University. I can not thank Dr. Park, Jeff and BoYoung enough.