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.