Happy *Belated* Thanksgiving!

I figured that Thanksgiving deserved a blog-post right? Sorry its been so long! It's been an interesting several weeks...! To catch you up:

1. Health Expo was a success!! The banners went up and looked gorgeous, and my posters were miraculously finished on time...it was a race to complete the website however, but we did finish by Opening day. During the event I worked the kids table and ran eye exams on these machines that showed if you were near sighted or far sighted. The machine was a fairly simple process, you aim for the iris then click this button and try and get everything to zooom in...

2. Almost immediately after the Health Expo ironically I was sick. And I mean IMMEDIATELY. That night I had a fever and a cough and the next day Goi and me went to a clinic to get meds for it. Its interesting being sick here because everyone thinks they have the cure for you. The Thai's I work with rarely get sick and seeing me be sick for a while has defnitely inspired them all to try and fix me, haha. I've been randomely handed, fruit, herbs, medicine, you name it.
Two weeks and two doctors visits later I'm still trying to kill this Asian virus but I definitely don't think my body was used to it. Hahaha, I looked at a calendar though and realize...I only have two more days to be sick. So, I plan to be well on Monday :)

3. Beginning part 2 of sick week I went to a festival called "Loi Katong" (sp?) basically its a Buddhist holiday where people send these homemade flower rafts with incense sticks and candles down any body of water nearby. The rivers are flooded with them and lots of times people play music and have carnivals to celebrate. Apparently the holiday is to give thanks to the water for giving them life.
I went with Goi to her University in Ramkhamhaeng and we got to see their school carnival, music, talent show stuff and even send off a little raft of our own!

4. Holiday blues...I'd not reccomend being abroad over major holidays like Chrirstmas and Thanksgiving. Luckily for me, its the tropics so it rarely feels like the holidays anyway. It just seems like summer extended itself and the holidays will be back home for me waiting. Unless of course you look at a calendar, go to a mall thats all decked out, get invited to a Thanksgiving party...like me.
I didn't quite realize I was missing the holidays until I walked into the Venn's house (the family of the pastor I'm working for) and heard Natalie Cole singing Christmas songs and helped cook mashed potatoes and gravy in the kitchen...ooooooooh boy I need to be on an island for Christmas! Thanksgiving was bitter-sweet and Christmas I imagine will be the same.

Next stop Laos! Tuesday we're going on our visa run, we have to get to the border, get our passports stamped for another 3 months, cross back over, get checked again, then we can come back *crosses fingers* Wish me luck! Choc dee!

Rot-fi-fah

 Today was back on the job...
After crashing last night from the weekends adventures I woke up to another very full day :)
I worked the morning hours on the Presidents "Quinquennial Report" believe it or not that IS correct. I'm having to make this backdrop for some stand they have at the Asian Conference Meeting coming up. Andrew and Goi have been slaving away on the video for the same project so we all kept each other company today a while.
We snuck down the road to J Nu's for lunch (AMAZING!) I wish this restaurant was in the states. Its a hole in the wall but run by one family, they live upstairs and work downstairs and the food is great and very reasonable. Everything basically costs 30b a dish.
After lunch we had Thai class. I learned today that theres a reason to every part of a word in Thai. Trains here are called "rot - fi", cars are called "rot" so today I asked the teacher what "fi" was?
She told me that back in the day they used to run trains by wood & fire (not by coal) so they called trains "fire cars" essentially...hahahahaha! I dunno why it felt just like I'd reached some nirvana state of learning or something, everything just clicked! And the BTS Sky Train is known as "rot-fi-fah" or "car-fire-sky"....KABLAM! Just blew your mind right?
PS. Pictures are posted from Mission College this last weekend, enjoy!

I've just returned to Bangkok!! Believe it or not I just spent my first weekend out of the city since I arrived! Goi wanted to take Andrew, Sandrina and I to visit her friends in Mission College for a weekend and get to experience where she went to school for a couple years.
It was great to see the Thai countryside and get to compare life there to life in the city a bit. We set off in these vans and I swear they were going 120 mph! Then I realized the fastest I've gone due to traffic in the city has been on motorbike and still probably only about 30 mph, haha. Even so, it took us about 3 hours to get there so we arrived late. We stood on this street corner like, "What now guys?" but Goi called one of her friends who drove her scooter over and we all spent the night at her house off campus.
Houses here almost make living feel like camping, you basically have the basic structure of a house (beautiful and Thai of course) with tile floors, a bedroom, and a bathroom. The kitchen is always outdoors and you ALWAYS remove shoes before entering. Near this persons house in particular is a bunch of chicken farms, her family and all the neighbors work as chicken pluckers/meat cutters etc. It was a little shocking to wake up and see 20 people massacreing chickens in the backyard, not gonna lie, haha. Oddly enough two of the comforts I hardly realized I'd missed so much were found at this place, I got my first hot shower in 2.5 months (WOW...just WOW) and I got to hold this kitten for about an hour solid. This kitten this family had ran over on accident. They're Buddhist and I think because they DIRECTLY contributed to harming this creature and it had done nothing to bother them before they felt like they should care for it. (Completely different than in the city, animal rights activists would have a heart-attack if they saw Bangkok) They broke its back legs and tail so it was just pathetic to watch. Apparently they've been taking it to a vet though and it should be able to fully recover. I slept like a rock because it was about 10 degrees cooler up there, there were no city noises and it was just so PEACEFUL.
The next day Goi took us to the campus church and after we went to her Sponsor family's house for lunch. After some great Thai food we went to nature parks nearby...one was basically mini-Niagra Falls. There were tons of these water falls and people could just swim around in them and slide off the edges because they were low enough. We braved walking across some of the bigger ones even though we had no swimsuits and made it across relatively dry. I was a little freaked out because before we started crossing about 3 girls told me they didn't know how to swim (not uncommon here, only about 50% of women swim) and if they fell I'd have to rescue them O.O. Being the queen of dog-paddle I was seriously concerned! After that park we went to this giant white buddha in the mountains that you had to seriously hike to. I'm still sore but it was totally worth the effort for the view.
That night we went out to the town by scooters and got food and came home around 10pm. I think I need a weekend to rejuvinate after my weekend, haha.

Bobae

Wecome to Bobae market: Basically the fruit market capital of Thailand, doing your months groceries in 5 minutes under the tarp covered alleyways here would not be difficult. In my short time walking through in the past I've always seen people throwing pinapples over passerby's heads and loading them onto a truck, rhambutan salesmen, fishermen, etc. Yesterday however I was blessed with a more revealing look...
I guess we weren't quite as done with Health Expo as I would have liked. The day before yesterday I got a call from the Hospital design team and they were wondering if I could put together some backdrops for these boards we're using at the mall. (There's 7 and they're massive) So I did about 3 and thought they'd work pretty good but then met with them again and found out they were looking for something completely different. Doug calls it "managing expectation" lots of times people we work with here want EXACTLY what they have in their heads, but with the language barrier and different design tastes it seems like several re-do's are always in order until they're satisfied. Anyway, I ended up having to redo the a lot of the work and it took me all night, I came back from the office at 6am and slept for an hour before hopping on a boat (yes, a BOAT to get to work) and going to the Hospital to drop off the files because they're so massive. It takes about 45 minutes with all the traffic to get there so several hours later I was back at the apartment, exhausted. I started to close my eyes BUT my phone rang! Apparently the hospital had forgotten to copy ALL of the 7 files and only had 3. So, I hopped back on a Song Tao, that took me back to the boat, that took me back to Bobae market and back to the Hospital where I dropped off the rest of the files.
The second time walking through Bobae market I noticed SO much more than the first time. One of the fish salesmen was chasing a trout down the street, somehow it had flopped out of its box. A woman was selling rats on a stick....NEVER seen that before. And I totally saw a guy steal from the dragon fruit lady!
When I was stepping back onto the boat to come home finally after the second trip, I got another phone call. Guess what?! We had more documents to pick up at the Hospital. So I stepped back onto the dock and walked back through Bobae market and back to the Hospital!
Needless to say, I got home at 4 in the afternoon and was TIRED. I slept until dinner, had dinner, then woke up this manana!
People who think design isn't a difficult job or a true Missionary position...please read above. haha