Well... it's been awhile...

It's been almost three months since I have posted any new scribbles. In some ways, I "byed Felicia-ed" my own blog.. haha but I'm back and I have stories......

I will first start with a few excuses that surround me being incredibly busy.. However, I do plan on posting more frequently in the future.

For the last month my long distance boyfriend has been in Thailand. I don't talk about Trevor very much, because.... well up until a few weeks ago we had not seen each other in 10 months. Trevor is a J.A.G officer in the army. After a blissful 6 months of dating, he took on a deployment in Afghanistan last summer. This deployment broke us up for the duration of about 4 months. However, during the last 7 months we reconciled. After we got the dates of his return, he booked a flight to see me in Thailand. Like the adventure junkies we are, we planned a few trips to take while he was here. We spent a week in Hat Yai, because I still had to work during this time. He really enjoyed coming with me to school and teaching. All of my kids certainly loved him. Though they had a hard time pronouncing his name ... and he was deemed "teacher taxi". Rainy season officially hit during that week, the roads were soaked, traffic was awful, and we did have a small wreck due to a car pulling out in front of us. We were going slow, but we went into a ditch and then fell over. I cut up my feet and hands. It also gave both Trevor and I some nice hip bruises and scrapes. Luckily, the bike I bought is so old, if I kicked it off a cliff it would still look the same. We lived, we are fine.

I somehow was able to take a week off school, thanks to my awesome coworker Joe. Trevor and I went to Indonesia. We began on the main island of Java and toured Yogyakarta. Yogyakarta is primarily muslim and it was very vegetarian friendly. We mainly went there because of two unesco world heritage sites, I wanted to visit. Prambanan and Borobudur. We woke up at 3:30 am to catch a taxi for a sunrise viewing at Borobudur. The experience of watching the sun rise in a 9th century temple, while simultaneously listening to the sunrise Salat al-fajr echoing from the distance mountains, was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

Prambanan, while uniquely gorgeous, was completely crowded, and not just with tourists, but school children constantly asking for pictures. Trevor later observed that the temple was right beside a school. We think for a portion of their English assignments they are to go out and interview westerners. After our tour of Prambanan we went to a Indonesian ballet, which had the temples of Prambanan in the background of the stage. It was really interesting as the play was one of five stories that are actually engraved on the temple walls.

We also stumbled upon a few museums but the best was by far was the Affandi Museum. Affandi can be considered the Indonesian Vincent Van Gogh. This museum was compound designed by Affandi himself. It was equipped with a restaurant, studio, even an entire mosaic pool. One of the main buildings was shaped like a banana leaf and it felt like a treehouse. Affandi painted using straight pigment from the tube but he has some amazing work. Going to post some of it under snaps.

Indonesia differs from Thailand because of..... haggling. Every where I went, I was spotted as a westerner and therefore asked either for a picture, if I wanted a taxi, a massage, if I wanted to buy someones baby.. basically they could provide me with any service. The same person would provide all those services. Shopping was also a nightmare. When walking into a store I felt suffocated by the store associate lurking, under the intentions I was going to steal something. The haggling wasn't that terrible in Yogyakarta. When we flew to Bali, the haggling really set in.

Our first stop in Bali was in Ubud, we loved it. It's completely westernized, but it was a nice change of pace from Hat Yai. Of course Trevor mapped out all the best restaurants, that I had been complaining about missing. If it was up to me we would have eaten Mexican the entire time. We also had some delicious greek food. I even went to a really cool yoga class and afterwards got a lemon grass smoothie. Yes, it's that kinda town, however most women shave their armpits. Ubud borders a monkey forest. The monkeys know all about food, who has it and when they are going to take it from you. I had a monkey challenge me for a straw out of my cup. I also saw a ballistic monkey eating Pringles.

After a few days in Ubud Trevor and I took a bike tour around the Tegalalang rice terraces. Which are about 45 minutes outside of Ubud. Yes this was where Eat, Pray, Love was filmed. We were definitely under the impression it was going to be a bit more of a workout but it turned out to be cultural experience. We learned about the Balinese culture, including the filing of their teeth when they reach adult hood. After that we went up north to Lovina beach. The Lovina resort was nice. I really enjoy walking on the beach, but the beach turned out to be a bit dirty once you wandered away from the resorts. We stayed for a few nights. I did end up going to a hot spring, that was filled to the brim with Dutch tourists. I also spent an entire afternoon looking for contact solution, to no avail.

After a few nights in Lovina we went to Balangan beach. This is a beach that is in the southern tip of Bali. Mostly a surfer beach but it had only been modernized in the past few years. It was a bumpy ride getting there but the views were worth it. The beach was surrounded by large rocks dotted with beautiful green algae. Lots of annoying people taking wedding photos on rocks but less haggling.

After Bali, Trevor and returned to Hat Yai. I went back to work for a week, and began preparing for final exams at my school. Trevor became the grading efficient of all of my tests. We played several new games with my classes. I feel like maybe I made a mistake in teaching the kids how to say that they like or dislike something. All the kids especially my first graders always let me know when they dislike something... Especially if it is a game that they find rather challenging.

The following weekend Trevor and I went to Singapore. Sadly it rained almost the entire time but we geared up with our umbrellas and rain coats and took it in stride. There were absolutely no crowds we walked around the Gardens by the Bay and took the Singapore Flyer with only 4 other people in a pod. We also saw the broadway show The Lion King (yes we did), and we ate our way through every possible restaurant that Trevor found ... with good reviews... (Trevor is a review junkie as well.. )Then we said good bye and I got on a plane and went back to Hat Yai. I was a little sad because I didn’t know when we would see each other again.

However, the next day I got a call and Trevor extended his trip for another 2 weeks. Back to Hat Yai he came and this time we planned to just stay in my non ac apartment.. for two weeks. We went a bought a mattress for Trevor to sleep on as my bed is a tiny twin. However, that mattress was equivalent to a slap of concrete so we both ended up wedging ourselves on the tiny twin bed for several nights.

After all the hype of Indonesia and Singapore we found ourselves with a free weekend so we heard from a friend about a nice resort ran by a German man in Songhkla. The beach town about an hour outside of Hat Yai. We took the motorbike (yes the moped) and drove out there for the weekend. We found ourselves at a completely abandoned beach, which lasagna on the menu.. we had a great time. After all the sites we had seen and the places we had been, its sometimes nice just to go somewhere that has nothing.. Nothing to do, nothing to see, just get a drink and sit on the beach. That’s exactly what we did.

Apart from Trevor being here I started up fall semester in graduate school. While I have only been taking one class every semester, I decided to take two this semester. I’ve been spending a lot of spare time reading and write blog posts and of course suckering Trevor to go to every possible museum with me. Only three more semesters left!

First semester at Thida just ended last week. While I am not teaching in a formal classroom for the next month I still have a mountain of paperwork to complete, final grades to average and lessons for next semester. I’m still going to school everyday and working. I still get to see the kids. One of my coworkers Natasha left after 1st semester, she went back to South Africa. It was sad to see her go, as her Joe and I had become a trio at work. Natasha has a ton of teaching experience. I have really missed her being at school this week, to ask her random questions about grading and spreadsheet formatting.

Other then that, I had to move from the night market. The agency that I work for ( and also live at) rent was increased. In addition, the owner wanted 5% of their monthly income. So we moved. We moved into a much newer building thats only 5 minutes (instead of 25 minutes) from my school. AND I HAVE AC. It’s more of a neighborhood vibe than industrial village. However, I am right next door to a bar called Sleepless Corner, so it is louder at night. Also, there are less feral cats wondering about and more feral dogs. There is also the only homeless man I have seen so far in Thailand living on this street. Last night at 3 am I heard a noise outside of my room, I looked down on the street to see him standing completely naked just wandering about. In the day time his clothes are so raggedy that they show almost his entire ass (the entire thing, I'm serious). It’s really sad, but I am also scared of him. Also, from living in Thailand for eight months, something is really wrong with him if the Thai people aren’t helping him. I have therefore devised a plan to leave some clothes and food outside in a box. Hopefully he will find them and hopefully he will wear them, however I want my identity to remain anonymous.

In other news. My college buddy Ngu is coming to visit in two weeks so I have been planning trips to Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai. I will be posting more snaps of my Bali and Singapore ventures.. hopefully new drawings and potentially photos from a school camp next week..

With Love Felicia <3