A weekend in Bangkok

This past week and today at school has been quite interesting them have had tests in every classes and the classes they do not have tests in they usually have a free period, so there has been a lot of free time for reading, learning Thai and doing nothing much at school.  Tomorrow, however, is our last day for just over a month, which will be very nice.  I can actually get out and explore Korat and figure out the bus system, seeing as I only know how to get to my house from the school on the bus.

This is not the most exciting part of this past week; the most exciting part was that I was able to go to Bangkok, with two other exchange students and one of theirs host mom and sister.  We spent Saturday touring around the Grand Palace and seeing the most famous Buddha in Thailand.  This Buddha has an outfit for each season and there is a huge ritual that goes along with the changing of the clothes, which would be very interesting to see.  We, however, only saw its rainy season clothing.  Speaking of clothing at all other temples previously visited capris were fine to wear, this being the grad temple, however only long loose fitting pants were allowed.  So before entering the Palace and Temple grounds two out of the six of us that went were given long sarong, skirt things that we had to wear, they were actually pretty comfy.  From the little bit of history that Noelle’s host family knew we were taught that murals around the entrance to the Temple showed Buddha wining a battle, and that then they informed us that the statues outside of all the doorways guarding them were all enemies that Buddha had defeated and punished by making them forever guard the temples.   The intricacies of the design on the temple was baffling, every building was titled with tiny mirrors and coloured tiles, which was absolutely beautiful. 

We also ventured over to a Palace that was built in King Rama V’s time and where his son and grandson grew up.  Apparently King Rama V was a very big hunter, so he had huge elephant tusks in almost every room and had rooms dedicated to hunting paraphernalia and crocodile, deer, turtles and other animals that he hunted.   It was an impressive collection, and the rest of the palace was gorgeous they even had portraits and busts of European royalty which was interesting to see, but we never got an explanation.   The rest of the palace had some very beautiful collections of china dishes, glassware, typewriters, pipes and many other things, but cameras were not allowed in so those pictures will be forever ingrained in my mind.

To continue with the trip, Noelle’s host family is very keen on shopping so we went to a mall Saturday afternoon for a bit; they had an ice rink that I really wanted to try out.  Then Sunday came along and we spent most of the day wandering around a mall called Platinum, which is really just and indoor market.  It is a mall comprised of stalls and tons of people and tiny aisles, so it is a bit overwhelming but interesting to seeing Thai culture adapt to a western view of shopping of a mall.  

So all in all a very interesting weekend and a fun one at that too, and this month should be an interesting one, seeing as we have free reign in Korat!