January and February

The past few months in Thailand have been relaxing in a way; there have been no big Rotary events or trips.  It has been the time in my exchange when living in Thailand has started to feel normal and that I am not just visiting.  January and February were spent my last two months in school before it closes for their summer vacation, during these two months of school, I along with the two other exchange students from Canada at my school created a board depicting Canada and all of its symbols, as well as learning some new recipes in cooking class and helping out my classmates with their English.  During the last week of school the students put on an exhibition where they had booths and each booth was a different country in the ASEAN community and had food and pictures and cultural differences explained. 

Also in these two months I experienced Chinese New Year here in Thailand because a lot of the Thai people are half Chinese including my host family and most of the Rotary Club here.  There was a huge celebration in the main square of town where they had people dressed as dragons dancing around on top of poles and dangling off them as well it is was quite interesting.  They also had the ever present food stalls all around the main square as well.  The morning of Chinese New Year at my house here in Thailand we set off Chinese fireworks the reds ones in a line,  burnt fake money and gold for the ancestors and set out a tons of food and prayed so the ancestors continue to have a good life in the afterlife.

Here in Korat the soccer season is just about to start so I have been to see two games already, that were warm up matches for the season, the first game I went to see the Korat team played against the top ranked team in Thailand and the second was against the 2^nd top ranked team in Thailand they were both pretty good games.  The fun part trying to figure what songs the fans are singing, because they switch back and forth between Thai ones and English ones. 

At the end of February I had the opportunity to travel to Bangkok with two other exchange students and stay with one of the exchange students host family.  We got to go all around Bangkok see the largest reclining Buddha, the largest outdoor market, shock the locals in Bangkok that we could speak Thai, take a boat ride and visit some more temples.  It was a great trip to see some of the places you always hear about when people talk about Bangkok.   All in all these past few months have been great and I am enjoying the start of the hot season now.