Wat Up Ayutthaya

Hola! I think it's safe to say that Sarah's birthday was a success! I had assigned all of my classes (80 students total) to make Kru Sarah a birthday card for homework. I was a little nervous since they fail to do any other homework assignment, but almost all of them showed off their artistic skills (and lack of English) by creating beautiful cards. Boolakashan! 

On Friday, I was told I would have to miss two of my classes to go to the hospital for a check-up to get cleared by a doctor. Just one of many steps in attaining a work visa. One of our Thai teachers, Kru Phon, would be assisting us and translating everything. I was secretly excited for the trip just so I could familiarize myself with the Suphanburi hospital just in case I ever needed to go there. Well...I really hope I never have to go there. Ever. From the moment you walk in, it is chaos. First of all, everything is in Thai and there are no English signs anywhere and no one speaks English. All of the staff are wearing masks and the waiting room looks like a train terminal....if a train terminal had masked patients on stretchers amidst those anxiously awaiting their turn. They take your vitals in the waiting room, so it was really fun to have about 200 Thai people staring at me as my weight and blood pressure were being taken. We were then shuffled from room to room to get various tests, including a chest X-ray from a machine from the 1950s. Sidenote: I am still very crooked. Thanks, scoliosis...you rock. Then Kru Phon said "Okay, now they are going to check your butt." ....Umm what? "They are going to check your butt." Sarah and I nervously giggled and insisted "Mai butt! No no!" After some back and forth debate and some miming, we realized she meant "They are going to check your blood." Muuuch better. We then made our way to the final doctor after passing some prisoners in some hardcore chains to get our final clearance. I had been getting some intense vertigo the past few days, and I am traumatized by my brain virus a few years back, so I took the opportunity to tell the doctor while I was already there. I had Phon tell him I was dizzy, and hoped he knew some English to communicate with me. Our convo went as follows:


Doctor: You're dizzy?
Me: Yes...vertigo. Does that mean anything?
Doctor: Do you have hearing loss?   (Yes! He knew what he was talking about!)
Me: No hearing loss. But I had vestibular neuronitis 3 years ago (wrote it down on paper,too) so I was concerned. 
Doctor: Are you having an asthma attack? 


Awesome. Epic fail. But he gave me some Japanese meds so I guess it wasn't a complete failure. 


On Saturday morning, Sarah and I hopped on a bus and headed up to Ayutthaya, an ancient city in Thailand. It was an amazing city and an amazing trip. We got off the bus and found ourselves a sweet hostel. The woman in charge spoke perfect English and was incredibly helpful. AND THERE WAS HOT WATER!!! I took my first hot shower in a month and it was GLORIOUS. Anyways, we hired a tuk-tuk for a few hours and he took us from Wat to ruins to Wat to reclining Buddhas to elephants. The sights were just unbelievable and it is so impressive that some of the structures are still standing from the 1400s. We also took a longtail boat ride at sunset and saw some more temples. The flooding was very apparent on this tour, as we couldn't even get off the boat to see one of the temples, and we saw a lot of houses still somewhat under water. I even saw a few people fishing from their front doors. 

Buddha Love

Sunset Boatride

Hipstamatic

 On Sunday, we continued our explorations around a few more sites (and obviously went jumping picture crazy) and hit up the market in the city center before jumping on a bus back to The Soup. We were both completely and utterly exhausted after our weekend of walking, jumping and exploring in 90+ degree weather and were happy to get home yesterday afternoon. Although, I did have some lesson planning to do, but I was able to tweak watching a scene from Transformers. Hollllllla!

Matching fisherman pants!

The elephant is totally into my jump