clean as a bird

btw, these blog titles are just examples of wendy's supreme knowledge of english sayings.

friend, i'm glad you've decided to join me for round two of the k&w trip wrap-up. i'm in an internet cafe now cuz kate took my computer last night...i didn't wanna lug it around to various countries. good news for my computer, bad news for my present sanity.

anyway, on with the story. we left koh tao without a hitch. the catamaran back to the mainland didn't break. i decided we'd take the train back because i generally like trains better than buses and i kinda wanted k&w to see all the kinds of transport in thailand (which i'm pretty sure we did). the train ride back was pretty sucky, though, cuz the train stopped a bunch and was rockier than usual and we were right next to a smoking car and the door kept opening. not a great sleep, but traveling isn't exactly the most glamourous thing anyway.

SUPHAN TIMES
(ok, everyone, i'm bored with chronology. time for highlights only.)
kate and wendy joined me for 5/8, 5/9, and 6/2 on wednesday. the two m5 classes are brilliant and wonderful (5/9 is the honors class, 5/8 is the second highest level); 6/2, on the other hand, is...not. after some intense lesson planning (read: asking kate what games she liked in her spanish classes on the beach on tuesday) i settled for playing 20 questions, kate and wendy being the knowers, the students being the guessers.

5/9, as usual, had their own ideas. after two rounds, pla, the smartest and most outspoken girl in the class, decided that it was her turn to be the knower. she took the white board marker from me and stood at the white board in the typical teacher position; k&w and i made our own team. pla's thing was a building...something in london...not big ben, not the london eye. we totally had it. it was buckingham palace. "WE KNOW IT. CALL ON US." (btw, i think it's funny to be sort of mean and mock my students.) "buckingham palace?" we guessed. NOOOOOO! *hung heads in shame*

that was sort of a lame story. i should prob delete it, but it's a special memory in my head so imma go ahead and keep it.

so anyway, while 5/9 and 5/8 listen to me and understand me and are generally good students, 6/2 is full of kids who a) don't know english and b) have no desire to acquire english skills. so i spend a lot of time talking to myself. it's a hilarious contrast and i'm so glad k&w got to see the extremes. despite their laughably bad reputation, i still love 6/2 and we had a good time playing hangman.

k&w were exhausted so they went home a little early and took a nap. there's a cute picture on fbook. after my m5 convo class (we turned the lights off and talked about ghosts again), we...crap, i have no idea what we did that night. OH i remember. we got some rice and veggies to go and ate dinner and watched grown ups on the bed. the movie really sucked, btw. we only watched about half an hour before we fell asleep but seriously, don't waste your time.

on thursday morning we woke up early to see people making merit to the monks (giving'em stuff in the morning) and get fruit. we came back and had a huge fruit shmorgasboard on my bed: mangosteen, rambutan, banana (which kate used to hate but now apparently likes, but maybe only in thailand), mango, longan, plus some 7-11 snacks. nom nom nom.

after a tesco run, we went out to kanchanaburi on the public bus with about a thousand (ehhhh hyperbole) school kids.

KANCHANABURI TIMES
some bullets:

• pong phen guesthouse is the most awesome guesthouse in kburi. i know this is probably a false statement but we had such a good time there. we ate almost every meal there and one time when we ventured out it was a mistake. they had a pool shaped like a penis (555 foresight?). we had air con AND cable tv and managed to watch the same episodes of the office three times.
• kate was sick on saturday, so we were "forced" to stay home all day. wendy and i ventured out once to get a massage. we spent the rest of the day eating, drinking fruit smoothies, and reading in the sunshine by the pool. wendy and i stayed up late talking and i had a really good time.
• i stepped on a nail. i cleaned and bandaged it asap and i had my tetanus booster before i came. it hurt and bled a lot at first, but it's getting better every day and doesn't look infected or anything. good job healing, body.
• we saw the death railway bridge, the war cemetery, a chinese cemetery, the JEATH museum, and rode elephants. we bought tourist shirts to top it off.
• riding bikes through town was one of my highlights of the trip.
• i wanna go back immediately.

ok this internet cafe is closing so i better go. that's pretty much the end of my k&w story anyway, so good. but now they're playing a country radio station in here (streaming online?) and i'm freaking loving it. it's making me a really happy girl.

btw, kate and wendy are still currently in the air from japan to america. send good thoughts to their plane :-)