It amazes me to think that in only 4 weeks I will have completed my first school year here in Bangkok. It has gone by scarily quickly, yet looking back it feels like so long ago that I first arrived, as so much has happened in the meantime. This school term in particular has flown by, mainly because I've been so busy. Work continues to go well and I still enjoy working at the school.
Outside of school, I have still enjoyed living in Bangkok and there have been a lot of social events to attend. As a result I have had some great nights out and met some really great people in the process. These will continue apace as the school year winds down and there are farewells for staff who are leaving, and end-of-year bashes. I have also done a few cultural things - I went to visit the local snake farm, where the red cross milks venemous snakes for anti-venom, but they also have a snake show each day. I also visited the National Museum twice (there was too much to see in one visit), which was quite interesting. Here are a few photos, plus for all of you who are craving some genuine Thai culture, a short video of a Thai pop concert that I stumbled upon in one of the shopping centres in town - pure class!
Two cobras face off against each other.
Funky bird-head statues at the museum.
Like most things in Bangkok, the museum is free for monks.
The other thing that has kept me busy of late is looking for a new place to live. The school have provided me (along with all the new staff) with accommodation near the school for the first year of my contract. However, from August I need to arrange my own accommodation. This involves a fairly tedious process of trying to find an apartment that is not only in a useful location (ie: reasonably easy access to school) but also within my budget. I have decided that one year in the suburban utopia of Bangna is enough and I will therefore move closer into the "centre" of Bangkok and commute. As long as I am not too far from an expressway entrance, it should only be a 20-30 minute commute each way. So many of my weekend days have been spent looking at a range of places from very nice and overly-expensive (it is clearly a global phenomenon that real estate agents show you really nice places above the budget you have specified in the hope that you will get suckered in by their transparent ploy), to very unpleasant hovels in a horrible location. However, during this process I did manage to find a few places that I would be quite happy with, so now I need to try to negotiate prices and arrange a lease in the next few weeks. Great fun!
Of course, with the end of the school year comes another well-earned holiday. I hope you're not getting too sick of hearing about all the holidays I get here, so sorry if you are, but in my mind they are the most interesting aspects of my life here. The school have seen fit to send me on a 5-day course in London at the start of the summer holidays at the end of June. The downside is that I have to do some work during my holidays. The upside is that the school is paying for my flight, so I get a free trip to Europe for the summer. So, my plan is to fly to Prague after the course has finished, then spend a few weeks travelling round Czech Republic and Poland. After that I will visit some friends in Spain and Ireland, then back to London for a couple of days before flying back to Bangkok in early August. I feel quite fortunate do be able to do this, as there's no way I could afford to visit Europe otherwise.
So, in the belief that a short update is better than no update at all, I will finish here. I hope all is well with everyone. Cheers.
