Ping-Pong champ...not

The beautiful garden! 

Our new spot! 

I am convinced that every day I am here, the more I love it and the more comfortable I feel. This morning Caitlin and I walked to the park that is pretty close to our apartment. On the way we stopped at a little coffee shop and had most delicious iced coffee (even though I regretted it later because I haven't had caffeine in a while so it made me really jittery). The park is sooo cool. It's literally like a rain forest in the middle of Bangkok. There are benches to sit on and a path that goes all the way around it--and it's HUGE. There is a big pond that is in the middle with cool trees around it and not to mention the Komodo Dragons. Today we saw one that was the size of an alligator. They are so scary!!! In one area of the park there is a garden of bushes that are trimmed into animals. I think the only place I've ever seen anything like that is on TV. There were elephants and birds, and horses and cows. It was so cool!! We found a place in the middle of that area that will probably be our spot from now on, and we did some reading and relaxing. Even though it's so hot, since we were in the shade, the temperature was actually pretty enjoyable.

Pizza!! 

When we left the park, we went straight to the school where there was pizza waiting for us! It was so nice because just last night I was saying to Caitlin that pizza sounded good, and we were talking about the American food we are already craving. The pizza definitely hit the spot. The rest of the afternoon before our classes was spent in the lobby of the school either playing ping-pong with the guys, or putting together a puzzle with the director's son, CJ. I think I played ping-pong for like 3 hours straight. The problem is, the only sport people play in Thailand is ping-pong..so as you can imagine, everyone is pretty good...and I am not good at all..but I am competitive..so it's just a lose-lose situation for me. Oh well..but I didn't even win one game out of the 3 hours I spent playing today. Hopefully all this losing will either make me more humble, or a better pin-pong player...........I'm hoping for the latter. lol

My class tonight went soooo well--even better than yesterday! I feel more comfortable with my students and I think they feel more comfortable with me too. Some of you may know that I really like to sing, and there is a part in the lesson that there is a singing time, so we all had so much fun with that today. I taught them the song "Hallelu, hallelu, hallelu, hallelujah, Praise ye the Lord". I separated them into two groups and made them stand up and sit down for their parts. It was super cute, and the best part is they don't get embarrassed to sing even if they can't. That was probably my favorite part of tonight and I think it was the student's favorite part too.

 After dinner Dou, one of my students and one of the guys in the church, invited Caitlin and I to walk to the market to have dinner. The market is absolutely HUGE. We finally found some food to eat and we sat down and hung out for a while. While we were sitting there, Dou began teaching us Thai words and phrases. It was so sweet because he would say a word and ask us to repeat and then he would say "That's so good!!" (even though we knew we were pronouncing it completely wrong). It was just a really good time. It was a great day!

 Alright, well I am off to bed! Thanks for keeping up! :)

-Bethany