SO MUCH FOOOOOD!!!!!!

Huge Mall! 

Food, shopping, and people...that pretty much sums up our lives in Thailand.. Today started with more training a SES...and it seemed to last forever! We were trained on how to teach our classes and were given some brief information on Thai culture and what is acceptable in society. Some of it was very interesting. For example, it is considered very impolite to point, touch other people's heads, and wad up money (because it has the face of the king on it). I realized that I have already done so many "rude" things today..oops! 

Khao Neow Ma Muang

After training, Caitlin and I spent some time at The Mall Bangkapi. Since we were by ourselves, we had to keep track of where we were in the mall, first of all because it's so huge, and secondly because all of the signs are in Thai. First we went to the food court and enjoyed some Khao Neow Ma Muang (sticky rice and mango). Can I please say...that food comes from heaven! After our little snack, we decided to venture a bit to some different floors. We looks at the different shops and it's so interesting to see Thai style. Some of it is very similar to America, but some of it is so different. For example, at home there may be 20 or 30 pair of sunglasses to choose from, but here there may be 400 to choose from and that is just in one store. Crazzzy! 

This is what happens to my hair
 in the humidity.

While we were shopping, we stopped in this little dress shop and the woman working there began talking to us in English. We learned yesterday that Thailand is one of the lowest English speaking countries in the world, so the fact that she knew English was pretty amazing and surprising! Caitlin and I were both really excited to talk to her and I asked her how long she has studied English, where she was from, and things like that. She asked us what we were doing in Thailand and we told her that we are here to teach at SES. As soon as we said that she got this very enthusiastic look on her face and exclaimed "I will study there next month!!!". So, if all goes well, I will see this girl next month and possibly be her teacher! In the middle of that conversation, another girl came up to us and began talking to us in this nearly perfect English. She asked us where we are from and we said Ohio and she also got this very excited/surprised look on her face and she told us that she was just in Ohio working at Cedar Point...oh how small the world seemed at that point. Isn't that so great?? 

Before trying "Banana
Fried Bliss"

After trying "Banana
 Fried Bliss."

Also, while we were at the food court waiting to get dinner, two girls that we know from SES walked right up to us. Now let me remind you that this mall is like 500 miles long...and they happened to see us in the huge amount of people there. So weird, but so awesome! I feel like there were so many stories like that today. On top of it all, the two girls brought Caitlin and I this amazing dessert, and we're not sure what it's called but we named it "Banana Fried Bliss". So, as you can see...today was a very good day! So excited for the many more days to come!! :)

-Bethany