Elephant Nature Park

So far the most amazing part of my trip has been my time spent I'm the northern city of Chiang Mai. After that amazing first day here we unfortunately had to move hotels because we discovered ours was infested with mice and cockroaches yuck! But besides that minor set back Chiang Mai was amazing!

On the second day some of us went high up into the jungle on a zip lining course that took the entire afternoon. It was so much fun to fly through the jungle and see monkeys and such. They then fed us traditional Thai food and we went back to our hotel. And on our way to look for dinner we found the coolest coffee shop/restraunt/bar. It was outside by the river. You sat on pillows not on anything else. And it was so quite there. We ended up staying 6 hours. And the owners were so friendly. The mother of the owners spoke no English but she gave me a homemade Thai herbal medicine for my odd jungle bites I had received. She then asked to take her picture with me. This is her below:

But the best day was the last one. We all had booked this day tour at an elephant sanctuary. It is the only try sanctuary here in Thailand where they don't use the elephants for people to ride or labor. Apparently 20 years ago or so elephants were used on logging industry here on Thailand. But when logging was banned over 3,000 domestic elephants were left out of work/abandoned. They would be sold and forced to work on the street or chained up. This amazing lady adopts these domestic elephants that couldn't survive in the wild and has a open range home for them. No fences, no chains, just 100 elephants roaming freely. The tour we booked was only for six people and they let you spend the entire day with three elephants. We fed them, bathed them, played with them. Then the guide took us "rafting" down a local river. I say rafting like that because the water was so shallow it was more of a joke. At the end of the day this amazing woman met us and showed us around the rest of the sanctuary. All in all best experience of the trip so far. I had to take a waterproof camera once we started interacting with the elephants so I will post those pics later.

Conquering Bangkok

It seems like I have been here in Thailand way longer than three days already. Once we arrived in Bang Kok (after flying all night) we set out for the famous Koh San road. This is the backpackers paradise in Bangkok with hotels, hostels, bars, and a huuge market place teaming with life. We spent the day discovering the joys of cheap shopping here. Tank tops for 3 USA dollars, street food for a dollar, and best of all massages everywhere for 5-10 USD. After spending the day touring the city and temples of Buddha we went out and hit the town and it truly is the city that never sleeps. After not enough sleep we did one more day in Bangkok and one more night out. By far the best night out. Amy's boyfriend and brother wanted to go to a big mma fight so we had a girls night out. We got to go to the Sky Bar and see the city from the amazing view. Only downside was that it was so high up the wind was killing us!

After a few hours of sleep we had to catch a flight to Chaing Mai, a northern city in Thailand. I loved Bangkok but honestly it was so dirty and sketchy I was happy to land in this mountainous city with fresh air and jungles everywhere. We were all pretty exhausted from Bangkok so we laid low today and saw the waterfalls here, went around the city, and went to a nighttime market (I'm sure you've figured out by now that markets are pretty popular here and everything is super cheap). Tomorrow I am off to zip line over the jungle top eeek! Then who knows what! And our last day here we are going on an elephant tour where each of us will be assigned an elephant to take care of as we help them migrate over the mountains:) I'll try to keep blogging as the trip goes on, thanks for reading:)

Sky bar

Sky bar

Sky bar view 

Sky bar

They sell cockroaches, crickets and other bugs to eat everywhere!!

Another giant Buddha

Temple with the laying down giant Buddha 

The tuk tuks are how you get around. They are like golf carts and they are terrifying  because of how crazy driving is in Bangkok. This is me showing that fear that I will die in a car accident while Kyle is oblivious.

 The ladies

The wolf pack was created

These are live scorpions on Justin

Him with the lady who sold them the scorpions. Both Kyle and Justin ate one!!

Off on another adventure

Well everyone I know I've been horrible about writing, but nothing too exciting has been happening. To update you all in one sentence: been sick, phone broke, work was dumped on us for this inspection, and my kids have been challenging. These ten weeks leading up to spring break have been excruciating, but it'll pay off. I am taking off to Thailand with no computer, barely anything packed, and ready to relax:) I honestly feel more excited for spring break than I ever did as a student ha! Anyways I'll try to be better about writing in the future.

Crazy desert evening

Well I am finally getting a chance to post this! On Tuesday I was invited to go out to a town called Liwa with my roommate and a handful of engineers who work at the solar plant in town (apparently largest solar plant in the world). Anyway after saying yes to the last minute invitation we drove the hour out to a dune called, Moreeb Dune. This is supposedly the largest accessible dune in Arabia. It takes over an hour and a half to climb up it and our off road vehicles could barely make it up the steep dune. Apparently there are yearly races up and down the massive dune in tricked out vechiles that use some "fast and the furious" type of fuel.

After we almost died several times on the dune we went out several miles from the road dune bashing. When we finally picked a spot to park we had a campfire, bbq, and just an enjoyable night. There were some very interesting people we met in this small group. One man was an Emirate (he's the one who almost killed me with his crazy driving) and it was so interesting to talk to him about my kids. Apparently he said this western region is nothing like the cities or other regions. He said they are very rich here and very spoiled and that he was never like that. It was also reassuring when he mentioned how much he hated how his countrymen treat people from countries other than western ones and how he prays that will change soon. It was so nice to hear an Emirate speak about the issue that frustrates and upsets me the most here. It is a country that pays and treats people according to their passport and it is so wrong. Anyway besides him there was a British man who has lived in the UAE longer than the Emirate was even alive! He came right after it was really founded as a country and it was amazing to hear his stories of how this country started!!

Best part of the night though was firstly when two Emirate men drove up to our campsite and asked us if we wanted fresh camel milk. We said no but then they returned thirty minutes later with just a bowl of warm, fresh,  and foamy camel milk! It was such an interesting taste. I wasn't a big fan. The second and final best part was when Abdulla Z (the Emirate) taught us a game Emirate children play in the desert.  You stand at the edge of a dune and see who can jump the farthest. Trick is it is pitch black so it honestly looks like you are jumping into a black hole. I refrained from this since I knew the dune was a 15+ foot drop if you jumped to far out or ended up rolling down the slanted dune. Afrer getting lost trying to find a road again we finally made it back to civilization!  And I can now call my town civilization because just this week our first liquor store opened AND Starbucks all in one week! Madinat Zayed will be the next Dubai watch and see hehe. Here are some pictures of my adventure.

The sun looking massive at Moreeb Dune

Makeshift camping

Roomie picture

They got more than a little stuck here. .  .

And this is how you drink camel milk given to you by strangers . . .

Moreeb Dune

You can't see the top of the dune but the tire tracks show how many times the guys kept trying to see how much higher they could get. It is scary because when you cannot go any higher it almost feels like you are going to roll on the side of the car and roll down the dune.

This was the "smaller" section of the dune.

You can see my roommate in the car stuck

Our Fearless Leader is Leaving

So, I have written several posts in the past few weeks, but just haven't posted them yet. This is my most recent one and the older dated ones will follow as I find time to download the pictures. It has been a whirlwind lately with the middle school having midterm exams that have taken two weeks. And trying to start quarter #3 with a fresh outlook. Anyways I just found out this week that our Principal, who is really the rock that our entire community is based on, is retiring at the end of the year. She is the main reason that many teachers have stayed and put up with the difficult students, and the only reason that our school is not like the other 3 Glenelg campuses. Everyone on the other 3 campuses always say how jealous they are that we all genuinely enjoy spending time together. That we are like a family, and she is the matriarch. I know many people will leave with her at the end of the year and the school will definitely not be the same. But, life is change and if everything stayed stagnant then what would there be to it. Have a good night everyone, and I will post the other posts soon.

mini vacation into the desert and Dubai

I had my first UAE visitor this weekend! A friend I had met and traveled with in Italy came here to see their brother who is a Marine stationed here and we met up on the weekends to hang out. It was really nice to actually do the "touristy" things here. Since I've been here I've either been too busy or just not wanting to bother with it since I have the "expat mindset." I thought this would be a good time to update you all on what it is like here.

We spent a lot of time just wandering around Dubai for hours on foot (which was really fun considering every other time I have been there it was a quick trip in and out). Then I finally made it to the top of the  Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world. While it was cool it was not something I would ever do again (unless any of you come to visit hehe). The most intense moment of it was when we went up the elevator. It travels so fast that you must chew gum during it to avoid painful ear aches. 124 floors in under 60 seconds!

Some resort that rivals the Hilton in Hawaii (sorry bridget)

Tallest building in the world

BIGGEST fish EVER!

Shark swimming along in the Dubai Aquarium

Besides the Burj we traveled around the Palm islands and hung out on the rocky jetty, until the cops came out and told us we couldn't be there. . . oops ha. Then we went on a desert safari out in Sharjah (another Emriate close to Oman). This was by far the most exciting thing I have done since I have been here. Our driver picked us up and took us way out of the city and we drove around the dunes for several hours. Stopping along certain points to play in the sand and take photos. I ended up spraining my ankle as you'll see in the photos below trying to race people down the massive dunes. After the drive they took us to a traditional Emirate styled BBQ with free henna, shisha, and an entertainment show. The show included belly dancing, fire spinning, and more. I loved this experience because I really do find the desert beautiful, but it is hard to see the beauty when all I see is it polluted around the cities with garbage, construction, and an attempt to force vegetation on the land. Being out in Sharjah the desert was massive and untouched. The dunes rose so high it was definitely the scariest rollercoaster of my life!

view from the palm

The "off limits" part of the island we climbed over to

getting ready to jump the wall which we were not supposed to and go down to the water

Beautiful dunes. . . 

who knew I had hops ;)

some of the people on our tour

the horrible hike up the dune. I know it doesn't seem steep or like it is big because it is all neutral colors but man these things were HUGE. Easily 3X bigger than Florence dunes in Oregon.

some of the dunes at a better angle to see how big they are.

All of the red sand is the UAE. Those mountains are in Oman our neighboring country.

Spraining my ankle (still hurts to walk on)

Parkour!

just messing around in the sand

you can see all the tire tracks where people drive around

sunset at camp.

belly dancing show

Besides the fun weekend in town this past weekend I went into Abu Dhabi with my co workers after our pay day for a much needed Sushi Buffet and drinks. Speaking with other teachers from other campuses I feel even more fortunate to be at the campus I am where we enjoy spending time together at and outside of work. Everyone said that the 10 weeks after winter vacation until spring break would drag by. But so far I am shocked with how busy I have been staying. With work picking up and the kids being really great I am beginning to fall in love with teaching again and really feeling like I am doing something worthwhile. There was a long period where I felt so despondent about it here in regards to the work, and now it is turning around :) Keep in touch everyone I love getting your letters I have started a collage of all the letters I get here so keep sending them!!