Sawat dee khrap...

Greetings from Nonthaburi! Quite an interesting last couple of days. Flight left Edmonton at 7:45 am. After a three hour layerover in Vancouver, we boarded a China Airlines flight headed to Taipei. Boarding announcement were made in Chinese followed by English, instead of the English followed by the French as I am so used to. I was very impressed by the airline. After we had boarded stewardesses gave everyone a moist warm towel to wash there face with. Later we got a little bag of "mixed nuts" which actually contained peanuts and green peas. Meals were pretty good, had eel and rice for one meal and pork and rice for another. Later on they went around with instant noodle cups. All you could see was a solid bank of clouds the entire way. Saw very little of Taipei because by the time we were under the clouds we were at the aiport. As soon as we pulled up to the gate the airplane lost power. When I stepped off the plane I could instantly feel the humidity. We had a 7 hour layover in Taipei, as surpisingly we were all freezing cold because of the air conditioning. We got a meal voucher for this food place in the airport, and even though everything looked gross I thought I should use the voucher so I got a bacon vegetable sandwich. I couldn't tell if the bacon had ever been cooked before and I felt sick the rest of the day. Took a few gravol before the last flight to Bangkok so I slept through quite a bit of it. I woke up and saw that we were flying above a lightning storm. Once we got underneath the cloud, the lights of Bangkok were fabulous. Getting our passports checked and going through customs didn't take much more than 15 mins. Customs amounted to walking through a hallway with your baggage while some officers watched. After trading in our money for Thai Baht, we were met by Amanda (lady in charge of orientation), Peter (operator of school), Coleen (returning teacher), and Nathan (new teacher from Virginia who arrive half an hour before us and is my roomate). The baggage was loaded into the back of a truck and we all squished into the GES van. Traffic was light at that time in the morning so we arrived at GES at about 2:30 I think. Unpacked some things at the apartment, took a shower, and went to bed at around 4. Could here traffic in the distance, airplanes, a few birds, the air conditioning unit, and some kind of lizard, which concerned me somewhat considering that on one side of the apartment you can reach out and touch the trees outside, leaving plenty of room for a man eating lizard to come in and eat me. Planning to get up at 9:30, I woke up at 6:30 and headed over to the staff room. At 10 we're supposed to meet and Amanda is gonna show us around I think. Thanks to all of you who kept me in your prayers during the trip, and I hope you keep me in your prayers throughout the year.