Merry Christmas from Bangkok!

Merry Christmas!

the big Christmas tree in Union Mall Lat Prao

Aussies at Amphawa

Every year out school participates in a student exchange with an Australian High School. In the spring, a small group of selected students goes to Melbourne to stay with and learn from their host families. They stay for a few weeks, and had just returned to Thailand at the beginning of last term (April).

In the winter, their Australian counterparts come to Thailand during their term holiday. We were supposed to meet them two weeks ago, but due to the "situation" in Bangkok, they put off that portion of the trip and went to the north first.

Last week, with school finally back to normal, the ten Aussie students and their two teachers arrived in Bangkok to stay with their Thai friends who had visited earlier in the year.

A few of them got to sit in on my M4 class, and taught my students how to say "hello, mate". Mostly, they've been busy doing tourist things around town, and we've really only seen them at lunch when the teachers eat with us at our table.

On Saturday, the three American teachers at my school were invited to go along with the twelve Australians and four Thai teachers on a day trip out of town. This was their last big day before our guests head home, just in time for Christmas.

We met at Vocational campus at 9 on Saturday morning, and took a big, comfortable bus about an hour out of town to a workshop where they make traditional Thai ceramics. The Thai style of painting ceramics is based on the ancient Chinese style. You can tell it's Thai though, because the Thai style has added gold to the design.

We got the chance to paint our own coffee mugs. It's not easy! Even though they already had the lines drawn for us, it was hard to keep the paint where it needed to be. I don't know how they paint all the tiny details on their ceramics.

They kept our mugs to fire, but we'll get them back. I'm pretty excited. I got to use gold ink to write my name. Now I won't have to keep using someone else's mug at work!

English department with our ceramics

Next, we had a delicious seafood lunch by the Gulf of Thailand. We couldn't take too long though, next we went to see the famous train market.

It's built on a railway track, and as the train approaches, everyone calmly moves their goods to the side. Once the train is past, they just put everything back out. It's really bizarre. You have to stand in this alleyway as the train passes inches in front if your face.

Next we drove to Amphawa to see a palm sugar plantation and learn how they harvest and refine the organic palm sugar to sell.

The big attraction at Amphawa is the floating village. Shops and stalls selling food and souvinirs line a river walk over the khlong, and if you want something to eat, you just call down to one of the food boats.

Amphawa

I spent a few hours walking around with my two colleagues and the Australian teachers, and then as it was getting dark, we all met up for a riverboat ride.

It's actually been a little cold in Thailand recently. It's freezing in the north, and in the 60's and 70's F down in Bangkok. It was especially cold on the river! The boat ride took about two hours, and they took us to a swampy area to watch fireflies once it was completely dark.

The Australians headed home on Monday, and now we are in the midst of midterms. We gave tests on Friday and Monday. There's another test day on Wednesday, and today and Thursday are study days for the students and grading days for us teachers.

Yes, we have to work on Christmas. We've gotten so much time off lately though, I don't really mind. At least we get a week off for the New Year after midterms are finished!

Long-Overdue Update

Hey, everybody.

So I thought I would get back in the game in time for the new year with a long and long-overdue update. Here's what's been going on in SE Asia lately!

1. After returning from my holiday in HK, I took an impromptu trip with my friend Kelsey to visit Siem Reap. We took an early morning bus to Aranyaprathet, crossed the border, and were in Cambodia that afternoon.

It was mostly just fields, the whole country was kind of flooded when we were there (including the hotel), and everything was kind of overpriced. On the upside, Cambodia is recovering well from a pretty terrible century. On the downside, the money situation was very confusing; everything was charged in a combination of Thai Baht, US Dollar, and Cambodian Rial at an exchange rate of r4000 to $1. The don't use any change, so if you pay in one currency, your change will come in the form of a lower bill in another currency. You end up with a huge stack of r100's, which are worth like $0.20 each.

Still, Siem Reap itself was nice. The main reason though was to visit the Temples of Angkor, especially Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom. We just hired a tuk-tuk (literally the only way you could get around) for the day. We started at Angkor Wat at sunrise.

We stayed for three nights, and also saw Bang Melia -a much more remote and hidden temple ruin that you can literally climb all over and explore on your own. There was nobody else there except the park ranger. We finished up with a hike to a famous waterfall covered in ancient carvings; very cool!

2. The day after returning to school for the new term, we received word that Thailand's 100 year old Supreme Patriarch- the chief monk- had died. Out of respect, we ended up having to wear black for the month of November. This made us look really strange whenever we were out together as a group or taking the subway home from school, and got us lots of stares, especially from confused foreigners. We felt pretty cool though when we were already blacked-out for Baylor's game against Oklahoma (which we won 41-12).

the late Supreme Patriarch of Thailand

3. There's been some unrest in Bangkok lately regarding the "Red Shirts" and the "Yellow Shirts" (who are now the "Black Shirts"). It's very confusing, but safe for us as it has nothing at all to do us. We missed lots of school though, as the roads were closed due to protests. The PM has dissolved parliament, and everything has settled down as the country prepares for a new election.

4.  Even though we are in Bangkok, we still had a good Thanksgiving. We were resistant to having to work on Thanksgiving Day, so my three fellow American teachers and I decided to combine our M4 (sophomore) classes and have a party. We told the students to bring snack. It ended up being kind of like our own Charlie Brown Thanksgiving; we got: potato chips, mini sausages, lots of various Asian snacks that I can't describe well... one student brought mini pies, and one of the girls from my class brought us KFC, because it was the closest thing to turkey! This was all at 7:30 in the morning.

Thanksgiving party

It was win-win, the students got to have a party, and we didn't have to work on Thanksgiving. I was really impressed, at the end of the class, the students cleaned the whole thing up by themselves!

That evening Suzy, a fellow Baylor grad and part time Mathayom English teacher who lives with her husband and family in Bangkok, had all the American teachers over to her home for a traditional American Thanksgiving, complete with turkey, stuffing, lots of pie, and the BU/OU game streamed on their TV from youtube. (We are very excited about our Baylor season, if you couldn't tell.)

5. December 5th is the king's birthday, and just like we wore blue for the queen in October, we are to wear yellow for the month of December (the king was born on a Monday).

6. We got a long weekend for the king's birthday (Thai Father's Day), so I went with some friends to the south of Thailand for a few days. We took a night bus and a long ferry ride to the tiny island of Koh Tao (Turtle Island). It's famous for its diving, but we just rented a beach villa and hung out at the beach and pool at our near-empty resort. The water was a bit cold, but not unbearable. I guess it's off season, as we got a really reasonable deal.

We went into the little town for a dinner once or twice, but mostly just relaxed. It's nice to get out of Bangkok for a few days every once in a while.



quiet little Koh Tao

7. Now we're getting ready for midterms. It's a bit annoying; we'll be giving tests on Christmas Day! Oh well, when in Thailand... We have a short holiday coming up for New Year's though.

Hong Kong Part IV: Ngong Ping Plateau and the Po Lin Monastery

An overdue addendum to my Hong Kong adventure:

It was a cold, misty morning on Lantau Island, China. I stepped into a small, comfortable tea house, glad for the warmth. My friend Evan and I were the only two visitors this early on a weekday, and the lone tea girl at work that morning seemed happy for visitors. She invited us to sit down and join her for a tea ceremony. It was my last day in Hong Kong, and the sky had turned cold, grey, and rainy. My flight was due to depart from Lantau Island's Hong Kong International that evening, but we were determined to make the most of my final day by visiting two of Hong Kong's most interesting and famous landmarks, Po Lin Monastery and the Tian Tan Buddha.

the tea house

I've written before about the misconceptions I had about Hong Kong being a completely urbanized city-state. The truth is, more than forty percent of Hong Kong's territory is preserved in national parks and natural reserves. This is something that my friend Hincent, an ecologist, works to protect. Outside of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon, much of the territory is still very green and undeveloped. 

I met up with Evan early that morning and we took the train to the outskirts of Hong Kong, in the New Territories. There are a couple ways to get to Po Lin, possibly one of China's most famous monasteries. There's a city bus that drives up the back side of the island to the top of Ngong Ping mountain, but that's boring. I suppose you could take a taxi as well. More interestingly, there's a walking trail that starts at the foot of the mountain, and winds its way up to the top through the dense forest on the undeveloped side of the island. I'm sure that would have been the way to go, but we didn't have time for the long walk to the top; It would have taken the whole day.

There's another option though, one that offered me a great memory of my last day in Hong Kong: the Lantau Island Crystal Cable Car. The glass-bottomed cable car carried us to the peak, high above the green forest floor. 

the glass cable car

From time to time, we were able to spot a hiker or two following the trail far below, and at one point we briefly followed above a stream to a small waterfall.

you can see a river and the path winding its way up the mountain

The cable car ride took at least half an hour from the bottom of the mountain to the peak where Po Lin is located. Looking out in front of us, we could see our destination through the mist, the Tian Tan Buddha - the largest seated Buddha in the world.

The Tian Tan Buddha; the worlds' largest

There's a small, for lack of a better word, village atop the mountain. There's a short street just outside the gates of the monastery with a few shops and restaurants, a museum about Buddhism, the tea house, and yes, a Starbucks. I'm kind of a tea aficionado, so we entered the tea house, the first shop on the street. Inside, we browsed around the small shop. They didn't just sell lots of different types of tea from all over China, but porcelain teacups and teapots as well.

a fine selection of of teas from all over China- some were very expensive

Shortly, the girl who was running the shop that morning invited us to a side room for a tea ceremony. We sat across a large wooden table from her on comfortably cushioned chairs, as she began to explain the ritual behind every motion. Hong Kong excels at taking ancient aspects of Chinese culture and blending it with the modern, and this tea ceremony was no exception to that. She demonstrated a special kind of Hong Kong flowering tea, displayed and served from a modern glass teapot.

Chinese tea ceremony - "The Way of Tea"

A tea ceremony involves lots more than just drinking tea. Using various specially designed glass containers, our hostess casually poured warm water over the small cups and tea-ware in such a way that suggested very specific training. The tea ceremony was performed over a specially-designed stone table that funneled all the spilled water (and there is lots of it in a real tea ceremony) away. 

Hong Kong "Flowering Tea" 

Our hostess served us several cups of tea while explaining the importance of tea in Chinese culture. Although the tea ceremony was offered to us for nothing, I wanted to buy something from the shop to thank her for her time. I bought some of the tea we sampled to take home as a souvenir, and as a free gift I got a small yellow Chinese teacup.

in the village just outside Po Lin- the seated Buddha is behind us

Back in the village, we decided to check out the Buddha museum. They showed a short animated film about the life of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. The film was presented in Cantonese, but I was given a headset that played the audio in English. I took a World Religions class in college (Evan and I were in the same class, incidentally) and we studied quite a bit about Buddhism. Our professor lived in China for quite some time, and knew a lot about Mahayana (Chinese) Buddhism. It's very different from Theravada (Thai Buddhism), and watching the film was a really good reminder of the things I learned in that class as it was from the Mahayana school.

After the museum we had a tea set lunch at a noodle house, then we headed into the monastery itself.

the gates to Po Lin Monastery

Although Po Lin (meaning "Precious Lotus") is a popular tourist spot, it's a functional Buddhist monastery, and you're greeted with the smell of burning incense and the sound of ringing bells. In the monastery's Hall of Buddhas there are three statues, representing the Buddha's past, present, and future lives. Robed monks bustled about their business, ignoring all the tourists who were beginning to arrive in groups as the day wore on. We looked around for a while before heading up to see the "Big Buddha," the main attraction at Po Lin.

The Tian Tan Buddha is a huge bronze seated Buddha, the largest in the world. It was completed in 1993, and it's built atop the plateau, surrounded by the forest to symbolize harmony with nature. It is so large, that it is rumored to be visible from Macau on a clear day. I don't know... It wasn't a clear day when I was at the Buddha; nor was it the day before when I was in Macau. The Big Buddha is one of China's five "Great Buddhas," and interestingly faces north, while the other four uniformly face south. There are three levels inside the base of the monument. The first two are free to enter and hold Buddhist artwork and scripture. To be allowed into the uppermost level, you have to "make an offering" to the Buddha (ie. purchase a ticket). This is worth it, however. The upper level holds a holy Buddhist relic, which some believe to contain Siddharta Gautama's cremated remains. Plus, if you buy a ticket, you can get a free snack from the monastery.

the Big Buddha

You must climb 268 steps to get to the Buddha. I'm not sure if that's significant or not. Either way, it was unbelievably crowded on the steps and at the Buddha statue itself. We didn't stay there for too long, just long enough to look around and get some pictures.

Back down the steps, there's a lesser known attraction. Past the temple's tea gardens lies the "Wisdom Path." A short walk through the forest brings you to an interesting site, tall wooden pillars carved with calligraphy from the Heart Sutra, one of the most well known and popular Buddhist scriptures describing insight and enlightenment. The pillars are set into a figure 8 to represent infinity. There was hardly anyone out there, but as we arrived it began to rain.

Heart Sutra Trail

Luckily the forest was dense enough, that once back on the path we didn't really get rained on. It was getting on into the afternoon, so after collecting our vegetarian snacks from the monastery (from buying our tickets to the Buddha) we went back to the cable car to take us down the mountain. From there it was only a short bus ride to the airport. Within a few hours I was on my way back to Bangkok, ready for my next adventure.

The Wisdom Path

Note: 

This post is a follow-up to my previous posts about Hong Kong. November and December were really busy months, and I decided at the time that it was best to try to keep my blog up to date rather than fall further behind in my updates. I never really intended to write this post, to be honest; I thought that the previous three were enough. 

I've had a lot of time off from work lately because of... things. Anyway, since I've been bored just sitting around my apartment, and since I haven't really done anything new of note to write about, I figured I should finally put up the long-lost fourth chapter in the Hong Kong Adventure.

I'll publish this post now in January, 2014, but after a few weeks up on the main page, I may backdate it and move it to where it belongs chronologically- October, 2013.

Thanks for reading! Anyway, here are a few pictures of some pandas that I saw at Ocean World.

they don't do much

red panda

... because everybody loves pandas.

Macau

We caught the ferry for Macau early on the Saturday morning of my trip to Hong Kong. A fast ferry departs every hour, and we picked up tickets at the ferry terminal then headed over to a Starbucks to look over the guidebook.

I was going to Macau with Evan and his friend David, who also graduated from Baylor. We were out to sea within the hour, cruising across the South China Sea on our way to Macau, the second Chinese Special Administrative Region that until 1999 belonged to Portugal. The boat took a little over an hour.

After going through customs upon arrival in Macau, I met up with my friends, and we caught one of the free shuttle busses from the ferry terminal to the Venetian Hotel. It's just like the one in Vegas, with the canals running through the lobby.

I grabbed a Portuguese egg tart, and we headed down to have a look at the casinos. It's exactly what you would imagine, but the thing that I noticed first was the smoke. We saw signs announcing that as of 2014, smoking inside the casinos would be outlawed, but for now, people were enjoying their privilege. I can't even remember the last time I've been at a restaurant where they allowed people to smoke indoors.

Leaving the casino, we walked down a busy pedestrian street on our way to the Macanese House Museum. Macau is much smaller than Hong Kong, and it's easy enough to walk around the areas you want to go to.

Even though Macau has been a part of China for fourteen years, you can still see the colonial influences, especially in the architecture and street signs which are all written in Portuguese, Cantonese, and English- in that order.

The Macanese House Museum was small, just four old colonial government houses that had been recreated. Still, for 5 Macanese Patacas a ticket (less than a dollar), it's definitely worth seeing.

Macanese House Museum

After that we hailed a taxi to drive us to what is probably Macau's most famous landmark, the ruins of the Church of St. Paul. Although it burned down in 1835, it is still the cultural heart of the city. Just behind the church facade is the Fortaleza do Monte, which now houses the Museum of Macau.

By the time we left the museum it was getting on towards dusk. We walked around the ruins of the fort for a little while; we had some time to kill before dinner.

the cannons on the old fort seem to be aimed right at one of Macau's biggest casinos

Evan has a classmate from Macau who had gotten us a dinner reservation at a Portuguese restaurant near the water. We met up with Carrie, and she took us downtown past the old colonial government buildings to the restaurant.

Macau Government Building

After a delicious dinner we got tickets on another ferry, and were soon on our way back to Hong Kong.

Macau at night

Hong Kong Part III: Asia's World City

The next morning I visited Lamma Island, the medium of the three most important outlying islands (having gone to Cheung Cheu, the smallest, the pervious day). Again, I took the high-speed boat and it took just around 30 minutes. The boat was comfortable, although we did encounter some decent waves on the way.

the high-speed boat to Lamma Island, Kowloon in the background

Lamma Island is bigger than Cheung Chau, but just as peaceful. Again, there were no cars, and I spent a few hours hiking around the island.

scenic lookout on Lamma Island

South China Sea

After visiting a lookout over the South China Sea I hiked back to the village for lunch and wandered around the winding streets for a while browsing souvenir shops.

That evening I had planned to meet up with both of my Stellenbosch friends. Due to scheduling before a major holiday (on Monday), Hincent had to work overtime. Joanna and I met up that evening and went to the Peak, the most famous view in Hong Kong. We took the city bus from Hong Kong Harbor, and I got to see some of the famous sites around the island such as the Bank of China building and the famous lion statues. Since it was a Friday night, and the peak is a very popular spot to watch the nightly Symphony of Lights, there was a long line to get into the cable car. The Symphony of Lights is a synchronized light and sound show in which every major building on Hong Kong Island along Victoria Harbor participates. The Peak is one of the best places to view the show. It was getting dark, but fortunately we made it onto a cable car with plenty of time to spare, although we did have to stand and try to balance all the way up the mountain. It made for a fun and memorable ride!

the view from the top

At the viewing deck at the top of the peak, we were able to find a good spot to watch the show. Afterwards, we picked up a free audio tour headset which pointed out all the major sites in a 360 around the viewing platform. As usual, pictures really don't do justice to the view.

windy on top

We grabbed a milk tea on the top, then headed back into the city for dinner. We ended up taking the city trolly, known locally as a "ding-ding" for the noise its bell makes. I got a great chance to be a tourist, as the trolly passes very close to all the famous buildings we had just seen from the peak. My favorite is the Bank of China building. It's one of the most iconic Hong Kong landmarks. Its actually surprisingly controversial. The building was designed by famous Chinese architect I.M. Pei to resemble a bamboo shoot, a symbol of flexibility and growth. The sharp lines and angular structure cause a problem though. While the practice of Feng Shui was mostly stamped out in the mainland by Mao's cultural revolution, it remains a fairly prominent aspect of life and especially business in Hong Kong. Sharp angles are said to cast down bad luck as they are the opposite of a circle, a symbol of peace and luck. Despite the controversy, the building is inarguably one of the most famous on the island, and even decorates the Bank of China issued $100 notes.

The Bank of China building

These are the city trolly cars. USA!

On the way to dinner at a well-known local pizza place, we stopped at another famous Hong Kong landmark; the world's longest escalator! It's outdoors, and connects hilly parts of the city. I found it unreasonably exciting.

that's THE escalator