Oh the sights to see in Bangkok!

I had such a wonderful time in Bangkok. It was definitely a nice break from teaching. It gave my voice time to relax, and my voice is actually doing much better. We definitely had a busy, packed schedule for the 2 days we were in Bangkok, but I loved it because I got to see so much!
Thursday night, one of the teachers-Gow, picked me and one of the children up from the orphanage and we met up with all our other traveling buddies at the Huai Bong School. As I sat and excitedly chatted with all the students and teachers who were going to Bangkok as well, the van that would transport us to Bangkok arrived. The van was so nice. It was all leather interior, and the seats were huge and reclined oh so nicely. I also found out, as we drove around town the next day, that there is karaoke in the van. There is a screen that pulls down from the ceiling and we were able to watch movies, all in Thai so not that exciting for me, and then they pulled the microphone out and the words scrolled across the screen. It was hilarious! Sitting in the van with all the teachers, as they do Thai karaoke. They found an English song for me to sing, but I didn't know the song, so I got out of that predicament.
Our driver drove all night, allowing us to get a "good" nights sleep and wake up the next morning in Bangkok. We started our day with getting ready in the gas station bathroom. As I changed my clothes in the bathroom stall, trying ever so hard to not let anything fall into the squatty (that's the whole in the ground toilet that they use here), I got ready for the day. We all jumped back into the van, all 10 teachers (including me) and 25 students, and drove to the Science Museum. The National Science Museum was going to be our first sight to see. It was huge. The Science Museum contained 6 floors of the coolest things ever! It put our science museum to shame. I wanted to spend so much time on each floor, but I had two of the teachers-Gow and Gnock, guiding me throughout the floors. We were on a time limit so they had to make sure we stuck to it. I felt like a kid in a candy shop. I was testing out everything and playing all the games and "oooh" and "aaaah" kept escaping from my mouth. I was fascinated. Everything was written in Thai as well as English, so that made it even more exciting! The teachers kept laughing at how overly excited I was. As I looked on the 6th floor, Gnock and Gow guided me towards the escalator to go down, because they said "We over time"-this meant we were late and had to get back to the vans.
After the science museum, we drove to the Royal Thai Air Force Museum. This, again, was fascinating. I learned so much from my personal tour guide, Captain Sakpinit Promthep. He is one of the captains of the Air Force and he spoke very good English. He had been to America before. He went to Texas to study with American Air Force leaders on how to teach people to fly. He shared so much great information with me. Like how all the planes that Thailand use are all made in America. Thailand can't even begin to match the technology and building quality of America. It's funny, all our stuff seems to be built in China :) After we finished touring the museum, we rested for a moment and grabbed some lunch. I sat right next to the Captain of the Royal Thai Air Force and enjoyed Thai noodles and Thai/English conversation. It was lovely.
After lunch, we got back into the van, which was very refreshing because the air conditioning cooled the sweat that dripped down my back and face. It was a very hot day, and the Air Force museum was mostly outside.
After we left the Air Force Museum, we made our way to Folk Podat. The Folk Podat is a huge place that was made for the queen. It houses all the old historical relics of Thailand. They have presentations of traditional dances, canoeing, clothing of the soldiers from back in the day, etc. They also have tons and tons of shopping. It kind of reminded me of the home and garden expo- where there's lots to buy and the prices are all jacked up. That's how this was. But it was really fun walking around and looking at everything. After we spent a couple hours walking around the Folk Podat, we all met back up and waited for our vans to come and pick us up. Once they arrived, they took us to the resort where we were staying. It's funny they told me we were staying in a resort, so of course I was picturing hot shower, comfy beds, nice tv, the works. But resort in Thailand does not have the same definition that it does in English. Basically resort just means you have an air conditioner in your room. The resort room was almost just like my room back at the orphanage. There was no hot water, not that I was complaining because the cold shower felt amazing, the sheets on the beds looked like sheets that would be on a 4 year olds bed. It was pretty funny. But I was grateful for everything. We all sat outside and ate dinner. We laid out newspapers and sat on them. I bundled up the sticky rice in my hand grabbed a little papaya salad with my rice and shewed away the mosquitoes with my other hand.
The next morning, we awoke to one of the teachers knocking on our door telling us it was time to get up- at least that's what I think he said, it was in Thai :) We all got ready, and ate our breakfast, which was meatball soup. I wasn't too hungry and I make sure and stay away from the meatballs, so I didn't eat. The first place we went to was the Bangsai Arts and Crafts center of H.M. Queen Sirikit of Thailand. This was a really neat center. It was huge and they had replicas of the old Thai homes. It was basically a replica of the old villages. As we walked from house to house, they had the arts and crafts of all the different places of Thailand. It was so neat! We made our way to the river at the bottom of the arts and crafts center, and all I could hear was a crazy, fast voice coming over the loudspeaker. It sounded like he was screaming. Even the Thai people couldn't understand him. He was the announcer for the Canoeing competition. Thailand was competing against Singapore and Japan. The only words I could make out that the announcer said was Singapore and Japan :) They rowed so fast! It was crazy! After we watched Japan win, we headed to Ayutthaya.
Ayutthaya is an old city in Thailand. It contains ruins of buddha statues that were there hundreds of years ago. It was really neat. We went to the Siam Jawpaya Museum. This museum simply housed different relics that used to belong to the kings of Thailand.
We made our second to last stop at the Knife/Sword Factory. Here they make all different types of knives and Samurai swords. It was really neat watching them make them and looking at all the incredible swords they produced.
We made our last stop at the Nat Kon Sot Wan shopping mall. I saw my first movie theater since I've been in Thailand here. It's funny how similar it was to America's. It even had the same aroma of popcorn. There was an arcade in the theater and I watched as two children played guitar hero. It made me laugh, because there was so much familiarity surrounding me amidst all the unfamiliarity. As we all tiredly piled back into the van, we began our journey back home. I took advantage of this long drive to improve on my Thai. I'm getting better. Parents, you would be proud :)
We arrived home Saturday night and I passed out into bed. I was so tired. Sunday, I went with May, Noah, Pastor, and a lot of the children to the Mae La Refugee camp. Pastor's brother and his family are leaving for America on Friday, so we went to have one last service with them and we brought food to the people in the refugee camp. Pastor's family is going to America through a program with the UN. The UN works with these refugees and transports many of them to America. There are over 70,000 refugees living in the camp and over 5,000 people have gone to America. It's so strange though, because we look at America as the land of opportunity, and many of these people don't want to go to America. We see their lives, and we pity them and think how sad, and yet many of them are completely content with the lives they live. Many are afraid to go to America, to them it is the unknown. They have no idea what it's like, so they fear the unknown. The refugees are not even aloud to leave the refugee camp and go into Thailand, so their comfort zone is limited to inside the refugee camp. It's amazing though the things that are happening in the refugee camps. 18 curches have been started, and more people are continuing to come to Christ, being saved from buddhism and muslim. The service was a wonderful service and Pastor asked me to sing. So Teep played guitar and I sang for everyone. We all ate lunch together, and with the food we brought we were able to feed over 60 people! Praise the Lord! So all your donations are helping the Agape Children's Orphanage, the surrounding villages, and the refugee camps. Praise the Lord for all that He's doing and for all of you!!

I've uploaded more pictures from Bangkok and the Mae La Refugee camp. Check them out if you get time!