Thailand on thesamosborne

Goodbye Thailand

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 22:55:54 +0700

Intro to Asia

The primary reason I wanted to teach English abroad was to introduce Kaitlyn to expat living, specifically in Asia. I credit a lot of who I am today to the fact that I was able to spend five years of my childhood in China and two years of my young adult life in Cambodia. I wanted Kaitlyn to see first-hand what I have been raving about basically since the day she met me. Our time in Thailand was a perfect introduction to living abroad for her and for us as a couple.

Chiang Mai

Sun, 23 May 2021 15:51:40 +0700

A video adventure

Thailand Adventures

Sun, 02 May 2021 14:25:01 +0700

I. The Night Train

The night train is the best. For the low price of $22 you can take a six-hour train ride from our city of Phichit to Bangkok. The train leaves here at 12:40 AM and arrives in the capitol at 7:00 AM. I love it so much because it feels exactly like what I assume being on a spaceship is like. You get you’re own little compartment with a blanket and a pillow. The air is blasting cold, so you shiver like you’re in outer space. You go to sleep and you wake up on basically another planet (Phichit and Bangkok are that different). Overall a great experience, even if a flight is only $35 and takes one hour.

I've Created a Monster

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 15:25:56 +0700

I am actually a ten-year-old boy.

A couple weeks ago I traded teaching schedules with another teacher. I still teach some of the small kids but now I get to teach elementary school science as well. My students are seven, eight, and ten years old. I found they are much easier for me to teach because I understand them better. Basically, I am the same as them. We all like playing videogames, making stupid fart jokes, and playing soccer after school. I am ten years old at heart.

Teaching is hard; Thailand is easy

Sun, 28 Feb 2021 14:03:54 +0700

I. Teaching is hard

I’m not used to people. I’m used to sitting at my computer for most of the day taking one, maybe two zoom calls. I’m really good at working alone. I am not really good with people, especially when I am the center of attention all the time.

Teaching is exhausting. Four year olds are exhausting. For the past two weeks I’ve been teaching English to four, five, and six year olds for about four hours a day. I don’t know how all these full time teachers do it. By the end of the day, I can barely think straight, and all I want to do is curl up on my bed in the dark and be alone. I was not built for this.

School Tour

Sat, 20 Feb 2021 16:47:17 +0700

Welcome to Imperial Phichit Bilingual School!

Please come inside

Here we have our swimming pool and our kindergarten building

Our swimming pool is not quite as shallow as you’d expect

This is the front door of the kindergarten building

Our Christmas tree stays up year round

We have many small children walking around most of the time

The basketball court is by the pool

The Invasion

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 11:47:01 +0700

“Some things take hold of you. Invade you. Own you. You want to be free of them, but you never will be.”
– Rich Shapero, Rin, Tongue and Dorner

(I got that quote from goodreads, and I have no idea who Rich Shapero is)

There we were, minding our own business when they decided to take what was not theirs. The bugs smugly walked right through the crack in our screen glass door and declared our room theirs.

Thailand - We Made It

Sun, 07 Feb 2021 11:30:03 +0000

Welcome back to Asia!!!!!!!!!!

After not knowing whether we were going to make it to Thailand for a couple weeks we finally made it. It only took like 17 covid tests, 52 emails back and forth with the Thai consulate, and four changed plane tickets. Not bad. After all that we have been rewarded with the luxury of staying in a small quarantine hotel room for 16 days.

Thailand has this whole international traveler thing locked down tight. When we got into the international terminal at midnight last Saturday there were a swarm of young English speaking people showing us off the flight and towards a sitting area where they checked that our documents were in order. Then we had to pass through three different checkpoints in the airport for all our covid and quarantine related documents. When we got through customs, they had shuttles lined up for each quarantine approved hotel. It was all silky smooth, and I was impressed.