Wai Kru Day at Lertlah

Every year in Thailand, they have a day set aside to honour teachers called "Wai Kru Day." Wai is the traditional Thai greeting where the younger or lower ranking person puts their hands in front of their chest, chin or nose in a sort of prayer pose and bows to the older or higher ranking person. The other person then bows back. "Kru" means teacher. In this video, the kids are chanting a respectful recitation to the teachers and we're pretty sure there was something in there about how great Thailand is and how much they all love the King! As you can see, Stu doesn't mind the attention either. :)

This is one of Stu's grade 4 classes as they Wai each other. Part of the ceremony includes all the kids lining up and giving flowers, candles and incense to the teachers. It was a really cool experience to receive so much respect from students. The whole school smelled really nice too! I think we'll start petitioning for Wai Kru Day in Winnipeg next year.


Here is one of Stu's sweetest grade 4 students giving him flowers. Part of honouring the teachers is that the kids keep their heads lower than the teachers. This is usually not a problem for Stu, except when he's sitting down.

Cha Am

This is what we found to do at the longest white sand beach in Thailand. The town we stayed at is called Cha Am. It's about 3 hours South of Bangkok.


This is what Stu did.














This is what Haylie did.














Then we found some really big jelly fish.

Ayuthaya

Turns out that even though Buddha has all that surface area for feet, he's not ticklish even a little bit. What a waste.

This is Wat Wai Chai Mongkol. It's one of the many ridiculously old temples in Ayuthaya, about an hour and a half North of Bangkok. It has something like 150 Buddha statues.




No, this is not a circus vehicle and Stu has not grown that much since we've been here :) This is actually a functioning part of the transportation system in Thailand. It only has three wheels, but two VERY large speakers! This is kind of like the little brother to what we ride to work in every morning.







These are the ruins of Wat Mahathat. There's tons of ruins all over town. Ayuthaya used to be the capital of Thailand about 600 or 700 years ago, til Burma sacked the city. They beheaded all the Buddha statues and then cut them in half. It's kind of erie because they now have the statues sitting up in the spots they used to be...but all the heads are missing.

This is the Buddha face that they have carved into one of the trees by this same temple. The guard wouldn't let us take our picture with our heads higher than the face. If you can't recognize Buddha in any shape, size, or angle by the time we're done blogging about this country then you never will.

ElafAnte

One of the most exciting things about coming to Thailand (at least for Haylie) was the ELEPHANTS! :) Haylie has been dreaming day and night since we booked our flight about making friends with the local elephants.




For the first month or so, Haylie was able to practice her Elephant bonding skills with many many statues....as you can see.















Luckily, Thai art and architecture shares and supports Haylie's enthusiasm for these cute and gentle pachyderms.


















They're just as lovable, no matter what shape or size they come in.








Our very first ride on an elephant EVER did not dissapoint! She was 80 years old...but we could tell she had the heart of a child. :) And it looks a lot farther from the ground when you're sitting all the way up there. Our "guide" was the one OFF of the elephant with our camera for the last 20 minutes of the ride, while Haylie was left with a sharp learning curve in how to drive elephants and Stu (despite Haylie's disapproval) practiced his Thai elephant commands.

Random

If you want to know what a little heat stroke and confusion in Thailand looks like, watch this short commentary of our day trip :)

Thaling Chang

We went to one of the "floating" markets in Bangkok last weekend. It is called Thaling Chang, and looks just like any other produce/simple goods market ...until you reach the river.


The docks have been turned into simple dining rooms like this. Not one chair to be found. Instead all the guests slip off their shoes and sit Japanese style around a very short table as they FEAST on every kind of seafood you can think of.




Lucky for us, the people at the table next to us ordered something that looked pretty good. We basically pointed, said please, and got the biggest grilled fish in Asia.
It was WAY too good!




This is where the magic happens. The kitchens are nothing more than dug out canoes tethered to the side of the dining room docks.

This week at Lertlah was Green Week! Here's Haylie with some of her kids and one of the Thai Kindergarten teachers that she works with. We had a big assembly on Friday to celebrate being Green. Both Stu and Haylie had appearances on stage. :)
The Falang Teachers (that means us foreigners) are in charge of putting on a 5 minute activity outside in the morning. Haylie has one of her Kindergarten classes here singing the Little Green Frog song with her.




This is one of Haylie's favourite Kindergarten teachers that she works with. Since the Kindergarten kids are so new to English, they have a couple Thai teachers in the classroom, who also don't speak English. They're very sweet, and it's amazing what you can communicate with charades!

The Ancient City

This is an open air museum about an hour outside of Bangkok. It's in the shape of Thailand and covers 80 hectares of land. It has scaled down replicas of around 120 of Thailand's most famous attractions placed appropriately. We rented bikes 'cause there was like 11km of bike paths to the different temples, monuments, and just bizarre things.




Haylie at one of the monastery things in the park. They said that all the replicas were about 1/6th the size of the originals. Looks like "Alice in Wonderland" :)





Stu workin' the Blueberry Bridge.


















Yeah! Exactly!... Where's Stu when the elephants attack???



















Us with Bodhisattba Avalokitesavara. Apparently he's performing a miracle...it's a cool fountain.


This is Wat Chong Kham. It's right beside a floating market.