Hello world,
Finally getting caught up on some of these blogs over here. We've been doing a lot of traveling so were backtracking on some of these things. Everything has been going good over here though outside of the MSU loss. Luckily we were traveling during the time so I missed the whole game and any news that had to do with it so that made it a little bit easier to get over.
But about a month and a half ago we had a couple visitors here. My mom and dad were able to make it over pretty unexpectedly. They were taking a trip to Pakistan and right before they left they figured that since they were already 3/4 of the way to Thailand they might as well just finish the trip and visit us. It was really nice to have them here just to be able to see them face-to-face for the first time in however many months. We were still in school so it was kind of a weird schedule but we were able to do a few things with them and they did a little bit of traveling by themselves as well.
It was pretty funny because the week or two before my parents got here I kept telling my dad to try to get to the library or look up some things he wanted to see or do in Bangkok. His reply email read something like this: "I wish I had time to go to the library and look at books. You figure out what to do and we'll be happy with it." That of course made it very easy for me (not really). But the funny part about it was I laid out an itinerary for us about a week in advance and sent it to my dad to see what he thought about it. He was in Pakistan by this time so he had a lot more time on his hands apparently and proceeded to make and request about 20 changes to the plans. It ended up working out alright and they got to see a lot of different things, but it was ironic (if thats the right use of the word) how he had no cares about the plans and all of a sudden he was the master of planning.
When we picked them up at the Bangkok airport, it was pretty early in the morning but they didn't look too stressed or travel weary surprisingly. It was a little bit easier for them coming from Pakistan because they didn't have as much of a time change making the jet lag a bit less of a problem. We decided to stay in Bangkok for a couple days and see a few of the temples and attractions there. It got to be pretty boring for both Paige and I because we have already seen a lot of temples and after a while they all become the same. But after we had been to one temple and halfway through the next one, my dad surprised me with a "lets get the hell out of here, these are all the same."
Being in Bangkok can be fun but it is also a hard city to stay in very long because of the amount of trash, people heckling you, and general stress/tension you feel when you are in the city. My parents started feeling this same way too and were relieved when we went back to the airport and sent them to the island of Koh Chang after about two days in Bangkok. Like I said Paige and I were still in school so we weren't able to go with them unfortunately. This was the end of the semester so some time on the beach would have been a welcome trip. It sounded like my parents really enjoyed the island though.
After my parents got back from the island they came to Suphan for a few days. The first day they got here they came into the school for about an hour and checked it out. They met a lot of our teachers, saw the classrooms we teach in and met a few of our students. The interactions between my students and my parents was pretty funny just because of the language barrier. Since we were in school it was hard for us to do much of anything with them except for go out to dinner in the evening and check out a few markets. They did a bit of exploring on their own and liked our small town. I think my dads favorite thing about the whole trip was the amount of mangoes he was able to buy and for how cheap he could get them. Anytime we left our apartment building it was like he was on a hunt to find mangoes. I have no idea how many he ate in total but I wouldn't be surprised if it was around 100 for the whole week.
After Suphan it was back to the airport in Bangkok. Their flight was early in the morning so we said our goodbyes and they were back on their way to Pakistan for another couple days before returning to the US. Although their trip was only about a week long they got to see a lot of the main attractions of Thailand in Bangkok and when going down south to an island. Even though it was such a short trip, it was great to have them here. I hadn't been planning on them coming to visit so it was just an added bonus for them to come and was definitely a great experience to be able to share with them.
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