Settling In

Well we finally made it to Lopburi!  And yes, there are in fact monkeys roaming around the street at will.  They mostly stick to the downtown area and some of the popular ruins, but they have no qualms about running up and stealing any food you may have hiding in a plastic bag.  Luckily, the four of us found an awesome house that is in a monkey free part of town.  We each have to pay less 3000 baht/month, which is about $100!  I could get used to this.  Here's a picture of Nermal and Lisa doing some lesson planning in our new house.



We met with the director at our school on Wednesday.  We're working with the mini-English program at Anuban Lopburi School, which has students from kindergarten to grade 6.  I am the new Physical Education and Health teacher for grades 1-6!  Haha, I'm not sure that I'm the most qualified for the job, but I think it will be fun!  The students are in Thai classes half the time and English classes half the time, so I'm hoping that their English will be pretty decent.  We're only actually teaching for about 17 hours a week and the rest of the time we can work on lesson planning or helping out with other school activities.  School starts this Wednesday, so wish me luck! 

Ashley and I took advantage of the long weekend and met up with some friends down in Hua Hin, a beach town in the southern part of Thailand.  We were able to get a minivan down to Bangkok and then another minivan from Bangkok to Hua Hin, it took about 6 hours total, but only cost around $10 to get there.  It was nice to be near the water again!  There wasn't any good snorkeling, but I enjoyed being on the beach and floating in the saltwater.  There was even a Subway in town and I indulged in a sandwich, something I've been missing since I've been here!  It was a great weekend get-away, but I'm anxious for the first day of school!

Outside the McDonalds in Hua Hin