Facebook Makes Me Smile

Ok so maybe not facebook realy, but when i log onto facebook and get a bunch of messages from freinds back home it realy makes my day.

Things have been getting even buisier i think. I cant tell what rely is getting busier but its just feeling like i have less and less time for the internet and just messing around. I guess its not that i am actualy doing that much more its just that im getting better at playing games and messing around with groups of freinds. Playing computer games is increadably popular here so I am at the internet cafe allot but most of the time now its to play games with some of my freinds.

Later on today a freind and i are going to try to cook at the grapevine. We are trying to make a fusion dish which is what they call it when you mix Thai style cooking with other international styles. So well just have to see how this one turns out because were winging it.

This weekend the grapevine is taking a bus down to the beach for a day trip. Saddly I have to stay back because it is on the same day as a feildtrip for my thai studies class that makes up 6% of our final grade in the class. I was a bit upset about this but i heard from a freind that graduated this last semester that when we go on this feildtrip we get special access to allot of the Grand Palace that is off limits to anyone else. So at least there is some neat stuff that makes the feildtrip worht while.

Thats all for the moment.

Sorry for the Slowness

Ok so the last post hasn't been a very good cronacle I was sort of avoiding updating this because i had gotten a little homesick this week with everyone back at school and me realizing that i would miss this whole semester.

Classes are going well enough we got our midterm grades back this week. The grading system here is very strange and I don't really understand it, but I was the one screwing up the curve in one class and in the other the teacher promised all of her American students an "A" at the beginning of the semester and my grades were well above mean so thats good enough for me.
I am one of the 2 main editors for our anouncement videos and last week Andy figured out how do green screening and bought all the supplies so its going to be allot of fun trying to master some new video editing techniques this week. Andy's computer broke leaving me with most of the AV stuff for the next 2 weeks from what i understand.

Ok now for the monkey story from Cambodia. We had hired a van driver for the day that took us where ever we wanted to go. Between two of the temples there was a troop of monkeys beside the road so we told the driver to pull over. There were a few other Thai there and we bought 2 bunches of banana's from two little girls that were selling them. At first we just threw a banana or two towards the monkeys and they grabbed them and ran off. Then I held a banana out towards a monkey that was on a near by tree. Slowly he climbed a little closer towards me and reached out. Then he grabbed ahold of the banana and yanked it out of my hand, backed of a foot or two and ate it. So from this point on it was a game to see if you could actually get a picture of someone giving the banana to the monkey. It was really hard to get a great picture because the aproach was slow but they took the banana pretty quickly out of your hand. Sadly my camera freaked out and deleted 2 great pictures that Travis had taken of me handing a banana to on of the monkeys. We did however get to keep the pictures of the fat monkey. It was one of the funniest things ever. This one monkey must have weighed as much as 3 or 4 of the regular sized monkeys. He even struggled when he climbed up the tree, it was really work for him, where all the others just jumped and bounded up and around in the trees. Well maybe it was sad and funny at the same time.

Thats it for now I have to run and take care of a few things before market and Met Angun tonight.

The Cambodian Chronacles

This weekend was our trip to Cambodia, and it was quite the experience. We started at 3:30 in the morning and took a bus to the MoChit bus station in Bangkok there we bought tickets for the 5:00 am bus to the Cambodian border. The busses stop a few kilometers from the border so we had to take a small fleet of Tuk-Tuk's from the bus station to where we cross. Crossing wasn't much trouble we got our Visas and then got to take the "farang" lane through border control so it didn't take long at all. From there we took what we thought was the shuttle to the transportation depot but turned out to be the shuttle of a private bus company. Once we had done that we were basically stuck with using them or trying and find our way back to the border crossing which was about a 2k walk. Fortunately we are stubborn and don't take being fleeced very well and managed to insist on an almost fair price. From there it was a supposed to be a three hour taxi ride to Siem Reap where we had reservation at a guest house. It was not however just so simple as 3 hours in a taxi. It was 3 hours of unpaved roads with ruts and potholes like you wouldn't believe at speeds anywhere from 20 to 70 kmph. Traffic rules are truly non-existant From what i could tell you can drive on either side of the road; its just that most people stick to the ones your would expect when passing. The horn was one of the most important parts of the car; we honked at every car/truck/motorcycle/oxcart that we passed. One of the bridges along the way had gone out so we had to wait about an hour and a half for it to get fixed. We made it to earthwalkers around 4:30 in the afternoon about an hour and a half ahead of the other cars from our group.

The next morning we woke up at 4:30 and took a Van to Angkor Wat to catch the sunrise the rest of the day was an incredible trek from one temple to another. With some random feeding of the monkeys thrown in. We ended the day with a buffet and some Cuban Cigars back at the guest house and just relaxed. I should get some pictures up of the trip soon words would not do all that well in trying to describe them.

Well it is late and i am tired i will probably post again tomorrow or the next few days with more details from the trip you should post if you want to know anything in particular. Later.

What? Thats not ancient it was built in the 60's

Ok the trip the Ancient city was great, it is an attraction that has replica and relocated temples and sites from all over Thailand. Its laid out so that you can get a view of all there is to see while you are here but it was kind of funny to be checking out a replica of something that would be really cool if it wasn't concrete and build in the 60's. The tour did take us into several relocated temples that were hundreds of years old though. Those were the most fun. Ok well i lied the most fun was all of the pictures that we took. The whole group kept an eye on what the crazy Americans were going to do next, it was allot of fun. Allot of the picture are up on facebook already in Travis's account those of you who don't have facebook access ill see what i can do about getting Meagan to upload them to her website.

The rest of the weekend has been good too. I had to plan a prayer meeting for the group and it went really well. We even did a little meditation, a new practice for me but its something that i have really been able to hear God in. Its funny that it took a Buddhist to teach me how to better talk to God.

Exam week is this week so there will probably be some serious studying involved, or at least there should be if these things are half as hard as the Thai student make them out to be. Over and out.

Not realy a real update

Hey its 4:20 in the morning and ive run out of time to write a real update, but all is well in the land of Thai. In the morning we are going to the Anicient City so ive got to get to bed, but i thought that i would tell you that there are a ton of photos at www.meaganclem.com/photos/ check them out. Hopefully that will tide you all over till i can get a real update up here soon.