The Uniform:

A white short sleeve button up shirt, a black or navy skirt, a brown belt with chula belt buckle, silver chula buttons (for shirt), a chula pin.

-the skirt has no belt buckles so the belt doesn't behave well
-in order to launder the shirt, the silver buttons must be removed prior to washing (as well as the chula pin)

So apparently women don't play sports in Thailand.

1) The IM soccer team is boys only.
2) Its taken me 3 weeks to find a decent sports bra.

Culture Shock #1

So one of the first days here I'm browsing the isles of one of the large department stores and i see this stuff that is "whitening" formula so naturally I assume its for teeth, then upon further investigation i find out that its for the skin! Being white and pale is a sign of wealth here so people go to great lengths (as do people in the states to get tan) to become more white, including using whitening lotions.

Koh Samet

It was amazing! We got a bungalow right on the beach and just about everyone from the exchange program went. The beach was sooo nice!! Everything would transform throughout the day, during the day there would be beach chairs and umbrellas on the beach and then around dusk they would move the chairs off and put mats and tables and cushions down for dinner, then after that the bars would open and some would do a fire show... I swear there was this one bar that only came out at night... I tried looking for it during the day and could not find it, i think it would just emerge out of the sand. We had to take a bus to get there and then a ferry to the island, some people rented motorcycles and travelled the island and others just relaxed on the beach and out on a raft in the water.

Groceries!

so after many days of asking around we finally found a fairly inexpensive grocery store, it was on the top floor of this shopping mall and I bought:
-case of beer (~24 pack)
-laundry detergent and softener
-milk, eggs, butter, yogurt etc.
-and plenty of other groceries
and it was all only $30! Amazing!

and we also ate in the cafeteria on monday (first day of class) which was really good food and was only like a dollar for a big plate of rice and pork and egg mixy. yum!

My Apartment!

its saweet! We have a master bathroom (which I am currently in because I got here first) another bathroom off the living room (verry nice so guests don't have to go thru my room) and then another bedroom (with no attached bathroom) there is also a living room with a DVD player and a surround sound system (which i hook my ipod up to and jam) and then a nice little kitchen with breakfast bar and bar chairs. Everyday there are new towels and all my things are put in order because we have a MAID SERVICE. Last night we played beer pong here and predrank and this morning when i got up everything was clean and put back in order. My roommates are 1 german girl (hasn't arrived yet) and 1 boy from japan and 1 boy from california. Its shaping up to be a pretty nice little bunch. We are the only coed apartment which is cool, because coed is always more fun.

I'm here!

After 24 hours of traveling we finally made it!! Its crazy!! So on our first day we woke up at about 7:30 am and went and got some breakfast at the apartment and checked out all the amenities. Then we went on a ride on this thing called a tuk-tuk which is like a small cart with two seats in the back and one in front for the driver. Anyway, we wanted to see the town so we really had no final destination so the driver took us to all these random shops where his friends work (so if we buy something he gets a share of the profits) he took us first to a travel place so we looked at all the different places we can go in thailand, then we went to a tailor where they can custom make suits and such for you (my friend Pat ended up buying two dress shirts for pretty cheap (like 35 dollars each) and he took us to a jewelry shop and then to the mall. The mall was crazy!! I couldn't tell when one store ended and the other started, there were all these little shops everywhere with lots of ipod stuff, watches, fake DVD's, designer jeans (fake? most likely yes but they are only 10 dollars- i may have to invest in a pair). OMG and the funniest part at the mall is they had this sign for a bra store that had names for all the different shapes of boobs! We took a picture which I'll try and upload sometime. So after that we came back to the hotel and met up with some of the other guys, went back to the mall to find a grocery store, bought some cereal and booze and then wandered our way back to the apartment. We went out last night to the backpackers district and it was good times, bars everywhere and clubs too. Not too wild or anything because we had to wake up early this morning to get some business done for school. Alright I'm off to shower! My apartment is amazing!!