Arrival

After travelling for over 19 hours I arrived in Bangkok late Wednesday night on the 7^th of January. My orientation was scheduled to begin the next morning at 8 am and after a lot of help from a friendly thai woman and some people I met on the plane, I was able to get a cab to take me to a hotel near my campus. The next couple days were a blur, with an orientation and tour around the school campus, and a trip into Bangkok the next morning. In and out of sleep, I settled into my apartment in a multi-colored building that houses all of the international students, and woke up to get onto a sea-world looking tour bus that took us into the city. We visited the Royal Palace, went to lunch at a restaurant on the river, and visited a place called the Mansion where the King and his wife used to live. Our tour guide Henry took us around to tell us about everything we were seeing.

Most of the people from our program decided to stay in Bangkok that night and we visited the backpackers market called Khoa San road and hung out in the city eating amazing street food and exploring around.

It took a week or so to finally start waking up at a decent time, and to be able to get through the middle of the day without suddenly needing to pass out. I also really had to get adjusted to the food, and for a while usually expected to break into a sweat or have stomach pain and heartburn half the time right after eating. After living here for three weeks now however I’ve loved discovering the best places to eat and some of my favorite new dishes.

My university is located in a province 30 minutes south of downtown Bangkok. The campus is beautiful, full of modern buildings in the middle of a neighborhood lined with markets and street vendors and shops. I’m really loving exploring new places around the town with my friends from my group, and the longer we've been here the more we hear and learn about new places to go eat and visit. 

This first photo is of my hotel room after my flight and an hour or so of attempting to get here: