It's been a busy week... We made it down to Hat Yai ok on the train - not quite as smooth and comfy as the Indian train system, but not at all bad. We spent a couple of days getting to know the city a bit better, and then Sudarat (my new boss) and Jeen (her secretary) helped us find an apartment for me. I love my new place! I'm on the north end of town on a relatively quiet street, but with good access to transportation and food. It's in an apartment building that can't be more than a couple years old - a secured building you need a card to get into, with a minimart, laundry, and copy center right downstairs. There's even a couple of exercise machines in an open-air room on the top floor. The apartment is all tiled, with granite countertops and a nice bathroom (with hot water) and airconditioning, and a nice little balcony. I already bought some plants. Hopefully internet will be connected in the next few weeks.

Before Trevor headed north to start work, he got to come with to see my new school. As promised, it's a little private school half an hour out in the country. They're growing (their enrollment has crept up from 1 class per grade toward 2 classes per grade) and in the process of buying land to build a new school sometime soon, if I understand correctly, which is not a given. No one there really speaks English at all, so all my information is filtered through Jeen. While they're waiting for the new school, the rooms are a bit cramped, and I think some of them were intended as temporary structures. The students are all on holiday right now (most Thai schools take all or part of October off, then most of March and April) so the school seemed pretty empty without them. It will be nice to see it full. There's a new temple being built right across the street, which gives the area a nice feel.

I've also met my Thai teaching partner - Pitt (pronounced more like Pete). She's been doing a great job of showing me around the city, and we're zipping around running errands today (between her private tutoring sessions). We're both really excited to get started planning lessons, and she's been a teacher in regular and bilingual Thai schools for about 7 years, so she should be a great source of ideas and inspiration. Yesterday we spent the day shopping with her sister - buying the aforementioned plants among other things - and the three of us spent a long time browsing through all of the English workbooks in the store. Pitt and I bought some to use for our classes, and her sister bought some for her kids (Pitt is their tutor - handy to have an English teacher in the family!).

The other night I walked over to the closest market to my new place. There were mountains of all kinds of farm produce - about half of which I recognized - along with huge piles of meat, an endless variety of fish and seafood, big baskets overflowing with hardboiled eggs (some dyed pink for unknown reasons) and the occasional crate of ducklings or sack of live toads. I stuck to the basics: bananas, apples, cucumbers, and these 3-ft-long green beans that are equally tasty raw or cooked. My kitchen isn't much of a kitchen yet, but it's really nice to be able to slice up some fresh things to snack on, or eat with breakfast. It's not all that common for an apartment here to come with a stove, fridge, etc., so eventually I'll probably pick up a rice/veggie cooker and an electric frying pan (the usual solutions) and maybe even a grill for out on the deck. For now it's so easy to pick up really healthy food from all the restaurants and vendors right around the corner.

I think we're having a barbecue in the park tonight with Pitt's family. I have a tough time keeping up with the plans, but don't have many of my own right now, so it's easy enough to just go with it. Her niece is a big fan of spaghetti, and apparently pretty excited to have a real live foreigner on hand to cook it. I tried to tell them I'm Norwegian, but that didn't seem to make much difference. They're a really nice bunch and it should be fun.

Labels: Thailand