Weekend In Bangkok!

I seemed to have survived my weekend away in Bangkok! It was actually a lot easier to get there than I had expected. My homestay buddy Jon and I went to Bangkok to get away from the country life for a bit. I was starting to get a little bit antsy here so it was perfect timing! I also wasn't really able to see Bangkok before since I was touring with my group when I first arrived, so this time around Jon was able to show me the city.

We came in pretty late on Friday night and we had made plans to brave the nightlife. We met up with one of Jon's friends who is another English teacher and we just club hopped until pretty late in the night/morning... I had no idea what to expect of the night clubs in Bangkok but I had heard that they were pretty big...that they were. The first place we went had numerous rooms with different types of music in each room. Most of the places that followed were pretty similar. There wasn't much of a difference from the places I had seen back home - expensive drinks, lots of people and some good music, people dancing sans the rhythm. We had an awesome time Friday night but I think both Jon and I were ready for a relaxing rest of the weekend.

I really wanted to go to this weekend market called Chatachuk (JJ Market for short) so we went to that Saturday afternoon. The size of this market was indescribable! It was an outside market with hundreds of different vendors selling anything/everything you could possibly imagine! Vendors were selling tapestries, wood carvings, clothing, squirrels... yes, squirrels. Actually, there were all kinds of animals being sold there, puppies, cats, scorpions, snakes, squirrels... Apparently PETA hadn't reached this part of Bangkok yet. The best thing about this market was that everything was ridiculously cheap AND you can bargain the prices down about 30% or so. Amazing!

After a loonnng day of shopping we found a nice, big park to lie in for awhile. Ahh, just like home! There were a bunch of people just relaxing in the grass, eating good food and staying away from the heat. After lazing around in the park we decided to head to the Siam Center to see a movie. I guess movies come out here in English first then they're dubbed in Thai, so we decided to see Wanted... My first choice was actually Kung Fu Panda but Jon was waaay too mature to see that one... :)

We came back pretty early from our weekend because another volunteer was scheduled to come in to our homestay later that afternoon. So I have another friend here! It's been great having another volunteer around. Jon and I get along great, I think I've found my long lost brother! We have really similar lame senses of humor so I can definitely say that I've been entertained for the last week or so... He's my comic relief which is what I needed!

I'm already in my last week of teaching English to my novice monk students which is a little sad. They're all so sweet and I really enjoy teaching them. I'll miss them all a lot and hopefully I can keep in touch with some of them by email...I'll be sad to leave my little city of Inburi but I'm also getting excited to start the next part of my trip. This Friday I'll head to Ayuthaya with my previous volunteer group, then off to relaxing on the beach in Phuket and volunteering with elephants in Chiang Mai! I still have a lot of time left here but I feel like it's really going fast! I'm trying to take it all in and enjoy it now because I know that before I know it, I'll be heading back home....