Boat house retreat!

After Laura brought us back to our house on Saturday night, we got settled in, took ice cold showers (best ever!) and went right to bed. I didn't have a hard time falling asleep at all because I barely slept on the plane. I woke up a few times in the middle of the night, but I was able to fall back to sleep quickly. It was strange having no concept of time for the first few days. My body was telling me one thing, but the clock was telling me a totally different thing. Other than a bit of confusion, the time change hasn't been too bad. :)

Sunday (May 27) afternoon, Laura took us to one of the five Starbucks in Chiang Mai to meet up with David Allen, his wife Michelle, Bay, (one of the members of the Cheung Doi Church) and the other interns from ACU that will be working with the Cheung Doi Church of Christ. We drove about an hour out of town to a man-made lake. From there, we parked the cars and took a long boat out to the boat houses where we were we stayed over the weekend (May 26-27). 

The boat houses were really nice and we had a great time together! It was so much fun to spend time with the other group of ACU students and catch up. Sunday we swam in the lake, (Sorry Rachel and Ben! But I lived to tell the tale! The river monsters must not have cared for me.), enjoyed a delicious meal of Thai food, and went to bed at about 8:30. I honestly can not remember the last time I went to bed so early! When David told us that because of jet lag, he was going to keep us up and that we were not allowed to go to bed until 8pm, I was sure I wouldn't have a problem with that. However around 7pm I wasn't sure if I was going to make it till 8pm...and a few people were begging David to let them go to bed. :) We all made it though, and it was one of the best night's rest I have ever had! Our bed had a beautiful mosquito net that made Becca and feel like princesses. :) It proved to be effective too, because we woke up to a beautiful bug display above us. 

Monday morning, I woke up around 6am and got up and had my quiet time on the dock by the water. It was so beautiful with the sun rising behind the mountains and mist hovering around the mountains and over the water. Words can not express the beauty of this place and the pictures below hardly do justice. It was the perfect place to worship, listen to, and talk with my Savior. It was a very special time that I will never forget.

When 7am rolled around, we had our "American Breakfast" which consisted of bacon, eggs, fruit, toast and...hotdog wieners? ;) After breakfast, we got down to business. David reminded us of a lot of the cultural issues that we learned in our WorldWide Witness class this past semester that helped to prepare us for our summer abroad. He also gave us very useful information about things we needed to know about living in our area such as, don't drink beverages with chipped ice (it's not factory-made, so you don't know where it's been), how to use a Song Tao (which means red Truck, it's kind of like a bus), girls should not make eye contact with a monk, be on the same bus or Song Tao, and stay as far away from them as possible out of respect, because they are not supposed to ever have physical contact with women (For example, we were walking down the street the other day and saw a monk off in the distance. He crossed over to the other side of the street before we even came close to him). 

We also learned some cultural do's and don'ts of Thailand like how and who to "wai" (a Thai greeting), always take your shoes off when entering a building, and to never let the bottom of your feet show (it's very offensive). It was so interesting to learn about things that I have never thought about before, but that are so important to the Thai culture. After learning about culture, Bay gave us a short Thai language lesson. It was SO helpful! Although we are by no means fluent, it was so nice to know how to say the important, basic phrases. We don't feel as helpless now. ;)

Over the course of the weekend we ate so many DELICIOUS meals! I love Thai Food! Some of the things we had were fish, cashew chicken, vegetables, the sweetest most amazing fruit I have ever tasted (pineapple, dragon fruit, mango, rose apples, papaya) coconut chicken stew/soup, rice (of course!), spicy Thai soup and breaded chicken. 

As we were packing up to leave we experienced our very first rain storm in Thailand! We got to watch the storm move down from the mountains and cover us in torrential down pour for about an hour. It was so incredible! I have never seen it rain so hard! I love the rain and am looking forward to this rainy season!

Monday night, Laura picked us up at the Starbucks she dropped us off at and took us to the outdoor market for dinner...our very first outdoor market experience! We got some delicious food (with Laura's help) for less than 60baht (which is under $2). Food is really cheap here! That meal lasted me for two days. Not too bad for only $2!

Below are some pictures of our time at the lake!  Enjoy! 

The whole team before heading to the boat house.

Heading to the boat house on a long boat! 

Our boat house

Swimming!

ACU Wildcats in Thailand! 

The whole Thailand team

The Agape team! 

The room Becca and I shared

The view from our room

One of our amazing Thai dinners!

Rachel and I! 

Becca and I got to take a "dip bath" because our showers didn't work. We had a bucket of water and a scoop. :)

David and Michelle getting ready for the day

The ACU Thailand team, minus Charlie who took the photo. 

Cute Asian babies :) 

Our beautiful mosquito net  

After the rain!

It was so beautiful

Playing Farkel before dinner

The view before heading "home."

My first meal from the market! Sweet and sour chicken with rice and watermelon!  

London!

WE ARE IN THAILAND!! And we are loving every minute of it! God has been SO good to us every step of the way these past six days! So much has happened and there is so much I want to say, but this blog post would be much too long to try and describe it all in detail, so I figured I would let some pictures do the talking. I tried to get into my blog a few days ago, but for some reason it was locked. Once I was able to get in, I found that it was all in Thai and I had to reset my whole blog. Thankfully, I was able to get it up and running again! I will have to back track a few days so you all can see where we have been. Get ready for some pictures!!

Starting from the beginning...
 

On Thursday May 24, we departed from DFW airport on our 8 hour flight to the Heathrow International Airport in London.

We arrived in London at 8:45am on Friday, May 25. We had about a 13 hour layover in London, so we left Heathrow on the Underground to do some sight seeing.

                  Riding the Underground! 

We got off at Green Park and one of the first things we saw was the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace! I have a video that I will post as well.

From there we went on to see Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the Thames River, Parliament, and The Household of Cavalry! By then we were hungry, so we went to a cute little Pub in town and ate some fish and chips. After lunch, we went to a park that we walked through earlier that day, and ended up napping and soaking up some sun for about an hour and a half. It was glorious! It was interesting to see the large crowds of people that were also out in the park enjoying the warm weather and sunbathing. It was a prime "people watching" spot. :)          

Buckingham Palace!

It was really crowded around the palace because of all the construction preparing for The Queen's Jubilee!!

Big Ben

It was a beautiful day!

The Household of Cavalry  

The Underground

Ready for Lunch! 

Fish and Chips!

Our  bill

We each had to get the classic phone booth photo.  :)

Enjoying the afternoon in the park. 

After our nap in the park, we started to make our way back to the to airport by way of the Underground around 4:30pm. Because of some major delays and technical difficulties with the trains, our train and route were terminated and we ended up getting stuck at a train station for about an hour trying to catch a train to the airport. Because there were SO many people trying to get to the airport and only a few trains, there were angry mobs of people all trying to pile on the only train that was headed to the airport. In attempt to board a train that was pretty full, Brittney, Becca and I were literally pushed out of the train, while Rachel and Emily were able to safely scoot to the back. So the three of us had to wait at the station for another 45 minutes before a train heading to the airport showed up. Once it did, we experienced a pretty bumpy ride back and our train ended up staling in a tunnel 3 different times. Needless to say, it was an adventure that kept our adrenaline pumping!

We ended up reuniting with Rachel and Emily and making it back to the airport just in time to catch our (10:05pm) 11 hour flight to Bangkok. I only got about an hour of sleep on the flight, but it still seemed to go by fast. We arrived at the Suvarnabhumi International airport in Bangkok at 3:20pm with only a 2 hour layover to rush though passport control, baggage claim and security, find our departure gate and board the plane. Talk about madness! :) BUT because God is SO GOOD, He got us to our gate just in time and we were among the last people to board the plane. The rest of our trip was nice and peaceful and we had a relaxing, 55 minute flight to Chiang Mai. At 7:30pm Saturday night, we landed in Chiang Mai Thailand!! We were so excited to find that all of our bags made it!   

All of our bags made it!! Praise the Lord! 

 Laura, the volunteer coordinator at Agape picked us up at the airport and took us back to the volunteer house that we will be living in for the next 10 weeks. We live right across the street from Laura and inside a gated community. The neighborhood is very nice and our neighbors are friendly! We are looking forward to getting to know them better! 

My 36 hour trip halfway around the world was a success and nothing short of an adventure! I only slept about 2 hours the entire trip but I didn't really feel it until 2 days later. :) In my next post, I'll tell you where we spent our weekend! 

Stay tuned for more pictures!