10 days

survived my 10 days village stay in lamphun and now back to the city area.

gotta admit it was one interesting experiences and i'm thankful to my host family for taking great care of me, always making sure that i'm ok and with enough food to eat. confession, half of the time i have no idea what i'm eating. no joke. one morning my host family served us grasshopper! omfg. no didnt try it. me no balls yo. told myself no more gross food after my last experience with wormies.

my stay in village was really 'healthy'. waking up at 6:30am everyday and feeling sleepy at 9pm? crap. if this continue in singapore i wont be late for work anymore! that damn rooster kp non stop that it's really hard to ignore it. am seriously thinking of kidnapping one back to singapore. HAHAH. i gate crash a funeral. yea. was really shocked when i reach the place. am so glad to have another singaporean with me to experience such 'interesting' experience. somehow i feel like superstar there, with my host family introducing me to everyone.

people there were really nice. always greeting you with their biggest smile. and of course i smiled back to with my brightest smile. HAHAHA. so far the people i met in chiangmai were really nice and am really thankful for that. (:

anyway back to my work in lamphun, we rebuild the playground and pavement for wat sribangwan school and did some painting too. the folks from NTU worked really hard, MEE TOO HOR. it's so tiring and my musclessss. thank god i brought counterpain along with me. hehe. the answer to all muscle aches. my first time doing serious construction and damn i really respect those construction workers in Singapore who are doing it everyday for us without any complains. everyone please treat them nicer!! they are always out slogging under the sun building this and that for us, making sure we have a safe home to stay, place to play.

the kids were really nice. helping us out even on weekends! carrying bricks with us, working hard with us under the hot sun. heart them soo much. and no they didnt complain at all and i can seriously see them having fun. laughing non stop as they work.

removing and replacing the bricks was a challenge too. imagine carrying it and lying it one bricks at a time... and now i know why our parents always force us to study and making sure that we have a good education.

during weekend, host family brought us out to the city to visit various temples. and some nights the rest of the hosts invited us over to their house for dinner and gathering. so nice of them yo! we need to bring the kampung spirit back to singapore!

the completed work! (Love Beyond Borders) if you look hard enough you can see my hand print there!

again farewell was hard. a teary one as usual. kinda expected it after all this is the 123456789 farewell that i had since my short stay in chiangmai. already told myself not to get too attached to anyone because it hurts when they leave. (:

with my kuan po and kuan meh from lamphun! 

sent the NTU folks off on sunday and everyone in the village came tooooo! they are already talking about coming over to singapore to visit us. WOW.

my last 2 or is it 3 weeks stay in chiangmai. wtf. so fast suddenly. for sure i will miss everyone here. i dont want september to come. i dont want to go back to my 'robot', stressful life in singapore and i know september will be really crap because there are many events going on during that period. folks here are asking me to come back again next year to help out with their conference and be a staff. i'm seriously thinking about it but if i really do come back it means i will need to postpone my studies again. whaaaatttt.

dad is always asking me to go home whenever i call back and he dont even mind paying for me to change my flight back home. dad i know you miss me but im not done yet. not yet. (:

rainbow

“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true"

Farewell

Teary farewell with the kids from new York. They seriously play a big part in making my first two weeks in chiangmai bearable. Because of them I'm not homesick. (:

Always hate to say goodbye and I believe and hope we will meet each other again somewhere.

In lamphun

Don't worry, im still alive! Haha.

Am currently in a village and bunking in one of the folk's house. It's a very nice experience, waking up to non stop kp-ing of the chicken everyday! Hahaha. Been waking up at 6.30am? Seriously i'm considering bringing one chicken back with me to Singapore so I won't be late anymore! Haha

My hosts are really nice, treating us well everyday. So nice that my other partner feels uncomfortable! Haha

Staying with me was another guy from Singapore. Im seriously very happy to have his companion. At least someone to go through all weird experiences with me! Haha.

facetime

facetime is awesome. keeping me connected with people back home and in other part of the world. :)

with LMS. he is in shanghai noooow.

quek in japan. 

folks in japan (sorry for unglam picture)

and liwen's 21st! sorry that im miss your pinky party. have fun babe. :)

second week here in chiangmai and yes im adapting well. i starting to fall in love with this place and the people here.

Wormie.

I must blog about this. This gotta be one of my biggest achievement level in weird food I tried. Not that I tried a lot... Anyway I ate a freaking worm yesterday! OMGGGOOOODOOO RIGHT. HOW BRAVE. I know I know.

And guess what? It freaking taste like potato chips. NO JOKE.

Street children project

visited the street children's accommodation area today and i'm really thankful for everything i have in my life now. a nice home to go back to at the end of the day, not having to worried about money issues in my life other than occasionally worried over not enough money to feed my shopping addiction. this is bullshit.

try imaging yourself living above the swamp. definitely not pleasant with those creepy bugs crawling around and not forgetting the smell from the swamp. one thing that i learn from them, no matter how bad their living condition is, their smile is always there. you should see how friendly they are, smiling non stop at us intruders when we visited them. they make me believe that we should never be tied down by our problems in life. or maybe to them all these are not even a big problem.

 "drying your clothes the 'natural' way"

 

i met a little boy there. he kept yakking non stop to me in thai and i have totally no idea what he is talking about. just went along with him, smile, acknowledge and repeat after him. a bit weird initially but we got comfortable with each other after a while. i think he got used to me eventually. i was making random noises and he started following me. nice. :) i need to brush up on my thai. i need to learn some simple greetings.

 "a doorway to a better future."

Learning Thai

no joke when i say i lost track of the day and time when i'm here. totally relaxing myself and not doing anything. well it gets a little boring sometimes after all i'm so used to my busy life in stressful singapore. :)

learn thai today with the teen from new york. it's fun and obviously very hard. cant get the pronunciation right. OMG. and i managed to know the youth better today. not so lonely after all! they were seriously crazily high and fun. 

 my name in thai.

 

met my host for my home-stay trip today. going on 17th July. excited yet worried. not sure if i can do it. that is for sure stepping out of my freaking comfort zone. 10 days out in the village staying in someone else house. alright chloe JUST FREAKING DO IT.

Visiting the temple

Temple visiting was not too bad today. but once it's enough unless it's those die die must see kind! HAHA. somehow i feel that all temple look the same. 

it's a beautiful daaaaaaaay!

 

you dont say?

 

 

over dinner today, one of the senior staff from YMCA shared about people not being able to get themselves detached from their phone. which is so bloody true. yea im guilty of that. even having dinner with a group of friends, you hand will still be busy checking out your phone. forever busy on social networking website. ahhh the whole damn phone is really taking over our life.

full attention no longer given to whoever is there with us. i thought that by coming over to Chiangmai, i will get less attached to my phone but NO! old habits die hard. again whenever there is wifi, i will just connect and FB, twitter all day long.

i.need.to.change.

landed.

The happiestthing that happened today was having someone there wait for you the moment youarrived at the arrival gate. Thank you GYM for blessing me and making sureeverything goes smoothly. :)

Another thingthat I’m super thankful for, a whole freaking room for myself in the hotelitself! Just nice enough for me and there is free wifi! I wont be thatdisconnected from the world after all! :D

Made a fewnew friends and glad that everyone here is really friendly and nice. Just cameback from partying with them. haha! Oh yea, 4^th July is independenceday! And I saw fireworks from the mountain. First time with a different view.

Apple toldme that students from New Yorkare here and NTU is coming too in Mid July! Gosh sounds exciting. Going to jointhem for home stay in the village.

And I wonderwhat’s in stall for me tomorrow! Shall continue to explore the area near YMCA. Thereis a mall there and my favourite 7-11! Im sure and hope I will lose weight. Onlyate freaking salad earlier.

And thatconcludes my first day here in chiangmai.

p.s.breakfast at 7:30am and I’m definitely going to skip that. I need to sleeeep.

transit

Holy shit, after all the kan-chiong ness and blurness, I’m finally waiting for my flight to chiangmai. Flight to Bangkok was delayed. Landed at 2pm and my boarding pass to chiangmai wrote flight at 2:35pm. Got a shock and freaking chiong out. Once out of the plane, I checked with the ground crew and crap that’s actually my boarding time. Flight is actually at 3pm. rush for nothing but still Thank you GYM!

The whole freaking airport is so long! Walked non stop and took me quite a while before finding the right gate. When I found the right entrance, I walked through the immigration gate without showing the staff my passport. And I swear the staffs were laughing at me! CUI. But still LIKE A BOSS! HAHAHHA

I need to stop leaving my things around. Almost left my freaking passport in the toilet. WTF!!

Anyhow 1 hour plus more to chiangmai!! :D

waiting waiting.

 *no, i'm not going to london. i'm on my way to chiangmai! :)

I is very brave. Embarking on my first ever overseas trip alone. Currently awaiting to board my flight to Bangkok, will transit there before going over to chiangmai.

I’m not sure what to expect or rather basically I’m going there without any expectation. So I wont be disappointed if things didn’t turn out “my way”.

Boarding at 12:25pm and im here way too early.

I hope I wont be sitting beside any weirdos later.

I cant wait to reach chiangmai.

I cant wait to start my little adventure there.

I need to be alert and navigate my way well.

Cannot get lost and be blur there!

Dad just called me again to remind me to buy a prepaid card and call home. Ahhh…

i’m going to try penning down my thoughts and little happening everyday. Please be discipline yo!

And please please folks at Chiangmai, please remember to pick me up later!

Leaving on a jetplane

All set and ready to go!

Finally embarking on my little adventure, first to Chiangmai follow by Indonesia to spread some love to the folks there. Pray hard that all will be good and I will come back safe and sound. Yes I'm going alone. It's going to be fun and I'm freaking sure about that. Missss me!