From March 29- April 3, 2017 Schutz provided me with the opportunity to fly to Bangkok, Thailand for a professional educators conference. I have to keep pinching myself to make sure this is all real. I mean, really - I went to BANGKOK for PD! Seriously!
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| Trey, one of our high school teachers presenting at the conference along with Sarah, one of our middle school teachers |
Perhaps those in the corporate world don't understand my reaction. Perhaps to many, flying around the world to conferences or on business trips is par for the course. That is just not so for most educators. Let me try to explain.
After 2 1/2 decades immersed in the public education world, I felt pretty darn thankful when I got to drive myself 60 miles north to attend a regional special education conference and was offered the opportunity to spend the night in a hotel, paid for by the school district! After around 15 years of teaching and attending these local conferences, imagine my excitement when I was selected as a Science Teacher Leader and got to drive myself to Detroit (7 hours south) to spend a couple of nights in a hotel to attend a Science Conference with people from all over the state! I thought I had really made it when I became a History Teacher Leader and was selected to FLY all the way to St. Lewis, Missouri for a conference about Lewis and Clark and then a year later selected to fly to Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia to spend a week there learning about our nation's history. Things were looking up and it seemed there was a new level of professionalism in the education world. Then things in the education sector crashed and it seemed the only opportunities for PD were again local.
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| I thought I felt rich with hundreds of Egyptian pounds in my possession, until I exchanged for Thai Bahts and had thousands in my pocket at all times! |
Never, ever, in my wildest imagination did I believe that one day I would say that my first solo international flight would be to go to an educator conference in far-off, exoctic, THAILAND!
For my first big solo trip, there were a few things I was a little nervous about. First, would it be easy to figure out how to get from the airport to the hotel, would there be a language barrier, would I pay far too much..... Second, would I be brave enough to venture outside of the hotel on my own since I would have an evening on my own before the pre conference started on day 2....Third, I wanted to buy a SIM card at the airport, but I had never done so before and did not know which stores might sell them or even which SIM card to buy
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Qatar Air has awesome mood lighting that slowly changes colors
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| This was the strangest airplane breakfast I have ever had |
Day One. While standing in line to go through immigration, I started a conversation with a woman standing behind me. Once I realized she was an American, I asked her if she might possibly be in Bangkok for the NESA educator's conference. I figured it was probably a long-shot as Bangkok is huge and very international. However, it turned out that she was indeed here for the conference AND she teaches at our sister school in Cairo - Cairo American College. I asked her if she knew anything about SIM cards and she convinced me that having a SIM card would not be very useful. Since she had been doing this international thing several years more than I have, I listened to her. We decided to share a ride to the hotel. She had been there before, so she knew exactly where to find the drivers and how to negotiate. She was waiting on a colleague who was supposed to arrive on another flight about 10 minutes before ours, but her friend never arrived so she made the decision that we should just leave the airport and go to the hotel. She was still a bit buzzed from the drinks she had had on the plane, so once at the hotel, she decided to go right to her room and try to contact her friend. Unfortunately, she disappeared before I thought to made a plan for how we could reach each other.
Having arrived at the hotel without feeling that I had been ripped off by the driver, it was now time to face my last fear - venturing outside of the hotel by myself. I have to say that I did not go far, but I did walk around the neighborhood and stopped at a couple of places selling street food on a cart.
The first place I bought a healthy-looking seafood and vegetable dish - but it was SOOOO spicy that I could not eat it all.
Next I crossed the street and tried some chicken on a stick and some fried spring-roll looking things - both were delicious! I also discovered a small but very modern looking mall right next to the hotel. The first floor was quite typical with a couple of coffee shops and small restaurants, some clothing, jewelry, and household decoration stores. The top two floors appeared to house an auction house of very expensive looking Thai antiques. Having used up my supply of courage for the day, I retired to my room - too shy to wander the hotel or sit at the bar and introduce myself to other presumed international educators.
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| The small mall next to the hotel where we stayed. Later, I learned it is actually connected to the hotel by a walkway! |
DAY 2 - The pre-conference presenter was excellent. She was a neuropsychologist from the USA. Since my new job requires that I not only teach students with presumed learning differences while setting up a new program, but I also need to know a lot more about assessing and diagnosing students than I needed to know in the States, this was the perfect presentation for me to attend. Sometime in the afternoon, two of my colleagues from Schutz arrived, Trey and Sarah. I was no longer alone. That evening we walked along the river behind our hotel, took a free riverboat ride from our hotel to a stop at a market area and back.
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| View from my hotel room |
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| Very busy river flowing right through the heart of Bangkok |
After that, the days all blur together. We had workshops during the day, took an actual riverboat tour and explored temples along the way, got massages, and shopped at night. Sarah knew that one of the iconic scenes from "HangOver 2" was filmed within walking distance from our hotel, so off we went. The first time we attempted to reach this rooftop location, we were turned away because the dress code at this restaurant said that men could not wear shorts! (There did not seem to be any dress code for women - a refreshing change!) We returned the next day and noticed that a man just outside the hotel location of the HangOver 2 scene was "renting" trousers to men so that they could get into this exclusive rooftop bar/restaurant. However, Trey now properly attired, we were able to take the elevator to the top of this very tall building. Upon stepping out of the elevator and into Sirocco's,
Sirocco Sky Lounge we were ushered to a menu where we were asked what kind of wine or champagne we would like to order. How much could it be right? We were in Thailand where the local currency, the Thai Baht, is 34 to 1 against the USD and most things were as cheap as they are in Egypt. Oh, boy! The cheapest GLASS of wine was over $25 USD!!! Sarah, with her quick thinking, asked if we could see the cocktail menu. They immediately ushered us over to a different part of the restaurant and gave us a different menu! We each had the Hangover martini (I don't think that was what it was called, but it was a special concoction they made for the cast of the Hangover and they reportedly loved it!) It, too, was much too expensive - but the views made it worth it. This place looked over the whole city it seemed, and was just a pretty darn cool place to be.
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| Enjoying our Hangover-tinis |
Thailand was warm and wonderful. The massages were different than I have ever experienced. We were lead upstairs and put into one long room divided only by curtains. We were given a pajama type clothes to wear and were told to lay on a mat on the floor. A young girl who looked to be around 16 came in and sat on my back and pulled on my arms and legs and stretched me in various ways. The massage was firm, but not overly deep. The city itself was clean but the river flowing through Bangkok was not. The driving was similar to Egypt, but people did not seem to drive as fast nor cut as close to other vehicles. There was absolutely NO horn honking during the entire time we were there! (At least none that we heard) The tuk-tuks were being driven by adults rather than children. There were many modern buildings. We also saw poverty - one man, dressed as a Buddhist sat on the hard cement in a very uncomfortable looking position with a can in front of him, obviously hoping for money. He was still in that same position over 2 hours later when we walked by again. The boats on the river were colorful and varied. The boats reminded me of various types of fish -
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| Pretty sky around this building across from our hotel |
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| Memorials like this to their beloved King were all over the city. He passed away in October, 2016 after ruling Thailand for 70 years! |
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| Details on the base of just one of the pillars |
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| Unfortunately, the main temple was being renovated while we were there and was covered with scaffolding |
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| A group getting their picture taken inside this Buddhist temple. The next pictures are close ups on the walls of this place. |
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| No matter which temple we visit, whether Egyptian or Buddhist, we find depictions of war |
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| People leave offerings at this statue |
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| Close up on some of the details of the temple |
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| Check out how steep the steps are going up |
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| Foreigners to the left...........or to the right...........as you please! |
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| Visit to the palace |
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| Too busy to actually go into the palace, so we opted to leave |
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| Not enough time for another full body massage, I opted for a foot and leg massage |
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| Typical Thai mall, where shops spill out into the hallways |
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| In the mall we stumbled upon a talent hunt for some kind of advertisement. They seemed to need kids between the ages of 4 and 15 perhaps - and all of them wore this same denim apron. This, perhaps 10 year old, had extremely high heels. We kept wondering if she would fall as she did her run-way walk. |
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| If I had a house, I may have tried to figure out how to get this shipped back. Gorgeous, inlaid furniture! The whole store had furniture like this! |
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| This mall had the coolest food court. You get a card as you enter. You can choose any type of food or drink from any vendor. They even had really good Mexican food. When you leave the food court, you go through cash registers where you pay. Ingenious! (and delicious) |
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| Outside the mall - just because.... |
I really loved Thailand and hope to return there some day!
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| All over Bangkok there were memorials to the world's longest ruling Monarch, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej who died in October, 2016 |
