So its back from the holidays! Already heading into September (9 months down and 3 to go...where did the time go?? Sniff...sniff) and the week underway, classes have officially started with Monday kicking off to a good start with Yr.10 Maths! Talk about a wake up.. but the holidays were awesome - Scuba diving, Full Moon Parties on Koh Pha Ngan, the Kotowicz's flying from Australia to visit me (aww... shucks), Chiang Mai, Rafting, Elephant Riding, FireShows, visits to Hill Tribes, Flying on a Plane! (talk about a thrill.. beats a 12 hour bus anyday), Bangkok, Koh Tao, Kanchanaburi and the bridge over the river kwai... oh there's stories to tell that's for sure.
Fresh from a weekend, it was the first time all 11 of us gappies spent a night together in well over four months - that's right, ELEVEN of us! Recently joining us in thailand are Kim from Botswana and Franzi from Germany, funky chickies as they are, so it was straight to the Moon River Pub for both of them on Friday night with me to meet the teachers and then Saturday night saw us heading to that sweet little island of ours where we met up with the other gappies. For Photos of that and other random things (like what Kim gets up to in her spare time with her chair on wheels) take a peek at Erin's photo page which has been updated recently. I'm off to yoga now but more on the holidays later... ciao!

Notice the fantastic quality of these photos - finally figured out the scanner and better ways of saving these photos... argh, what a pain considering I'd like you to actually be able to SEE the photos rather than grainy impressions of what WERE photos. Wishful thinking I suppose....

After a week spent on the island of Koh Chang, where I spent the last 5 days on a camp similiar to a smaller version of Timbetop for the purposes of broadening students awareness of outdoor ed and to give them a better appreciation for all the luxuries they have, we were faced with glamming up for the Saturday night students validictory at the Hard Rock Cafe, Pattaya. 6 hours of preparation later - mostly spent vegging into a jar of nutella and a packet of timtams used to celebrate Phoebes on going birthday bash, we were a dazzling bunch of gappies ready to hit the town of Pattaya. After spending a month living on campus, I at last got to see the city which gives Pattaya its R and R reputation.
The validictory itself was fantastic - highlights were beyond any doubt Steph, Erin (Stan) and Soph creating new dance moves with the Hard Rock cafe staff, our fantastic efforts of Salsa dancing - which were out done by the students to an outstanding degree, and watching staff let loose on the dance floor though I will leave this website to enlist gappie activities only. :) The buffet, for which we paid B550, was incredible - there was food I hadn't eaten for the first time in 6 months and naturally cheesecake.. hmm.... need I go on?
Photos will be up shortly, to which I'll continue describing the validictory later.

The great thing aboug the city of Bangkok is you always inevitably leave it with more than you started off with. Not only did I get my ear pierced at the top but had foils put through my hair. I'm very concinved I will be more blonde when I return to Australia. On Saturday night though, all of us gappies went to the Saxophone pub at Victory Monuement which had fantastic music but was so loud you could hardly have any conversation. One place the Saxophone did remind me of though was the back of the National Pub (the Nash) in Geelong when the jazz bands come... but that's just me. After enough of non-happening conversation but good chill out music, we headed off to Khao San road to an underground night club. I think it was relatively new coz I had never seen it before, but all the same it was great.

Photo 1#: Pheebs whipped out her fabulous professional camera and decided to get this rather attractive shot of us lying in deckchairs on the beach.
Photo 2#: Just after we jumped off the Banana boat, a nice tourist took this pick of the five of us. From left to right: Oong, Steph, Soph, Larissa (me) and Pheebs.
Photo 3#: On one of the nights we were at Silversands, we all posed for this photo though it might be a bit hard to see our faces! Saen's expression says "I wanna go home!!"
Photo 4#: After my face started peeling, Pheebs said "go put some sunscreen on" so I did... little did I realise that I looked like I'd been songkraned.... :P

Photo #1: I dedicated the first photo to gappie wannabe Pack! This was taken at a karaoke bar where Pack serenaded us all with his unique version of "You're just too good to be true" where we celebrated his birthday after he returned from being quarantined for SARS. Wait-a-go Pack! Pack is a member of the IRS administrations staff who will head off to begin his university studies in England in the up coming months and be sadly missed by all. Though for future note, I hope his return trip to Thailand will not be stopping off in Singapore...
Photo #2: This was taken before the Regents welcoming of the new prinicipal Patricia Methan concert when my fabulous room mate and I glammed up for this social event.
Photo #3: Guided into Baiyoke building (apparently the tallest building in Bangkok) by our wonderful tourguide Pack, he insisted we pose for the toursist corners... though he'll completely deny it if you ask him!
Photo #4: On the last night of school at Bangkok, the lovely Administration staff took Steph, Andy, Kirsty and I out for a karaoke night in an attempt to celebrate Pack's birthday for the 3rd time. Yet again, Pack might deny this, but he sang a lovely song of "I need you baby... and if it's quite alright..." well done Pack!

Just 30 minutes by boat from a s*$# hole called Ban Phe is the island of Koh Samet. Now I have a few stories about Ban Phe though because the first time I went to Koh Samet, having come from Bangkok, Steph, Horse (who came over to visit in Feb! Go horse!!) arrived late and missed the boat ferries that run every half an hour. Inevitably we had no choice to stay in the most run down third world place ($10aus a night, so what could you expect?) but I'm actually not going to delve into that because this is a section dedicated to my favourite island so far (coincidently the ONLY island I've been to so far) Koh Samet. As you can see from this rather attractive map, from Bangkok, it is roughly 200km to Rayong. By bus it takes about 2.5 - 4 hours (depending on the traffic) to Ban Phe and then a further 30 mins by boat. Arriving at one of the main piers called "Nuadan Pier" depending on whether you have booked accomodation or simply rock up with a bunch of frienz and troop around until you find a cheap decent place like us gappies do, a Song thiew will take you where ever you want to go for B10 per "stop".
Having been there several times, there are a lot of places I could write here and recommend but instead I'll begin telling you about the best part of Koh Samet: The Beaches and the Night life. Packed with tourists from head to toe, the minute you set foot on the white sands, masseuse workers, people offering pedicures, manicures, B100 sarongs, fruit (ah god, I pity this guy because all day every day he walks up and down the beach chanting "pineapple, watermelon, mango, coconut...pineapple, watermelon, mango, coconut" in the most monotonous broken-recored voice I've ever heard), fried noodles and the one thing you actually want to do is sunbake with peace and quiet.
Once you get past all that... or after you fall sucker to a massage, pedicure and manicure and then get round to the sunbaking its perfect. Better still, the water is warm unlike australia beaches where the water is icy cold or just cold on a summers day! But there's no better way to work up a sweat than the night life in Koh Samet.
From 6pm-10pm, island-wide there are dvd movies playing in every restaurant and most people opt for that whilst eating dinner and sucking away on a fruitshake (mixed fruit and coconut are the best). Once it hits 10pm, happy hour begins! Joy! Having spent more nights than I can remember on the island, I could go forever endlessly listing stories (now is a good time to think back 3 months ago and wish that I'd started this page earlier so that I wouldn't be catching up like this) but highlights more me are definitely: watching the fire stick playing dancers - there isn't really a better name for it so just use your imagination - endless dancing and hiliarious tourists to name a few.

As you can see I have only just started this page because for those that know me I've been in Bangkok for 3 months and just moved to Pattaya! As I have only a short ammount of time due to boarding house duties, I'll write more later and hope to improve this blank page.