from the U.S. to tokyo to Thailand!!!

so i'm in Phuket Thailand right now. be jealous. it's amazing!!! however you're pry interested in how i got here...

we went from tuscon to san diego california! we did a lot of promotion work for cast B at a beach and a farmer's market. after our long day's work we had a party at Moonlight Beach! it was amazing. i swam in the Pacific Ocean for the first time since i was little!

it was incredible to have such enormous waves crashing down on me. there was so much force in what looked like such a tiny swell. the times i was englufed in a bigger wave was amazing! you feel the swirl and the swoosh of the water all around you and you can't help but thank God for all the amazing opportunities he's given you, and the miracles he's put on earth for us...

are you ready to hear about my FOURTY TWO hour travel day/s? i sure hope so!

we woke up at 4:15 in san diego and headed to L.A.X. we checked in and waited until our flight at about 12:45. when we lifted off our pilot announced that we crossed the international dateline and that it was now 5:45 in the morning. this flight had some really really good food for being airplane food! i also met a really interesting guy from the us who was moving to japan to teach english!

we flew about 11 hours to tokyo where we had a 2 hour delay. i bought my brother some stuff because i knew how much he wanted stuff from Japan. (love ya!) we then boarded another plane and flew to bangkok, thailand for 7 hours.

this is where we had the easiest immigration and customs check ever. the immagration interegator asked me how long i'd be in Thailand, and i was free to go. for customs you just got in a line that said "nothing to declare" and went straight through!! it was crazy. here comes the fun part. in Bangkok we loaded up two buses and drove 13 (ish) hours from i think around 11 at night until 2 the next day, when we arrived in Phuket!!!!

(i was SOOO tired so i may be messing up some times, but our logistics coordinator, wouter says it was 42 hours. what he says goes.)

may i also mention that the only shower i had before we got to phuket was a rinse off at moonlight beach the night before flying out of LAX?.... talk about disgusting!!!

so anyway... we got to phuket and we pulled up to Satree Phuket School! there were hundreds of students w/ lais for us outside of our buses! they were made out of Orchids and little white flowers that symbolize love. later on they gave us all handmade silk scarves, made by the students at the school! they are gorgeous!

they had an amazing buffet dinner waiting for us and our new host families, who happened to be the parents of some students at the school. they had 3 traditional dances to perform for us. the dancers were incredibly talented! it was really great to see. they also played a lot of traditional music for us. they intruments are really interesting, but i didn't get a chance to ask anyone what they were called, but i do know they can't wear shoes while playing an intrument here.

while at the dinner the math teacher taught me how to "properly" use my eating utensils. by holding a big spoon in your right hand and pushing the food onto it w/ the fork in your left hand. my bad :)

i met my host parents and sister. Mom, Dad, and Pang. i also found out i'd be rooming with Tina, Faith, and Vania again! :) we were driving around downtown, with lots of tiny little shops and things everywhere and we turned into an alley. at the end of the alley was a beautiful white house with an iron gate with tons of little plants everywhere! this was my new home. CRAZY!

we removed our shoes before going in and we immediately saw marble floors, and a huge wood and glass staircase with maroon marble steps. this house was gorgeous. i got to my large room with hardwood floors, a king sized bed, and a balcony and realized i was in heaven. the bathroom is also wall-to-wall marble!!! it's so beautiful!

my host family is really nice, too. we went shopping that night for breakfast food and ended up coming home with two shopping carts filled with food. they are very generous, kind people. they language barrier was difficult at first, but now we're learning how to understand each other. Pand is in the English program at school, so knows quite a bit of it. her parents actually know English too! This is unusual, but very refreshing. :)

a few days after we got here to Phuket we had a Regional Learning day! this entire day had no budget to us. the 7 Rotary clubs here in phuket sponsored all of it.

first we went to Sea Gypsy Village. this is a small part of Phuket where many fisherman live. this is an experience i could only have in UWP. We talked to some ladies about their culture, and then taught some children the "Stomp" part of our show. it was SO much fun.

after we left them, we took a trolly boat over to Coral beach! OH MY GOODNESS was it gorgeous. we rode very slowly on the boat so we could take in the tropical beauty all around us. we saw islands completely covered in lush trees, and fishermen out in their handmade wooden boats. when we finally got to "our island" we were so pumped!!! this place looked like something out of a tourist brochure! there was a beach with an enormous jungle behind it. there were seashells on the beach and tropical fish that came swimming up to your toes in the warm, clear ocean. Heaven.

quite a few of us went snokeling. you could see hundreds and hundreds of fish. some of us fed them bananas, but they are fiesty little things, and sometimes missed and nibbled your fingers. you could see all types of coral, sea urchins, starfish, and we even saw some baracuda!! this was an amazing day. the only thing that made it better was the rain! while we were swimming it started to sprinkle. i love the rain, so i was enthralled! i was in a beautiful cove in the warm, salty ocean with soft, cool raindrops falling on my skin. it was incredible.

unfortunately we had to leave Coral beach, but i will definitely have to go back someday, or to somewhere similar. we then had a very important dinner with the heads of the Rotary clubs here in Phuket, and they decided that next time uwp went to phuket they wanted to know details so they could plan their events and community service so they can work hand in hand with us!!

Then came another fun part. the rotary club came through again and sponsored tickets for every single one of us to go see a very famous Phuket show called FantaSea! it was so much fun! before the show you wander around a kind of park, like disneyworld, with lots of shops and little restaurants. there was some amazing architecture. it was beautiful.

the show was fantastic as well! the special effects were out of this world, with bungee cords, optical illusions, crazy lights, and much more. the dancers were exceptional, there was always something going on, and there were 16 elephants on stage. it was so great! there are thousands of seats in this theater and it was sold out! :)

i've made a few observations about Phuket, Thailand so far.

1) they drive CRAZY here. they drive on the opposite side of the road than us, but you may not even be able to tell!! they drive over the line in the street, and there are also more motorcycles than cars here, who just weave in and out wherever they want!

2) its hard to tell where you are because most shops have the same signs, and all the roads are very windy.

3) there is no one culture here in phuket, they have influences from all over the world!!!

4) the food is SPICY!!!!

5) they people here are always smiling, joking, laughing, and just having a good time. i LOVES it!

6) there are barely any trash cans around! i don't really understand what they do with their trash!!

7) their napkins at restaurants are one layer, and half the size we have in the US.


i started my 4 day community service today, but i think i'll write more about that in another post. i love you all!

hugs!

xoxo
--callie