Ah! So, I have been busy!

My first weekend in Chiang Mai was very rainy - but still fun. I did come here during rainy season, so I can probably be expecting a lot of it. Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand, and centered around Old Town - which is a big square, surrounded by a mote and the old gates of the city. Usually when I go into the city, I go to Tha Pae Gate and go down 'Walking Street'. Every Sunday night, there is a huge street market on Walking Street where you can find practically anything. I usually make sure I don't bring very much money down there - or I there might have to buy another suit case to bring back with me. On Sunday nights, the areas around the temples of the Walking Street fill up with food stalls, and you can get so many different kinds of food - including mashed potatoes! I have gone both Sundays that I have been in Thailand, and last Sunday I got icecream served in a coconut shell! Off of each of the different gates around the city there are markets depending on the night of the week. On top of that, there is the Night Bazaar - which is open every night, and is a huge ( a little more tourist-y) market, where you can buy anything and everything. I have only been twice, and already done quite a bit of damage to my wallet.

Monday I started work at the Office for Track of the Tiger, TRD. If you won't explain everything here - but if you want to know more about it go to track-of-the-tiger.com. I am helping with a Responsible Tourism Alliance project right now , and have learned more about responsible and sustainable tourism in one week than I would have ever imagined. Although I have realized that I am not exactly the desk job type, I feel like this internship will teach me a lot about working on different projects and with different people. One day a week I have been, and will be for the rest of my time here, to an elementary school in Mae-On Valley to help teach English. Only one teacher at the school speaks English and sets up a lesson plan that I help her with. The kids are so much fun and so excited ( probably since the classes I help with are much more unstructured than there other ones). On Tuesday when I was there a group of grade 4 ( they are about 9 or 10 years old) tried to teach me how to play a game that reminded me of jacks. It was very amusing - and I kept breaking rules I guess, but we aren't at the point were we can communicate what the rules are yet. I am at the school from 10am - 2pm, and then go to the Oriental Village Chiang Mai for the night to help the staff with their conversational English. The bonus of that is that I am also getting to know more Thai words. It is a gorgeous resort surrounded by mountains, and when I was there last night there was a huge thunderstorm.

Other than that, I have been looking at little day trips or other things for me to do on the weekend. I think I am going to take a Thai cooking class either this weekend or next weekend, and go to Wat Doi Suthep, which is a temple outside of town on one of the hills and is supposed to absolutely gorgeous. Kacey, Emily and I are also planning our trip to Bangkok on the second weekend of July. From talking to them today it sounds like we have elephant riding and a temple tour on the possible to-do list.