I'm in Mahasarakham Province, my host teacher P. Wan's hometown! And I love it here! It's feels like a nice college town and I feel very much at home. Last night we drove through the campus to pick up P. Wan's boyfriend and there were guys breakdancing on the street. P. Wan's boyfriend is the art professor there and he gave me a contemporary Thai art piece that he did which is so awesome. P. Wan, P. Huan, P. Jiap, and I went to this cool cafe owned by this friendly dude with a giant fro. He was playing funky music and all the college students were chilling there. He even came by to take a photograph of us to put on his website. We ate so much delicious Thai food!

Today I met up with P. Wan's good friends and ate at two western chain restaurants with a Thai flair which made everything extra delicious. By that I mean, Thai KFC is great. You get this delicious fried rice with edamame, bacon, and carrots! The chicken is spicy and you can eat it with chili sauce. And there are waiters. And real silverware. Svensons ice cream is sooo good!!

And then we went searching for big sized clothing. Even though I have proof that I am totally a size S/M back home, I am big in Thailand (more to love, baby). Well, I bought one of those Thai "I love the King" yellow polo shirts except mine says "Love the King, Love the World" which is sweet. I'm excited to wear it to school! I also bought nice conservative black dress-up pants because my big butt causes too much scandal at school amongst silly adolescent high school boys. Hmm~ I am all about scoping out good teacher outfits these days!

After shopping, I met P. Wan's grandmother, a small friendly old lady who gave us a huge bag of mushrooms and greens from her garden. And I went to P. Wan's house to eat a delicious Issan meal. I am pretty good at eating with stick rice/my hand now. P. Wan's younger brother (who is an artist in Bangkok) kept asking me to go dancing but I went to a Thai wedding instead which was really interesting! And then I went to a night market and got some really neat souvenirs for all of you I love back home! ;)

P.S. I love being a discreet foreigner/Korean-American. I can escape the foreigner price (which I realized is sometimes 10 times the local price..) if I keep quiet. And everyone is astonished to hear me speak English and excited to practice a few phrases with me. And when they realize I am Korean (Kaolee) most people excitedly share their love of Go Eun-Chan/Coffeeprince/Daejangguem. Also, I don't stick out as much in public places which makes me feel less like a weirdo farang.

Also, I am going to take Claire's idea and buy some fly swatters for a pronunciation game. My students have such a hard time distinguishing "food," "fruit," and "foot." I think it'll be good to work with the "th" sound, etc.