April 19-20: Bangkok-Albuquerque

April 19: Today was our last day in Thailand. We were set to depart for Beijing at 7:35 pm. We went to the Royal Dragon Restaurant. This restaurant holds the Guinness World Record for the largest restaurant. It can serve up to 5000 people!

After we ate at the restaurant, we went to the airport and said farewell to our guide and driver. We will miss them. Fortunately, this time, no one missed their flight, whew!

April 20: We arrived Beijing at 1:30 am. After some lengthy paperwork with the Chinese government, we were able to leave the airport and go to a hotel to grab a few winks. We finally got to the hotel and slept at 4 am. We left for the airport again at 9:30 am and ate breakfast there. The airport in Beijing is very modern, beautifully designed and huge! We took off for LA at 2 pm and arrived the same day at 11 am (we crossed the International Date line.) This was the longest day of our lives for most of us as 13 hours was added to our day.

Thanks to our wonderful school secretary (Clarissa, a big shout-out to you!) and a kind-hearted soul at Southwest Airlines, we were able to cut our layover from 8 hours to 5 hours. We were thrilled as it took us some time to get through customs and get something to eat. We only had to wait a couple of hours and then we boarded the plane to New Mexico.

There's no place like home. Thank you all for your support.

Until the next trip,
NMSD International Studies

In front of the Royal Dragon Restaurant

Proof we are not making things up!

Outside the Royal Dragon

Farewell Thailand!

April 18: Bangkok

Greetings from Bangkok~

Today is our last full day in Bangkok. We cannot believe how time has flown! The students are hanging out on Th Khao San street that has some good street food and markets. It is also known as "The Backpacker's Street."

This morning we visited Thailand's school for the Deaf in Bangkok (Setisain School for the Deaf). We were impressed with this school. Unfortunately, they were closed for the summer. It is considered Thailand's summer right now.

We ate Chinese food for lunch and visited the National Association for the Deaf of Thailand. The Secretary of NADT explained Deaf history and Deaf rights. For example, we learned that they just finally established a Video Relay Service. However, there are only public call centers- and the entire community has to share 20 to 30 phone booths set up around the country. We realized how lucky we are to have individual VPs.

We met more Deaf Thai people for dinner in China Town. We had a good time eating there. We came back to the hotel and got ready to fly back home.

We rode a motorcycle taxi for 200 meters (about 1/8 mile) on the way to the Deaf school.

Arriving at the school for the Deaf.

They explained to us about their programs. We saw their vocational program that included a cooking school and bakery. They actually sell their baked goods. Yum!

Thailand's TTY (Remember those?)

Tyrel communicating with Aun (our guide) about pictures that depict Thailand's royal family.

The garden that is used to feed students at the Deaf school. They even had a mango tree (in the back) and they shared mangos with us.

The front of the administrative offices.

(The Deaf school's version of Delgado Hall)

The National Association of the Deaf in Thailand. The person on the left is the Secretary. The person on the right was born in Jamaica. She lived in the USA for a while and then moved to Thailand. She graduated from Lexington School for the Deaf in New York! She was our ASL interpreter.

Learning about Deaf History and Politics in Thailand.

 

Eating dinner in China Town. The food was good.

Walking around and being silly in China Town (In Thailand!)

April 17: Bangkok & Ratchiburi

Hello~

We got up this morning around 5 am and our Deaf guide and driver at 6 am. All of us went to a town named Ratchiburi and went to the floating market for a couple of hours then saw a monkey show. We stopped for lunch in Ratchiburi and ate some fried shelled worms.

We went to a shore near Ratchiburi, rode on a boat and fed some watermelons to long tailed macaques (monkeys) We stopped by Siam Cultural Park and learned about the culture of Thailand. We also learned about important Thai people in history.

We just got back to our hotel around 6:30 pm and we are exhausted from such a long day! Some of us are swimming in the pool and we will have a light dinner that we will find somewhere on the street near our hotel.

Good Night,
NMSDers in Thailand

P.s. Please note, we added some more pictures to the April 16th transportation blog.

 

On the way to the floating market.

What a wonderful market!

Grace (Tim's mom), Tim bought a pet at the market and is bringing it home! :)

Taking in the sights!

The monkey show.

Chilling...

Isn't Thai writing beautiful?

Fried worms! Yum! Must have tasted like chicken! (According to sponsor Pat, tasted like clams)

(Literary suggestion: "How to Eat Fried Worms" by Thomas Rockwell seems to apply here)

Enjoying Thai cuisine. Kendrick's a bit flipped over the fried worms.

More local cuisine.

"Faster! In that direction! The kids are getting away!"

Feeding watermelons to local citizenry.

Another form of local transportation.

We love you too!

We are becoming museum exhibits ourselves!

Learning more and more!

 

 

 

Hadassah: We went to the floating market. After that, we had lunch and some of us had fried worms. Now we are going to feed watermelons to monkeys. It’s quite muddy here!

 

 

Tyrel: We did many different things today. My favorite was the floating market because we could go through many different shops and see many things and shop. We could see how they did their business and the weather was pretty cool also.

 

April 16: Bangkok and Transportation

Hello~

We find that our Internet access in Bangkok is really bad. What saved us? McDonalds' Wifi!!!

We arrived in Bangkok from Chiang Mai safely and checked back into the Rikka Inn. We met Aun (our tour guide) and Jay (tour coordinator) for a short lunch and then rode on tuk tuks to Wat Phone Temple.

There was a really big Buddha statue lying in the temple. We took a  boat taxi to one of the "MBK" malls in Bangkok and shopped for a few hours. We met some deaf Thai people at the food court. We took a subway from there and then hopped on a bus to our hotel.

We used so many different forms of transportation today: The Taxi truck from our hotel in Chaing Mai to the airport, the plane to fly to Bangkok, the airport express train, then a taxi car to the hotel, then a tuk tuk, then a boat taxi and then we road a train again and finally a bus.

How many different forms of transportation did we use today?
Taxi Truck
Airplane
Train
Taxi Car
Tuk Tuk
Boat Taxi
Bus

Are you all impressed with us? :)  Seven different modes of transportation in one day! We impressed ourselves! Don't forget, we did a lot of walking too. We are always on the move.

Enjoy our pictures.

The big Buddha!

 



We found home!

Do you think Kendrick knows his ears are a bit more to the south of his head? 

 

TRANSPORTATION DAY!

 

 

At the airport

Riding a bus

Riding a taxi truck

Riding a Tuk Tuk

Riding a Tuk Tuk

 

 

Riding a Tuk Tuk

  Riding a water taxi boat (The cool kids are in the back!)

 

Riding the subway (Photo taken on a previous day)

Riding around in Thailand is cool!

Taxi! (Wonder if you whistle to procure one?!)