2 Canucks in Thailand

Class Trip to Ayutthaya

Each year the Thai Dept organizes a trip to Ayutthaya, the second capital of Siam. We have yet to visit the first, Sukhothai but we will soon enough. The ruins are amazing and it's interesting since the students are our guides.

We travel in style.

Ruins.

Beautiful and so sad that they were ruined.

Our guides.

Floating market. They are feeding fish with baby bottles which was kind of bizzare.

I am not sure that I will ever "get it"

Harrow International Road Race

A race came our way recently and although many were interested at first, they were scared away by the title. The Harrow "International" Road Race Championships. The quotations are added by me but this is how it was interpreted...a little scary to enter a national championship. Well, in reality it was actually Harrow International School who decided to open their school championships up to the public.

Our little team of three. Emma who works at Trail Int Schoo, Darryl our Elementary School Asst Principal and me.

This lady and I ran neck in neck for all 9 km and I don't think either of us realized how much we pushed each other. She beat me fair and square and we had a good laugh afterwards.

So, Emma won the women and I came 3 rd. She made it look easy.

St. Andrews Swim Meet

Another weekend swim meet but this time at St. Andrew's International School in Bangkok so not too bad for travel. It was a smaller meet and we had a lot of first timers so we were three coaches, Matt (head) Jenn (new teacher) and myself.

Two new buddies from the new cohort...Angie and Jenn.

It's great travelling to other schools is that you get to see some pretty neat places. This one was centered around the pool and felt a bit like a country club with balconies all around. I was running the warmup...and had a vague idea what I was doing.

How many kids can you legally fit in a gym?

The corral where we gather the swimmers and organize them into heat, lane etc.

Rising stars

Explaining how the race works to two first timers.

Even the parents have team shirts.

Nap time....

Klong Ride

One of the things that I have made a conscious decision to do is explore the klong even more than we have. It's not really doable after dark but it's always an adventure and you can go on for ever. We had a big gang a couple of weeks ago...the regulars which include two little ones.

The khlong in the early morning. So peaceful.

A bridge to a house. I never get tired of these doors.

The bridges that get you from one side to the other.

Waiting for Paul. Confusion of which mosque we were meeting at.

Found Paul!

Kay: Art teacher, yoga teacher, person extrordinaire.

Little Evelyn on the back of her Dad's bike. Crystal, a new psychologist.

The whole gang

Proof that I was actually there. We think that we have almost made it to our destination which is a green painted 23 km loop around the airport. It was getting too late and too hot...next time.

I have never seen bananas like this.

Closeup.

Trying out a Thai Exercise Class.

I'm pretty sure I already wrote this one but maybe not. To put things in context, we live in the suburbs of Bangkok so with the exception of a couple of western restaurants and grocery stores everything else is run Thai style which is great. The idea of exercise as a recreation has not been around as long as other countries so it's just different. We live near a gym which offers classes and my friend Alis and I went a couple of times....she is still going weekly but I only go once in a while.

We became celebrities one night.

The whole gang. Posing is the key and it's all about air boxing.

Alis, me and the instructor.

Swim Meet in Hong Kong

I coach swimming to 6-12 year olds and at the end of February, I was lucky enough to be asked to go with the team to the South East Asia swimming competition in Hong Kong. We are not a big school and our program is fairly recreative rather than competitive but they swam well.

It was host by non other than the Canadian International School of Hong Kong which was pretty nostalgic for me.

A very Canadian entrance.

On one of their bulletin boards....love it.

Hong Kong is incredibly hilly and I am completely intrigued by it. This is the view of the soccer field at Canadian Int. School.

We actually used a community pool which was beautiful.

Here's our awesome little team.

The Canadian Team jacket. We sat right behind them.

The buildings are more dense than I even imagined.

I am not so familiar with the HK cuisine except that we ate really well and almost always noodles. Stores like this had ever dried type of seafood imaginable.

Victoria Peak is like Montreal's Mount Royal only steeper and I think higher. We took the local bus up and a crazy tram down. Those are our swimmers on the terrace. One of the kids uncles is a tour guide in HK and he offered to take us out and about which was a real thrill for teh kids since we had a full day to spare before heading home.