First Day

My first real day in Thailand wasn't actually until yesterday. Our flight got in at 11:45 local time, not including customs and immigration. By the time we had left the airport, it was already 1:00 am. There is another exchange student named Daniel Rosas, who is from California, that flew in with me and is in the same city. We were picked up by the counselor for our rotary club, and her student Oam. We stayed the night at her sister's house, but I didn't get much sleep. Later that day: Oam, Daniel and I took a taxi to the Bangkok Skyrail station. The taxi driving is insane, and it's amazing that nobody dies. The Skyrail runs through Bangkok, and we got off at the stop that was right next to the main shopping center. We started to wander around the first mall, but then we discovered that it was mostly clothes. Clothes shopping didn't sound too appealing, so we walked over to the other mall. This other mall is coincidentally the biggest mall in Asia, square footage wise. Each floor is about the size of any other mall, maybe a bit smaller, but there are 7 floors! The top floor has an entire full size movie theater, Imax included. I knew what I wanted though, so first thing first, I bought myself a phone. After that we ate some Japanese food, that was really, really good. After eating we had a couple hours to kill, so we wandered up to the movie theater. ON THE 7TH FLOOR. The movie tickets were about 4$ for matinee, but 2.50$ after 8:30. Oam said that he hadn't seen the Dark Knight yet, and even though Daniel and I both had, we saw it because it's so amazing. A popcorn and pop combo was around 3$, but we didn't get any. After the movie, we wandered around trying to find a taxi that would take us home, but nobody would. We decided to take the Skytrain again, and as we were going up to it, I saw why nobody would take us. The streets were PACKED. There was traffic backed up for easily a half mile. It was insane. So once we got off the Skytain, we got a taxi back to the house, which still took a bit of searching. We sat in traffic for a grand total of probably 20 minutes on a 40 minute drive. We got back to the house around 7:30, which gave us just enough time to pack, and flag down two taxis to take us to the bus station. I was the lucky one that got to ride alone. Oam was going with us, so he and Daniel were in another cab. I just sat and watched Dodgeball on my ipod, which the cab driver was strangely very interested in. He also seemed to want to buy my hat, but I can't be sure. Seeing as he spoke very very little English (only hello, thank you, and good bye) and I speak very little Thai (about the same as his English) it was kind of awkward. When I got to the bus station I waited with my bags for Oam and Daniel. Once they arrived, we waited for our bus to come. Oam had paid extra to get us VIP seats, which were at the front of the bus with plenty of sleeping room. I finished watching Dodgeball, then watched Transformers. At some time during Transformers it was paused, and all of a sudden I woke up a half hour later. I on and off slept after the two movies were finished. The bus ride was a total of 7 hours. My host family was there to pick me up. They are all really nice, and I'm trying to get settled in. I hope everybody at home is having fun and doing well. I'll try and post another blog next week.
Sa wat dee krab,
Jamie.