Karaoke and japanese game show showers

Hey everyone! Thailand just keeps getting better and better! I am in love with Ban Phe! I am trying to put pictures up but the internet here is pretty shotty so I will have to wait until we go into town again. The last couple of days have been great. During the day we are in class at the temple. The monks are really cool, and most speak English very well. They have taught me a few Thai phrases and I can say 13 words in Thai now! The classes we take at the school are pretty interesting. We have a teacher from Nepal who teaches grammar, and a teacher from the UK who teaches phonology. The hard part is that it is about 90 degrees in the classroom with humidity you wouldn’t believe! They don’t have AC at the temple and most of the fans don‘t work so we sweat a lot.
The temple is gorgeous and on breaks I go explore. There is a nice kitty that we have affectionately named “Mr. Kittles”. There are also 10 puppies that are about 2 weeks old. We play with them all the time. My favorite is one we named “chubbs”. He’s a fatty of course.
When we come back from the temple in the afternoon, we usually swim in the ocean until the sun goes down. The sunsets here are completely amazing. The whole sky turns red and pink and orange. I think they rival Asilomar beach in Monterey which is saying a lot! I have taken some amazing pictures that really don’t even come close to showing the beauty.
The other night, a group of us went down to the beach where they have karaoke (yes every night there is karaoke on the beach). The Thai people LOVE karaoke…it is insane. Their favorite song must be Eric Clapton’s “you look wonderful tonight” because I have heard it sung about a million times in a bad Asian accent. We decided to show them how to sing American songs…and I ended up singing “funky town” with one of the guys in the program. By the time each of us had sang we had cleared all the Thai people off the beach…it was hilarious.
The other night we took a trip into Rayong, which is the largest city near us. They had a HUGE night market, which was filled with crazy stuff. We wandered around for hours just looking at everything.
Tonight I did laundry for the first time. Everything here is hand washed…they don’t have washers or dryers. I did it in the tub, and bought a clothesline. We will see how it turns out.
The shower by the way has an electric heater which heats the water for approximately 3 minutes. There‘s a hose like thing that you have to hold, but it only stretches up to about 5 feet, so to wash my hair I have to duck down. OH and there is no shower curtain so you also have to try and not get the water everywhere. Taking a shower is pretty ridiculous, I almost feel like I am on some Japanese game show every time I attempt to get clean.
There have been lightning storms the past 2 nights, but no monsoons yet thank goodness!
Tomorrow we are going to walk down to the national park at the end of the road and explore. Apparently there are monkeys that live in the trees there…should be fun! Then, we are going to Ko Samet Island this weekend, which I am so excited for!
I will try to update soon, and post pictures next time I am in town and the internet works. Love you all!!