Day 1: Orientation, Mall, and Waterfall

So today was my first full day in Chiang Mai- eep! Woke up at 8 a.m. (ugh) and had to get ready for my orientation of campus. I don't have many pics of my campus (yet) because I was so busy taking notes and trying to keep up with where I was that I didn't really have time to take many pics other than:

agriculture and sciences building

school entrance

lake on campus

note the attractive asian fro

After touring the campus via taxis, we had to go uniform shopping for school. The whole experience was easy for me as the second I walked in, an old lady gave me the staredown then handed me a skirt and shirt and pushed me into a dressing room- surprisingly, everything fit perfectly! The uniform itself is only a black skirt and a white shirt, and we all found what we needed relatively quickly. Other than that, I met my future husband just outside the uniform shop.


From the uniform shops, we were taken to the mall! It was easily one of the biggest malls I've ever been in- it was five stories tall! It also had a full on supermarket on the bottom floor and tons of american restaurants. I feel like I probably shouldn't be surprised by the fact that there was an Auntie Annie's, a Dunkin' Donuts, a Pizza Hut (they served pizzas with a hotdog crust- how odd), and a KFC all in this mall, I mean, there was a KFC/Pizza Hut combo across from the Pyramids, after all. It'll make it easy if I ever get homesick, it was just kinda weird.

Pad Thai Kaew

Anyways, we went to the mall with all of our Thai Buddies, and I let my friend Mu, or Muscles (as he prefers to be called) order my meal for me. He decided on a hotpot pad kaew dish, which had bean sprouts, rice noodles, veggies, and tofu- it was DELICIOUS! Also, one thing that I LOVE about the people I'm here with is that we are completely comfortable sharing food with each other. This means that not only did I get to have my delicious food, but I got to share it with others and try sticky mango rice, a spicy chicken dish, and lychee in return. Also, I had my meal with an apple-milk smoothie and it was absolutely fantastic!

We spent about three hours looking around the mall and found a pretty fountain and a buddhist icon(?) in a garden that they had there!

After the mall, we had the whole afternoon free! I'm really glad I'm with the group that I have because everyone is just as excited to get out and go see things as I am. Now, those of you at home know that I'm not the most outdoorsy person in the world, but when a few people suggested that we spend an afternoon at the waterfall, I was excited to go! It ended up being 16 of the 30ish students that went, so we ran to 7-11 (there are a TON of them here) to get giant water bottles, then found a taxi that would take all 16 of us at once. Yep. I said all 16 students in one taxi. 

Emma being precious on the floor

You can see Rylan and Hong hanging on the back!

Once we arrived at the waterfall, we began the hike upwards!

hangin at the top!

After the waterfall, we headed back to the hostel and took a two-hour shower and nap break before rallying and going to find dinner. Katie, KG, Summer, Chanelle, Lauren, Emma, and I set out together, and decided to explore the area a little and find food. After about 30 minutes of wandering, we found a mod-looking thai restaurant and decided to go eat there. 

Gyoza- yum!

Veggie rice noodle dish Summer shared with me! (Thanks Summer!)

Katie, me, Chanelle

Summer, KG, Emma

The band that played AWESOME american cover songs

Dinner was a very long affair and it took two and a half hours to get everything together and the bill. After dinner I was exhausted and I headed to bed! Looking forward to the city and temples tour tomorrow!!

Love, 

Haley

Traveling Part Two: Arrival

There's something deliciously jarring about arriving to a place completely foreign. For me,  It's the best feeling in the world, knowing that this whole new cultural universe is open and ready to be explored. There are little peeks of it on the flight over- the exit sign and how the pilot would always speak in Korean first, which meant that the first 15 seconds of any plane announcement was an internal dialogue of "What the hell is he even- OH! That's definitely Korean, duh." But after FINALLY arriving in Thailand, after more than 24 hours of plane flights, it was incredible to land and be swamped with the realization that I'm no longer in the Carolinas.

We grouped up outside of our gate and walked to customs (which honestly, looked like the customs place in the Bahamas, which is to say, it looked kind of hilariously lax). And we all made it through just fine (no surprise there). And when we got to arrivals, there was a group of about 20 thai students going "USAC?! USAC?! THAILAND!" Our greeting party was the director of the program and all of our new "Thai Buddies", or students who are studying English and spending the summer hanging out with us for class credit. But all of our new buds were incredibly sweet and very eager to show us around.

From the airport, we took open air taxis over to our hostel. Now, taxis in Thailand are basically small busses that don't have a back door or window, and after my initial hesitation about riding next to an open door (don't freak out, Ma) I was so excited to see everything that I spent the entire ride over with my head out the window.

We got paired up and settled into our rooms and it was harder to say if I was more excited to shower, sleep, or brush my teeth. Either way, I crashed and the sleep was glorious. Tomorrow I'm going on my campus orientation- can't wait!

I took pictures of my side of the dorm room... I would've shown the bathroom too but my roommate was mid-shower. Tomorrow I'm going on my campus orientation- can't wait!

Thrilled,
Haley

Traveling Part One: Planes

Woke up to one of fifty different alarms I'd set then I rolled out of bed and freaked out- all of the nerves, excitement and everything else hit me all at once! After a call with Leah I started getting my stuff together (literally and emotionally) and repacked a bit. I made some calls to family and made friends with an elderly French couple (Bernard and Beatrice- so cute!) while waiting for the shuttle to the airport.

LAX was surprisingly empty when I showed up and I immediately ran into three girls from Ohio who were going to Chiang Mai with my program too! They are super sweet and I felt a little better knowing I was going with such fun people. Getting through TSA and finding the right gate was a breeze and we spent a good three hours just hanging out and enjoying our last little bit of America.

Furthermore, OMG I can't believe I was ever worried about flying Korean Air because this is seriously the most amazing plane I've ever been on! First of all, I didn't realize that the plane was TWO STORIES until I was boarding it, but how insane is that?! 

Can you see the two rows of windows?

took a picture of the staircase inside for proof!

In addition to being flippin huge, the plane was actually aesthetically pleasing too- everything was in cream and turquoise and was just really pleasant.

Plane swag: headphones, blanket, pillow, slippers, toothbrush, wet wipes, and a water bottle.

The back of the seats were crazy too! They had a clothes hanging hook, a USB phone charger port, and a remote/game controller that went with the tv thing. The music selection on the tvs was hilariously diverse, playing everything from John Denver to Edith Piaf to Bruno Mars's entire discography. Also, There was a little mall thing at the back, which was kinda weird, but still kinda nice (?)

Selling J'adore by Dior and some Taylor Swift perfume

Of course, I was still on an airplane, which meant I had a lady behind me who kicked my seat for 13 hours, but it's better than screaming kids. I actually had a row of 4-year-old triplets sitting diagonally in front of me, and they were the best behaved kids ever! They didn't make a peep the entire time! 

The food on the airplane definitely tasted like airplane food, but, oddly enough, the only drinks the hostesses had on board were water, tea, orange juice, wine, and beer. And they were very liberal with passing out the wine and beer the first 9ish hours of the flight- they kept walking up and down the aisles asking "Drink more?" and "More wine please?" I guess they just wanted to ease the pain of a 13 hour flight? At about four hours before landing they stopped serving all alcohol, but most everyone who had been drinking was passed out at that point.



Can I also just say that people on planes are hilarious? This 900 year old Korean man got up in the middle of the flight and went through a full Cindi Lauper-style workout routine mid-flight, clad in tight Adidas pants and socks-with-sandals. And the woman across the aisle from me hoarded her orange juice cups and kept on building little towers out of them.


We eventually arrived safely at Incheon International Airport in South Korea and had about one hour to go through customs then run to our gate- we made our plane! (Some kids on my trip didn't yikes!) Then I slept the entire way to Chiang Mai. When we finally got there, there were about 20 people from the USAC program waiting there to welcome us (we'd eventually met up and grown to a size of 12 who took the group flight). We took open-air taxis to the hostel then doled out room assignments, etc. 

I'm headed to bed- we have orientation at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning! 

Tired but incredibly happy,
Haley

And we're off!

Nobody has every accused me of being a particularly good at packing efficiently. If anything, my packing style is "Mentally Plan For Weeks But Actually Save It For The Night Before" which is why until midnight last night, this was as far as I'd gotten:

Oops.

Packing is exciting, but ridiculously stressful because how in the world am I supposed to condense my entire closet into one suitcase? Of course, there's other things to consider too, like: how do I split my clothes/toiletries between my carry-on and checked baggage? What clothing is appropriate to wear by eastern standards? How many matching pairs of socks do I actually own? And then, of course, there's the question of do I bring my teddybear that I've always brought to everywhere I've ever traveled ever? The answer to that one is a hesitant "no" because of lack of space, but the metaphoric resonance of choosing not to bring an icon of my childhood hasn't been lost on me. (If anything, I feel oddly guilty for it)

Anyways, I burned the midnight candle so when I rolled out of Myrtle Beach this morning, I only had a backpack, carry-on, and one actual suitcase. (I can't explain it, but I'm terrified that Korean Air is going to lose my baggage, so a lot of my clothes are actually in my backpack)

This morning I hung out with Nat before she had to go to school then did the last minute Frantic Rummage Through My Room to make sure I didn't forget anything (UPDATE: forgot shower shoes). Then Ma and La brought me to the airport.

My first flight was a short one to ATL, which meant that the plane only held about 50 people- most of which were the vestiges of bike week, which had just happened in MB. As such, I was stuck sitting between two 300 lb women. And they were sisters. I offered (prayed) that they'd choose to sit next to each other and let me take the aisle seat, but no. They spent all 57 minutes of the flight snipping at each other with me in the middle.

After ATL, I had to do a quick change between terminals and rushed to get to my plane headed to LAX. The flight was AWESOME because we had TVS on the back of all of the seats. This time I sat next to a pair of siblings who both slept the whole way. It was weird though, most everyone on our flight was headed to Israel- I kept getting asked if A) I was Israeli or B) I was headed to Israel too. Of course, going to LAX meant that the whole ride, the only thing I could think of was this.

As I have a 19 hour layover, I'm staying the night in LA. When I finally arrived at LAX, I took a shuttle to my hotel, called the fam, then took a nap. After that, I took a little walk (sorry mom, if you're reading this) and got dinner at In N Out because it's a west coast thing and I've never been before (black bean veggie patty- yum!). But can you really begrudge my walk when it was as awesome as this?!

I'll probably be more photo-based than text-based after I'm somewhere more exotic than airports. I leave (officially) for Thailand tomorrow and I'm not at that crazy freakout OHMIGODI'MGOING stage yet, but I do have baby butterflies (if that makes any sense). I'm not nervous either. Maybe I should be, but I'm pretty chill about it all at the moment. That being said, I'll probably wake up tomorrow morning and run around screaming 'cuz it'll all hit me at once.

Tired but excited,
Haley

t-minus 4 days

Before heading out to travel my reaction is always the same: the few days before I'm totally calm and completely together and it feels like I'll never actually be where I'm going. Then the night before I completely lose it and get so excited I can't sleep. I'm currently in the calm, cool, and collected stage... well, for now.

So, In four days, I will be going here:

And studying here:

And (potentially) seeing things like this:

Hopefully I'll be able to pack, get all of my paperwork together, tell the banks I'm leaving, and figure out how to navigate Korean Air's online check-in in the next four days.

Stressed,

Haley