From the Land of Smiles...

Nong Nooch

Hey Everybody,

I’ve just been trying to keep busy over the last few days (since I don’t have school)…and luckily it hasn’t been quite as hard as I thought it would be. Of course, it is only the first week…and I still have 3 more to go after the end of this week…

On Sunday Kun Mae (my host mother), Na Pik and Nook took me to the Nong Nooch Tropical Gardens in Pattaya. It was beautiful there…and really big….and, of course…really really hot, lol…as always. I took tons of pictures, so I’ll post them after this. There were so many types of beautiful flowers and trees…of course, I would have preferred to see them out in the places where they would naturally grow, but I’m not complaining…it was great. They even had a mini zoo there…there were birds and horses and big cats and all kinds of things…and even elephants! Lots of them actually…I took tons of pictures! I was even going to go for an elephant ride…I was sooo excited…but it was really expensive, and I get to ride elephants on my trip in December, so I decided not to, sadly. We did take a ride on a little bus around the whole place though, and they made a bunch of stops so we could take pictures, which was good. Then Nook and I took one of those boats that you paddle with the things at your feet (you know what I mean) around this little lake, it was pretty. Then it started thundering, so we started to make our way back to the cars. On the way, we were walking through the “zoo” and I saw this guy getting his picture taken with a tiger…so I got it done too…It was really cool…I mean, I was actually touching the tiger and everything…not like that magician thing that came to Niagara where we sat in the cage with a metal plate between the tiger and us (do any of you remember that…we were still in elementary school…)…Unfortunately the tiger wasn’t actually looking in any of the pictures (it was getting annoyed because it was starting to rain)…but I was still really excited, lol…

Oh, and on the way home we drove by this mountain where the entire side has been made completely flat and then the outline of a Buddha image has been lasered into it in gold…It was beautiful, and very impressive. I didn’t take any pictures though because we didn’t get out of the car…It was pouring at this point. I hope we get a chance to go back there again, I’d like to take some pictures of it.

Other than that I haven’t really been doing too much lately…reading (I finished another book), drawing, going to the mall with Nook and her friends…I saw the Transporter 2 the other day. It was good…

My mom emailed me the other day and mentioned that she thought my guitar lessons are going to be really expensive (about $14 per hour Canadian). Do any of you know if that’s considered expensive or not…because I’m considering not doing them if I can get lessons for cheaper, or about the same price or cheaper in Canada…I am on a limited budget here after all…let me know…

If I end up canceling my guitar lessons I think I’m going to do something else instead…I just have to find something else…something that’s cheaper, lol…There is apparently a martial arts place close to my house…that would be pretty cool…Maybe I’ll look into that a bit further…

I hope that everything is going really well back at home! I miss you all sooo much!

-Lauren

posted by Lauren @ 11:52 AM