Birthday, Day trip, Spicy, "Athletic?!?!"

Okay so this is just a little update of the last couple of days so it won't be too long I hope. I'll start with Mike's Birthday. His birthday was on the Thursday 22nd but we didn't celebrate until Saturday 24th because Meow came home from the South on Saturday. We went to my host dad's parents house to celebrate. My host dad's sister and her kids were there, but I never met the kids I only saw them popping in and out of the house. Before we had cake Meow and Mike and I walked around the neighborhood taking photos. Some of the photos I felt really stupid taking with people around, but it was fun and we ended up with some really cool pictures (and some really stupid ones). My host mom bought a cake since they have no oven. They put the candles in and everyone had to count them to make sure there were 13. The lighter wasn't working so we only got one candle lit so we had to use the one candle to light the others. Once the candles were lit they sang their happy birthday song to him (it's in English but it's not the same as ours). He then made his wish and blew out the candles, he didn't get them all out but they don't have the tradition of "How many girlfriends" so I guess it doesn't matter (though he'd have three). After cake, they took some family photos and then we packed up and left, no presents or anything like we do it was really simple. After we left the grandparents we went to a beach with some statues in the water. They tried to tell me what the statues were, the only part that stuck was that the big lady was a sea monster and the little thing on the rocks was her husband who had run away. There were a ton of people on the beach and I realized that they don't wear swim suits to the beach, they go fully dressed into the water (at least around my house, I'm sure beach resorts are different). After the beach we drove home and spent the night doing our own things. I almost forgot, on the way home we drove behind a herd of cows that was being moved so that they could eat, that's something you wouldn't see in America!

Pics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=119863&id=535566988&l=696d334bbb

On Sunday we all took a day trip to the city of Cha-Am which is about 50 minutes from Petchaburi. We left around 12 and headed to an old palace. The palace was on the beach and the whole place was absolutely gorgeous. Meow wore shorts so she had to wear this wrap thing so that she was properly covered (I saw several women taking them off or 'fixing' them so that they weren't serving the purpose anymore), we also had to take off our shoes as custom and we could only go up so many people at a time because it was made of wood so they didn't want to risk having too many people up at once (my whole family went up and we left some couples below). I couldn't take pictures of the inside but I got the outside. It was White and Blue and went right to the beach. The gardens stretch the whole place with lots of fountains and little rest areas. After the palace we went to Hua-Hin which is another city about 5 minutes past Cha-Am. At lunch everyone was staring at, but I'm beginning to get used to it. After lunch we went to this place called PlearnWan which is like this little place with shops, but that's about it. I thought it was funny that on this wall with different movie people they had Prince Caspian and Nicholas Cage, I always find it funny how much America is over here and in the most random places and things. The traffic was crazy and there were police everywhere because the 15th ASEAN summit is being held in Hua-Hin so delegates from all over Asia were arriving.

Day trip Pics: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=120465&id=535566988&l=6004044f53

So now I'm going to go a little out of order but I hope I don't confuse anyone. Tonight for dinner my host mom made some really spicy food. I've been doing well with spicy and am starting to get used to it so my host mom thought it would be okay to try me. I took one bite and was okay, took another and it started to get hot, the third bite and I was a goner! I ate a fairly large portion and then my host mom put more on my plate. I only had one small glass of water with it and my lips only burned for 20 minutes after (my tongue was fine before I left the table) so I would call the dinner experiment a success! I'm proud of myself for making it through the meal, though I did discover that spicy is a very good lipstick :-)

Now for the last topic I have to start from the end of Sunday (like I said a little out of order). Meow decided that she gained a lot of weight over break (I think she's fine but whatever) so she is dieting. She also decided that she is going to exercise now, no big deal except that she is dragging Mike and me into it too. On Sunday we stopped at a sports store on the way home to buy Mike new running shoes. Sunday night they all went running (I was falling asleep at the table so my host mom told me that I should go to bed). Yesterday Meow and Peach went running around the school (lucky for me that I didn't know they were going to so I didn't bring anything). Well today I couldn't escape! On Sunday my host dad decided that he was going to buy two tennis rackets and some balls for us to use. I've wanted to actually learn to play tennis for a while but never did,but this is so not the time to be learning new sports! Today after school we walked my host mom's hospital where there is a tennis court and met up with one of my host mom's friends who was going to teach us the basics. Now everyone should know me well enough to just picture me trying to play tennis, now through in the fact that I don't speak the language and the teachers doesn't speak English! Another thing going against me besides the obvious fact that I am NOT athletic is the fact that I didn't have anything but my uniform to wear because I didn't bring any exercise clothes here so I had to wear my uniform and I got a blister on the heel of my right foot. I had quite the audience and group of helpers by the time we called it quiets. I barely did anything but lose the ball. Meow and I probably spent more than half of our time looking for our balls (the good thing was that we started with 3 balls and left with 7). When the teacher went to play a game for herself Meow thought it would be a good idea for us to try a game! I don't think you could call a 'serve' (a really bad serve to say the least) a game (we did have a couple of occasions when one of us would get lucky and hit it back but nothing major). I am totally not athletic beyond skating, I am truly an Ice Princess and nothing else. As if today wasn't enough humiliation for a while, she wants to go again tomorrow! (I know you are all laughing at me by this point, I was laughing at myself too so don't worry! I told my host mom someone should be filming it.)

Well that's my little update for now. Wish me luck with this new athletic thing, she's talking about lifting weights too, which I don't think will be bad. The only thing good about this whole thing is I'm going to keep in shape for skating when I get home, well as best as I can at least!