For everyone that was holding their breath and checking our blog hourly, I have good news – The river never flooded! We’ve had a streak of hot, sunny days since my last post, so the high waters of the river have flowed south to Bangkok, and Chiang Mai has quickly returned to business as usual.  Just like in hurricane season in Florida, when a Category 4 or Category 5 storm is expected to make landfall and suddenly veers north to churn harmlessly over the open Atlantic Ocean… or just like in the northeast, when a January blizzard with whiteout conditions is predicted, and people wake up the next morning to find a mere 1/4″ dusting of snow on the ground… the residents of Chiang Mai (including Amber and I) have been left laughing at ourselves, squinting in the bright sunshine, and sheepishly holding large cases of bottled water.

And so we have returned back to the normal weekday routine.  Amber is in her final week of the SEE TEFL program.  She taught weather terms to 8th graders on Monday, third conditional sentences in a one-on-one tutoring session on Tuesday, and musical instruments to a group of 35 rowdy 4th graders today.  She puts in hours of effort each day to create a lesson plan that is both entertaining and informative for the students.  Meanwhile, I have spent the recent hot, sunny days sitting by the pool and finishing a book – “Something Wicked This Way Comes” by Ray Bradbury.

For those of you that enjoy the photos on this blog, I’ve included two random photos below, but they both require a bit of explanation.

The photo on the left is a public service billboard advertising Thailand’s “tourist police”.  The tourist police is a special force of bilingual officers that patrol large crowds of foreigners, such as the Sunday Market.  As the billboard shows, they are always happy to lend a hand if a tourist becomes lost and needs pointed in the right direction.  In the right direction to what, the all-you-can-eat buffet??  Does this “tourist” represent what the Thai people think all of us farangs look like? hehe  I especially like the “tourist guy” standing in the background,  staring upwards into space as if Chiang Mai is about to be invaded by UFO’s.

The photo on the right was taken at a cultural event outside of last weekend’s Sunday market.  This woman was standing there posing for pictures, wearing a beautiful ruffled dress and a golden piece of jeweled body armor over her chest, so I just had to take her picture.  It may be hard to see, but she even had golden swirls painted directly onto her shoulders.  Somebody in the crowd mentioned that it was the runner-up in Thailand’s Next Top Model competition (in 2005, the only year so far that Thailand has held a Next Top Model competition).  I can’t prove it, but it’s possible since the runner-up was indeed from Chiang Mai.  Either way, she made for a beautiful photo.

Come to think of it… why couldn’t they have Miss Thai Top Model dress up as a tourist and pose for the tourist police’s billboard?

Tags: flood, teaching