**pictures that are wide instead of tall are not showing correctly. to see the full picture, click on it!**

As a warning, this posting is very discombobulated. If I fully organized all events and thoughts, and tried to make quality writing out of it, you would be waiting until 2010 to hear from me. So much happened in 10 days- I can hardly keep it straight myself let alone write it all down!!

This was all written while I was in Thailand, with only some minor changes for the sake of coherence! After sharing what I wrote in the moment I will tell some other stories that I have not yet written :)

Day 1 - Phuket (pronounced boo-GET)

I can't believe I'm in Thailand at all. The whole time I was in the taxi to phuket town, I just kept saying to myself "WOW I'm in Thailand!" Being here does and doesn't remind me of Vietnam. IT reminds me more of Malaysia I'd say, with the same tropical feel as Singapore but without the organization. While Vietnam was a fishing place from what I saw, Phuket is a beach party place, where the main streets cater to tourists (we really went for hours tonight seeing only farangs [westerners], besides the people selling things to the farangs), and where taxi drivers drive unlabeled sketchy cars and try to overcharge.

A few things struck me today. For one, I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets ever on Karon beach. I floated in the salt water, with the setting sun warming me on one side, and the moon overlooking me on my other side. I could hear nothing but the sounds of the waves around me and the sound of my own breath. It was so surreal and beautiful that I couldnt believe I was actually experiencing it. Such an expanse of beautiful sky and water.

I faced a moral dilemna as I and my friends haggled for prices at the market and for a taxi. We literally walked around for 30 minutes fighting with taxi drivers to bring down the fixed price of a taxi from 500 baht to 400 baht. Granted, they were majorly overcharging tourists, whose only option for getting home from the beach at night is a taxi, but 100 baht divided between the 3 of us- that's less than $1 USD each. We ended up getting our ride for 400 baht but I had to question myself. I am so lucky that I don't have to worry too much about where I will get my next dollar. These people do, and yet we still had to haggle for the "local price". It just made me really sad when I said thank you to our taxi driver in Thai (kab-kum-kah!), and he gave me a huge genuine smile, after we didn't even trust him to give us correct change for a 500 baht note.

Writing this makes me realize how simple my life is. I feel so lucky that I can go on a holiday and swim on a beach and play with waves without worrying about anything. My phone has been turned off all day and I know that I am free from obligations- there is nobody that needs to reach me right now. I feel almost guilty that I can take a trip like this, so I need to enjoy it as much as I can while I still live a relatively obligation-free life. And as I said before, today has reinforced how lucky I feel that I don't have to worry where my next dollar is coming from. In one hour of teaching I make the same amount that some people here make in one week. It's something to think about..

Sunsets and beaches in Phuket:


My Phuket travel buddies

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Day 6- Second day in Bangkok
Last night I literally passed out- at 10:15 pm on my rock-hard bed, with my duffel bag, travel guide, maps, phone....everything! scattered around me. Still in the clothes I had been wearing all day, with the lights shining brightly on my face. I did not wake up again until 2:30 AM, at which point I confusedly knocked everything off my bed, turned off my lights, and fell fast asleep again till 8:30 AM. It's about time I got sleep like that!
When I woke up today I changed guesthouses. The one around the corner where I am now is much more nice and cozy, but now I'm finding that the main light bulb is burned out so it's dark, and there are no outlets. However, there IS hot water! I took a luxurious shower with the first combination of clean shower AND hot water that I've had so far, and took bus 44 to meet Ice at Wat Phra Kaew, the grand palace. (Ice is my good friend from school in Singapore. His full name is Kittiphan, but most Thai people go by nicknames since their full names are so long). After wandering around Bangkok by myself for 24 hours, it was so nice to see a familiar face. Ice and I went to the palace, and regal doesn't even begin to describe it.





After peeking inside each section and marveling at all the gold and beauty, Ice and I went to cross the river by ferry. We visited another wat on that side of the river, and then Ice bought some very cheap bread for 10 baht. After tricking me into eating it by calling it "special delicious thai bread" (!!), I realized that this stale bread was specifically for feeding the pigeons and huge koi fish at the pier. As I fed fish and birds by an ancient temple, with Buddhist monks, friendly dogs, and locals milling about around me, I felt so relaxed. It reminded me of the scene from Marry Poppins where she was feeding the birds. Later I had a vegetarian version of Papaya salad with Ice for lunch. It was so spicy that there were tears running down my face from eating it!





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I don't know if I will ever get used to carrying around my own tissues as a replacement for toilet paper. It's just something I never had to worry about before.
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To continue, Ice and I traveled to Siam Square in the afternoon and looked around there. It's very similar to Singapores' Orchard Road, but much less crowded, better prices, and a more unique variety of shops. Their Christmas decorations were much better than Singapores' and I love that they had one xmas tree constructed of recycled CDs and one of recycled coke cans.

[ I never did finish telling the story of that day! But here are some pictures!]
This is me with, from left to right: Su, Pom, and Mika. Pom is my friend from school's brother. Mika is his girlfriend, and Su is Mika's best friend. They were all so incredibly kind to me, took me for all kinds of food and showed me different places in Bangkok, and I am so grateful to them!

This is how they make milk tea- tossing it from cup to cup adds lots of bubbles!

A christmas tree from recycled CDs

Day 7- Third day in Bangkok
This trip is starting to make me really tired...!
I didn't sleep as well last night for whatever reason- maybe I was less exhausted? But today I feel kind of drained and I am getting a sore throat. Maybe I caught it from Su or Ice. I'm still so full from all of yesterday's food!


Day 8- fourth day in Bangkok
At the end of an eventful day, in which I made my way all over Bangkok completely alone, I have to wonder, why do I feel so safe? Everything went without a hitch today, besides some irritating taxi/tuktuk/motorbike drivers whose creepy voices will give me shivers for a long time. But even they were harmless.

After having a vegetarian late breakfast (I luxuriously slept in my big bed til 10- maybe the massage helped, or I was just that tired. As a sidenote, it's funny what the word "luxurious" means to me at this point. Basically, it means: comfortable and bug free!).

So I had my breakfast and took the bus to the historic area of Bangkok, from where I thought it should be easy enough to find the river and follow it to Chinatown- the way my complimentary yet sparse Bangkok map told me I would. Turns out I REALLY had no clue how to get around. And I could only look at my map for fragmented private moments, because as soon as I started looking at my map, I got harassed by every driver on the block, all of them trying to sell me a taxi ride! So, instead I had to walk confidently and look like I knew EXACTLY where I was going. Ironically, confidently walking in one direction took me a good kilometer out of my way. Finally, I saw a music store and talked to a friendly lady inside who spoke with perfect English,. She saved me by directing me towards the river. So I ran into bus 1, which Ice told me I could take to chinatown. I hopped on (literally- the bus doesn't really stop moving), and the lady in charge on the bus was so kind. She tapped me the second there was a free seat and made me sit down (even though I stand on the buses in Singapore allll the time), told me when to get off for Chinatown, and didn't even charge me for the 30 minute bus ride! The differences between public and private transportation here are amazing.

So, Su had eloquently told me that every Chinatown is the same. This Chinatown was a little more crowded than Chinatowns I'm used to, with less English and less tofu. But, it was still Chinatown for sure. I visited 2 beautiful wats and a hospital that mixes modern and traditional Chinese medicine. I finally built up the courage to smile and nod my head to a monk. I was always (always being...the past few days) nervous to look at them in case I accidentally did something wrong or offensive. Then I walked along the streets, took in the sights, and was very careful not to trip on people who were sitting on the ground selling merchandise laid out on the sidewalk.

I wandered onto a soi that was selling lots of shoes. I turned 1 or 2 corners and all of a sudden I was hit by the most insane outdoor market area I've ever seen! There were tons of shops on each side of a narrow path selling extremely cheap-looking things for extremely cheap prices. Often sellers had food carts set up in front of the other stalls, making the path seem more like an obstacle course. Motorbikes barged through as well as people carting huge boxes of merchandise, so the crowds were squeezed even more to the sides. The crowd consisted of school children, moms with their kids, the local chinese population- And ME! It was too crowded to actually shop, in my opinion, so I just went with the flow of the crowd and looked around.
While walking, an extremely nice lady at a food cart grunted until she had my attention, took my empty plastic drink cup that I was still holding, and threw it in her little trashcan for me. Little gestures like that just made me love the Thai people. I can't imagine any other place where people are so helpful that they want to give you free bus rides and even throw out your trash for you!





I then found Choa Phraya express and took a lovely ferry boat ride to the center of the city, where I could take the sky train to wherever I pleased. I called Su, who was luckily free to hang out, and we went to an area of Bangkok called Nana to have Indian dinner. I had such a great time with Su. She is the perfect person for me to eat with, because she is also vegetarian, likes healthy food, and since she is a pharmacist she knows all the properties of food and what is and is not healthy! We had a long and comfortable dinner- Su was starving because she had not eaten lunch, and I was pretty hungry from my long walk around Chinatown, so we ate a ton of food and relaxed together!



That evening, I roamed around more of the city, and took a long walk in the beautiful Lumphini park. There was a running path along a huge pond (or what the guide I just gave a link for called an artificial lake), and many people of all ages were running after sunset. So for a few hours I walked around, watched families and friends and school children as they went about the park, looked at various monuments and buildings, and even ran into a mother dog and her litter of puppies!


I listened to a free concert for a while, and found the bus I need to take to get back home, and made it back here with no problem.

Now I am back on Khao San Road by my guesthouse, enjoying a green tea latte and writing about my day in a 24-hour coffee shop!


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Well that was all that I actually wrote while on the trip! But I have to at least describe the other places that I visited!

Krabi a province in Southern Thailand, about 2.5 hours away from Phuket, that is supposed to be home to Thailand's most gorgeous beaches and islands. So, of course I could not pass up the opportunity to see that! I won't say that I was disappointed with Krabi, because it certainly did live up to its reputation of being beautiful. However, I have to say, it was only a little more beautiful than the beaches of Phuket, and a lot more difficult to get to!! Everything in the area was extremely touristy and expensive, but the sights made it worth it!

My personal favorite picture from my trip:





Nakon Si Thammarat
After four days of what felt like a spring break party among the beaches, my next destination was well off of the tourist path. My friend Lara, whom I have known since I was four, is teaching English with her boyfriend Will in this city for a year. Both of them went to my highschool and we graduated together, so I had to visit them!! Nakhon si Thammarat was a nice change. Instead of locals trying to use me for all the money I might have in my pocket, these locals followed us around the street calling us beautiful in English or Thai. I don't know if I was more interested in them, or if they were more interested in us! Any time I smiled or waved at one of the people in the city, they were thrilled! It was like being an instant celebrity, which is a very funny feeling. However, it was nice to feel a mutual fascination with each other.

Shadow puppets is a very important and historic art in Nakhon Si Thammarat

Weekend market

Lara, Will and I!

Oh, and another highlight of Nakhon- I had my first ride on a motorbike!! It's the only way of getting around!

And one last picture- This was me with Mika's family and friends on my last night in Bangkok. Mika and her sister and her sister's husband all play vital roles in a string ensemble, whose performance was that night. After their concert, we celebrated until 3:30 am!

This trip was extremely rich for me in so many ways. It forced me to grow up a lot, as I had to handle so many logistics and decisions completely on my own. Once again I got a painful awareness for all the wealth and opportunities that I do have, and that others unfortunately do not (as a side note, I was very happy to see that Bangkok has such a large middle class- it is not only extremely rich people and extremely poor as I had feared) .
Overall, this trip gave me a deep appreciation for human kindness- its definitely NOT the case that everyone I met during my ten days was an angel. Some people were unfriendly, and many wanted to take advantage of the Western traveler in any way possible. However, my friends that took me under their wing, random strangers who gave me small but vital help, the 3 sisters who ran a guesthouse and spent a good part of their night telling me about Thailand, the children who let me take their pictures, the many people who clasped their hands in prayer every time the bus or train passed by a temple (which, in Thailand is ALL the time). These are only a few examples of the beauty I saw, and the spirited energy of Thailand will stay in my mind for a long time.

Oh, and for those of you who were wondering- no, I did not see a single protester in Bangkok! :)

Happy New Year everyone!!

This Semester

Hi everyone,
I'm sorry that the blog postings are nowhere near as frequent as I had hoped. It is so hard for me to convey the contrast of my routine day-to-day normalcy with the random adventures or new sensations that pop out of nowhere. I guess what I mean by that is that every time I think I have something figured out, or get a little more comfortable in Asia, something completely new will jump out at me to remind me that I still have so much to learn. Every time I start to write, I end up stuck for several minutes trying to think of the right words to help share my experiences.

The other day I was walking around Clarke Quay, a kind of pseudo Disneyland in Singapore, waiting for my friends to meet up with me. I passed by the same bridge where I met so many people on the night of July 30th (which I described from my post on August 2). And looking at that same spot that I stood as a newcomer in Singapore, I said to myself, "Am I a different person now?"

The reassuring answer is that no, I am not a different person. I am still the same Leah with more variety of experiences to soak in. For example, last week I spent 30 minutes at Borders reading a book about Islam- don't worry, not because I'm thinking of converting :-p, but because I see so many Muslim people and deal with them on a weekly basis, but know so little about such a fundamental part of their life. It wasn't until I put the book down that I realized how odd I would have found it, even six months ago, to go to a bookstore to read about Islam.

However, I am so grateful that I have the opportunity to meet so many people from all over the world that give me cause to read about things I never needed to learn about in the past. Before I came here, I had never met a single person from Malaysia! Now I know several of them, and they are so "Westernized" in some respects that I constantly forget that most of them have never been to the US. I have a huge amount of respect though for my Malaysian friends- they all speak English, Malay, Chinese and Hokkien (a Chinese dialect). They are so hardworking and yet they still like to enjoy life.
At the beginning of this semester, I never would have predicted that I would feel comfortable hanging out as the only Caucasian in a Thai night club. My Thai friends are some of the funniest people I know. They can joke around for an hour straight, but they are still very sensitive people with generous hearts.
I go to sing karaoke with my Chinese classmates who, although they are so quiet in school, let loose and go crazy once they hear some pop music from their home! I watch my Persian friend's eyes light up as she talks about the beautiful nature, architecture and people of Iran. I chat with the children in my neighborhood who get so excited about the small (third-hand? forth-hand?) scooter they were given by their parents. I talk to people from Israel and learn about how difficult it is for them to travel to so many countries around the world because of their Israeli passport. I talk to Chinese and Indian friends who have the same problem.

So I talk to all these people, and learn from them, and what surprises me the most is that, even with all my ignorance, they think that I am the interesting one, because it seems to be every Asian's dream to go to the United States. But what makes me even happier is that we do not have to talk too much about where we are from; people are people, and instead we talk about music, other subjects, our life goals, or just have fun together.

Many people call Singapore "Asia for Beginners", I am a bit frustrated that there really arent' that many adventures to have Singapore, (and even if they were, school and teaching keep me so busy that i would not have time). However, the people who are here constantly keep me on my toes, and I love it.

My day-to-day life is nothing like the dreams I had of studying in a far away exotic place. Days clump together in routine, and things tend to get boring sometimes. My goal this semester has been to fix my technique- a daunting task anywhere, but especially when surrounded by Chinese violinists who can play Paganini caprices perfectly without even warming up. From the help of my teacher, lots of hard work, and some really amazingly patient classmates, my fingers have developed much more confidence! I ended my semester by performing Beethoven Sonata No. 1 for my studio class, and for the first time ever I did not doubt where my fingers were supposed to go, and for that reason I was much less nervous than I had been performing in the past. Because I was not worried about my technique I was able to focus on the music, which is the ultimate point of performing. I still have a long way to go, but I am excited to see where new revelations will lead me. Next semester I am preparing for my solo graduate recital and I also decided to audition for the sublist of Singapore Symphony Orchestra- even if I don't get accepted, the auditioning experience will be good!

Anyway, here are some highlights of my semester:

The Singapore Sun Festival: For 2 weeks in October, 7 Peabody students and 6 students from Guildhall school in London came to collaborate with the Yong Siew Toh Orchestra for the opening of the Singapore Sun Festival . Our orchestra played Peter and the Wolf with actor Geoffrey Rush, and accompanied the Vienna Boy's Choir and Kiri te Kanawa! I had an amazingly fun time with my friends from Peabody and YST. It was really my one time to be a tourist during the semester, and we did things like go to the Botanical Gardens, Chinatown, and even had a crazy night of karaoke!
Our orchestra rehearsing Peter and the Wolf with Geoffrey Rush. See me? :)

Girls in my studio before the Sun Festival Concert- from left to right, Zhao Yi, Chiaoyin, Qi Hong, Szuyun, and me. We all study with the same teacher and they've all been wonderful to me! Two of them are Taiwanese and 2 of them are Chinese.

Swans at the Botanic Gardens
Karaoke night!

Also, the Boston Brass came to our music school for a week long workshop. I know very little about brass, but I didn't need to know anything about the instruments in order to soak in their incredible musicianship and listen to them talk about making music, having musical careers, and professionalism. I learned so much from them, and was lucky enough to go out with them and some brass players to a hawker center (outdoor foodcourt) for a dinner after their brass concert at the school! And a feast it was- I think about 15 of us racked up a $500 bill, but it was so much fun!
Boston Brass at our school

Thanksgiving was a holiday that I was dreading. I thought I would be depressed, since in Singapore, Thanksgiving is just another Thursday. Luckily, I have a wonderful network of American friends here that refused to let Thanksgiving slip away! At our friend Rosie's place we prepared a full meal, complete with a 12-pound turkey and pumpkin pie! It was a warm and fuzzy night where we all realized how lucky we were to start off in a new place and make such great friends so quickly.
All of us around the table for Thansgiving
So much food!!


When I am not at school being a student, I am hopping onto trains all over Singapore to teach. I have 12 students now, ranging from age 4 to adult. I'm learning just as much if not more from being a teacher as I am from being a student, and it's a really special experience for me. I get so excited watching their progress- figuring out what suggestions click in their head and how to work with each student to get them to accomplish different things. Oh, and as an added plus I get to hear the song "Lightly Row" about 5 times per week :-p. One of my students- a 7 year old Malay girl- was so excited at her last lesson to play her songs with piano accompaniment, that she asked if we could schedule another lesson on her public holiday!

So hopefully this is enough to give you all a picture of my life here. I promise the updates will become shorter and more often- there is so much more I want to say right now , but I am leaving on a trip for THAILAND tomorrow morning, and I still need to finish packing!! Look for another posting around Christmas time. I hope everyone has very happy holidays! Say hi to the snow for me!

~Leah