Apartment and school

I had to look at only one condominium complex to find my new apartment. A bunch of exchange students also live in the same place. I live in a two bedroom apartment that overlooks Bangkok. What sold me were the amenities– pool, gym, steam and sauna, and a restaurant that will deliver to your room. There are even aerobics classes that I've done a few times. Where I live is considered very expensive for Thai standards, but cheap for us foreigners.

The building is on one side of the river while the university is on the other. There are a few ways that I can get to school: taxi, motorcycle taxi, ferry, or by walking. I like taking the taxi if I'm with another person so we could split the fare (even though the fare is so cheap anyway, only about 40 Baht, or a little over a dollar).

Thammasat University isn't as big as I thought it was going to be, but I think that is a good thing. Going from class to class is easy and fast. Although most of my classes are back to back, I'll still go to the cafeteria to eat. Similar to Berkeley time (classes start 10 past the hour), there is Thai time. Generally, Thais aren't punctual and so even the professors won't start the class until 20 after. Hence the eating between classes. Because of a stupid UC requirement, I have to take at least 5 classes, more classes than I've ever taken since being in college. The classes aren't going to be that difficult but will require effort and time (for school, not my strong suits). The professors at Thammasat vary greatly in the way they teach. For two of my classes, the professors have just read out loud off the handout. After one day in these classes, I've made the decision to not go to these classes at all except for midterms or when papers are due. My other teachers are good in that they get the class to be more interactive, especially my Thai Language class. I'm surprisingly learning quite a bit of Thai already. It will definitely come in handy when I order food or ask for directions. I'm getting more and more comfortable speaking it, and after I've had a few drinks is when I really want to speak it.

Arrival

Everyone I know who's studying abroad writes on a blog, so I guess I'll give it a try.

I left out of LAX on the first of January and arrived in Bangkok on the third. The first flight was 14 hours long, so I watched four movies. The layover in Taipei was two hours so I walked around at the airport, noticing the "no drugs or you'll get capital punishment or life imprisonment" signs. Upon arriving in Bangkok, there was supposed to be someone there to pick me up, but I couldn't find him. It was early in the morning, like 3 am, and I was really tired so I just looked for a taxi instead. For a 35 minute drive (Bangkok is so big, I don't even know how long it would take to drive across it), I saw close to 30 7-Elevens on the way. You can pretty much see at least two at a time. Anyway, at the end of the taxi drive, the driver turned down a dark narrow ally. (At orientation, they warned students to make sure that the taxis they got into are legit with some kind of decal. I was too tired to even know what was going on though.) So while we were driving down the ally, I knew I was going to get robbed and lose all my luggage. I was just thinking to myself, "Damn, I'm screwed. Now what? What can I do? Can I bargain with the guy to allow me to keep my passport and a little bit of cash?" But as it turns out, he didn't jump me or steal anything of mine, except maybe that he ripped me off on the cab fare. I was very happy.

So I checked into the guest house, where I stayed three nights. (I needed to stay at a hotel while I was looking for an apartment. Finding housing is real easy though, nothing like Berkeley.) I stayed in a room with another EAP student so the cost of the hotel was only 500 Baht per night. I think the exchange rate is close to 33 Baht per dollar. So it comes out to about $15 a night. This hotel was pretty nice, so I'm sure there are other places that are cheaper.

I found an apartment, but I'll talk about that later.