Arrival into Bangkok

After around 30h of traveling Amber (one of the other Dartmouth students I'm here with) and I finally arrived into Bangkok on January 3rd.

We're staying in apartments in a hotel (Evergreen Place) about a 20-30min walk from Chula University. They leave a few rooms aside for all us foreign exchange students.  There are 11 Engineers, 3 of us from Dartmouth (Amber and I are the only girls, what a shocker) and a ridiculous amount of business school students (around 50 I think), but not all of them are in the Evergreen with us.  

Room is nice and clean and a good size for a 5month stay but the best part of it all.... WE HAVE A GYM and a pool! Gym is small but does the trick and pool, well that's where I'm sitting right now starting up this blog :) 

We had orientation the day after we arrived.  Chulalongkorn University (or Chula for short) is right in the centre of the city but it does have a campus.  There are fountains and fields and the architecture is a mixture of modern and traditional Thai buildings. (pictures below)

Sam, one of the other Dartmouth exchange students, by the pond/lake on campus. 

Statue of the King (still on campus).  Many of the Royal Family members went to Chula and the university itself is name after King Chulalongkorn Rama V

It was during orientation we found out the main 2 week break for their sports week (where all the Universities around Thailand come to compete) was moved a couple weeks earlier therefore was starting at the end of the week.  This meant we only had 1 day of class before a 2 week break.  That day we started planning and decided this would be a good time to go to Vietnam! I will write about Vietnam later on. 

The Thai students have been very welcoming to us, they were there during our orientation, took us out for lunch and showed us where to buy our uniforms... yes we have to wear uniforms... for girls we have 2 options of skirts, i'm wearing a different one in each picture, pleated and long or short and tight... 

We live right near the big shopping mall called MBK which has absolutely EVERYTHING there.  It is huge and busy and I think I've gotten lost every time I've entered (need to go there today this should be interesting..).  Outside MBK once a week they have Thai boxing matches which we went to watch the other night! Many different fights, I don't know the names of the categories but girls were one of them!

This really is all for our first few days in Thailand, I have much more for Vietnam, that will come shortly...