Life in Thailand
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Our Trip to Krabi
When Grandma and Grandpa visited us, we got to go on vacation to Krabi! Krabi is a beautiful place. It has amazing beaches and you can go snorkeling in some picture perfect spots.
One of our favorite finds was this awesome restaurant called Joy Beach! It was a short walk on the beach from our hotel where we could play in the sand and the ocean while waiting for our food.
We discovered, if we got a bucket, some sand, and a couple small clams we found laying around, we could have clam race’s to see which one digs down first. It was really fun.
I had a lot of fun playing with the sand. If we took really wet sand and poured it slowly, we could make little sand castles that just seemed to grow as we poured more sand.
Make certain, if you ever go to Krabi, go to Joy Beach. The food is great and the views are amazing.
Selah broke her foot a few days before we went to Krabi, so she couldn’t do some of the stuff we planned. Not wanting her to feel left out, we would go to the pool at our hotel and Selah sat in a pool raft with a towel as a blanket with sunglasses and a hat. My parents wrapped up her foot carefully so she could enjoy the water.
There was so much to do. Sometimes we would eat breakfast at the buffet, then sit on the beach and talk and other times, we’d walk around the beach looking for fun seashells and coral.
Krabi is known for pretty blue water and tropical fish. One day we decided to go on a snorkeling trip in these long-tailed boats to the three beautiful islands. You probably thought that we would go on a speed boat but we didn’t. These boats are common in Thailand and part of the snorkeling experience.
The day we decided to go snorkeling, a big storm came. I should probably tell you if you thought that it was going to be a beautiful ride through the ocean you are very mistaken, it rained so much that if you saw us you would think we had fallen off the boat and gone swimming instead. Second, we were supposed to go to four islands but we instead went to three because our tour guides said there was going to be another storm and we were running low on fuel.
And we saw some weird big rocks that looked like they were floating!
On a different day, we went on a very big boat to go to a different island called Koh Phi Phi. The water in the bay really clear that we could easily see all sorts of little fish swimming around us. It had a nice beach with soft white sand.
Since Selah broke her foot she couldn’t go swimming but she still had fun playing in the sand with Tallulah.
We were able to rent kayaks so my grandpa and I rented one and paddled around the bay.
We had so much fun at the beach with our family. It was a great time.
Well that’s it for Our Trip to Krabi. This is Jeremiah signing off!
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Grandma and Grandpa in Chiang Mai
Just like our cousins, our grandparents knew that we are the most awesome people in the world and they wanted to come to visit. My grandparents came for a whole month!! We went on sooo many adventures with them and I wanted to share them with you!
We had to make sure they got to see plenty of the Thai culture so we took them to a Thai temple. At the temple there was a sky walk and we got to see them painting the temple. We even got to add gold leaf onto the temple walls. There were many Buddhists statues everywhere. Some of the statues were only a couple feet tall and others were HUGE!
For even more Thai experience we knew we HAD to take them to see elephants! On the way to Elefin Cafe we stopped at Carp Cafe to get some food. This place is awesome! Its so hard to describe because its unlike any restaurant you’ve probably ever been to. There is water everywhere with Koi fish inside and the tables are even placed in the little pond. You can buy fish food to feed the fish and as soon as you start feeding one fish the whole pond of fish will swim to your table.
After we ate lunch we went to go see elephants! We went to Elefin Cafe which is a cafe with elephants to go see and feed. It is so fun!! When we went this time, there was a baby elephant and it was so cute!
We also went to a water park and we were having so much fun but you won’t believe what happened. I went on a slide with my grandpa and our tube flipped over!! Luckily no one was seriously injured but I did bang my shoulder against the slide and I got a bruise on my shoulder. Nonetheless, we had a bunch of fun!
One thing we really wanted to do with them was go to Sticky Falls! Click the link to read my blog post about sticky falls.
Later that day, after we went to sticky falls, we went to the movie theater and watched Inside Out 2. And after that I went to gymnastics. At gymnastics I fell and BROKE MY FOOT! The day before I was gonna teach line dancing, and a week before vacation: a BEACH vacation. I had to use crutches the whole time which really stunk because I couldn’t swim. One day, my brothers, my grandparents, and my dad went on a snorkeling outing and I couldn’t come. I have never been snorkeling in the ocean and I was looking forward to it. Let’s just say I broke my foot at possibly the worst time ever. I did get a lot of rides on my taxi (dad) though.
If you want to know more about our Beach trip, go read Jeremiah’s post Our Trip to Krabi.
My Grandma and Grandpa aren’t just my grandparents they are my best friends and it meant so much that came across the whole world to see us. It was so much fun hanging out with them and I’m so glad I got to make more memories with them. 😁🤪
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Taipei, Taiwan (Part 2)
We did so much in so little time while in Taipei. Maybe because we had nothing else to do, maybe because traveling around was so easy, it was such an action-packed trip, I had to split into two posts. The first post I wrote highlighted the biggest, most memorable activities: Taipei 101 and the Taipei Zoo. (If you haven’t read that yet, go do so.) I am going to quickly talk about four other things we did while in Taiwan. In no particular order, they are:
#1. 228 Peace Memorial Park
This place is very meaningful to the Taiwanese people. It’s a memorial for all the people who fought for independence from Communist China. It was very fertile. There were so many flourishing plants, I forgot I was in the middle of a big city. While the main purpose of the park was to have statues, small temples, and plaques, there was also an outdoor place to work out and a play set.
Right next to the playground was an “acupuncture walk.”
It was a wide stretch of side walk that was covered in smooth black rocks. The idea is that if you walk on these very smooth yet very pokey rocks, then you will get great health benefits. There was a sign saying what part of the foot attributed to what other body part. Walking on it with shoes: easy. Walking on it with socks: quite uncomfortable. Walking on it with bare feet: extreme pain. I went on it probably seven times (I have very tough feet from stepping on bees all the time). Selah posted a video on our youtube channel of my dad trying it.
Also within the park, there were a couple museums.
#2. The Museums
These huge, victorian style buildings had many floors and rooms showing Taiwan’s rich history; more history than you might expect from a tiny little country like Taiwan. All the wars, all their trade, how their flag came to be: and that is only a little bit of it. The first one went to covered all that and even had a huge aviation section.
The second museum had an entire old-fashioned bank vault in it. We got to walk around it and explore the low ceilings and rows and rows of cabinets. There were also lots of stuffed animals and bugs and dinosaurs. This museum was much less “Taiwan” and more “Science and History.”
The third museum was far away and we had very little time. We spent an hour in it. The whole museum was basically a palace. A huge towering building filled with artifacts and such. It was a little boring to us kids so we just played “Which Antique Vase is Uglier?”
Even though it was kinda boring, I am glad we went. The thing that these museums showed me and my family was that culture is different than politics. China and Taiwan have very similar cultures, but they are very different countries.
#3. Shun Chui Tang
Speaking of Taiwan’s history, did you know the first “boba” was invented in Taiwan? The idea and creation of tapioca pearls in milk tea started in a little tea shop called Shun Chui Tang. Only now it isn’t a little tea shop doing experiments anymore. It is a big, fancy restaurant chain.
We went to one of the locations while in Taipei. Now, I do not care for milk tea at all. It tastes like curdled milk. And I do not especially like boba. Tapioca pearls are gross and chewy.
The first time I ever had boba was in China. I did not know that there were pearls in it and I thought they just had big straws over there. I take a big sip and five pearls hit the roof of my mouth and I don’t expect it. But that is not the worst part. You have probably heard that Chinese eat everything. Well they do, and I seriously thought for a long time that there were FISH EYEBALLS IN MY DRINK! Not a good experience.
My family did not have this childhood trauma or the same opinions of the taste, so we went anyhow.
I got a lemon tea. No milk. No boba. Delicious. Everyone else: Milk tea, Milk Tea, Milk Tea, Milk Tea, and more Milk Tea. Then my dad saw a brown sugar milk tea so we “had to get that, too.”
So sweet. Blech!
#4. The Market
Living in Thailand, we are no strangers to crowded market, yet very few compared to this market: so busy, so loud, so good! The street food in Taiwan is the best on the planet. Almost everything we ate was amazing! My favorite thing was probably the deep-fried roti with green onions. These were so greasy and buttery and oniony. We ate some and then went back for seconds, they were so freaking good.
Speaking of green onions, we also got a green onion pizza. It was called pizza, but the “crust” was a lot like a crepe and it was folded like a taco. Green onion roti taco? I have no idea but I know that they are probably eaten in Heaven. While I watched them make it, every single ingredient added looked delicious. The cheese, the sauce, the meat. And then the finishing touch: green onions. But not just a garnish. No, this was a heaping pile of chives. Like falling out the sides with green onions. It was a pile two inches high. Perfect.
We also got a lot of Tangulu. If you haven’t heard of Tangulu, I know you don’t watch tiktok or youtube. Tangulu is conquering those right now. All it is is fruit (usually strawberries or grapes but any fruit will do) and simple syrup. They get the sugar syrup really hot and roll the skewered fruit in it. It quickly cools down and then it is as hard as a rock. When you bite into it you nearly break your teeth and squirt juice all over. The flavor was really good and the strawberries were my favorite, but I did not like how sticky it was and how it coated my teeth with sugar. Still, it was good and definitely Selah’s favorite.
There was so much more. We had good beef. It was expensive, but who cares? My dad stood in a line for a long time to get some stir-fried king mushrooms. They were a little disappointing (way too much sauce), but there was so much good food that we kinda forgot about those.
I didn’t have any of it because I was already full from other stuff, but we also grabbed a Korean Cheese Dog. Same thing as a corn dog, but instead of a sausage inside, there was a cheese stick.
We had a fun trip to Taiwan, despite the VISA problems not being fixed.
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My Autobiography Wrap Up!
A while ago I started writing an autobiography. I split my autobiography into 6 different parts and started posting them on our blog. In my autobiography, I wrote things about my life and my special memories. I decided (well actually Mom decided) to write a wrap up post to go over everything I have written about and share it with you!
My first post autobiography post was about My Sister. 5 years ago, we went to China to adopt my sister Tallulah. Click the link to go check it out!
My next post was about My Cousin. My cousin Avery is one of my favorite people in the whole wide world to hang out with so I had to write a post about it. Go ahead and click the link!
The next post is about My Adventures. This one, like that previous one, is about Avery but it is also about my grandparents and a trip we went on together! This one one of the best trips I have ever been on, so make sure you click the link!
I then wrote about My Passion. I have been dancing for as long as a can remember and dance is a big part of my life. Click the link to read about my dancing journey!
As you probably know I live in Thailand. But I only moved here about 1.5 years ago and Thailand wasn’t always home. To read about the places I call My Home click the link.
Lastly, I wrote about A Day In My Life. I thought you guys might like to know what it like being a 13 year old, homeschooled, missionary in Thailand. Click the link!
I hope this autobiography gave you a little peak into my life.
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Conversations with the Keim Kids
During the last school year, we (the Keim kids) set up a YouTube channel. Our friends in Atkinson Nebraska sent us pictures and asked us questions about our life in Thailand. We made videos to answer their questions, but instead of just making videos for them we decided to put all the videos we made on YouTube so everybody can see them. Josiah, Selah, and I did all the work so that we could learn about it and have fun with it.
These are all the videos we made so far if you want to see them:
Episode #1
Episode #2
Episode #3
Episode #4
Episode #5
Episode #6
Episode #7
Episode#8
Episode#9
Okay I got to go now, so see you next time!
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A Day In My Life
My Autobiography Part 6
Here is what a day in the life looks like as a homeschooled missionary in Thailand.
I love to wake up early, so I set my alarm for six thirty every weekday. Waking up early makes me feel more productive, that is why I like it. After I wake up, I take a shower and finish getting myself ready, so I start getting Tallulah up. Tallulah and I share a room and so I’m in charge of getting her up and dressed every morning. She hates getting out of bed, but I try my best.
Recently, I started gymnastics classes, so every morning I try to either stretch or workout. I said I “try” because sometimes I am really sore from gymnastics or I’m just too lazy. Then I go downstairs and eat breakfast. I try to eat healthy, so my breakfast is usually something like eggs, a smoothie, or sometimes a bagel.
After I eat breakfast, I do some morning chores. In the morning, my chores are cleaning up the house, and either sweeping, filling ice trays or doing the dishes (The week I have dish duty is, by far, the WORST). Then I’m ready to start school.
We start school at eight thirty. We start our day with math and language arts each morning. Then we do typing or online learning, some of the online classes I am working on right now include computer programing and physics. At 11:00 we stop our individual work and do “together school.” Some days we do chemistry and some days we read a book together. Lately, we have been reading “The Return of the White Book” which is about the first missionaries in Myanmar and Siam (Thailand). We also do Bible flashcards and riddles.
We do school about until twelve for our lunch break. For lunch we pretty much have the same options every day: smoothie bowls, leftovers, sandwiches, or anything else we find in the fridge. We just get to pick what we want to have each day. When lunch is over, we all go to our rooms and do an hour of “quiet time”. This means we spend an hour reading or doing homework. When finish quiet time we do a bit more school. For me that is either practicing dance, practicing gymnastics, or making a YouTube video for our channel Our Paradoxology.
And then finally we have free time. At about 4:00 we do our chores again, but this time we also grab our laundry that has been hanging outside to dry. At about that time Dad comes home from work, and we eat dinner. We pick up from our meal and then we either watch a show or play video games. Then at 8:30 we get ready for bed and by 9:00 we go to bed.
That is what my life looks like on a night when everybody is home, but that actually doesn’t happen very often. On Mondays, we have Thai classes and they are very far away so we spend a lot of time driving. Some days I have gymnastics, some days we go out to ZOE for worship or prayer, and some days we go swimming or out to eat somewhere. I used to have dance classes some nights and pretty soon I am going to start going to a Bible study one night each week.
So that’s a day in my life. It isn’t that exciting, but it works for me.
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Taipei, Taiwan
It has been a very long smokey season in Chiang Mai and the air is hot and dry and cough-inducing. We had to go somewhere for our VISAs: so why not go to a big city for some fresh air?
Several weeks ago (I haven’t posted in a while!), we went to Taipei to try again applying for our family’s non-immigrant VISAs. That part of the trip was unsuccessful, but almost every other aspect of our weeklong trip was great. Jeremiah is writing a post about one event in Taiwan that threatened to ruin our trip. (Link to Jeremiah’s Post Here). We would walk several blocks to the Thailand Economic Trade Center each morning and give the people behind the desk our paperwork. It would take many hours to process, so we would leave to go enjoy Taiwan before going back to the Thailand Economic Trade Center later that day for our paperwork and let-downs.
Now for some non-gloomy things we did: The first day, we were sitting in the park near the building we had just dropped our paperwork into and then our parents said we had a plan and we walked to the nearest Metro. Although Chiang Mai is a big city, there are no Metro stations, so Taipei was interesting just because of their HUGE underground train system. None of us had been on a Subway train since we were in Hong Kong after adopting Tallulah five years ago. It was nice and well organized and it made traveling around the city easier.
Taipei was very orderly and organized which all of us agreed was a nice change of pace compared to “no-rules do whatever you want Chiang Mai.” There were green paths on the street for people to walk on and a bike lane on the sidewalk. And that was nothing compared to the escalators.
So perfect. So organized. Everyone stood on the right side of the escalator so that those in a hurry could pass on the left.
I digress. As I was saying, we left the park and walked a short distance to the next Metro station. That day we started off our trip with one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced: Taipei 101. If you haven’t heard of Taipei 101 then you should look it up. It is the world’s 11th tallest building at 1667 feet high! We took the metro station right to Taipei 101 and immediately hopped in an elevator up to the seventh floor. On the seventh floor, we got our tickets and we ushered into a really nice elevator. Much better than the one at our hotel that loved to close on people. When we were traveling up, faster than I thought was mechanically possible, the lights in the elevator dimmed and showed fake constelations on the ceiling. The screen on the wall showed floor numbers changing nearly as fast a stopwatch. Then we hit the 89th floor: The Observation Deck. It was awesome. It was cold and covered in windows that gave us a full 360 view of Taipei.
We saw mountains and skyscrapers and buildings that were made to look cool just for us tourists.
Yes the middle one is an Apple Store shaped like a Laptop Computer.
The next day, we went to Taipei Zoo.
The Zoo had its own Metro station so it was very easy to get there. Wait, no it wasn’t! Before we went to the Zoo, my dad had to go get something from our hotel room and he was going to get on the Metro closest to our hotel and hop on a train and meet us at the next stop. The “little” disaster that happened earlier in the morning had slowed down the trains and only a few passed, so crammed with passengers I was worried someone would suffocate. (Again, Jeremiah is writing about the “little disaster“). Only three trains came through before we found Dad. (The train going the opposite way came at least 10 times!) Dad had decided it would take too long and be too crowded when he saw the trains by his metro so he decided to quickly walk (run) to our Metro station instead. By the time he got there, the “traffic” had sped up and trains were moving normally. We hopped on and went to the Zoo.
The Taipei Zoo is the largest zoo in Asia. It is huge. All of us were exhausted walking around it. It is so big we had to go to it twice to see everything! The second day, though, we went to the North America section and were disgusted by this guy.
It is hard to tell but this is an American Bison. We are used to seeing skinny cows but none compare to this creature. I am sure when, in Genesis, Pharaoh has a dream of seven fat cows being eaten by the sickest, skinny cows, he was seeing this buffalo as one of the “famine cows.”
Anyway, one thing that is cool about Asian Zoos are that they can have more outdoor exhibits because the weather outside is the weather in the animal’s natural habitat. They have the indoor penguins and pandas and that’s about it.
The name above intrigued me so I looked it up and apparently this breed of penguin, the Jackass Penguin, are called Jackass because they sound like donkeys. Weird.
They had every kind of elephant (which I didn’t take any pictures of because there are plenty of elephants in Chiang Mai), every kind of bear,
and a ton of wild spiders everywhere. (It’s really hard to tell, but the first spider is really close to the camera right in the center of the photo!)
Speaking of spiders, they’re a few things that the Taipei Zoo had that, in my opinion, beat almost every other Zoo. Their Insectarium was probably the most filled and informative Insectarium I have ever seen. Their butterfly room had only a few species of Butterfly and I thought that was it but it kept going on and on and on. There were small bugs crawling around the walkways like praying mantis and ants. (The “leaves” on the tree in the 3rd photo are butterflies!)
There were butterflies and wasps and bees flying around. Fun fact we learned at a bee farm, asian bees are not aggressive. Seriously, it is crazy. When we went to the bee farm, I expected us to put on hazmat/beekeeper suits and not to touch any bees but they would just pick up a bee and set in our ungloved hands. Not a single sting.
Anyways, the coolest part of the zoo was definitely the Pangolin Dome.
The whole time we were there, we wanted to see the Pangolins. They are a rare and endangered animal that is kind of a mix between an armadillo and an anteater. They are really cool and really cute. Except the Pangolin Dome had no pangolins! We saw one sleeping in another exhibit but that was it. What a let down!
Even though it was called the Pangolin Dome, it was home to many, many more animals than that. It was, as the name suggests, a big chain dome full of trees and plants. We walked on a windy concrete path and was immediately met by these two HUGE birds just right next to us. (That dark thing in the tree is called a “Great Argus”, and it was as long as a young child!)
The one on the railing, the Great Cussarow, looked like it would lunge at any moment.
Right after we passed those birds, we were met by two or three little Cotton-Topped Tamarins. Now, I don’t really care for monkeys. I think they are ugly, creepy, and grosser than most animals. Same with koalas. But if I had to get a monkey I would definitely want it to be these guys. They were small and brown and orange in color, but their highlighting feature was their mane of pure white hair. They look like the coolest little rockstars ever. Plus, they weren’t shy. My dad set his hand on the railing and one of them just walked over it to impress the other tourists.
Also in the Pangolin Dome was a little “Kingdoms of the Night” exhibit. (If you don’t know what “Kingdoms of the Night” is, go to the Henry Doorly Zoo under the desert dome). They call it The Nocturnal Zone. There was a lemur and a loris and a monkey but that was it. This room was so dark we had to feel along the walls to find our way out into the light. There was also an “Amazon river” with a GIANT FISH and a some stingrays and other creatures of the Amazon.
In addition to the two that met us at the entrance, there were several other beautiful birds flying around. Scarlet Ibis, Blue Macaws, Red-and-Blue Lorikeets, and Bee-eaters were some of the birds you could see.
There were so many animals in this place that we didn’t even see! Their website says there was a two-toed sloth climbing around. We saw some tortoise but there were so many of those, scattered throughout the zoo. There was one building with practically every kind of lizard and turtle and tortoise in the world. Plus, the Iguana Tree. (I just looked it up, and the Pangolin Dome doesn’t have any pangolins but the is whole building is pangolin-shaped!)
There was no aquarium which is probably the only thing that makes Zoo #2 on my “Favorite Zoo’s List.” I know. You may think I am crazy but the Henry Doorly Zoo remains #1. I really loved the Insectarium and the whole Taipei Zoo was basically the Lied Jungle but the lack of an Aquarium and other indoor exhibits like that put it in number two.
It is close also because of this guy….
…who did something legendary! My dad looked at him and said, and I quote, “Wassup buddy?” and the monkey acknowledged him with the coolest “wassup head nod” ever!
A few weeks after we came back, we went to the Night Safari here in Chiang Mai. It was a Homeschool Co-op event and the Night Safari is probably #3 in my “Favorite Zoo’s List.” That is a story for a different post though.
There is so much more that happened in Taiwan so….
….To be continued…..
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Earthquake in Taiwan
Recently, we visited Taiwan to apply for new Thai Visas. We were on the eleventh floor of our hotel when the earthquake hit. At first the earthquake was small, then all of the sudden the building started shaking really badly. It felt like we were being shook by a big hand. It looked like the buildings outside the window were teetering and tottering. In our room, a cup fell off of the counter and the hanging lights were banging into the wall.
My dad told us to stand in the doorway because the doorway is the strongest place in a building. The building shook for about a minute, then it finally stopped. My dad said there would most likely be aftershocks. The second aftershock was pretty big, but the rest were pretty small. There were over 1,100 of them altogether while we were there. At least 14 people were killed.
After the first earthquake, we went outside and saw some rubble that fell off buildings. Everyone in the city was perfectly normal because earthquakes are a regular thing there.
I would like everyone who is reading this to pray for the 14 families who lost loved ones in the earthquake. Also, if you would like to read more about our trip to Taiwan my brother wrote a blogpost that you can see here.
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An Unplanned Trip to Laos
I don’t believe in luck or in jinxes, but whenever my mom says that we have to take a “short” trip to the Immigration Office, it seems we are actually in for a whole lot more. For example, this last trip was supposed to take “maybe two hours” if we get there early enough to be first in the queue line. I mean, we’ve done this kind of extension before and it was fairly simple. Mom was even hoping we would get home early enough to have a normal day of school. So, we left at 6:30 A.M. and got home at midnight. Here’s how it went: (read in a James Bond British accent, if you have one)
It was an early Thursday morning. The weather, some of the nicest I have seen since the Big Move. We all got into clean, respectable clothes, for this was the standard. We left as the sun was coming up, shining the world in its eerie light. We were some of the very first to arrive, acquiring queue numbers that would set us among the first to travel to the counter. We had some time before the counters would open, so we found the necessary forms and filled out the paperwork needed for this visit. Then, paperwork completed, we sat in the empty plastic chairs, and waited about 45 minutes before the counters opened. By then, there were no empty chairs and people were forced to stand.
After a kind gentleman came out to tell the novices (a category the likes of which we are not in) how to proceed, our queue number was called. My mother, my sisters, and I went to the counter and confidently passed them our passports and paperwork. They were supposed to look at them and verify the validity before handing them back and sending us on to the next set of chairs and row of counters with a new queue number in hand. But our life is not one of ease, for when we spoke to the dear officer behind the counter, he informed us we could only be permitted another 30 days in the fine country of Thailand if we first left the country at the border. So, accepting our ill-timed fate, we left and sat on the steps of the office, waiting for my father and brother to get their situations worked out (fortunately for them, they have VISAs of a different sort). My father then needed to stand in yet another line at yet another window for yet another process. While waiting for him to finish, my mother, siblings, and I went to the nearest 7 ELEVEn (which is, in fact, spelled as such) to get some snacks to satisfy our grumbling stomachs. This was the second time getting our sustenance from a petrol station that day, for we had earlier purchased fruit from a stand at a petrol station for our morning meal.
Our father met us, and from there we all left for another unexpected adventure. We piled in the car and left town to drive through the mountains of Chiangmai. By and by the hours went, though we all knew we still had several more kilometers to go. We stopped at a third petrol station to use the loo and to find our lunch. Fortunately, this was one of the fancier PTTs. Fancier meaning there was the popular KFC in addition to the Five Star Chicken vendor, Dunkin’ Donuts stand, Cafe Amazon, and, of course, 7 ELEVEn. Yet again, we ventured forward, this time making a dreadful mess in the car with a huge bucket of fried chicken in the middle seat.
Fast forward the hours passed. After several devices died and our only entertainment was staring out at the mountains, and we finally got to the border. Memories filled our brains from our previous failed trip to the Laos border (that fateful trip, we ended up turning back empty-handed and flying to Malaysia the next day). When we stepped out of the car, we immediately coughed and gagged for fresh air for the dreaded smoky season had already hit that region quite hard. We walked the short walk to the border from the parking lot and got in line behind the small hoard of backpackers that were there ahead of us. Leaving the father and brother behind, we journeyed to a new country. We each, in turn, handed the men our passports, scanned our fingerprints, and stared awkwardly at the face-surveying camera, before walking to the bus stop.
After a small wait, we climbed into the bus and drove for a singular minute over a wide river before stopping at another structure exactly like the one we had just left: that one in Thailand, this one in Laos. Leaving the bus, we stood in yet another line behind yet another counter. Upon discovering it to be the wrong line, we began again: another line, another counter. After handing over a pile of cash in exchange for Laotian VISAs and entry stamps in our passports (the likes of which would prove we left Thailand for a few minutes) back to the bus stop we headed. We were done standing and waiting, now we could sit and wait. After 30 minutes or so, we could board the next bus headed for Thailand. The scenery was beautiful for we were right by the mountains and they looked right out of a painting, especially with a film of smoke covering everything the naked eye could see. We boarded the bus and ventured back to Thailand.
Everything went rather smoothly after that. We drove another grueling 5 1/2 hours home in the dark, with leftover fried chicken and 7 ELEVEn for our supper. We did have the good fortune to find a 7 ELEVEn with an ice cream cooler, so our day was topped off with Thai quality ice cream for dessert.
We came home at midnight and immediately fell asleep. That was the end of it. Ha! It might never be the end of it. Nevertheless, this adventure is over, and a new one is coming. I can feel it.
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My Passion
Autobiography Part 4
I have been dancing since I was 3. However, I have been clogging since I was 4 years old. I love clogging and I am really good at it! My mom taught clogging and took me to my first competition in Tennessee when I was 5 years old. At that competition, I got third place in my short solo. After that I went to lots of competitions with my team and I loved it so much.
Then 2020 covid happened and the studio closed which made me really sad. I just knew I wasn’t done clogging. My mom told me that there was a studio in Lincoln that we could look into. I knew which studio she was talking about because I had seen them a competitions, and I loved that idea.
I went to LUXE Dance Academy which was four hours away. The instructors had recognized me from competitions and said I could join the team. I took private lessons with the teacher for about two months on zoom to learn the dances and then went to my first class. Most of the girls recognized me and were really excited to have me on the team. My first competition with LUXE was Nationals! I was so nervous, but I also had lot of fun. After that season my mom asked me if I wanted to keep doing it and I said “yes, for sure!”
The next year we got new dances and I also had two duets and a solo. We went to two dance competitions (which are different than clogging competitions because there are all different types of dance). I did really well and they even called me back for one of the competitions to go to their national competition. I was the only one who went, and I got 1st place in my solo.
Next, my whole team went to Silver Dollar City in Branson Missouri to qualify for nationals (to qualify you have to 1st,2nd,or 3rd). I got first in almost everything and so did my team! Since we qualified, we got to go to the National Clogging Competition in Nashville!
My team and I knew that this was going to be my last competition since my family had been called to Thailand and so we knew we had to do the best we could. We worked super hard and when Nationals came around I felt really good about how we did.
I always say that I like to set and achieve goals. Dancing is my passion because being a good dancer is a goal I set and long time ago, and I got to achieve it. All of my teachers and friends have pushed me to be the best dancer I can be and now I am a National Champion Dancer and always will be.
It was really hard to say goodbye and I miss dancing with my team so much. I still keep up with dance here in Thailand and I hope that someday I will be able to dance with my team again!
I made a video slideshow with some of my favorite dance memories. Click here to watch the video on our YouTube channel.
