SAVE THE LAST DANCE FOR ME!

Sunday, May 18, 2008

-Bangkok News (contd.)

Hey!

New blogskin's up; it took me over an hour to complete. Phew.

I might create another one soon, inspired by this hymn I saw last week called Consider The Lilies. It sounds so amazing, so pure, somehow.

Anyway, here's your Bangkok news continued!

Where we stopped: NIST.

Schooling (contd.) still arranged by day and time!
Monday, afternooon. We drove to visit the Bangkok Patana School.
Most of my father's friends' kids go here; they were singing its praises when we met on Saturday night for dinner. We met Mr. Alec Bien, who gave us a tour of the school, and Miss Vivienne Lai, the registrar, who took our details and zapped our passport photos and stuff. Mr. Bien was really friendly.
The school compound is huge. You might be surprised to know that this school has almost two compounds: one across the road, with some football/tennis courts and a car park, and one with the actual school. And yes you guessed it: there's an overhead bridge linking them. (Well, when I went to see it I assumed I would go there because all the kids I met go there and I thought it would be really great. So I was like, WHY DOES EVERY SCHOOL I GO TO SEEM TO HAVE AN OVERHEAD BRIDGE, lol.) The bridge is blue.

Tuesday, morning. A driver comes to pick us up in a spacious van and we head to International School of Bangkok (ISB).
The area surrounding the school is like an American district. There are a lot of big houses and stuff and it takes us nearly an hour to get to the school from our house. The surrounding is very nice and welcoming and you can just see this Starbucks sign on this hedge thingy before you enter the school and you're like WHOA.
A picture will do it nicely so I won't have to describe how ISB looks like, from the front; and there's this other picture of one of the ponds at the lobby, outside the office. Here you go:

This is the facade of the school. If you want the bigger picture, go to ISB's official website, http://www.isb.ac.th/. The home page has a little welcoming video, and it's really nice.

And that's the pond (or one of them), and it has little fishies and if you go to the end it's the canteen :DD.

well yeah.

so if you're smart you'll have noticed I chose ISB!
well maybe it isn't that obvious, but I chose ISB. after tony, the guy who brought us around, went back to his desk to check something for us, my mum was filling out a form and I was like, "mum, I want to go ISB." I don't know why, but ISB is a really nice place, and if you ever get to go there you'll see how.
so we informed tony the next day that we decided on ISB, and here are the details.

I'm going to be placed in GRADE 8. ISB follows an American system (they have home room and tutor groups and REALLY COOL ELECTIVES like dance, jewelry making and languages) so I'm in middle school, and in 2009 I'll be in Grade 9, high school, as a freshman, I think. Then comes Grade 10 Sophomore and then the grades 11 and 12 are senior years.

It looks like I'll only be there for Grades 8-10 at most, since I'm only going to BKK for 3 years. Grade 8 in Singapore is Sec 2, so I'm skipping a grade. Grade 12 students, after they graduate, go to collge, you see.

okay so that's schooling done!

hmm.

okay some highlights of what I did:

SHOPPING. (I exceeded my budget. Oops.) Great places to go: VICTORY MONUMENT (can be reached by BTS) and MBK (take BTS to Siam and walk across the bridge, so-so distance; or take BTS to National Stadium, it's a shorter walk, but Siam's easier cos you don't have to change platforms for the BTS). MBK is very cheap (and a lot of fake stuff. ahem.) and VICTORY MONUMENT, if you walk down the bridge to this little shopping mall, has a lot of cute stalls that sell stuff like skirts for 199 baht (which is like 6 singapore dollars +) and has really good manicure and pedicure! I went for one with my mother and dad's friend's wife, auntie sharon; prices are dirt cheap. if you want nail art, it's 50 baht for hands and 80 for feet; if you want plain, it's 30 baht for hands and 50 for feet. typically if you go to big shopping malls, or even MBK, they charge you 200 baht for hands and 200 baht for feet, and that's not even counting nail art. good, huh? ;DDD
BTSing. I did this A LOT. A LOT. A LOT. And got the hang of it. It's kind of fun. ;DDD

Well yeah. As you can see, I spent my time like shopping and going to schools and yeah. We got some household stuff. The honey flakes cereal there is good, but this is just jumping the gun. We ordered a dining table! Cos for the entire week we had to use our balcony table as a dining table; I think uncle mark (the guy whose position dad just took over) took the dining table back to singapore or something, I'm not too sure. D:

ahwell. I had a great time in bangkok but missed singapore greatly.

thanks thomas and neil for satisfying most of my hunger for conversation! even though I slept at 1 a.m., it's worth it.

btw.

I WATCHED MOVIES TOO!

on the plane there- 27 dresses. Watched this in cinema already so it doesn't count, but it's still great.

at home- R.V. (jojo rocks! and so does robin williams) and STEP UP (whoohoo... I WANT THIS CD DAMN BADLY, STEP UP ROCKS).

on the plane back- juno. didn't manage to finish it but it's good. :DD

this is a long post. phew. ahwell.

um, toodles. xD

♥ much love,

-grace<3

♥so baby, save the last dance for me 11:29 PM ; comment it!