The Grand Palace and The Temple of The Emerald Buddha

I know it has been a few days since my last post, orientation got very busy.  We spent much of the time learning Thai culture and language and various teaching methods.  However, we were also given the opportunity to go on a few trips around Bangkok and the surrounding provinces.  The first of these trips took place last Friday.  We went to the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

The Palace is the most revered place in the entire country.  This is not only due to the immense admiration that the Thai people have for the Royal Family but also because the Grand Palace is home to the Emerald Buddha.  The history of the entire Palace is very long and intense so I won't bore you with it here.  In particular though, the Emerald Buddha, while very small, has a meaningful history to the people of Thailand and has been the object of various wars between Laos and Thailand over the past several centuries.  Unfortunately, it is so sacred that it cannot be photographed.  However, if you look closely at the picture below you can see the inside of the shrine that houses the Buddha.  He is in there in the distance where you can see the light.

Beyond the Emerald Buddha, the grounds of the Palace were amazing.  There were awesome buildings and statures all over the area.  The intricacy of the designs on these buildings is beyond belief.  I've included some pictures below and more will go on Facebook but I really think that they don't do justice to just how amazing these buildings are.

After leaving the Palace, we headed back to our hotel to meet our school specific coordinators.  I am teaching with one other participant and we were both a little bit nervous to meet our coordinator.  The meeting went very well though, she speaks fairly good english, and I learned that I will be teaching English at the M3 and M6 levels.  These are equivalent to freshman and seniors in high school.  I have 18 classes per week.  I will start teaching on November 1st and finish at the end of February.  Should be a quick semester.

I have more to share about orientation, riding elephants, and moving into my new apartment but my internet is about to run out so those will have to wait.  Look for more posts soon.