okay, PHOTOS!!

since i'm sitting at home pretty much
doing nothing anyway, i thought i should
put up some photos to let you see some
of the amazing things i've been talking about!
(:



with Season, Mabita and Nikita,
girls from my youngest class and me in my
first kurta suruwal!! (:


here i am, having a balloon blowing competition
with some of the guys from the Prayer Tower
(it's also a home for handicapped people)


view of Phewa lake in Pokhara.
its amazing.


what i saw at 5.30am from the roof of the
house we were living in at Pokhara-
see the Himalayas and the eagle?!!


night i came to malaysia-
i suspect this is the culprit meal that
disabled me for 6 days, it was good though.
with my headmaster's family, he fosters these 4 girls.


and lastly, im ending this with a super heart
wrenching cute photo- eeeeeek (:
some of the boys from the nursery class,
where i spend all of my free periods/break time.

SO CUTE!!

(:

phew i finally feel okay.

it's been six days of pain but on the upside,
i get to lie in and read harry potter all day (:

i really haven't been doing much,
but in typical sammie fashion,
i've been going to lots of shopping malls
(and haven't actually done any shopping at all!)
and it finally feels like its the summer holidays
cause im actually getting a break so yay!

went to my old high school today for the
parent teacher day and both the teachers
responsible for alyssa's class taught me
in form 2 and none of them recognised me!

it feels surreal that i've left CHS now
for 4 years already- i'm not sure if i like it.

apparently the clouds finally broke over nepal,
monsoon has truly arrived and it's water and mud
everywhere- im not sure if im looking fwd to that!
and theres been a week long strike called,
so all the exams the school is running is canceled anyway,
which is crap cause that means
even after i get back i dont have anything
to do and its too late for me to change my
flight plans now!! ):

arrrgh.
)):

gonna go meet cherru now,
my super awesome oldest friend- can't wait!

oh i feel so bad.


i've been having the runs for 24 hours now,
having to run to the bathroom on instant notice
urgently really isn't fun at all!
):

but on the flip side, i'm at home home
so it's great!!

the flight was good, there were only 6 females
on the flight and i was the only malaysian on
the plane so that was quite something!

i was at the headmaster's house before as well,
and since he lives like 2km away from the airport
he took me over on the motorbike, with my luggage and everything,
i must've been a sight!

but anyway yes i got home safely and
as i stepped inside KLIA, maybe it's cause
i haven't seen anything like in in 6 weeks-
i was just blown away by how clean and gleaming
the airport was, how rich everything looked.

it took quite awhile getting used to the roads as well,
no honking and no buses!! (:
but it's just weird seeing just such abundance again.

but yeah- started getting the runs and having that
while watching 2 movies in a row really isn't much fun-
thank goodness for clean public toilets here!
(trust me- they're clean compared to Nepal!!)

being home is awesome.

i have so much to get used to again,
but im SO thankful for the free flow of oranges
and great times with the siblings :D

everything seems to be against me flying tonight.

one, i've said that i'm lactose intolerant

for the past year cause i just dont want

to explain that i abhor anything dairy

(except chocolate and yoghurt etc)

but yesterday when i gorged myself on

this beautiful piece of chocolate cheesecake

it's apparently too much lactose for my body

cause i do not feel great ):

two, there's a transport bandh today!!!

>:(

but even if im puking my heart out

and have to walk to the airport

I AM GETTING ON THAT PLANE!!!!

malaysians are everywhere!!

i found out today when i went knocking

on my neighbour's door that i live next to a

malaysian missionary here in kathmandu.

it was nice hearing all the 'la's' again,

but not as nice as tomorrow..

WHEN I FLY HOME!!!

:D :D :D

woohoo!

also, i've seen quite amazing things in the past week.

first the Himalayas, and then yesterday was

the solar eclipse- which happens once in 78 years!

and i woke up, still lying on my bed

wondering why on earth it was so dark outside

and then two words came into my head-

solar eclipse!

i jumped up immediately and ran outside,

and i saw this perfect round thing blocking the sun,

which was pretty cool but it really wasn't

as amazing as i thought it would've been-

from the photos i've seen before i thought that

it would've been total darkness but no.

and me being the very smart person i am,

ignored all the warnings about looking at it

directly without any special equipment and

stared at the eclipse for 5 minutes

and paid the price for half an hour later

cause all i could see were black spots-

serves me right!

another thing- maybe cause i've lived here

for almost 6 weeks now, i've somehow changed

to look really Nepali or something cause

everyone is talking to me in Nepali!

it's really funny cause i was with this

English woman who speaks Nepali really well

and she was trying to tell the bus driver something

but he just ignored her and kept on asking me

what I wanted- poor woman!

but i am disgustingly tan- i love it!

okay, more news from me when i reach home

(:

p/s pray for things to go well please,

i dont think i could take it if the airline

suddenly decides to cancel the flight!

ohmylife.

i must be the sweatiest person ALIVE right now!!

just came back from the hottest place in the world

(okay, maybe i exaggerate too much!)- Pokhara

which is really beautiful, but it somehow feels like

it's 100 metres from the sun, cause yes-

it's THAT hot ):

but yeah it was great to breathe in clean air

and not hear any honks for a few days,

but it took 9 hours to get back cause there

were accidents along the way and everyone

is always so nosy about things like these!

and thank goodness, those 9 hours were

made enjoyable by the amazing sights around,

imagine lush green mountains everywhere and

you're driving down in the bus overlooking fields

and fields of emerald green- i was quite disappointed

that the bus didn't stop for any photo taking!

but the highlight of the trip was definitely

seeing the amazing peaks of the Himalayas.

seriously- WOW.

i got woken up at 5.30am on Saturday telling

me to look out my window and even without glasses,

my mouth just dropped!

Pokhara is surrounded by mountains already,

but cause it's quite cloudy at this time of the year

we didn't really know where to look and didn't

see anything amazing anyway, but in the morning

when the sky is all clear... wow.

honestly, behind the mountains surrounding us were

these large majestic snow-capped mountains

which were shrouded in wisps of clouds so it

looked quite mystical and surreal,

and then there were eagles just soaring around them,

honestly it was FLIPPIN amazing!

i took as many photos as possible,

but photos never do justice ):

and we toyed with the idea of paragliding over

the Himalayas as well, then decided that

it was too cloudy- so looks like I've to come back to

Nepal to do that!

i almost considered trekking but same to my senses!

and boy, during this weekend we met plenty of

weirdos- a guy who claimed to be one of the founding

fathers of Hare Krishna and was telling us all about it,

this Dutch fella who told us he was going down to

Pokhara to 'find some sistas' >.<

and everyone seems to like talking about religion,

which was quite hard for me cause i'm terrible

at talking about Christianity- and it was hard

to debate without sounding offensive but yet

stand my ground you know??

ok my head is spinning, i hvnt had food all day

+gotta go take a shower- more tomorrow!

i'm taking a 7 hour journey bus ride tomorrow!

apparently the roads are crazy windy

and knowing the reckless bus drivers here,

it should make for an interesting trip!

i really don't think i'll ever complain

about Adam's driving again after this summer,

cause the all the bus drivers here seem to

have a secret passion for car racing or something,

because they are ridiculous at manoevering (sp?!)

their giant clunky buses- overtaking everyone

and always narrowly missing the poor

motorcyclists ):

but yes- i'm going to Pokhara,

which is where you can see all the mountains

(did you know that 8/10 of the highest peaks

in the world are in Nepal?!!)

so i'll be able to see the Annapurna range

if the weather's great but sadly not Everest!

can't wait to breathe clean air again yay!

so i'm sitting here with mountains of work!

i have a stack of Science exercise books to mark,

one more Health exam paper to write up,

lesson plans for tomorrow to prepare,

and also i'll be doing assembly tomorrow!

teaching is real hard work!

):

but i'm glad to say that it's not a burden

or anything at all, because surprisingly-

i'm really enjoying teaching kids!

it's definitely a real lesson in patience

and the ability to be calm no matter what.

i was talking to the headmaster the other day

about how some kids will not stop talking

in my classes and he was telling me about

some of these kids' backgrounds and

it's really shocking ):

so i'm happy that the worst thing they're

doing is making too much noise in class,

which to be honest- was my problem when

i was a kid as well (which is probably still my problem now!)

but yeah- there's this boy in one of my classes

who's from a rough background and is

really brilliant but is always a bit spaced out

during class time and it was his birthday today

and the really cute thing was when i walked into

class today and he jumped up and pressed

a few sweets into my hand and gave me this

giant smile- apparently that's what they do on

their birthdays here! (:

and that small gesture just meant so much,

knowing what his family life is like ):

so i went home and bought him a Mars bar!

and these kids really have no idea what they're

talking about most of the time cause the stuff

in their books are just ridiculous!

today we were having a General Knowledge

class and it was filling in the blanks and my

13 year olds made me laugh so hard cause

they insisted that Marco Polo served the

famous Mongol Emperor, Victoria.

(okay, maybe you had to be there..)

let's hope teaching continues to go well

for the next month! (:

here's the photo i promised you!

here's some proof that I'm actually in Nepal!

this was taken on Sunday in front of the king's palace

(YES- it's salmon pink urrggh!)

with some of the guys from the Prayer Tower

and the white people you see are Interserve people

who I live with + Jeannette who coordinates us.

(:

so.

guess what?

I BOUGHT MY AIRTIX HOME!!!

to the bestest place in the world-

Malayyyyysia (:

it's gonna be awesome,

even though it's less than 2 weeks.

i'm gonna be home 25th July so

SEE YOU THERE!!

i had the most awesomest day!

you see, kathmandu is really crazy-

it's busy, noisy and really polluted

but the rest of nepal is bathed in green

and is so peaceful and lovely (:

so today we went to this place called

the Prayer Tower, which is a 24/7 prayer room

and also a home for mentally/physically

handicapped people of all ages.

the house was built up up up the mountain

and the views were just breathtaking-

it was just vast fields of bright green everywhere

and in the horizon were unending mountains,

my words don't put justice to it.

and we attended their service and

hung out with them all day-

i brought balloons, which is always a

source of fun for people of all ages and

soon all the kids were jumping up and down

having so much fun playing (:

and what was amazing is that the guy who started

the place studied in Belfast Bible College!

seriously, NI is such a small place but

it seems like they are everywhere!

and instead of looking to funds/donations

like a lot of charities do here, they have planted

their own hydroponic herbs and vegetables

so that they are self-sufficient and it's just amazing

what's going on in that place (:

it's been a really tiring week,

i've just been really tired all the time

and teaching is getting a bit stressful but

i'm still enjoying it- i just need a short break!

and im 75% coming home.

just need to reconfirm and book my tickets

and HELLO MALAYSIA the best country in the world!

i am super super excited-

only thing is that mum+cas aren't going to be there

for 5 days while i'm home! ):

but hey, i'll take any time i get huh.

still setting exam papers and rereading all

the physics+chem textbooks,

i'm silently thankful that i've gone thru that

stage and never have to study them again.

urgh.

and tomorrow i should be helping out

with bringing the Prayer Tower kids to

visit the King's Palace- sounds like an awesome day!

(:

i hope you're doing well,

wherever you are!

today, i was reminded of how Nepal

isn't the most peaceloving happy perfect place.

Now, there are bandhs (strikes) all the time

and they can be for anything, the people

seem to really like their protesting,

there are bandhs all over the country everyday.

so anyway, these are not peaceful protests,

all the schools/shops have to close because

there are people who will throw stones/burn

the place down if they know that it is open for business

and the really bad ones don't allow any vehicles

to operate at all- they have some people hired

at the side of the road armed with stones n stuff

so if they see a vehicle coming down the road,

that fella is pretty much dead ):

i've heard stories of them burning buses and all that,

it sounds really violent and incredibly unnecessary.

so today we were on a bus as usual to school

and suddenly the bus did a huge turnabout,

turns out a bandh was just called and we

all had to get off the bus and walk our remaining

journey, which thankfully wasn't too far from the school.

but as we got closer to the school there were

crowds everywhere and we could see a lot of

burning going on cause and lots of police

really geared up with their shields and guns.

and then suddenly, everyone started running

towards us and i got really panicked.

you know how action movies you always see those

shots when there's a giant monster coming or something

everyone just runs?

it was exactly like that so i was really

'oh crap, this is not good!!'

but we took the side roads and nothing

seemed to happen so i thought it was okay

and then again, people just started running

past me and i didn't know what was going on

so i started running for my life!

i was thinking the worst, maybe someone gunning

people down or worse- i don't know,

but for the first time in my life

i was running for dear life-

and to be honest,

i would've gotten gunned down if it

really happened cause i was crap!

so i ran and ran- not really sure from what

but then everything looked normal again

so i calmed down and everyone seemed to be okay

and i just hurried to the school just in case.

but phew that was a real moment of panic there

and thank goodness everything was okay!

(:

so yes, Nepal is still a little crazy

but thankfully these bandhs don't happen

that seriously too often.

pray for peace!

i LOVE my school!

honestly it's amazing (:

so today was Teacher's Day,

and it's basically a day dedicated to hardworking

selfless patient teachers everywhere

(and i'm technically a teacher for the summer,

so i got to reap all the benefits!)

but anyway the kida had been practising for ages

and they had this whole lineup for performances

and just their willingness to sing and dance is amazing!

i mean, the school only has about 140 kids

and there were so many performances that

each of them performed more than twice!

and i loved every minute of it.

even when out of the blue, they announced

'now is the time for Miss Samantha to

come and give us a speech!!!'

i really don't deal well with these things,

it was a terrible shock but i think i managed

to amuse the kids by speaking some

Nepali that i've learnt so far so everyone

laughed at how bad i was- which for me

is better than a boring speech anyday!

but yeah those kids love springing surprises

on their teachers, there were a lot of spontaneous

speeches today and all the teachers had to go up

and dance in front of the kids as well,

which they really loved.

and boy do these Nepali people love dancing!

once the teachers started they really got into it

and the kids started getting into it and at one point

the whole room was just chaos cause all the

kids starting dancing while the teachers

were in front doing the same!!

it was so much fun (:

and i'm really really loving this.

i've been a teacher for ten days,

and i've just been told i have to set

exam papers for all 5 of my classes!!!

):

that's 5 different years of science/chem/physics/general knowledge

papers to set, and most of the classes

i teach more than one subject!!

so that's going to be lots of fun.

but i guess there are perks too,

tomorrow's Teacher's Day- i dont think the

West celebrates this, it's the teacher's equivalent

to Father/Mother's Day (:

and finally, i'm not a student anymore

and get to be honoured as a 'real' teacher!

woohoo!

what a crazy day!

like i've said before, Nepal is really

an adventure- it's always so surprising!

so woke up today to a text telling me that

this other guy from Queens- Steve,

(to those who know, it was steve barr)

who wanted to go to church so there

was a mad moment of arranging how to meet up

thru facebook and texting

(both UK numbers- i'm going to be broke!)

and when it finally happened,

it was really nice seeing a familiar face.

after church Jeannette brought Catherine

and I to my first venture outside of Kathmandu

into this Newari village called Bungamati

which is basically a farming village and

it was SOOO nice getting out of that crazy

honking dusty noisy place that is the city

and into the quiet real Nepal.

and because I didn't expect this,

i thought we'd be looking at museums or

temples or something like that i was

still wearing my church clothes-

a proper skirt and nice shoes and everything

and they decided to go tramping across the rice paddy field!

so off we went, both of them appropriately dressed

and walking without fear and me tagging behind,

jumping from stone to stone above the

mud in fear that i would fall into the

paddy plants- you know how incredibly clumsy i am!

there were huge fields of paddy plants

so we walked about and i saw a few

Newari farmer women sitting down to have their

lunch so i walked over to see whether i could get

a photograph of them, and to my surprise

they whipped out an extra plate and heaped it

with typical Newari food and made us

all sit down and have lunch together.

it was seriously amazing,

eating with these people smack bang

in the middle of the paddy fields looking

at the acres and acres of greenery around.

and you know what they drink?!!

this alcoholic beverage that is almost 100% alcohol.

they kept asking us to try some,

but it smelled so strong even from a few metres away

i had to refuse.

i have no idea how they work in the

fields properly with that much alco

in their system!

so yeah, then we walked all the way back in the rain.

took lots of photos but

typical samantha tan, brought the flipping

wrong cable all the way to nepal!!

arrgh!

):

you just have to rely on words for now.

what a crazy day.

as usual in Nepal,

anything can and will happen very unexpectedly.

so today I found out that I live 2 minutes

away from Kathmandu Vineyard,

which is a sister church to the one I go to Belfast!

so yay it was a Nepali service but really nice.

a lot of the songs were actually the Vineyard

english songs that have been translated and

the worship team were made up of street kids that

were rescued and now live in a home run by the church.

so that was pretty cool and they were asking if

anyone had this particular illness or health problem

to come up to be prayed for- and pretty much the whole

church went up to the front and cause the prayer

ministry team was so overwhelmed they called

us by name to go up and be part of the prayer team!

it was weird praying for Nepali people who

prolly had no clue what I was saying!

but oh well, God understands and that's all that matters (:

so we went on to Pashapati after,

which is this group of temples and this is where

the Hindus cremate their dead family members and

wash their ashes into the Bagmati river,

which as a result is terribly horribly dirty.

we arrived right at the time where this family just

laid their dead grandfather by the river

and started the ritual so we sat down and watched

for an hour or so, it was really sad seeing the family

say their last goodbyes and torch the body.

I've never been to a funeral before so I've

never really experienced firsthand just that emotion

and atmosphere of grief ):

it actually felt like i was intruding but it was just this

big open space next to the river and there were

random people just sitting about while the

family were mourning and it seemed like such a private moment.

it must be so hard to see the face you're so familiar

with being consumed by flames.

so yeah, weird long hot day.

i'm visiting a Newari village tomorrow,

which is apparently going to be really Nepal-like

cause everyone says Kathmandu is too westernised.

i'm trying to upload photos, we'll see how that goes!

i am forever grateful to the amazing+

incredibly generous friend that is Adam Milne!

because..

I AM WRITING THIS ON MY LAPTOP ((:

yes, he drove from Newry>> Belfast

to get dear old Nathan the clunky noisy unreliable computer

and gave it to Catherine who had to lug it all the way!

(catherine's from NI and will be working in the same school)

and then I had a fright cause it wouldn't work

with the wireless and had to bring it over

to the International school for the IT guys

to look over which took an hour and finally,

the glorious moment arrived where I could

finally finally get Internet in my room!!!

(:

oh how I took things for granted.

on the sick front: it's hard getting better with the terrible

polluted air over here, so i've been getting

worse and worse actually-

it got so bad on tuesday, i woke up with

burning eyes and just lots of heat

emanating from my body so I left work

after 2 periods and came home to sleep

but I couldn't cause I was coughing too much.

it's been a pattern lately with the night coughing,

it's annoying but it's easier to deal with than

the swollen gums in Week 1 so i'm not going to complain.

anyway going to see some sights this week with Catherine here

so I won't look so touristy- going to some place

where they cremate dead bodies (which is apparently

some great big tourist attraction- WHY?!)

and some temply places, which is pretty much

all of Nepal cause temples/worshippy places 

seem to be everywhere- and they all have intricate

woodwork and stuff like that which really remind

me of my parents.

also, this week I finally got my kurtasuruwal made,

my beautiful Nepali outfit that is so loose

it's like wearing pajamas all day

(which is my ultimate dream) so I'm very happy

and hoping to buy a few more to wear everyday!

expect more updates now!

(: