The Day of Rest in Ubon

Sleeping in until 8am the next day was blissful. With breakfast being at 9am we didn’t need to be up too early. At breakfast we were all offered tea or coffee, and I being a tea lover, chose the tea. I was however Chinese tea. But even if it was not my preferred choice, it was still nice.

We went to Central Plaza that day and got some extra bits that we needed. I basically had all my toiletries, which is probably what took up most of the extra 10kg on the plane, but I still needed to pick up a few bits, including a new extension lead. So before moving to a bigger and cheaper super store to get things like towels, washing powder and other things, the others treated us to a Starbucks. They had some really cool mugs that I feel the need to buy before I go home.

I had a hot chocolate. Those who know me know that I love hot chocolate, and this being my only hot chocolate that I had in five days, would know that I enjoyed it a lot – even if it didn’t much to my disappointment have marshmallows in.

We then went to the superstore and bought all the extra stuff we needed: bins, washing powder, an ironing board, pillows (for Kate and Eilidh), extension cables, flip-flops (for me) and more conservative casual clothing to wear. We had to convince the sister, Ma, of some of the items, like the pillows, but Aum, who was going to help us with translation in the school, helped us win on most of the stuff. We sorted out who was buying what and said we would settle up later (we still haven’t managed to!) and trekked our household stuffs, clothes, stationary and chocolate koala bears (!!) to the cars.

Eilidh and I went with Ma and Pae to their car only to find another vehicle parked in front of it. Apparently this is a normal occurrence because the other two didn’t seem fazed; they just wanted our help to move it. Obviously when there are no parking spaces left you park in front of someone else and leave your hand brake off so they can move it if they come back before you?! Weird.

On the way back from the shops we stopped at a fruit stall at the side of the road.

Ma picked up some apples and a fruit called durian that we could try tomorrow, much to Aum’s disgust (he really doesn’t like it). The durian smelt so strongly that we had to have the car windows open all the way back to the school.

After dinner that evening, Hannah and I went to use our new ironing board and her travel iron since we were starting school the next day. It worked a bit once you ironed it for about five minutes. Soon after we realised that it worked a bit better once we put some water in the iron..