On Tuesday I headed out at 11:115 am to get to the International School that I was to start coaching at. Apparently practice starts at 3:15 and I was not sure how long it would take me to get their. I knew the best I could do would be 60 minutes. I decided to have fun with it and walked up to the nearest BTS station and took the BTS to its terminus. That meant a 20 minute walk and another 15-20 minutes on the BTS.
I left the BTS and knew I would have trouble with the last stage of the trip which was a taxi ride that should take 25 minutes. I flagged a cab and got in and handed the taxi driver a perfectly clear Google map with the route highlighted. Now I was quite aware that most Bangkok taxi drivers can not read a map. He looked at it and nodded and immediately drove past the first turn he should have made and then thought twice about it and pulled over. He then spent more time with the map and I pointed out the two major roads he would be driving on. He realized he missed the first turn and would have to pull a u-turn asap. That took 10 minutes and I decided to bring up the route on my smartphone so I could tell him when to turn. I told him drong pai (straight ahead) until Google told me to turn left and I told him leo sai (turn left) and then on the last left turn I repeated leo sai and we were there.
So there I was, at the school at 1 pm with over 2 hours to kill. I got my visitor's pass and went to the office to track down the Phys'ed director who turn out to be a great guy. He gave me a tour of the facilities which were better than most high schools in Canada and then we headed off to 7/11 for a coffee which I took back to the phys'ed office where I spent the 2 hours chatting with the 3 phys'ed guys and watching a couple of gym classes.
At 3:15 I awaited the boys who slowly trickled in and I started the practice at 3:30 with introductions and then down to business. For a first practice, with an unknown team I felt it went okay and we called it quits at 4:45 because I had to track down the school van that would take me back to the BTS so I could take it back home.
The van left at 5:15 so I figure I can quit practice at 5 pm from now on and easily make the van.
I am having a great time planning practices and reminiscing on past teams.
I will take some pics at the next practice.
Meanwhile King Arthur flies in on Thursday night from Vegas, Harvey get in on November 30th from London England, and Ashley and his girl friend arrive Jan. 3rd from Ottawa Canada. Should be lots of fun over the next couple of months.
TTYL
No comments:
Post a Comment