BBA Cultural Trip
Beautiful view from the melon farm
We went on a trip with the BBA (our business department at Chula) this past weekend. (Yes I know I'm several weeks behind. I'm trying to catch up in class haha. The International Department (BBA In Dept) is a group of Thai students who is in charge of taking care of us during our time here at Chula. They are our buddies, plan trips, teach us Thai language classes, and are a general resource to all of us Business exchange students. They are so kind and so sweet to us and this past weekend they planned the In Dept Cultural trip for us all.
Food from the first night, the chicken soup was amazing
The trip consisted of a trip to a waterfall at a national park which was really beautiful and then we stayed the night at "The Verona at Tub Lan". Which was this Italy themed like... mini Disney land type weird attraction truly in the middle of no where. It was also pretty confused because it was Italy themed but we stayed in a "Barn" in the "Western" part of the place and the signs had a lot of French wording... It was an interesting place. Pretty, but interesting.
We did some team building exercises that included a ropes course like thing that was maybe 10-20 feet off the ground. I honestly was bored but people had a good time and the In Dept team had such a good time and I was happy to support them.
We had a reasonably good night just drinking and hanging out. We all appreciated the work the team put into making this trip for us but it was 2000 baht for a reason I can't fathom (should have been way cheaper) and I honestly kind of wish I hadn't gone. I appreciate their work but it wasn't very fun and the activities seemed lack luster to me.
The next day we went to a melon farm. This included making a melon desert thing and taking a farm tour.
Throughout the whole trip we had a "buddy" who we bought little gifts for and someone else bought little gifts for us. Usually this was food or alcohol and lasted the whole weekend. It is a Thai tradition that usually lasts a few months between the upper and lower classmen but we did it in two days. It was fun at first but it ended up being an additional cost that really didn't yield much. We had a meeting on Tuesday after the weekend trip to have a "big reveal" and give additional gifts both to our our buddy and to the person who was giving us gifts and "taking care of us."
We also took literally endless group pictures.
