The Beginning of a Journey

"To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other and to feel. That is the purpose of life."

My name is Laura Jones. I am a college student at Utah State University and I am going to be in Thailand for the next five weeks. There I will not only be experiencing the culture but practicing my particular field of study: Music Therapy. 

On our first very jet lagged day, we actually saw and did a lot. We went to Mahidol (pronounced Ma-hee-don) University campus in Salaya (about 45 minutes from Bangkok) to tour the College of Music which will be our home for the next month. First, we met the Music Therapy staff and students in their beautiful office and then had breakfast with them at Music Square, a restaurant close to the other music buildings. 

Breakfast was super delicious! The white polka dot fruit is Dragon Fruit, and it's my new favorite. After breakfast, we had Thai lessons with Madong (MT-BC) for a few hours, which was really entertaining and we learned a lot. Then, we toured the College of Music at Mahidol, and it is BEAUTIFUL: 

The Dean of college of music wanted the buildings to be surrounded by beautiful landscape to encourage creativity. Many of the buildings have large open windows in the classrooms (unlike Utah State) so the students can think "outside the box" because they aren't contained in it.

 This huge building is Prince Mahidol Performance hall. The acoustics inside were AMAZING! We sang a harmonized "Happy Birthday" to Colby (it was his birthday the next day) and got chills.

 The king playing the Bari Sax! 

Yes, ALL of these buildings belong to just the College of Music. SUCH a huge difference between USU, where we have a corner of the Fine arts building, and here at Mahidol where they have SEVERAL beautiful buildings. 

This is a forest on the College of Music Campus that grows only native trees to Thailand that is the material used for all the Classical Thai instruments. In the center there is a green field. Every piece of land in Thailand has a Spirit House, where celestial beings can dwell outside of the Heavens. People make offerings to the spirits using flowers, animal miniatures, and food, and they burn incense. We visited the College of Music's Spirit House: 

After we made an offering at the College of Music Spirit House we went to lunch at the Herb Garden restaurant, ran by the Hospitality department at Mahidol. Lily said it right when this was a plate full of sin:

Carrot Cake, Mango Cheese Cake, Something Green and delicious, and chocolate covered cookies/brownies.

Getting around the College of Music we took many bridges that looked like this to maneuver around the many ponds/rivers that decorate the beautiful campus. The different lengths and sizes of the planks represents the fact that everyone in the world is different and no two people are the same. It's amazing how symbolic "normal" things are to the Thais and how much thought is placed in even the smallest things. I can't wait to see even more!