On Friday of last week I am asked what are you doing on
Saturday. And I say the typical just
relaxing and shopping. My Thai teacher
than asks me “you go with my tomorrow at 5.”
I say ok, I try to say yes to things as much as possible. I enjoy getting to know the Thai people and Thai
culture. I later learn that the 5:00
means AM. I am thinking oh no I don’t
want to wake up that early its Saturday. But I said yes already so I can’t easily back
out now. Plus I have nothing else to do
anyway. I get picked up at 4:45am sharp
from my house, and then taken to the school (a 5 minute car ride.) The bus is there waiting and I join the other
20 kindergarten teachers on the bus where we depart at 5:00am. I am told it will be a 3 hour bus ride so I
sleep. I have no idea where we are
going. Not even the slightest idea of
our direction, north, south, east, or west.
I’m starting to drift asleep on the bus when suddenly there is music
blaring and teachers singing into microphones.
“What is going on I think.” Oh of
course they are just singing Karaoke at 5am in the morning. They all take turns singing throughout the
entire drive. Luckily I can sleep
through anything so I eventually just fall asleep. 
Shortly thereafter we stop at 7-11 for snacks but then I
continue sleeping. There are various
other stops along the way for bathroom breaks, markets fruit buys and any other
good deals seen on the side of the road.
We arrive at the school at 8am.
They serve us hot noodle and pork soup for breakfast. It is actually very good. I notice the school is also called Anubarn,
which is also the name of the school I work at.
(Later I am told there is an Anubarn school in every province of
Thailand.) That’s when I guess that this
is a sister school that we are visiting to get advice and share ideas. I believe kindergarten is new at my current
school. 
Then around 9am there is a meeting in an upstairs air
conditioned meeting room. Thai people
can’t stand the heat of their own country.
This amuses me as I have air conditioning in my house but do not use it
because fans are enough. In the meeting,
we were shown a 15 minute video about the school with lots of pictures and
videos of the children’s activities. The
school has a lot in common with our school.
Then the director of their school gives a 30 minute speech and the
director of our school gives a 30 minute speech. We are then given a snack. It was a ball of white bread stuffed with
pork, vegetables and a sweet salty sauce.
It was good. Along with it was a
cup of way to sugary ice coffee. They
drink their coffee with sweetened condensed milk. It is really gross but I’m slowly getting
used to it.
Next we take a tour of their school. Mostly the teachers are all just enjoying
taking photos of me in front of silly things at the school, and taking my photo
alone in front of these things.
Once it hit 11:30 we bus off to lunch. A mere 5 minutes away, but Thai people do not
like to walk. The lunch is so delicious.
We had dried sweet pork bits, plain sticky
rice, a coconut curry dish, papaya salad; grilled fish, a few other dishes but
those were my favorites. The Thai people
were impressed that I could eat every dish, even the spicy ones. 
After lunch we set off for home. On the way home we also karaoke the entire
time. Since I am a little more awake
this time I realize how bad the singing is but they are having so much fun. The teachers keep asking me what I want to
sing. At first I just tell them in Thai
“my die, my die,” which means I can’t, I can’t.
But later into the bus ride I figure if you can’t beat ‘em join
‘em. And I made them all so happy by
singing. I let them pick the song, just
so long as it was in English. Then I
start singing but realize I have no idea what the song it. But the other teachers know it so they help
me out and before I know it I am singing in a microphone on a bus with 20 Thai
kindergarten teachers. It was a lot of
fun! 
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