On my way to Work or Thai culture and lack of urgency!

Here is the journey/adventure of my (Jenny's) daily work commute:

It begins with hailing a motorbike down Sukhumvit 81, the street we live on, which during morning traffic would be a great street to play human frogger on (think the scene from ELF when he is hopping across the streets of Manhattan)... its that busy. I ride the motorbike side saddle style for a few minutes then arrive to a side walk with a dozen + food vendors and other vendors who are selling everything from fried chicken, fish balls, a wide variety of fresh delicious fruit, jasmine strung flowers for Buddhist relics, fresh squeezed OJ, some crazy type of sandwiches, Thai sausages, and many other strange mixed balls of food that I don't think I'm going to try, ever (in the first 5 minutes of my day outside of my studio apartment I've smelled literally 100 smells, no joke.

Next is my least favorite part of the day... Walking up the stairs behind INSANELY slow Thai's who are obviously never ever late because they walk as slow as molasses!!! I want to rip them off the stairs and scream! I am habitually late and as an American, I have a since of urgency all of the time, usually because I am late (thanks Mom!) But I also enjoy walking fast... maybe not during a stroll down the ocean but to the sky train yes!

But it gets even more awesome... next I get to either cram onto the ridiculously crowded sky train (just as crowded as a morning NYC train I'm sure) but I am usually the only white person, so when the only white person pushes to the front to get a seat, its just slightly more obvious... so like everyone else I try to blend in and pretend I don't notice shoving myself through to the front to fight for a seat and I listen to my Ipod :)

After about 15 minutes and if I'm lucky I'm not late for work, but if I'm not lucky I get stopped at exactly 8am every time and I freeze, like everyone else in the skytrain station, for the King's song. At 8am and 6pm on the dot, every single day, throughout public places, (skytrain, underground metro, markets, parks, etc.) this song is played and no matter what you're doing you stop and freeze until the song is over...

After this point I'm usually jogging through the station, down the stairs and to my school, where I pass my last 100 scents of OJ stands, crazy looking (orange colored) butter sandwiches, more jasmine, and finally the noodle soup stall and tables in front of my school (yes noodle soup is very popular Thai breakfast, but also lunch and dinner...) and into my school office where I'm greeted with a million smiles from the cute kiddos and amazing Thai staff that I work with, hoping that my boss isn't in the office to see me sign in at 8:05 (again... but I do stay late everyday :)

xoxo

Jenny