Kindergarten!

Time out from the Thailand report for special coverage of Lydia's First Day of Kindergarten!!

It's been an exciting week for us. On Monday, we bought school uniforms for Hong Kong International School - red and white shirts, blue skirts, and a blue dress, all with the school logo. Lydia is thrilled that she'll wear dresses and skirts everyday - it pretty much makes up for not being able to wear pink during the day (yep, we have a fashionista on our hands). On Tuesday, we visited the school and met her teacher. And today, school began!

Rather than a cute little yellow school bus, kids are picked up in a huge Greyhound-like bus. With all the people snapping pictures and hanging out on the curb, you would have thought it was a rock band's bus. :)

I rode to school with Lydia. It was a scene of great chaos - bus after bus crammed on a narrow street along with taxis and private cars (no parking available!) dropping off kids. There are 260 kids in her school, which only includes pre-K to 2nd grade. Teachers were directing kid-traffic and asked parents to remain in the outside reception area. Lydia joined a swarm of R2 (Reception 2 is what they call kindergarten) kids going up the stairs to the building...and never looked back! No tearful goodbye from her - hooray!

Lydia returned home around 2:15 p.m. and reported that she had a great day. So, her school career is off to a good start!