Dreamworld

Today has been such a fun day! We went on a CCD trip to ‘Dream-world’. The kids are shattered and so are I and the staff, so it must’ve been a good day! Unfortunately the majority of volunteers didn’t get to come because there weren’t enough tickets. We picked the children up from the orphanage just before eight this morning. I was looking after a boy called At (that’s how its pronounced). They were all dressed up nicely for the occasion which was really nice, not that they stayed clean and tidy for long!

At!

So we took a rather hot bus journey to ‘dream-world’, picking up children from Rainbow house along the way. When we got there, there was a bit of hanging around until we got the tickets but it was a great opportunity for all the Thais to take big group pictures. I never really knew what I was meant to be doing because there were so many photos. Then once we got into the park there was more photos taken, this time from the Thai staff I work with. There were lots of pretty flowers and nice scenes for them to pose next to. Then we fed the children and began our tour of the park and of the rides.

A group of some of us that went

We started off with the ‘giant house’ where everything is enormous. At was scared of going on any of the stuff except the chute that was meant to be a spoon. Then we went and fed some cows and coats. The little boys weren’t sure what to make of the animals and At was certainly very scared of them. It was funny watching some of the others feeding the cows, they loved it.

Lay sitting in the spoon!

Daring to take a peak at the cows

A group of the staff and me took a few children on what was my favourite ride  from two years ago. ‘Space Mountain’. One of the staff wasn’t going to come but then I managed to persuade her that it wouldn’t be scary....oops. She was a bit scared. It was a totally dark ride with the odd shapes jumping out and it went all over the place so each move the rollercoaster took was a surprise. I enjoyed it though! And I think the kids were OK too, well other than the girl sitting behind me who started saying she wanted it to stop halfway through!

This year we had a free ticket to get into ‘snow world’ which was fun. Well it was FREEZING cold! We had to put wellies on and massive jackets. We could barely see the kids because the coats were so huge. It was a great look....wellies, shorts and a massive jacket!! And I got so cold even in the 15minutes we were in there. My hands and feet were painful and apparently my nose turned red. At’s nose certainly started running! There was a sleigh and a little hill we went sledging down! So weird and the heat really hits you when you walk out even into the air con which felt cool when we walked in. The staff thought it was good. Not so sure the kids loved the cold though.

Had to put this one in of At, drowning in his coat

Us in Santa's sleigh

Tobaganning!! In shorts.

So we took them on a train that goes around above the park and they enjoyed that. We went on a water ride too which got us soaking! It took till the end of our time there to dry off. I was going to go on the biggest rollercoaster there with some of the staff and we got right to the front of the queue to find we didn’t have the right ticket. I was looking forward to hanging upside down on my first really scary rollercoaster. But it didn’t happen.

Before getting on the bus we stopped at some nice gardens and took some pictures.

The bus ride home was very very hot. There were five of us to two seats with two of the children asleep. It was really sad when we arrived on the road that the orphanages are on, one of the girls starting crying because she didn’t want to go back. And then At cried when I took him back to his ward. I guess it has to be the sign of a good day out.

So all in all a really great day and I am sure we will all sleep well tonight!