(I'm typing all this from my travel journal a week late.)
So I made it to Thailand! It feels really cheesy to be writing in a journal, but Jo Mama gave it to me, and it's actually a pretty good idea.
The flights yesterday took forever. Dr. Case was on our flight to Washington DC, and Bill Wormsley (another NCSU professor) was on our flight to Tokyo. Bennett flew on American Airlines just to be spiteful. They fed us so much food on the Tokyo flight--2 full meals and over three snacks. Somehow I had the window seat on all 3 flights. The one to Tokyo was 14 hours of continuous sunlight, but they had us close the shades for a few hours.
The seats had individual screens where we could watch movies and play games. Oceans 11, Inkheart, Bride Wars, Yes Man, etc. There was also a mode to see where the plane was on its path. Very cool.
Emilie and I sat around 40 minutes waiting for Bennett and Dr. Case in the Bangkok airport, then we came to the Reno Hotel. The 3 of us are all in one room--1600 baht or around 50 USD a night.
Emilie's feeling sick (possibly SwInE fLu!!!11!), so Bennett and I explored MBK, a mall next to the Reno Hotel. They sell knockoffs of a decent quality for very cheap. It's HUGE, but so is every mall here. Like 6 cram-packed stories.
There's a lot of neat stuff architecture-wise. Enormous art sculptures, round buildings, raised walkways over the streets, Sky Train. Tuktuks are small 3-wheeled open taxis that are plentiful in the streets. In Thailand, they drive on the opposite side of the road. I feel like so far I'm handling the time change pretty well. I think it's like 5 or 6 AM in the US, and I'm not horribly sleepy.
Breakfast this morning was tasty --> scrambled eggs, toast with butter and strawberry jelly, coffee, and fresh pineapple. Bennett and I found a place that's like the awesomest Harris Teeter plus Fresh Market but Thai. Oh and we also had super delicious pad thai for lunch. It cost under 1 USD. We had the same thing but with a Thai iced tea for dinner.
