Hello all,

After making the boneheaded mistake of arriving for my flight at 12:30 pm for my 12:30am flight I spent another night with Anthony and Dave Making dumplings is Seattle and had a great night doing so. Man can those guys pump out some dumplings. For those of you who dont allready know Dave is the owner of the rapidly growing market that is Pel Meni with my best bloke (fiend, I have been spending allot of time with four bloody brits but that is for later) Anthony as Dave's right hand man we were producing these savory delights at the recently opened factory in centeral downtown a block from the Space Neadle that Dawn was kind enough to treat Anthony and I to Sunday brunch at. So if anyone is there eating these beauties in a couple weeks you will have the pleasure of knowing I had something to do with placing them there before you.

So after the 450 adjustment to my flight price I made a new stop to Japan and had the joy of finding out what was supposed to be my window seat on the 10 hour flight transmogrifyed into the only bathroom in the rear of the plane being less than elbow distane away and no window. The one benifit being that when I got super gassy on the latter portion of the flight I could point to the bathroom and plug my noise in discust and thereby convey my inocense through the language barrier to the lovely Japanese ladies that had the displeasure of sitting next to the stinky westerener. I was quite impressed with the piolet's abblity to land the plane in Japan as the weather was equivilent to the worst of days visiblity wise in South East (Alaska).

When I got of the plane at 12:45 am in Bangkok to say the least was a bit nervous about being able to find a place to rest my bags (the ones under my eyes and on my back) in the city. After dicovering that the airport was nothing to be intimidated by I decided to go the easy route and book a hotel from the booths at the airport for 1100 baht (28 U.S.). I knew that I would be paying to much but didnt mind at that hour of the morning. After some fierce negeotiations with the cab driver who was reluctant to turn on the meter I arrived shaken and stirred at the hotel thankful for my life and non-moving ground!!! I was told they were crazy drivers but did not expect it to be this bad at the end of my trip he informed me that this was his last trip of the night. So I am assuming the ride of my life was due to his desire to get home. We were passing other taxies like they were standing still and in no specific lane a kind of combonation of the side of the road and any lane not fully taken... After a walk around the area that my hotel is planted at 2am and an encounter with the largest rat in the world with a big bald spot on his back and many people sleeping on benches. I managed to capturea few hours sleep, do some rolling around and call hopeing to get in touch with my beloved Liesel but instead spoke with Jermy (it was nice to hear a familar voice).

I was awake and set to begin the day at 6:00am a little delirous from my lack of sleep but ready for an adventure Bangkok style. Even though It was early in the morning the city was ready to greet me with mad trafic that was not so gracefully overcome... I went and wandered the famous Kho San Rd. After ambling around awhile it was time for another unsucessful attempt to call Liesel and some sun by the pool the courtsy of spending 30 dollars a night. I met the four dodgie (shady) Brits that also picked this hotel as their first couple nights accomadations with intentions of spending 6 months traveling Thailand. They consist of one political enthusist who enjoys a good game of devils advocate while deep in the throughs of conversation, the musisian who is also a fellow traveler with a few more destinations crossed of his list than mine, the typical brit, and the lovely british (uncapatalized on purpose just in case the brts read this ha. ha...) lady who remindes me allot of my good English friend Nikki whom I hope is doing well in Africa. The brits have all been best blokes since teenagers and had a great time taking the piss out of the new American addition (giving me a hard time). Among their favorite topics "the unjustified and quite silly name we stole from soccer and gave to football" strictly their opinion. I was able to put up a good argument for the most part with their opinion. The World Series was also a hot topic being that in all the world their is no other country that posesses the skill to even beat the worst of our teams. However, I had to resort to ignorantly speaking over the top of them when that did not work plugging my ears and humming a given number of American tunes when the topic of football arose. Over all they are a pretty dodgie group of heathens but I suppose I will make due with their less than desireable company untli I find a better group to pass the days with, which wont be to hard.

Later that night we crusied the Khao San drank some nasty local whisky that cost less than 50 cents per bottle which my stomatch instantly disagread with and kicked out moments later... We ended up loosing a portion of the group as the musican who is also an artist (wood carving) and I were admiring some wares. We managed to find one of the others and grab a table at a bar and quickly disenbarked on a discussion of polotics between the EURO and England which the Polotician and the Musican quickly butting heads. After about an hour of mediating between the two I declared it a tie and demanded we go for a tuk tuk ride in celibration my treat. The first driver we went to was reluctant to give us the ride we were requesting (racing maddly up and down the streets then droping us where he picked us up) however, when another driver arrived on the sceen he aggreed due to the fact there was no other buisness at that hour of the night. The driver was grinning ear to ear as we were racing around maddly doing whellies at every stop screaming and taunting the other tuk tuks to engage us in a race the ride was great and I gave the driver a 30 baht tip (80 cents U.S.) on top of the 70 baht bargin price, for a grand total of less than 3 dollars spent. Well there is a bit more to tell but I woke up from a few hours sleep to write an email to Liesel so she has something to look forward to when she wakes up and just decided to write a little here as well It is off to bed for me which is I am turning into quite an early night at a great budget hotel we came across after doing a little snooping overall we are paying about 7 dollars per night for accomodations in a brand new still under construction hotel that I will be sure to return to each stop into Bangkok.

Well I love All of you and hope you enjoy my illiterate version of my adventure.
You are all more than wellcome to post a question or comment on this sight as I wont have time to email you each indivdualy and will be cheacking this sight constantly