Quest to See the World

So, on Saturday my mom and I got dropped off at the Pittsburgh airport at 8:30am & i took off at 9:30 to Phili where I met up with my mom when her flight got in an hour after mine. We made it to L.A. uneventfully at 5pm west coast time. Of course Stacy’s flight was delayed an hour and a half, so Brigid and Adam (friends who live in L.A.) came to pick my mom and I up at the airport to get dinner. When Stacy’s flight came in we returned to the airport and she was all hyper saying that there was this really long line upstairs of Mexican people with a bunch of boxes waiting to check in and that she was thinking that if we had to wait in that line, she’d reconsider. well, we walked upstairs and I was like, “They’re not Mexican…they’re Asian, and that’s our line” So yeah, she confused mostly Taiwanese with Mexicans, which is possible I guess… So we wait in line for a long time and finally get in to the gate area. by this time it’s like 3am east coast time and we’re pretty tired. I decided to pre-board with my mom since she has the broken shoulder. We all wanted windows so we sat at three windows one in front of the other. oh, i forgot to mention that before we left for the trip I had no idea how long the flight was going to be and i was thinking it was going to be like a 9 hour flight from L.A. to Taiwan, but no, it was a 14 hour flight!!! I was dreading it. So anyway, as soon as I got in my seat (4am east coast time now) I was super tired and passed out immediately. I woke up a couple of times during the night to adjust my neck, but by the time I woke up for good, 10 hours had passed by!!!! I couldn’t believe it!!! they keep all of the windows closed and it’s nice and dark in there and quiet and everyone else sleeps too. it was great!!! the most pleasant 14 hour flight imaginable. The plane was nice because we each had our own tv monitor with a remote control and could choose between categories like shows, travel, games, movies, music, news, plane info… first i watched the movie “27 dresses” and then started playing with the different channels. it was awesome!!! the plane info screen had a satellite map that showed the route of the plane w/ the speed, time at origin city, time at destination city, amount of time left until arrival, velocity, and even 2 CAMERAs with a view from the front of the plane and a view down to the ground, although all i could see were clouds at that time, but it was still cool! I also watched anthony bourdain in vietnam, some shows with a little info about different countries including thailand, and under the games section you could learn different languages. i chose thai and would listen to the words and phrases and write down the phonetic spelling so I could use them later. We got a great breakfast too. I read the guide book a little and soon enough we landed. It was very pleasant.

By the time we got to Taipei, Taiwan it was 6:15am Monday morning local time, 6:15pm Sunday night east coast time which means that we were feeling pretty gross by that point, but we got a really nice surprise. The airport was awesome and had free clean showers equipped with soap and everything! We all took showers and got nice and fresh before proceding through the next security check point. Once through, we found free internet service too and a bunch of duty free shops. Stacy got some Hello Kitty tea in a tin and I got some passion fruit green tea and a pastry. There was an Adidas store there that had a shirt, no, a tank top that i liked but it was $41!! what a rip. i figured that i’d just keep an eye out for a bootleg one in bangkok. i thought asia was supposed to be cheap!!

The next flight was three hours and something and mom got to sit in first class because of the big contraption on her arm (you’ll see the pics soon). Oh, while at the taiwan airport, stacy (my sister for those of you who don’t already know) and my mom informed me that I had missed the dinner meal on the first plane, i was super bummed because airplane food is a real treat nowadays. so on the second flight i had chicken with spaghetti noodles, fruit, a roll, purple cake, green beans and apple juice. China Airlines is the one we flew and I highly recommend it. The flight attendants are much nicer than u.s. flight attendants. i think it’s a requirement for all of them to be pretty and skinny too.

we arrived to Bangkok around noon local time, now 13 hours difference from the east coast. mom got sick on the last flight, but now she’s fine. Got through immigration in about an hour, long lines. stacy and mom would’ve gotten ripped off by a private taxi company that wanted like $23 to get us to the hotel, but i insisted on waiting until we got outside and saved us more than half. The taxi driver didn’t speak much English so i decided to try out some of my new thai skills i picked up on the plane and asked him his name, and he actually understood me! I was pretty impressed with myself. someone told me that it’s the hardest language in the world to learn, i guess for english speakers. i told the waiter this morning “good morning” in thai, but he didn’t understand me, so i need more practice. it’s nice to be back to not knowing the language because i remember how my students feel again.

After we got our rooms, we went on a short self-guided tour of the city, but i’ll tell more about tht later b/c it’s getting late and we need to head out for the day (8:35am). i woke up at 6am and woke them up at 6:45. today we’re going to the tourist hotspots- a temple and the grand palace and a market. they’re in charge today. i’ll tell you about it tonight.

Lah gorn (goodbye) 

Tags: , bangkok, taiwan, thailand

This entry was posted on Monday, June 30th, 2008 at 7:37 pm and is filed under Asia Trip-Summer 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.