Arriving

Ever so sorry for not posting anything earlier. I've been trying to get settled into this place - which has been quite the adjustment....

The flight to Tokyo was so much better than I ever could have imagined. Granted it was nearly 12 hours long, it passed rather quickly despite my complete inability to sleep. I had a window seat for this flight (a preferred seat of mine); however, I quickly realized that the seat of choice for transpacific flights is in fact the aisle seat. I had figured that having a place to prop my head against (the window) would be nice, but I discovered that there were two problems with this. First, on flights across the Pacific, you "chase the sun" which means that the sun stays up the entire flight, so any attempts to lie against the window are met with scorched skin. Second, although the two people sitting next to me were of a much smaller size than me, they evidently had abnormally large bladders, and unless my two aisle mates slipped away to the bathroom during my two hour nap (I completely slept through "Music and Lyrics" with Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore), I believe they never used the restroom once. I, on the other hand, would try to resist the callings of my evidently microscopic bladder, until finally tapping the sleeping woman to my right to make the "I have to pee" sign in which she would shift her legs into her seat, and I would - butt protruding into her face - make my way across the barrier.

Another thing that is not so great about the window is that - at least on a flight to Japan - there is nothing to see other than water, which can be a bit disheartening if the mind is left to wander for too long. But despite that, the view of Japan suddenly rising from the Pacific is - like my grandmother had told me - one of the most dramatic sights considering the long absence of land.

We had hardly arrived in Tokyo (cleanest airport I've ever been to in my life) before it was time to fly 8 more hours to Bangkok, this time in a more cramped section of the plane.
Fortunately, it would pass pretty quickly, despite a brief nap that took me most of the way through The Holiday (Taylor, you can understand my heartbreak).

Finally, we arrive in Bangkok to the announcement that the current temperature (at 11:30 pm) is 85 degrees. This seems a bit ridiculous but manageable at least; however, stepping off the plane, we were met by a wall of the hottest, thickest air I have ever felt in my life...this is my fourth (or fifth?) day in Thailand now, and I have still not gotten used to it.

Taxi driver was nice...I in broken, stilted Thai pronounced the phoenetical pronunciation of our hostel's address to which he breaks out into a breathy, wheezing laugh. Yet despite my butchering of the language, he seems to understand, as we arrive at our hotel that is down a back alley of a street, that after midnight, is still full of street vendors frying all sorts of different foods. After twenty nine hours of travel - even the flat hostel bed is the best thing I have ever felt.