I have arrived!

Hello from Bangkok, everyone!

Well, the past - oh, I don't know, 48 hours, give or take? - has been interesting, exciting, nerve-racking, and surprising. And that's just the beginnging.

My flights sucked. I hate flying, for one, but that wasn't what was so awful about it. It was the fact that I was cooped up on a plane from Dallas to Tokyo for about 13 hours, and then on a plane from Tokyo to Bangkok for another 6. That's not including layovers, which (all-in-all), made my trip about 28 hours long. I did get some sleep on the planes, the food wasn't too awful, and the movies were entertaining at least. If it gives you any idea how much time I wasted on the plane, I watched the movies City of Ember, Bottle Shock, Snow Angels, part of Appaloosa (the plane was too noisy for me to hear anything they said on that movie), two episodes of The Office, three episodes of Scrubs, and one episode of Friday Night Lights. I would've read more, but I discovered that a previous disposition to motion-sickness combined with reading during turbulence is not a good combination.

Funny story: my first experience in Bangkok was being lost at the airport. The apartment manager, Justin, kindly agreed to pick up me and my roommate, Danielle (we were on the same flight from Tokyo) from the airport and take us to the apartment complex. The only thing is, him and I had a little miscommunication on where to meet - I thought he wanted me to meet him at "gate 3" once I got off the plane, but he really wanted me to meet him at "exit 3". That caused about a 45-minute delay in my getting through customs and baggage claim before I found him. It was lovely, let me tell ya.

After that, we headed to the apartments. It's a pretty decent apartment for the price we're paying - I'll be paying 11,000 baht per month, or about $300. We're right down the street from a department store. Danielle and I walked down there today.

It. Is. Crazy.

Most of the signs were in Thai, so we couldn't read anything. Justin had told us that there was a food court/supermarket on the bottom floor, so we grabbed some food. Chicken and rice, my first meal in Thailand! It was delicious, especially with the chilis and chili powder added on top (although the chilis were very very very spicy!). That paired with a coke, and all for less than $2! I have a feeling I'm going to love the pricing here in Thailand...

After that, I picked up some basic stuff I forgot/didn't know to bring: shampoo and conditioner, loofah, towel... good stuff like that. I'm gonna head down to a 7/11 pretty soon to find toilet paper and some instant noodles to keep here at the apartment.

My favorite part of the trip so far has to be this, though: quoting my roommate, we are "part of the world" here in Thailand because they have Law and Order on TV. Haha.

Anyway, that's about all for now. Check Flickr for some pictures of me along my trip to Thailand and my apartment!