Thailand

Christi:

Luckily, H's dad is a TSA security personnel at LAX whom can easily wave us through the gate checkpoints as hurriedly as one can in the midst of holiday travel season. Lucky us to fly during one of his regular work shifts. Btw, did you all hear of the baby that was put through one of those airport x-ray security checkpoints? Need I say more about the state of our intelligence...

3:16 pm:

China Airlines was delayed, according to the stewardess, 'A half hour', but according to H's watch and real time, a whole hour! Ugh. I hope we make our connecting flight in Taipei. A very interesting thing happened while we were stuck in a long line at check-in for our flight. H's Persian roots must've shone through to an airport personnel, who took it upon himself to guide us both out of the jam-packed 'Economy' line and right into the spacious 'First Class' line. Our luggage was also escorted with us by one of the airport personnel. We felt like royalty despite the hostile stares of the other Economy citizens! While in the First Class line, the airport guy busts out in Farsi to which H stares blankly back at the guy. Luckily, H's dad was also with us, whom does speak Farsi, and that solved the whole mystery as to the upgrade of lines. When we got up to the counter, the lady was nice enough to check us in, check our bags, gave us our seat assignments, and before we left, she chastises us by saying, "Next time, Economy is in the other line". Brought us right back to the reality of being 2nd class citizens again.

At LAX, H spies a guy picking his nose and says, "Hey! Look at that guy, he's picking his nose!" By the time I saw him, the dude's finger was in his mouth. Ugh. This is the 3rd time we've seen someone pick at a body part and eat it. Super gross. We didn't see 'Picky' again...at the gate, nor on our flight. Count our blessings.

I.am.so.pissed! My camera bag somehow fell out of my carry-on which contained my memory cards (a 1 GB and a 2 GB), an extra Canon battery, and my Canon battery charger! Ugh!!!! Now I have to worry about purchasing a charger and another SD card. Just my luck! But, I am thankful that I kept my digital camera in my daypack, which was on me the entire time, so I don't have to worry about that part. Already, this trip is starting off on a bad note

After a grueling 17 hours flight (with one stop in Taipei) to which I was consistently the 'Asshole' in Posoydos (a Filipino card game), and turbulence so rocky that at one point, my back and head started to ache, and an even worse landing-- we were practically fish-tailing and for a moment, I really thought we were going to veer off the runway! (The stereotype of the 'bad Asian driver' apparently also applies to aircraft maneuvering as well)-- we finally land in Krung Thep (Bangkok) at 1:50am.

Nancy (my childhood best friend) and Pink (Nan's husband--Wynn--'s sister) came to pick us up and drove us the 30 minutes into Sathorn District, where Wynn's parents have just built the newlyweds a beautiful, spacious three-story house! H and I had the entire 3rd floor to ourselves, and we enjoyed the animal-themed bathroom and the (cold) shower very much!