First day

14 hours on an airplane is not fun, but I survived. I sat squished between two guys.  One was a nice kid who works at Apple and travels a lot. We had a few nice chats and he had some good advice.  The other guy....I've decided my blog entries will be positive thoughts only (so I won't tell you about how he used the hand towelette to wipe his armpit & then he smelled it).  Well I guess I did tell you about it.  Yuck! Then he smelled his shoe before putting it back on. Ok, enough of that.  

I survived the flight, made it off the plane and found our TBF guide Dan and the rest of the gang.  We had a few short minutes to get to our next flight so I didn't get to explore the airport in Taipei which I hear is awesome.  Maybe next time, if there is a next time.

I'm on the second and last flight for today, only 4 hours.  They will be serving breakfast & it smells amazing. As a traveler, I am constantly hungry.  If you've met my mom it's likely that you've heard her tell the story of me getting hungry on a trip to New York and refusing to do anymore sightseeing until I ate.

So I've had breakfast (actually the second of the day, they fed us breakfast at the end of the first flight) and am ready to get the fun sightseeing part of this adventure started.  I'm also eager to get my first stamp on my naked passport.  Dan gave us two awesome handouts to make our trip easier. The first is a pocket guide itinerary with helpful Thai phrases and Thai baht conversions with ideas on how much things should cost.  The second is a full detailed itinerary with detailed plans for each day explaining our activities, what to wear and what to bring, and when and where to meet the group.

The agenda for today is to check into our hotel, shower, stay awake & get sunlight to help adapt to the time change.  We have a few free hours between check in at the hotel and our first group welcome dinner so I'm not exactly sure what my plan is.