Day 1: Walking into Asia, or: I Got Overly-Emotional Over "The Croods"

I didn't go to sleep the night before I left the country, mostly because we were leaving at 4:40 in the morning. Instead we waited, and that actually worked to our benefit.

First flight from Cedar Rapids to Minneapolis was barely an hour, which Mr. Freeze entirely spent sleeping while I just kinda sat there wishing I was asleep. Then we waited about four ridiculous hours in the St. Paul airport and sat lazily waiting for us to begin the huge stretch out of America.

Then, finally, we left.

My first few hours outside the United States were spent watching The Wolverine (the one set in Japan, so I could adequately prepare for the brief time we'd be in the country, which is apparently just filled to the brim with ninjas and Yakuza at every corner, and wow this parentheses is way out of hand), Despicable Me 2 (funny, but that's about it), Oblivion (which was only put on so I could have some white noise to sleep to), and The Croods (waaaaay better than I thought, holy cow).

At any rate, the flight from Minneapolis to Japan lasted almost twelve hours. Honestly I barely remember most of it at this point, if only because so much has already happened since.

I slept through most of the flight from Tokyo to Bangkok. So, finally, we made it to Thailand.

We've spent pretty much all of the day walking about, checking out the city and whatnot. Went out to the street vendors with a couple people, and I got a couple shirts. One totally not-tacky orange one and a grey shirt that might've been a tad expensive. Freeze tried to get a pink shirt, but every one we found had a political message on it, so that search ended up with nothing.

Then we took a long boat ride through slummy looking areas. It was really interesting to see that way of life and look at all the things that stood out. One example was a couple of women in small boats filled to the brim with various souvenirs and drinks, paddling alongside us and offering their wares. Another moment was when we saw a monk using a weed hacker in a monastery's lawn. And then we saw a couple monitor lizards lazily lounging (how's that for alliteration!) along the riverside.

The boat took us to an old temple that was more of a tourist attraction than anything, but it was still really cool to walk through and I also bought a couple gifts for people there.

The day ended with pretty good food at a restaurant, which involved pork, black bean sauce, and AMAZING fish with garlic.

So, first day in Not America was nice. I'm sure I had more to say but for the life of me I can't think of it now. Feel free to ask any questions below or via some other textual method.

Peace from Bangkok.