From an Internet Cafe in Bangkok

First Impression: Its hot, humid and smells like Thai food.



After an incredibly long flight, wherein I learned new heights of "patience" and gained an ability to appreciate PG romantic comedies, we have arrived. There is so much that I could catalogue here that it is difficult to find what to write. I mean, I could detail a laundry list of what happened where, or I could focus on a few particularily interesting experiences.

Funny thing number 0:
The taxi driver on the way from the Airport spoke only five words of English. They were:
pay
drive
one (He pointed to us and another guy we met, Kristoff, three times)
Choo-choo (Talking about the Bangkok sky train)
Ladyboys (after which he chuckled mysteriously when we nearly ran into who I thought were women on Khao San Road)

Funny thing number 1:
People greeting you on the streets to (sell something, offer you a ride, recommend their friend's business) are ubiquitous. They are pretty slick, speak decent English and often try to find some sort of connection with you. After one guy found out we were Canadian, he showed us his Canadian pin and said:

"Keep your stick on the ice. Keep your ice on the puck."

He then tried to sell us a suit.

Funny thing number 2:
Our flight connected in Narita, Japan on the way over. We got three hours in the airport to look at the variety of things. As a side note, its interesting that all Japanese books or magazines open on the left side, opposite of what we're used to. Also, people in Japan (really meaning staff I met at the airport) were extremely polite all the time. The really odd thing I noticed is that it seems that anywhere you eat they have plastic models of the food available, even down to the type of beer.


Funny thing number 3:
Engrish hunting.

Poor or funny translations are everywhere, are we're going to keep track of them. Here is one:


For those following at home, we're keeping track of our travels by GPS coordinates. So, you can go into Google Earth or whatever and keep tracking. For the first three nights, we are staying at

New Siam II hotel: N 13deg45'40.1" E 100deg29'35.8"



We're heading north to Chiang Mai on Saturday, May 5th. Until we get into a rhythm, we aren't sure how often we'll be updating this. Keep an eye out!

RE: The GPS problems. We got it sorted out when we got to our hotel room. We let the GPS sit for about 10 minutes, after which it said "Have you moved 100s of kilometers from your last point." We pressed "Yes" on the screen and it let us through.

EDIT: I just saw a hobo with hooks...on BOTH arms. Jesus! I was too scared to give him baht, though. Sorry there aren't any pictures of him.