Welcome to Taipei...please don't eat our airport!

Well we made it 3/4 of the way to Bangkok! And, honestly, we're not much worse off for the wear.

This trip seemed a heck of a lot easier (and shorter) than last years. Guess we can just chalk it up to being old pros now... :)

Flight was relatively uneventful and, even despite Billy's last-minute attempts to get us upgraded--we were denied! The lady behind the counter had to keep 'checking' in a suspicious routine with her 'manager' before we were told 'no, it's not looking good.' I think the literal translation of that was 'no, you're not looking too good...try not wearing ripped jeans and Muppets Babies t-shirts next time you want to fly business class.'

So, needless to say, we're in Taipei. They did a little remodel on the airport here and, as you can see from the pictures, went just a little Hello Kitty-happy. I think she is the national icon of the country. It feels as if she has as much importance as the president. Who would you rather have for president? Hello Kitty or George Bush? Forget it--don't answer that! Actually some of the gates themselves are little Hello Kitty palaces--and look just like Candyland. Makes you really confused (after a 15 hour flight) if you're supposed to sit down on the seats or sit down and eat the seats.

We'll we're off in an hour for another 3 1/2 hour flight to Bangkok...and a lot of overdue rest and relaxation at the Peninsula in Bangkok!

Hope to post more from there...or maybe a day after that once we've moved on to Laos.

Thanks for following along so far, guys!

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