Our Beginning

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March 20, 11:24PM: We finally made it! To the airport that is. Thanks to my sister and Phil, Adam and I got to SFO at 10:00PM (You two rock!). With three hours to kill, we wondered around the domestic & international terminals and read our books. Cassie is currently reading Living Dead in Dallas; Adam is currently reading One Square Mile of Hell. It’s currently 1:24PM Bangkok time. We must stay awake for 9 more hours to stick to our new time zone for the next two weeks! Can we do it? I don’t think so….zzzzzzzzzzzzz. We miss Abby and Coco already.

So we are now 10 hours into our flight to Taipei. Only 5 more hours to go! And then a 3 hour layover and a 3 hour flight to Bangkok! Awwwwwwwwwwww damn. I gotta say, this 747 is probably the most ghetto plane I’ve ever been on. The seats are 80’s era cloth and the fabric is torrn and showing metal in some places. Since it hasn’t been remodeled since the Reagan years, there are certain advantages too. Well, only one advantage, but this is key. Tons of leg room! I can totally stretch out my legs without bothering the person ahead of me. This made everything else worth it. On our last trip, we took a 5 hour flight to New York on Virgin America. Totally redone interior. TVs in every seat, all the amenities you can imagine. We also were packed in there like sardines and my ass was hurting and I was twitching about probably within the first 2.5 hours. Now some of you may be aware of my current ongoing buttock issues. I am proud to say that with this ghetto ass plane, my butt and legs are giving two thumbs up! No issues here! China Airlines serves pretty decent airplane food too. I had beef stew that actually was made with real beef and Cassie had an asian-ish ginger chicken and rice dish. Both plates came with a slice of super dense cheesecake and you can never go wrong with that. It’s interesting to see the difference between a foreign airline and the domestic ones I’ve grown accustomed to in terms in service. With this airline, it even felt like a family gathering as one flight attendant kept on going up and down the corridor offering wine to each passenger.

As Cassie mentioned, I was reading One Square Mile of Hell. This book chronicled the battle of Tarawa in World War II. This island was literally 1 square mile in size and ended up as one of the bloodiest and hard fought island takeovers in the war. Over 6,000 soldiers lost their lives in a span of only 3 days. Something about the heroism of Marines and their brethren sacrificing themselves in attacking pillboxes to save the squad always gets me. It always makes me look back at my life and ponder if I should have joined up. But then I don’t want to die and I go back to my life again.

This flight must be Cassie’s lucky day. And me, not so much. The plane is currently playing Twilight and to no one’s surprise she’s watching intently. I think I’m going to try to sleep some more.

Now we’re in Taipei waiting for our connecting flight to Bangkok.

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Comments

[Carol]

Good beginning
Hi Cassie and Adam Sounds like you are off to a good start. I forgot your itinerary ... are you going to Chang Mai? Have fun in Thailand. Auntie Carol

[TheLowes]

Chiang Mai
Yup, in fact I am in Chiang Mai right now typing out this very response to you. It is awesome here. We will be leaving soon to see a muuy thai event. Hope I don't get any blood splattered on my clothes.