Off to Thailand

Yippee! I'm off on vacation! I woke up this morning and finshed packing. Then I ran some errands (like picking up Hiroshi's dry cleaning and getting some money). I grabbed a taxi to the station so I didn't have to lug my suitcase and caught the train to the airport. Pretty uneventful. I started listening to my e-book on the way.

At the airport, check in was extremely disorganized. One of the attendants took my passport to start checking me in at another counter, only he had two other people's passports as well... so when two attendants opened up, I wasn't able to check in, but had to wait while about three other people went ahead of me. Stupid.

I eventually made it through security and made my way to the lounge. I was so looking forward to the lounge, but the lounge China Airlines uses at Narita basically sucks. When I flew with Thai airlines they had sandwiches and trays of fresh fruit. This lounge had crappy cheese processed cheese and saltines. Oh well, at least I would get fed on the plane (I hadn't eaten at home because I was expecting decent things in the lounge).

I pre-boarded and got myself organized. Then I enjoyed a glass of champagne. I love business class. As I was sitting there relaxing, some airport employee boarded the plane and then came over to me to tell me that my luggage had "opened". As in the zipper had broken. I'm like, what? I had visions of my underwear being all over the tarmac. He said I had too much stuff in my suitcase so the zipper broke - which was a crock because I just pulled the lid closed and didn't have to squish it or anything. They put too much weight on top of it. Anyway, I decided not to get all stressed out about it. Nothing I could do anyway. The man said that they had taped it all up, so I'd just have to wait until Bangkok to see what had happened.

The meal on the plane was salmon gravalox as an appetizer, then pork with herb crust and veggies, and then a yummy raspberry dessert. I also had a glass of port. It was quite good. We were basically just served the meal and then we landed in Taipei.

CKS airport is rather dumpy and moldy. The business lounge is nice though - dim sum and noodles are available (I wasn't hungry though). I must say, Thai still has the best lounges though. I read some magazines and surfed the net for a bit and then it was time to board the next leg.

Got fed again on this flight. This time I had the penne with fish because I wanted something light. I also stuck with water to drink. Then I had a little nap. I was landing in Bangkok at 1am, which is 3am Tokyo time.

We landed on time and I got my luggage which really was all taped up. I went over to the baggage claim area and talked to a guy about making a claim on my luggage. He said it happened all the time. The zipper did do up still and everything seemed to be in place, so I just left it. I did get the claim form just in case though. Then I went and got an airport limousine (aka pre-paid taxi) to my hotel. You do it this way because the cars are much nicer (Corolla instead of a beat up K-car) and you don't have to wait an hour in a line to get a taxi that may drive you all over the city to increase the metered fare.

It took about half an hour to get to my hotel. Once there, I checked in and crashed in bed! Time to sleep!