Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Two Sunrises Over the Pacific

Upon arrival to the international terminal in the San Francisco airport late Monday night, Ruben and I met Elliott and Christa standing in an incredibly long line for ticketing check-in. Thankfully, we were there about four hours early (enough time for a two rounds of beers and a few hands of Hearts). After the patented group picture with all of our gear on, Elliott and Ruben made their way to a much shorter line for the passengers on the 1am flight to Taipei, Taiwan. Meanwhile, Christa and I continued to wait in our (much) longer line.
Whether it was the wait, our anticipation to spend time abroad, or being Veterans who have been on ridiculously long flights without any sense of luxury, we decided to purchase the upgrade from coach to elite class. With an upgraded ticket in hand (and a few less US$ in our summer budget), we were bound to Taipei on a 13-hour flight.
After we had a few last-minute beers, we saw Ruben and Elliott off and made our way to our terminal. There were a few Wall Street Journal-Asia inside the gate, so we both read up on the latest coverage of the protests in Thailand. Good news or bad, there was no turning back! We quickly found ourselves with glasses of wine, toasting to "jumping the pond" and upgraded seats!

. . .

Fast forward a few hours: I now sit in our room at the hostel outside Bangkok nearly 24 hours after starting this post, so I am going to upload some pictures of our time in transit: before the flight and of our enjoyable layover in Taipei, Taiwan.

NEXT POST: Arrival into Bangkok, cab ride to our hostel, and exploring the city!

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