Goodbye Japan, hello Thailand!
Travel day today, flight time just under 10 hours for two flights and a 2-hour time change. Our flights from SFO to Japan and these two flights today Haneda (Japan) to Bangkok (Thailand) and then Bangkok to Chiang Mai (Thailand) were all booked on miles. Total cost for all the flights for the four of us $138. The airline representative apologized for having to move our seats—-for some reason Zach was seated alone which is not allowed. Hmm, I can’t imagine how that happened in the booking. . . . : ) Anyway, she assigned us new seats, Bill and I together and Melina now seated with Zach, as I guess 14 is an “adult” age on their airline. They are 4 rows behind us. Great!
The best part of our flight out of Japan was our awesome view of Mt. Fuji. When my parents brought us here as kids, we visited Mt. Fuji and I was fascinated by it. I loved everything about it—-the fact that it was the tallest peak in Japan (I remember telling my class that fact back in Saudi Arabia) and it was an active volcano, although dormant for several hundred years (1707 - I think). We didn’t have the opportunity to venture too far outside of Tokyo this trip so we’ll save Mt. Fuji for a future trip.
Second flight we have 3 seats together and 1 across the aisle. Funny how Bill gets the aisle across the way while I get the seat right between the kids. It’s ok, they are great flyers and love any opportunity for unlimited screen time.
All went well with the flights, just a long day. We definitely saw more Americans/Australians when we landed in Bangkok—most headed to Phuket. We got to Chiang Mai around 7:30pm—an hour behind schedule because of the weather. We were landing and had to go back up because of the rain. I’m not sure what happened there, but probably don’t want to know. Anyway, the villa we are staying at offers a driver as one of amenities so of course we said yes to that! Sunny was a welcome sight, waiting for us with our name on a sign. The kids got a kick out of seeing that kind of airport reception. We had him swing us by the store for a few necessities and then “home” we went.
Oh my goodness. This place is incredible. We will be very happy here. More details to come (and pics)! For now, off to bed.
By the way, our bus ride to the airport this morning—not 7 minutes, closer to 30 because of bumper to bumper traffic, but we got the money right and on the correct bus. I’ll take that as a win.
Mt Fuji from the airplane
