Preamble

                                                                Bangkok
Itinerary

This blog will chronicle our winter in Thailand and Vietnam.  This is my first time using blogger so we will see how it goes!

Day 1
Tuesday, Jan 13
AC 8575    Saskatoon (8:20 p.m.) - Vancouver  (8:30 p.m.)  2 hours

The first sign of retirement is that you can take the long way to Asia.  Our first day will get us to Vancouver where we will overnight at Stu and Theresa's (Murray's brother and wife).

When approaching Vancouver it was really foggy, so you could see the city lights below. It was gorgeous, kind of looked like northern lights.  The flight was early, rum and cokes tasted great, and visiting was awesome.

We made it through checking in and security almost without getting stopped.  Dainty's three wick candle appears to be liquid.  We also found out that we can only be in Thailand for 30 days without a visa so I guess we will be doing a little jaunt to Singapore.

We are having lunch at Milestones, our last Canadian meal until April 24th.  We order a Montreal stack and a loaded burger.  Mmmm



Day 2
Wednesday, Jan 14-15 (yep, we lose a day crossing the International Date Line)
ANA 115   Vancouver (3:05 p.m.) - Tokyo  (6:45 p.m.)  9 hrs 20 min

Hotel MyStays Haneda. www.mystays.com

This is the long part of the journey.  Seeing we do not sleep well on planes- we took the flight with an overnight stay in Tokyo.
We made it to Tokyo. Almost 10 hours of flying time.  Landed zipped through customs, had to give our fingerprints.  Our baggage was there within five minutes, out the door to a taxi, five minutes to the hotel. Room is small but compact, it has everything including my fav Japanese toilets- heated seat with built in billet.  Bruce is feeling better, almost normal!

Day 4
Friday, Jan 16
ANA 847  Tokyo (10:50 a.m.)- Bangkok (4:05 p.m.) 6 hr 33 min

Of course we were wide awake at 3 am.  We went for a walk at 6 - it was about 10 C out.  Cool but nice.  We found a Family Mart store..... Like a 7/11 but with interesting items for sale.  They had men and ladies dress shirts, ties, shoes, underwear.  Also, lots of fresh food.... Liquor of course.

On the way through security they took our stew mix that we had just bought.  It showed liquids inside the box. :(

Here are photos of our Japanese breakfast.  I had to take the pic of the man drinking beer....it seems to be a breakie beverage- it is only 8 am.

Our plane was a new one.... So cool.  The windows have no shades just buttons that you push to add a sunscreen at varying degrees.  The ceiling lights in the plane change with the time zones it is supposed to reduce jet lag.

Bruce said the plane looked like a movie theatre and with our new Sony headphones it sounds like one too.