Bangkok, Thailand

I arrived in Thailand at 11:35 on Sunday evening. After officially travelling for 23 hours I was exhausted but very excited. The first leg of my flight was from New York (JFK) to Tokyo (Narita) and took about 15 hours. I had a two hour layover and was able to change some money and do some reading. The second leg of the trip was Tokyo to Bangkok and was about 6 hours. The flight was practically empty, so I had an entire row of three seats to myself. It was wonderful to stretch out and really sleep...which I did for the majority of the flight. Upon arriving at the airport I cleared customs without any problems and met two girls from California. One of them was born here in Thailand, and is fluent in the language. It made finding a taxi and navigating my way to the hotel a breeze! I spent the day lounging by the pool, and recovering from the jet lag, and met the rest of my group a few minutes ago. The exciting news is that Tibet has been reopened to tourists, and we might be able to go. However, this is contigent upon our visa's being approved, and I won't know that for a few days still. Otherwise, we will be spending the day touring the city tomorrow, and then catching a flight tomorrow evening to Chiang Rai.