I've arrived!

That's right party people--I'm in Bangkok, Thailand!! Arrived late last night and was a bit worried about getting my Thai tourist Visa, since technically by my flight itinerary I'm not leaving Thailand until May 9th (you're only allowed 30 days in the country on a tourist Visa). However, I don't think they even bothered to look at anything I wrote on the form, just stamped, stapled, and sent me through. Woohoo! My next stop from the airport was the apartment of Jekky Singhatothong, my current couchsurfing host. Luckily, she sent me very detailed directions from the airport to her apt, in English AND in Thai for the taxi driver. It was a fairly long cab ride, but I struck up a conversation with the driver and asked if he would teach me some simple Thai phrases (since I am woefully ignorant). I do have a little phrase book, but since Thai is a tonal language, I had NO idea how to actually pronounce anything. Turns out the cab driver's English wasn't so great, but it was good enough for him to teach me how to say "Hello" "How are you?" and "Thank you!" in Thai. Throughout the drive he would call back to me the phrase in English and then I'd have to say it back to him in Thai. I couldn't tell by his laughter whether I was doing a good job or a bad job....I'm assuming bad. But hey, at least I tried. He must have liked me though, since he let me use his cell phone to call ahead and let Jekky know we were on our way.

When I arrived at Jekky's she had an American friend over named Craig, who is the couch surfing ambassador in Bangkok. Apparently the CSers in Bangkok get together every Wednesday for a big party/meeting/whatever. Sometimes the group is as big as 80 people or so. Seems like the couchsurfing network in Bangkok is pretty solid. Jekky's apt. is very very small--it's just one room with 2 cots, a sink in the corner, and a small bathroom. But hey, I was damned happy to see that hard little cot after about 24 hours of flying economy class. This morning Jekky took me to a little place on her street for lunch. This place was delicious, and I couldn't even finish the amount of food I was given. Pretty crazy, considering it cost 40 Baht--that's $1.26 American. And I even got to have the thing I've been craving since I first conceived of this trip---sticky rice with mango!! Oh sweet jesus it was freaking delicious. When I packed my things for this trip, I was a little annoyed that some of my clothing was tighter than it used to be, but consoled myself with the thought that I'd probably lose a little weight along the way. That is seeming less and less likely......ruh roh.

After lunch with Jekky, she went home to rest (not feeling well) and I took the skytrain to my current location at the BKS shopping center in downtown Bangkok. As I was standing there on the train watching the scenery go by, I began to think about how incredibly surreal this all is. I mean, I'm in freaking Bangkok for christ's sake. The other side of the planet! Not more than 30 seconds after this thought bubbled through my brain did I look up and see someone I know from my days living in Minnesota. Yes, that's right. Of all the places in the world, of all the parts of Bangkok, of all the cars on all the skytrains, this person just HAPPENED to be standing 3 feet in front of me at that exact moment. It was the music director of the church I used to have a job singing at in Minneapolis 3 years ago. After picking up my jaw from the floor, I went over and said hello and expressed my utter disbelief at the situation. He was there with his partner on vacation, and they both agreed that it was pretty insane. God, how freaking weird.

So now I'm here at the BKS shopping center in downtown Bangkok. It's a GIANT mall, with multiple floors and way more things than I would ever have time to look at. My first order of business was to buy a cell phone that I can use for local calls to coordinate with couch surfers, call hotels, etc. etc. I thought it would be a pretty straight forward task, but little did I know that this shopping center has an entire floor dedicated to cell phone kiosks. Now if you've ever seen me stand in the toothpaste aisle trying to make a decision, you might have an idea of what I went through today. This was all made worse by the fact that I have absolutely NO bargaining skills, which is pretty essential here. I ended up with a phone for 500 Baht ($15.78), which really doesn't seem too terrible since Jekky told me she paid 400 for hers. I still need to buy a SIM card for it before I can make any calls, but those can be purchased at any 7/11 for as little as 1 Baht. So, that job is now done.

Tonight, Jekky is having 2 more couchsurfers arrive from Germany and we're all going out for dinner together. Should be good times. For now, I'm thinking I'll go take a boat along the river that runs through downtown and go check out some temples.  But first I have to find my way out of this labyrinthian shopping center...