Monday July 23rd

 

We're here.  We made it.  After about 24 hours of travel, including time waiting at the airport, flying, getting baggage, etc.  We got lots of help from Lowell's sisters Anne and Evie, brother-in-law Craig, and dive buddy Tim.  Our trip to the airport to get going was much easier than expected.  And the flights weren't too bad.  Jet lag is certainly setting in, though.  But we've got a great place to stay for a few days.  (One of Lowell's coworkers, Kris, offered her condo until we get our own place.)  First impression:  Hot!  Humid!  And did I mention it was hot!  Getting off the plane around midnight local time, and you could cut through the thick humid air with a knife.  I'm definitely going to sweat a lot here.  (I know what you're thinking..."Lowell, you sweat a lot everywhere.")  Second impression:  The smell.  It's not a bad smell...just a different smell.  Hard to describe...but you can almost taste the smell.  Weird.  I'm looking at the Gulf of Thailand right now as I type this at Kris's apartment.  We're waiting to meet a real estate agent to help us find a house/condo here locally.  Some pictures are below...click on the picture to see an enlarged image.

And until I decide on the format for the Thailand part of our webpage...it will probably be a series of pages...

 

Our luggage at the hotel room!  We only brought 13 suitcases.  And only one of them was overweight...by 1 pound!  (Husband brag here:  That'd be Devin the "Master Packer" responsible for that.)

We're all smiles at this point...about to leave Seattle.  After 10 hours in the plane, we weren't smiling quite as much...  Actually, it wasn't too bad.  The flight wasn't very full, so we go to spread out a bit.  Our first stop was Tokyo, Japan.

Lowell loading the luggage into the school van.  David is looking on with Lowell's boss Rob.  He and the school driver, Mr. Pisai, came to pick us up.  It was a nice feeling to be greeted by a friendly face.  (Rob interviewed us in San Francisco when we got the job.)

Sorry about the poor quality picture...

Just wanted to show you a statue in the airport we were looking at while waiting in line at Immigration.  It was huge!  And very beautiful.

 

 

 

 

This is the view from the patio of Kris's condo, looking out over the Gulf of Thailand.

The pool at the condo we're staying at.  (We're contemplating getting our own place here, but we're going to be looking around later today at other places also.)

 

This is the Spirit House in front of the condo we're staying at.  In Thai (and Buddhist) culture, spirit houses are used to ward off bad spirits from entering your house, and to attract good spirits.  Many of the spirit houses are very beautufil.

This is the view from the pool up to the condo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had lunch at a local restaurant.  Check out the "food page" for a brief update on lunch.

 

 

 

We also experienced our first "Monsoon Rain" of our visit.  It absolutely POURED for a couple hours.  Nice thing was the temperature dropped a bit while it was pouring.  We even got to see some lightning in the distance.  Then it stopped, and got hot again!  Of course, the elevator stopped working at our apartment.  So up the stairs we went.  Wow, by the time I got to the top, I was drenched in sweat.  And yes, it was more than one flight of stairs...it was four.  The picture might not show the rain all that well...but it was amazing how quickly it started raining.