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Getting to Thailand took me 24 hours, almost to the minute. Here's a breakdown of all my trip legs:
Friday 11:50pm: Take taxi to bus station. Flip out a little in my head because the driver takes a slightly different route than I'm used to, and I think we've passed it. Not true, though.
Saturday 12:30am: Take bus to Incheon International Airport outside Seoul. Both Heather and her mom assured me that the 6 on my ticket below the departure time is my arrival time, but it's not written in time format, so I realize once I'm on the bus that that's my seat number. The sign on the bus seemed to indicate that our arrival time was 7:40, but that ended up being thankfully wrong, and confusing.
Saturday 5:35am: Arrive at the airport. Get off at the Korean Airways terminal, because it seems like that's the only stop the bus makes. Get my suitcase, wander around for a bit, and find the Thai Airways check-in counter, which is closed. Wander around. Wait for Kent to get there. Get worried because he didn't have a solid plan for getting there.
Saturday 7:30ish am: Kent arrives and we get in line to check in. The line turns at a 90 degree angle where we step in and a middle aged Korean man takes the opportunity to cut in line. I am so tired I let it go. What a bastard.
Saturday 8:00am: We get our boarding passes and I get a Burger King burger for the first time in about seven months. It was good. I didn't get to eat the fries, though. Too full.
Saturday 830ish am: We start to look for the monorail that will take us to the right terminal, and have quite a bit of trouble finding it. We find signs that say Airport Railroad and follow them for a while, only to find that they led to the subway system. Kent figured the monorail must be after security, so we find the security gateway and go through. Then we get to the monorail and find the “mono” part is all a big lie. It's just a regular train.
Saturday 10:20 am: Our plane departs for Bangkok. The seating arrangement on the plane is 2-4-2, so I get a window seat and Kent gets an aisle and we don't have to share our row. They feed us a snack of gross packaged almonds with our drink, and a full meal with salad, a hot bun, choice of beef curry (beef? curry?) or chicken with rice, kimchi (gross), and chocolate cake. I usually like airplane food, but this was just okay.
Saturday 1:00ish local time: We arrive in Hong Kong, where for the first time I will be one of the ones returning to the same plane after it is cleaned. It is an odd process. They tell us to come back to the gate after 30 minutes to reboard, so we were just going to wander around for a while. Right as we deplane, though, we are lined up with the other returning passengers, given a sticker and a plastic card, and sent out into the hallway, where we are herded and lined up again. I thought they were going to just make us wait in line to reboard right then, and they wouldn't even let me leave the line to find a bathroom. Apparently the liquid regulations are different in Hong Kong, though, so we have to go through security again. Then we get to wander. It's nothing special.
Saturday 2:10pm Hong Kong time: We depart on the same plane to Bangkok, and get fed again. I get noodles with prawns and some other stuff I don't remember. Not the greatest.
Saturday 3:50pm local time: We arrive in Bangkok and have a couple hours to burn. We look at some shops and take some Thai baht out of the ATM. We look for a travel book for Thailand, but ironically, there are none. Just every other Asian country. Bizarro.
Saturday 6:20pm: We depart for the quick flight to Phuket. I'm so exhausted that I start to lose body heat and have to wrap up completely in blankets. Then I crash for like an hour after they feed us a muffin.
Saturday 7:40pm: We arrive at Phuket airport, go through customs and such, and find our driver outside. He had a sign with my name on it. That's the second time this year for me, woo. He drives us back to the hotel, about a 90 minute trip. They drive on the left in Thailand. It was dark.
Saturday 9:50pm: We arrive at the hotel and check in. We get free fruity drinks, yea.
