Woo Hoo

Thao will be coming to Oahu in April! We'll be able to plan this trip together (in person). Okay, this posting is just an excuse to say how excited I am that Thao is coming to visit! Yea!

Thailand ideas

I spoke with my friend and fellow fellow Korsin (who is from Thailand) about places to see and a possible itinerary.
He suggests:
1-2 days in Bangkok - recommends staying near the train station (which is the center for citywide travel), seeing the Wat Phra Kaew (The Temple of the Emerald Buddha) - thinks the wikitravel itinerary for Bangkok is "not good"
Water market (about 1 hour drive from Bangkok)
A bus trip to Ayuttaya
Fly from Bangkok to Phuket
Stay in Phuket for a few days
Take a bus trip Krabi Providence
then take boat trip to Phi Phi island
He says not to go further south than Krabi for safety reasons
He says we should be overpriced for tours, buses, hotels, tuktuks, and souvenirs.
He thinks the cabs and food shouldn't be overpriced. He also suggests to take only metered taxis.
He also suggests flying the local airline NokAir (http://www.nokair.com/) for cheaper flights
Okay, now we have some good Thailand suggestions.

A Decision

We've made our first decision. Thao will be traveling to Hawaii and then we're going to start our trip together from here. I'm planning on going to a travel agent in Chinatown to make all of our reservations. If anyone has any suggestions on a good travel agent in Chinatown (in Honolulu) or a travel agent anywhere else who specializes in Asia travel, please let us know.

Belated First Post

I am also very excited about this trip, I never traveled "around the world" with friends before. It took a lot of efforts and dreams to reach this planning stage. I am glad to be traveling with Jessica, her bubbly personality and genuine enthusiasm will make this trip more fun. I am glad Jessica is thinking about more practical stuffs, like renting a cell phone. As for me, I recently had a perm, I am still not use to it and wishing that this trip would come sooner so that I can go to a Japanese hair salon and get my perm straightened. :-)

Keeping in touch

So, I've given up on Thao writing the second entry. I guess it's my turn again. :)

In my research for traveling to Asia, I found a company who rents cell phones which will work all over Asia (except Japan - you need a special phone for that). I'll probably end up renting a cell phone when we go so that I can keep up my incessant need to blab (all text messages are $0.75 and incoming calls are free).

First Entry

Welcome! I'm excited to be beginning this blog because other getting time off for vacation this is the first step to this trip! I hope that everyone will visit regularly as the adventure comes together and will stop by even more often when we're in Asia. My hope is that blog will be an up to date portal into this trip.

What we know right now is that we're going to be going to Asia in July 2008 and will be visiting 4 countries, Japan, China, Thailand, and Vietnam. Maybe this is where I should also ask for corporate (or private) sponsorship to help finance (okay, just kidding).

-Jessica