The Flight

My team of six Americans left the Atlanta Airport at 8:40am on Sunday, May 30th to Portland, Oregon. 4 hours, 36 minutes later, I had analyzed at least the geographic organization of the U.S. as we had started our flight to the other side of the world. Chaos to order as I saw it, strategic planning to land increased as we headed west. The Rockies were especially amazing to fly over. Portland to Tokoyo, Japan was only a little over 10 hours and arrived On May 31st at around 3am America time but 4pm Asia time because we had crossed the International Date Line. The airport was prized as being the world’s safest airport. Here we decided to eat at the McDonald’s because we could honestly not figure out any other restaurant that accepted USD. I paid $9 for a big mac (the only menu item I recognized) that I could not finish half of haha. FrMy team of six Americans left the Atlanta Airport at 8:40am on Sunday, May 30th to Portland, Oregon. 4 hours, 36 minutes later, I had analyzed at least the geographic organization of the U.S. as we had started our flight to the other side of the world. Chaos to order as I saw it, strategic planning to land increased as we headed west. The Rockies were especially amazing to fly over. Portland to Tokoyo, Japan was only a little over 10 hours and arrived On May 31st at around 3am America time but 4pm Asia time because we had crossed the International Date Line. The airport was prized as being the world’s safest airport. Here we decided to eat at the McDonald’s because we could honestly not figure out any other restaurant that accepted USD. I paid $9 for a big mac (the only menu item I recognized) that I could not finish half of haha. From Tokoyo to Bangkok was another 6 plus hours plane ride with our first real layover. We met up with our Tennessee team, Stephanie Sellers and Jessi McLean, and stayed in the Convenient Resort near the airport with our host, Scott Payne. He showed us some of the areas that were involved in the recent “riots” in an overly modest manner showing the honest safety we have here in Thailand. The following morning we ate the continental breakfast like one I had never seen before. A beautiful outside pavilion with buffet style breakfast including hot dogs in water (no buns), spiky fruit, fried rice of course, pineapple juice, and other things all including lots of peppers. Then we were off for a mere one hour flight to Udon Thani to begin our training. Jesse and Stephanie would remain in Udon Thani for the Summer and we hopefully get to meet up from time to time. Tuesday night we stayed at a local hotel and I got to have my own room. This meant only me and the lizards of course. The next day after experiencing more culture and language training, we left for a three hour drive to Mahasarakham to our apartment.