Sawat-dee Ka

That means welcome, hello, good morning, good afternoon, and probably any other time in between. Well, we survived the 16 hour flight and 2 hour drive to the Father Ray Foundation in Pattaya without severe jet lag, but no idea about the swine flu.  When we boarded the plane in San Francisco, we were greeted by all the Japan Airlines flight attendants, each of which wore  paper masks.  That made the ten hour flight quite a horrifying experience, especially when you would wake up during meal service and the chick is staring right at you...  To make it more intriguing, when we landed in Tokyo for our layover, our plane had to wait ten minutes while the Japanese health inspectors, dressed head-to-toe in haz-mat gear, boarded the plane and filmed each passenger with an infrared camera so they could monitor internal body temps for signs of the swine.  Then, as we were ready to de-board the plane, the flight attendants handed out masks and said no one could leave the plane without wearing one.  So...here's proof:

After touring the Tokyo Airport and looking at the diverse food selection, specifically sweet potato-flavored Kit-Kats, we boarded our flight to Bangkok, which went by rather fast for a 6 and a half hour flight (and though it was Japan Airlines, none of the flight attendants wore masks this time, probably because no flu of the swine in Thailand.  There are still reports of avian flu in remote parts of country though, so no deal Howie.)  Moving along, the Bangkok Airport is amazing, and definitely nicer than many of the big airports in the U.S., especially with Duty-Free shopping at Gucci and Prada.  After going through customs and picking up our baggage, we met our driver (holding a sign that said our names) who drove us on the brand new 4-lane (each direction) highway that connects Thailand.  It was sweet and traffic free, exactly unlike San Fran... 

We arrived at the Redemptorist Center at approximately 1:30 am and were led to our single rooms, complete with private bathrooms. The center is a conference center/ hotel, so the amenities are very nice. It took us a while to realize how to 1) turn on the power and 2) flush the toilets. After much trial and error, we learned both. And yes, we have mini-fridges.

Here's pictures of our abodes.  Sawat-dee Ka until tomorrow. I have no idea how to say tomorrow in Thai. Yet.