The two weeks before Thailand

Well, I leave tomorrow morning for Thailand. It still seems surreal. I’ve said all my goodbyes and until next times. I’ve shored up all my odds and ends. I’m as prepared as I can get. It will have to be enough.

So what have I done in the last two weeks since moving out of Utah? I had decided on staying for two weeks because my dad thought he would have some work for me to do on his new house. Rain and weather kept the roof from getting finished which in turn kept me from having a shop to work in. Oh well. I spent a lot of time hanging out with my brother and my dad, which was great. I found a coupon for two weeks of Bikram Yoga for $20. After not doing Bikram for about 6 months I had forgotten how much work it is, and how great you feel afterwards. It makes most other yoga styles seem inadequate in comparison. The three of us went to the Rogue Brewery and Cape Perpetua on the coast one day. Living in Utah destroys your ability to drink lots of alcohol! I had only two pints and I was unable to think straight! Mmmmm…..beeeeeerrrrrrr. I spent most afternoons going for hikes nearby in the Amazon Creek watershed.

Then I got a little bored. I began really missing all my friends in Utah, and especially Emily. I was tired of ‘climbing’ at the Crux-I’ve been ruined by how awesome Momentum is. So Emily was able to get me a buddy pass on Delta and I flew back to Utah for a weekend. And so I am in the airport in SLC, getting ready to board my flight back to Eugene. The weekend was great! I got to see a bunch of friends, was able to spend a lot of time with Emily, and use of some of my remaining Centered City Yoga passes that I thought would go unused. There are a lot of things that I will not miss about Utah, but my friends are the thing that I will miss most of all.

So the plan is to fly back to Eugene this afternoon. My dad will pick me up and we’ll drive to Portland this evening and stay with some of his friends near the airport. We both have flights that leave mid-morning tomorrow and that is the start of my trip! I fly to San Francisco, have a ridiculous 12 hour layover, and then leave again near midnight for Tokyo. A quick layover there at some ungodly hour of some day (I have no idea which day) and a shorter flight to Bangkok, and I will be in the Land of Smiles. It will be midnight when I arrive. Then starts the most anxiety-inducing part of the trip; somehow getting from the airport to Khao San road and finding a place to sleep. Although I’m not completely sure what time it will be, I have a hunch that it will not be a natural feeling time to go to bed. But who knows. My hope is to meet some people on the plane or at the airport and share a cab. The next time I enter a blog it will be from Thailand and my perceived difficulties will be over! I’m sure that it will really only be the start….