This last week has been a whirlwind of internet activity for yours truly…..and I had to do it a la coffee shop!!  Sylar and I have spent countless hours drinking latte’s (me not him) and searching, perusing, scrutinizing a proverbial mountainside of travel options.  It has been shopping hell for me I tell ya.  My hubby lovingly jokes about how shopping is a sport for me.  I have come to realize that he’s right on the money with that statement.  I tend to compare my options and change my mind quicker than a….welll…..uhhhh….well, it’s QUICK I tell ya!   (honestly I can’t think of anything that changes it’s anything faster than I can change my mind when making purchase decisions)

Before I even thought about booking airline tickets, I had to find out if we needed to produce said ticket in order to get our visas for Thailand.  It’s funny, because apparently there isn’t a universal list of requirements in place, that I could find anyway, in order to submit exact information to get said visas.  So, based on which list was easiest to accomplish and also had the shortest application times, we decided on the Thai Consulate General Chicago office.  They don’t require us to show a return ticket and have a ten day turnaround for visas.  That little last bit is important because we have to send in our passports….Carl can’t really be without his for too long because of his job.  So Chicago it is!  We have to fill out an application, various copies of passport pages and itineraries, along with a cashiers check (of course) and passports, and proof of moolah in the bank.  We’ll be sending that stuff in as soon as Carl gets home so we can send it all in at once.

Once that decision was made, we moved on to flights.  But how the heck do we even begin to approach shopping for an international flight??  Well, I came across this handy website that has a rating for each airline as well as some reviews about various aspects of the flight, like service, cost vs comfort, and overall ease of travel.  It helped me narrow down my choices.  I approached it much like I do when I’m looking for hotels.  There are certain services I want, in this case it was  business class service, and certain things I don’t pay attention to.  There will always be unhappy people that complain about the funniest things, but I really just read the negative reviews to make sure the negatives aren’t deal breakers, then move on.  We settled on Phillipine Airlines.  The ratings and reviews were above average and the costs were below average.  I think it had to do with the fact that they just went through some drastic aircraft remodeling and are wanting to get the people on the flights to see that.  We booked five business class one way tickets to Bangkok.

Wow!  How REAL does that feel!!

We head out of the country on December 2.  Our arrival in Bangkok will be December 4.  That’s a loooooong flight!

After such a trip, we obviously want to have accommodations all set up….I highly doubt any of us will want to do anything beside falling onto something soft and not moving for a while….

This was another search….a long, painful, stab my eyeballs with a fork kinda search.  The options are endless. Pool? Breakfast? Air Conditioning? Outside the city? Close to public transportation?  yes yes and yes.  oh, and yes.  Those were pretty much our criteria for the first week.  We are planning on using public transport so that was a huge factor, and breakfast will be nice because we’ll be in BANGKOK and have NO idea where to go!!  Two days of researching later and we finally settled on a hotel called Asoke Residence. You can take a look at the website if you want….but don’t ask me any questions about it cause I honestly don’t remember anything!  It was ridiculously hard for me to find a hotel in a city that I have NO experience in.  I read as many reviews as possible and we’ll just keep our fingers crossed that I made a good decision!

But there you have it…..our plans are set.  Now, paperwork.  Lots and lots of paperwork.

And driving…..

The countdown clock has officially begun and we have some people to see before we take off into the blue.

See you soon!!