Asahikawa, Sapporo, Tokyo. These are names unfamiliar yet familiar always in legend and lore. Sitting in this bubble in the sky I am suddenly whisked away on an adventure I have yet to conceive of in scope. All the things that have been normal for me, standard in my life, are on a different playing field. Indeed, we are off traveling again! To where, not totally sure. When? Right now! How? Probably via many trains, some buses, a few planes, and throw a boat or two in to boot. Why? Such a good question, and one that I think we are still trying to figure out as well! Because we love to travel is the most obvious reason: the food, sights, sounds, smell, especially the people, the adventure, the unknown--it’s all so exciting. Perhaps there is an element of mystery involved as well that we are yet to discover. Some unknown pull that is leading us far away from most of our friends and family (love you!) for something that can only be known to us once experienced.
Kudos to Kelsey, Melissa’s sister, for not snoozing through her alarm clock as we did the day of our flight and waking us up 30 minutes before we had to be at the Bellingham airport. Some of those last morning preparations that we had planned to do got thrown to the wayside in those moments of racing around the house trying to get ready. After our final farewells we boarded the Airporter bus that transferred us to Sea-tac in those early, brisk morning hours. The flight has been smooth, highlighted by the impeccable service of Asiana airline hostesses (One is helping a very old Asian man down the aisle towards his seat as I write this) keeping us well hydrated and fed. I enjoyed Bi-Bim-Bab, a Korean specialty featuring pickled cucumbers, carrots, mung bean sprouts, rice, topped with sesame oil and chili sauce. Also featured was a fish soup which I tried and respectfully declined. I figure I have time to build up my sense of adventure around food--in this case airport meals are just training wheels.
We are definitely excited to get to our guesthouse tonight. We have one hour left on our flight to Seoul (beautiful name for a city) and after a 2 ½ hour layover we head on to Bangkok arriving at midnight. We are looking forward to seeing sunset tonight along the way as on this flight we have crossed the dateline and lost a sunset. That’s right, we left at 1 PM on Thursday and arrive 12:15 AM Saturday morning, with only one sunset between the two nights. Flying is an endlessly compelling mystery to me. I digress though, after getting a good nights sleep, we will be heading up to the famous weekend market in Bangkok. Melissa and I packed light with the intention of finding some treasures to style out with. Returning to the place that I once consumed live shrimp and saw a twirling whirling Thai man making iced tea. Melissa wondered out loud to me about whether we will see a lot of familiar faces on the street that were memorable for us last time. It has been two years since we were there and it feels…so long ago in some ways, and I know that upon arriving the smells and sights will be so familiar, probably as though it was only yesterday. We’ll find out soon.
We have our computer with us, our Flip video recorder, camera, microphone, and two very, very skilled provocative writers. We look forward to sharing our trip with everyone, and please feel free to pass on our blog address to anyone interested! Much love, Carson (and Melissa)
No comments:
Post a Comment