Arrived in Thailand!

We made it to Thailand safely yesterday. :) We even survived using the Tokyo metro during rush hour with two suitcases each! I almost thought Robby wasn't going to make it on to the train, but he squeezed in and we only had to ride until the next stop on the most crowded one. It was a big relief to get to the airport and check the big bags. :)

The flight was only about 6 hours and it went by pretty quickly. Once we got to the Bangkok airport, I inadvertently tested out the Thai immigration officer to see if he was really looking at the passport photos. :) I filled out the immigration forms on the plane and then handed Robby his passport. Neither of us double checked them while we were in line for immigration. :) So I handed my passport to the official, he barely looked up at me, typed some stuff into the computer, took my picture and handed it back to me. I proceeded through as he motioned for Robby to come up next. Once I located the sign that said which baggage claim we were at, I glanced back at Robby to see if he was done yet and he was frantically motioning me to come back. Turns out that I had his passport and he had mine! The officer actually noticed with Robby that he wasn't a girl and didn't match the picture. :) So he had to redo our pictures and entering our information, then he took another picture of us together to prove that we were different people or something. So now Thai immigration has a lot of pictures of us. Maybe now that official will start checking more closely to make sure the person in front of him is the one on the passport. I think Thailand should thank me for facilitating that little training exercise. :)

We were catching a flight to Chiang Mai and had several hours to kill in the airport. It really is beautiful with all the glass windows. We enjoyed seeing this garden outside, but we couldn't figure out how to get to it.

I also thought it was pretty neat that you could see three levels of roadways at the same time.

Our flight to Chiang Mai was nice and short, only a little over an hour. Despite the short timeframe, Bangkok Airways still managed to serve us a meal and drinks during the flight. :) In Chiang Mai, it didn't take long to find a taxi and get to our hotel. Today we are doing mostly sightseeing and shopping and tomorrow we get to visit the girl we sponsor through Compassion International. 

I forgot to mention this in the Tokyo posts, but there was a little shrine in the Sensoji complex with a bell that they rang every morning at six. Since I was usually up by then, I got to hear it each morning. It was pretty cool.