Flight(s) and Arrival

These are fairly detailed notes from my flight

Here are some things I wrote down that I wanted to remember:
• The smugness of the airport manager for United in Sea-Tac who, despite my letter from the American Embassy in Bangladesh, would not book my through to Dhaka because she thought I would get sent back. She was ultra lame.
• My last meal in the states was Mexican food in the international terminal, I had a taco and enchilada combination that came with rice and beans and was fine but not what I hoped for from my last meal. I don’t really know why, maybe I was just concerned that if I had booze on my breath it might come back to bight me but I finally decided against getting a Dos Equis with my meal. I still spent more than I wanted and was not satisfied.
• The LAX international terminal made me feel like I was out of the country already: full of Chinese people, dimly lit, unorganized, it definitely felt like an early departure from the first world.
• Luckily Thai Airways was great, living up to their motto “Think Thai, Smooth as Silk.” The service was great, the man next to me was Thai, the women were all at least 5’7’’ while most of the Thai men on the plane were under 5’5’’
• When I walked on the plane I thought that I had a great seat, but I soon realized that was “economy plus,” suddenly I thought that D was not an aisle but a middle but it turned out that D was the first seat in the middle row although it was the third from the port window. Also there was a plug-in I could use for my computer, this was most clutch.
• I played Civilization 4 for about 5 hours as Khublai Khan, extinguishing the pathetic empire of Gandhi and mounting a relatively unsuccessful campaign against the Malinese empire. I then watched a few episodes of 30 rock over some red wine which was served in small glasses but these were filled to the brim.
• The man sitting next to me was about 5 feet tall and dressed in a fine tan suit. He drank a glass of red wine then downed a few glasses of cognac before passing out for hours.
• When I got off the plane he needed me to help him reach his bags (this is probably why all the women who worked on the plane were so tall). He had one rolling bag which I fetched down for him, at which point he instructed me that he had a couple bags on the opposite side of the aisle. When I pulled them down they were huge, thick plastic bags with a couple bottles of VSOP cognac and two cartons of cigarettes of a brand that I did not recognize.

July 31, 2008
• When we landed they played a song that sounded like "Pomp and Circumstance" but with a bizarre Thai twist that made me hum the song I knew and try to map it onto what I was hearing.
• One amply bottomed woman remarked as we got off the plane in Bangkok, a truly world class airport, that “we could be Houston” as I followed her down a moving walkway.
• The airport was stunning, with what seemed like miles of shops. My bag must have weighed 30 pounds, so dragging it around after a long flight was not too enjoyable. I tried to find the C gates, which had a sign right next to where we got off the plane, but this walk took way longer than expected. At one point I actually thought I had walked in a circle because at each major intersection of the airport paths there was an ornate red and gold pagoda.
• Home to the absolute finest in chain consumer goods: Burberry, Cartier, Armani, Gucci, Salvatore Faragamo
o Also the classy “King Power” which professed to be “The king of duty free”
• I had an iced coffee at the second place that looked like it might have internet, the first did not but I bought a three dollar OJ anyways
Got to send some emails
• On the plane the accent of the pilot made me somewhat uncomfortable for some reason, just less safe sounding
• The preflight video featured a Thai man and woman and was pretty standard, except the man’s English parts all seemed dubbed.
• A Japanese woman in front of me is reading the sports section which has a huge picture of Ichiro, despite his poor season so far.
• Apparently the life vest lights turn on “only when in the water”… under water?
• Just before landing I met Stella, the first teacher I met. She is maybe 55 with pure white hair. I complimented her oriental style shirt and referred to myself as a “youngun.” It was very exciting to meet a future “colleague.”
• We met next to the bathroom, where I saw the delta floating on the water. The water was as wide as the land, which created the illusion of floating.
• I had to strive to get out down the aisle and back to my seat because all the sudden we had almost landed.
• When we got off the plane I was struck by the fact that there was no one close to my age amongst the other new hires. My name was the last one on the card held by the man at the end of the tarmac, I almost thought it wasn’t there.
o We walked down into immigration where we were greeted by Walter, wearing a braided colorful belt, his soul patch seemed thicker than when he recruited me in Cambridge, Mass.
o The Bangladeshi people helping me were ultra courteous, the young man who handled my landing visa was very slight with fine features. He would look up from his negotiation with the immigration officer and stare at me with unreadable eyes, I couldn’t tell if he was trying to see if I was impatient or felt bad for me or was just eyeing me.
• All of the immigration records were in paper, in a giant book.
• The soldiers, unlike those in the Caribbean, did not carry machine guns, but what appeared to be at least WWII rifles.
• A woman named Cassandra, with whom I was inline in the LAX international terminal, ended up living a few blocks from me in Baridhara.
• Jimmy and Sara had already gotten the big rooms, mine is about half as large.
• At 4 we went over to the school for a tour.