I was fortunate to be going on this adventure with a good friend so we booked our flights together. We agreed to pay a bit extra to fly with Air Canada and avoid going through the United States. In hindsight it may have been worth it to fly with a cheaper airline, but at the time I did not feel comfortable because I had read some poor reviews of other airlines, and did not want to deal with clearing customs in the States. Everything got off with out a hitch, my Mom delivered me to the airport and said her goodbyes and I had no issues with luggage or screening. Our first flight had us going from Winnipeg to Calgary and took 2 hours 5 minutes, with a 2 hour layover. Our second flight was from Calgary on to Tokyo and took 10 hours 40 minutes, with a 3 hour layover. Our final flight was from Tokyo to Bangkok and took 6 hours 35 minutes. In total our flights and layovers lasted just over 24 hours. I find people often ask me how I deal with these long flights. From my experience it is not so bad so long as you are prepared. I keep a clipboard with printouts of all important information, boarding passes, and note paper in my carry on. I also always have a toothbrush, soap, and sleeping pills in my carry on. I wear layers on to the flight to ensure that I am always comfortable on the flight. As a nice bonus, my sweater can act as a pillow and block light from hitting my eyes while sleeping. I know the window seat is my favourite seat so I always request this seat from the airline when checking in and they usually meet this request. When having multiple layovers it is best when you can have your checked baggage proceed to the next flight, rather than needing to grab the checked bags, and check them into the next flight. Finally, on any flight 4 hours or longer I get up and walk around for at least 15 minutes, often longer. I also mix in some basic stretching to help avoid jet lag. The last tip is key, especially when travelling along. Bring a good book or two, and update your laptop/hard drives/ipod with movies, TV shows, podcasts, and good music to keep yourself entertained. Sometimes the airline has good media, other times it does not, but if you bring something to entertain yourself you will not be bored on the flight. Between my laptop, Ipod, Jo Nesbo books and travel books I was not bored at all during the 24 hours my trip took. I also think I made the most of my layovers, reading, sleeping, and even getting some Sushi in the Tokyo airport.
When travelling to a new country which speaks a foreign language having someone pick you up from the airport is a pretty great thing. Rather than struggling to find our own way to our accommodation we were met at the airport by two staff members of the school we are both working at. They had a van to pick us up and brought us to our accommodation, answering any questions we had on our way. They had also arranged our first weeks accommodation for us, which meant all we had to worry about was surviving our flights, which we did without a problem.
It's very exciting to be a new country and I can not wait to begin exploring Bangkok and learning the language and customs here!
Here are a few pictures from the trip:
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| Myself and Nat on Our Flight to Bangkok |
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| Eating Sushi in Tokyo |
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| Welcome to Bangkok... Hello Traffic Jams! |
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| My Room For the First Week |
