Tom: Just wanted to let everyone know that I have arrived safely(1) and have already overcome my jet lag. My bags never made it on time for some reason. They ended up in Taipei and had to be shipped over late last night. Ah, clean underwear.
The hello wasn’t all you might have thought it was either. Shan had prolly been waiting for me forever and her first glance would have seen me being led by this uniformed Thai woman bearing no luggage. The first hug was brief but I immediately felt refreshed.
Last night I was pretty tired so we ordered McDonalds in for dinner. It was cool to see this little motor bike with a big McDonalds sign attached to it pull up. They even had a special bag for the drinks and see thru straws. I am seeing new things already. No chicken sauce though…I know it’s bad for me Ratty but I like that stuff. To compensate Ratty, they have this spicy chicken sauce stuff that you might put on white rice or mixed veggies. It was so good on the fries. Gould you will be happy to know that they use the same addictive Coke mixture here too.(2)
I was cold last night because Shan had the air conditioning cranked and is taking good care of me. Today I am going to try and buy a blanket. It is really nice outside today too and some might think the weather has followed me. Fingers are crossed that the cool air stays.
So much to say and so little time…
Shan: Well, we knew you were all waiting for this one so we thought we’d get it over with!
Tom is pretty accurate about the airport thing. Only, there were times when I was wishing that I was the one coming off the plane and times when I was wishing that I could run and hide. I was definately nervous. Finally I catch a glimpse of him and as soon as I saw that he was with only one backpak I knew that there was trouble. No words passed between us before I walked into his arms and then I got the ‘they lost my luggage’. What can I say?
So then they dragged him back into the terminal to fill out the necessary paperwork. I waited with a million things going through my head. You You never know how the Thai systems are going to work and so I was a little worried. However that did not consume my thoughts, I just couldn’t wait to get him back to me again.
Then came the second hello. Much better than the first. We walked out of the airport with one bag between the two of us and when the heat wave hit Tom stopped dead in his tracks and was ready to head back in. We got in a cab, the driver not too pleased with us, and made for home.
My christmas present arrived safe and sound. Yes! My dad flew Tom over here as a Christmas gift to me(3)…what can I possibly say about this? The one impression that has left me in awe was how much I feel like I have seen him everyday for the last 8 months. It’s like we haven’t skipped a beat and it couldn’t be better!
(1) – This was the year that JD sent me to Thailand for NY. I guess he had asked Shan what she wanted for Xmas and she said Tom. Little did we know that this trip would be the beginning of the rest of our lives.
(2) – This has come up before and there is speculation that Coke and McDonalds have some kind of agreement that their mixture must be shipped in stainless steel cannisters. Coke stopped doing this many years ago and apparently McDonalds played hardball to keep it the same. There are some posts online that debunk this so I am not 100% convinced of this but it would make sense considering Coke at any other drive-thru is not even close and all the McDonalds are pretty consistently better. Al and I were watching a show on TV that talked about this as well but I can’t remember what it was called. They enforced the steel container theory as well.
(3) – Well this is just clossic JD. I remember when he asked me if I would go. I think I had been on a plane once before for an hour before this 17 hour flight. I was concerned about getting there and how would I ever repay him. We talked about me mowing his lawn for the rest of my life. 45 degrees he would joke.