No such thing as personal space in Thailand!

Flight 2 - From Seoul, Korea to Bangkok, Thailand

Wow! That 14 hour flight was very rough on us! Mainly because of our 2 year old Josiah. We literally had to get up and make laps around the plane with him. He would just have spirts of energy and he was jumping up and down in his seat and just about to explode!

A very crazy thing happened! We almost missed our flight to Bangkok. Right after we got off the plane we headed for food. We were starved and were under the impression we had 4 hours of waiting time until our next flight. So I got some Shrimp fried rice and John headed for KFC and got some chicken sandwich. After we were done eating we headed for an internet café we had seen. While we were there trying to figure out how to pay to get on the internet I heard something about Bangkok on the overhead.

John went over to the screens that show flight and we saw that our flight was leaving. So we hussled back to the information desk where we had given up one of our tickets to rent a baby stroller – exchanged the stroller and she informed us that we had a long way to go and we had better hurry. So off we went. I’m sure we looked quite comical – we were almost in a full run trying to get to our gate. John was playing it cool but I was kinda panicy because I had made a joke on the plane earlier and I said wouldn’t it just be terrible if our plane was so delayed that we missed our connecting flight! AHHH!

Well, we made it. We got settled in and we all pretty much slept the whole way – which was awesome! When we finally arrived in Thailand and the plane stopped…Josiah woke up and the first thing out of his mouth was “Where’s Micheal!?!” That about broke my heart. Micheal is our best friend that lived with us up until we left. Then about 5 minutes later he was asking for the “Baba” – which is my sister-in-law’s baby – Elisha.

He’s already missing everyone. So here we are sitting in Burger King in Bangkok, Thailand. The most shocking thing to me is the way everyone is flipping out over Josiah. Men and women alike are touching, hugging and kissing my son. This would be totally an invasion of space in the states but these people don’t seem to know that or have any understanding of the fact that Americans typically have a safety bubble and 6 inches away is definitely invading that bubble.

Every corner we turn someone is ooooing and ahhhing at our son and patting him. Some of them have gone as far as to pick him up and walk off with him to show him to their friends. That’s where John and I say no. I can’t tell this is going to be something we deal with everywhere we go. Ahhh! Ah well, God will give us the strength and the wisdom to deal with it.

I went into the Post Office place here and used the internet briefly and told a few people that we were in Bangkok but I couldn’t’ write much because John was waiting for me outside with Josiah with finger happy Thais.

John and I were really confused after we got our luggage because we had been through immigration and gotten our luggage and then through customs without any problems what so ever – and I hadn’t been given a VISA. I was really concerned so we made a couple circles and had a couple of conversations that went in circles…and I finally called MaryBeth and Brian and it turns out that your passport serves as your 30 day VISA. Whew! People kept telling us to go through this door that said EXIT and I just knew I didn’t have our VISA’s and so we kept going different places trying to figure out where to get our VISA’s. It was quite humorous…after it was done!
Welp, I must go because I don’t have much battery left on our laptop. I’ll be writing again soon!