Trip details:

We will be flying westwards across the pacific, crossing the International date line.

Date: 01MAR - TUESDAY
Flight : AMERICAN AIRLINES 579
Departure: AUSTIN 9:15 AM
Arrival: SAN JOSE CA 10:59 AM


Date: 01MAR - TUESDAY
Flight : AMERICAN AIRLINES 129
Departure: SAN JOSE CA 12:15 PM
Arrival: TOKYO (NARITA Airport) 4:15 PM [The next day MAR 2nd]

--- Bit of a galavant around Tokyo here ---

Tokyo highlights to include:

• Night in a capsule hotel (basically your hotel "room" is a box.)
  
• Inspection of the Spring cherry blossom.
• Visit to the Kodokan dojo (home of Judo).
• Sampling of various local food items, window shopping & snaps...

{Expect pictures and various reports as we travel...}

Date: 04MAR - FRIDAY
Flight : JAPAN AIRLINES IN 703
Departure: TOKYO NARITA 3:55 PM
Arrival: BANGKOK 8:55 PM


From there we are going to spend a night with Bridgett's host family from years ago and see a little of Bangkok before heading down to the western coast of southern Thailand to our destination of Khao Lak and the group we are going to work with: Tsunami Volunteer.

We'll visit and maybe even stay at the Khao Lak National Park in Phang Nga province south of Takua Pa and north of Phuket.




--- RETURN LEG ---

Date: 21MAR - MONDAY
Flight : JAPAN AIRLINES IN 718
Departure: BANGKOK 10:30 PM
Arrival: TOKYO NARITA 6:10 AM


Date: 22MAR - TUESDAY
Flight : AMERICAN AIRLINES 176
Departure: TOKYO NARITA 1:15 PM
Arrival: DALLAS FT WORTH 9:25 AM


Date: 22MAR - TUESDAY
Flight : AMERICAN AIRLINES 603
Departure: DALLAS FT WORTH 11:15 AM
Arrival: AUSTIN 12:10 PM

...All very exciting...

Well.....

As you may know Bridgett and I have felt compelled to do *something* for the people of Thailand ever since the tsunami hit.

So basically we're heading out there on March 1st (via a short stop in Japan) and will be back in the States on March 22nd.

We are going to work alongside these guys: tsunamivolunteer and will be helping with some rebuilding projects.

We chose Thailand fundamentally because Bridgett had had an exchange trip there for a year and knows a little about the culture and to be honest we were both just keen to see that part of the world before life *settled down* for us.

We are both lucky enough not to have traditional jobs to hold us back and I had a tonne of air miles that needed to be spent :)

I hope to maintain this little blog site during our trip so you can check in with your coffee for a read each morning:) -- there's nothing much here yet…

Austin skyline

Well this is where we started from on March 1st 2005 on the "big trip".