Note: Someday Ill prob write about everything leading up to this trip, but for now, it is way to hectic to put down into words

Day One:
We arrive at Bangkok Airport [actual name is incredibly long] at 7:00am. Get off our plane, get our luggage and go through customs. I have no idea what to really expect, the only non-english speaking country Ive gone through customs for is Costa Rica where the most recent time I went there wasnt even anybody looking at the x-ray machine when we went through, so this was fairly intimidating, especially after ~20 hour of no sleep.

Anyways, we get there and when I step up to the customs check-in, the lady is just chatting up a storm in Thai. I sorta just nod my head and pretend like I know whats going on [im fairly good at that], but she keeps going on and on and im just getting more and more confused. She stamps my passport and her earpiece falls out and I finally realize that she had been talking on her cellphone the entire time, and not to me.

That sorta helped calm me down.

Anyways, we go get our bags [which cost 280gbp in overage charges to get there], and I see the special case I got for my 30" LCD looks busted as fuck. Whatever, it should be fine, I just wonder what they would have done to the case if it didnt say "fragile" all over it.

We get our bags on two carts and start making our way towards ground transportation, not knowing what to expect. We sorta just stand there for awhile trying to take in all of our options once we get there when some random dude with a nametag starts talking to us. He brings us over to our desk and we show him the address of where we are trying to go. He says that is is no problem but them keeps talking abotu some random promotion for a tour that we qualify for. We say we dont want the tour, but he tells us it is free. Now, I have traveled enough to countries like this to typically have a good hold on what is a scam and what is not. This was at an official airport tourist information center though, which lent him credibility. Also, I clarified about 10 times that what we were paying for was the the taxi and not the tour, and he said yes. Regardless, my first transaction in Thailand was one where I understood about 30% of what was going on, that didnt stop us from getting in the car they got us, and they [surprisingly] actually got us to our hotel.

We get to the hotel and its pretty sick. The girls behind the counter are gorgeous [and I dont typically like Asians], and all speak great english and get us setup with our room. Mind you, this is 7am in Bangkok which is 7pm in New York and liek 2am in London where we left from. the whole experience sort of woke us up and we werent tired at all so we dropped our bags off and got directions to a decent place for lunch about 100m away. have an awesomely awkward time at lunch not knowing how to say thank you or basically any thai phrase, or what the etiquette is for requesting the check, but regardless, two people for a good lunch for $8, we cant complain.

Get back to the hotel and go over our plan. Basically, we are at the Dream hotel for 3 nights. After that we are planning on living in an apartment for 3 months. This is a very narrow timeframe, so we have a lot we need to get done today. We say that we will take a 2 hour nap and then go get cell phones, bank accounts, and talk to a real estate agent.

I suddenly wake up to a knock at the door, get up to a thai guy giving me some random dessert [which confused me enough] and then i look at the clock and it is 6pm...8 hours after we went to bed. So much for getting anything done today. We basically just watch TV for awhile, order room service and then wonder around for a couple hours. The whole experience is incredibly surreal and because of that it almost doesnt feel that weird to me.

Bangkok is a huge city and we are right in the middle of it, and while we havent explored much of it at all, I can definitely already understand how different the culture is. Ive been in contact with a few 2p2ers about places to live, as well as a real estate agent, and hopefully we can get all of this sorted soon.

In the meantime though, Ill just try to enjoy the Thai culture, their gorgeous weather, and their cheap beer and just try to grind a bit. Ill keep you guys updated [let me know how boring this was, or what parts youd rather hear about].

-Andy

Oh, even though Im not officially starting my goals until Im in my apt, I think I prob played 2k hands of 5/10+, which is good volume after traveling for so long and basically taking all of january off. From my mindset while playing, I think I can definiely achieve 40 hours/week with the right mindset, even though thats like >50k hands/week