We start for home today. Checkout at the hotel is at 11:00 am and the car will pick us up at 2:00 pm for our 5:00 pm flight to Bangkok. I asked the ladies at the Horizon Club what we were to do between 11:00 am and 2:00 pm. They said we could visit the city one last time or sit in the Horizon Club. I was all for just sitting, but Krista had different ideas. Even though she was sick, she wanted to go to the city one last time and shop for those last minute souvenirs which we had absolutely no place to put in any of our luggage.
At 11:00 am off we went into the city. It wasn't really that far down to the water front from our hotel. Getting there was easy, straight DOWN a hill. Getting back was going to be more challenging, straight UP a hill. I also must mention that it was very HOT outside. I don't remember what Krista purchased, but I decided that I needed a bag that was big enough to put my oversized purse in (it was stuffed to the brim) so I would have a place to put other stuff along the way. All of our flights would be giving us amenity kits so we needed somewhere to put those. Krista was also checking a bag that she used as a carryon coming over and the handles on it flopped around. She was afraid they would get ripped off so wanted to get some tape to tape them together. We went into a convenience store to purchase a roll of tape. It was $4.95 and she tried to pay for it with a credit card. They said she had to charge $5.00 to use the credit card -- no problem, I just added on a $3.00 Dr Pepper and we were good to go. I told Krista that I wanted to go back to the hotel and relax a bit so off we went straight UP the hill. By the time we got back I was totally out of breath and soaking wet.
We went straight up to the Horizon Club to relax. They were beginning to put out their mid-day snacks and I had a brownie and a little pecan pie. They were heaven. I didn't even know they had these snacks in the middle of the day. I told Krista to look at what we had been missing while we were there. They had free wifi in the club so we both surfed the internet for a while. Around 1:50 pm we made our way downstairs and as we got off the elevator our driver was there waiting on us. He gathered up our luggage and loaded it in the car and off we went. It took less than 30 minutes to get to the airport.
Checkin at Thai Airways counter was very easy. However, we had a complicated itinerary and I watched her closely as she tagged our bags. She said that she could only tag them to Chicago per US rules. I knew that was incorrect, but how do you argue with them? Our first 2 flights were on Thai Airways, next was ANA, then our remaining flights were on United. She would only give me boarding passes on our Thai Airways flights and said that when we got to Shanghai we would have to get our ANA boarding passes. I am glad we had a 4 hour layover in Shanghai to allow for stuff like this.
After checkin was complete, they gave us a fast pass to get through security. As we were going through, I got stopped after security. They said they needed to check me for explosives. I patiently waited while they swabbed all my clothes, shoes, carry on luggage (both inside and out) -- I passed and they told me I could go. I noticed that Krista was being held up at security and they were going through her carryon luggage. It seemed that she had a very small pair of cuticle scissors that she had traveled with throughout her travels in Europe and the US and they had always been ok. Evidently Australian security decided they were a threat so they took them away from her. Oh well.
We were in search of the lounge to relax the hour before our flight left. It was near our gate which was nice. It was very big but completely packed! I guess no flights had left yet because soon after we got there things started clearing out. They had a little hot dog cart there so I made myself a hot dog. I wasn't sure I would like any of the food on the plane or not. It wasn't bad.
It was time to board our plane. We were in first again with our own little suites. Very nice and private. The food this time was a little better than last time and they didn't try to force feed you everything they had to offer like they did last time. They only gave us what we wanted which was nice. The meal service went much faster this time. I wasn't as tired this time so I watched some movies before I went to sleep on this 9 hour flight.
Once we arrived in Bangkok they were waiting for us again and took us on a golf cart to get us through security and into the lounge. It was late at night -- almost midnight and the lounge was packed. We only had about an hour there before we headed off to our plane. (continued on Saturday, January 5, 2013).
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