From Chiang Mai

Well, the trip over was rather uneventful yet very tiring. In San Fransisco airport got to help out a Chinese couple that was horribly lost and no english at all. Tokyo I ended up having a a several hour layover. I walked laps most of it to keep awake. Crashed hard on the plane from Tokyo to Bangkok. Slept a little on the benches in Bangkok. I was super surprised but there was a full 747 going from Bangkok to Chaing Mai. I ended up sitting next to this awesome Italian guy who lives in Australia. He ended up telling me his whole life story. Pretty sad, his wife and him were married and had 7 kids when she decided she didn't want kids anymore and moved to America with her boyfriend. He had a 20,00 acre cattle ranch in Australia. Telling me all about his life though, he started crying. Keep Mario in your prayers. Also met a really cool girl from Costa Rica in the airport in Tokyo. She was traveling to Bangkok to visit some friends from boarding school. Another cool girl I met in San Francisco had her dog in this carrier on the plane. We kept trying to keep him cool, he was pretty funny. She just got her masters in fashion in Cali and was coming home. Hit the ground running once I hit Chiang Mai, went straight from the airport to this mountain that has the second most important Buddhist temple in Thailand. We learned a lot more about the Buddhist religions and traditions. It was really neat. Over here, if you're Thai, you're Buddhist. Grabbed some lunch, were my whimp-ness came out on the spicy food. Then headed back to our leaders home where we learned about all we'd be doing. Then back to the students house to get settled. Driving over here is crazy, its pretty cool. I crashed early last night and am getting ready to jump into whatever this day holds!