I finally managed to book our vacation to Thailand in February 2015. I know, I know, it's eleven months out. We thought about going this year, but our schedules didn't work out. I really need something like this to look forward to, since I've been feeling slightly burned out recently.

I also confirmed every detail with the hotel to make sure our stay will be comfortable and there won't be any surprises. (Some hotels can be a bit…fickle… coughcoughWestinChosuncoughcough.)

The below is the hotel we're going to stay at. Hero Material and I stayed there in 2010 for our honeymoon, and we loved it. (Which is why I was inspired to set Gavin and Amandine's second honeymoon in Thailand in Redemption in Love…) We're not going to Chiang Mai since The Boy's still too young for tigers and elephants and the like.

So now I'm totally dreaming of next February. LOL.

If you could go anywhere for your dream vacation, where would you go?

Finally I have somewhat reliable wifi again! :)

I've made it to the States for a two month-long vacation, and I couldn't access anything well.

BTW — if anyone wants to travel, don't do the Haneda – Narita layover. Haneda is in Tokyo, while Narita is in Chiba (even though people call it “Tokyo Narita”, it's really not in Tokyo), and it takes over an hour to travel between the two airports. If your flight's delayed (not that mine was), it can be rather painful.

I enjoyed my flight from Narita to San Francisco. JAL was wonderful, with great cabin attendants and an awesome selection of movies and games. My trip from SFO to Phoenix, however, wasn't as good. I was shocked at how dingy and filthy the U.S. Airways check-in counter was. Trash and crumpled paper littered the floor, and the U.S. Airways agents (there were only two) never smiled, didn't say anything more than they absolutely had to to check us in for our flight… didn't even speak decent English! Compare that to the JAL terminal in Narita, where JAL had over twenty uniformed multilingual agents helping passengers. The JAL agents were friendly, courteous and helpful. (And yes, JAL's terminal literally sparkled.)

Note to self: avoid U.S. Airways.

Also I finally got my Samsung NC10. I upgraded the RAM to 2GB, so now it runs faster than my main laptop. Absolutely love it. And the keyboard is super-comfy, which is my main consideration. I don't care for chiclet keyboards, so the NC10 is just right for me. And did I tell you it's a cute pink? And it's light & it does everything I want it to do — Word, OneNote, Excel, web surfing & email and iTunes. The NC10's battery lasts about 6-7 hours, depending on what you're doing. An excellent machine. I highly recommend it.

BTW — after I got my NC10, Hero Material and I went to the Grand Canyon. Absolutely gorgeous. I love the ruggedness of the place as well as the interesting sediment layers. We got to see condors and a few other birds flying around us. They didn't seem interested in eating squirrels, which was good because many of them reminded me of Buttercup (one of my female hamsters), mostly because they were such beggars. LOL.

Anyway, I'm going to cut this post short now. Have a great Sunday!