happy early birthday lady! if i had some extra money i would totally buy you a gift, but alas...im kinda broke.

ive been to korea. i didnt get to do much touristy stuff though because i was stationed there while in the army. actually, the little bit of stuff i did see/do was not so great. sorry i dont have any insight into what you can do if you go there.

good luck with the studying and test stuff.

Happy Birthday!

yay for scorpio bdays, mine is next sunday. wait til ya hit 30, then you'll feel old!

im excited for the Patriots vs. Colts game saturday, but im pretty sure the Pats are gonna take it. i just hope its at least a good game!

Thailand is amazing and beautiful. My number one piece of advice is don't just go down south to the beaches, go up north!! It is so awesome up there. You can catch the overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, which is a fascinating trip - out the window you can see slums, monkeys, and the sun setting over rice paddies. Chiang Mai is full of temples, markets, great food, and if you venture a bit further north you can visit the hill tribes (DON'T go see the ring neck hilltribe though, it's a scam. They were brought over from Laos and had a fake village constructed).

I also really enjoyed Khao Sok national park. & Despite how horrendously touristy it is to get there, Ko Phi Phi is not to be missed, some of the best snorkelling I have ever done.

Have fun planning your trip!!

p/s if you go to Ao Nang skip the seafood restaurants and head to the outdoor hawker markets - oh my how delicious.

If you go to Tokyo, do a trip to Kyoto for a day or two and stay at a Ryokan, a traditional japanese inn.

And skydiving's great. You'll be proud that you dragged your ass out of a plane.

Rock on, sistah.

We didn't do a jeep trip, we were travelling sorta low budget plus wanted to do something a bit more grassroots. Basically we set up camp in a guest house and spent a few days wandering round Chiang Mai, then we did a three day trek through the hills (with Intrepid, I highly recommend them. They focus on ethical travel and you get a pretty good experience of the hill tribe villages etc). The elephants are pretty amazing, the volunteering sounds cool. One of the villages we stayed in had some elephants and we went for a ride then.

I definitely recommend more than a month. We wanted to stay forever . The only part of Thailand I couldn't wait to get away from was Bangkok, so I'd suggest not scheduling more than a few days there.

As you can see I can talk on this forever, so if you want any more suggestions feel free to PM/comment me. You're going to have an amazing time!!!

You shouldn't feel that way dear.

Never been skydiving and also never been to asia either. Good luck on your trip.

OLD!

Hehe, damn these army weekends are hard. Gotta divide my time between my girl and my family! Next time Im off is in 3 weeks!

When are you leaving? Id say china but with the Olympics it'll be packed. 60 000 000 Chinamen watching pole-jumping.

Ooh, long ass trip! Thats gonna be awesome!

Ah, you'll get into Hebrew U. If not, the paratroopers will assault the campus.

No, Havent done the massa kumpta yet. Theyve changed the training to be even harder though, so I imagine its gonna be a holocaust (as we say in the army), especially since it comes after a 9 day war week. I close shabbat at war.