asian whirlwind tour

yesterday ken and i booked our tickets to asia - it's official!
we are both very excited as the feeling sinks in and the anxiety mounds. planning trips are always a lot of fun and the anticipation is half the excitement.
our itinerary takes us on a very lengthy, round about tour of 3 asian hot spots - hong kong, tokyo and thailand where there will be several destinations.
i've pretty much started the mental preparation that will be required before boarding cathay pacific for the 19 hour flight to hong kong with a 1 hour stopover in the hk airport and a subsequent 4 hour flight to tokyo. it's gonna be madness and because of the time difference, we board on a wednesday night and land on a friday afternoon. not to mention we're landing in one of the biggest cities in the world where we do not speak the language nor understand their urban sprawl (their streets don't necessarily have names and there are several districts within tokyo - similar to NYC i guess?). let's hope we encounter some friendly, helpful english speaking locals to help keep us sane! ken and i have both acknowledged that we're probably going to be big crust bags by the time we land so hopefully we'll also have patience for each other and the city. the rest of that day after finding our accomodations will more or less be a write off.
but i'm excited to explore the districts - shinjuku (they have a LAMB outlet - my heaven on earth!), harajuku - as well as the gardens and temples. we will be there at the beginning of cherry blossom season so hopefully ken's allergies will hold up and we'll be able to enjoy the scenery and scents. i have a feeling we're in for one hell of a culture shock! good thing the japanese have a reputation for being friendly and accomodating to tourists - let's hope that stereotype holds true during our visit!
from there, we're beach bound in thailand. actually, we fly into bangkok first and take the overnight train to chiang mai which is the unofficial northern capital where we hope to experience some hill tribe trekking, elephant rides, rafting and yoga. the serenity will hopefully do the trick to calm our shattered nerves after a few days of tokyo madness!
from there, we're headed to the andaman coast for some sun, snorkelling and swimming. should be awesome.
we round out the trip with a few days in hong kong and then ...sigh... back to the real world. i can't believe i'm dreading the return already.
now if only i could find a job that could accomodate my travel itch.....