Trip stats:
Places: LA, Singapore, Bangkok, Taipei, Seoul, and Osaka
5 countries
8 flights
8 airports
21,000 miles
46 hours on a plane (27% of 168 total hours in the trip)
5 airlines
4 foreign languages

Part 1: Preparation (Dec 16, 2007)

It's about 21 hours before the first segment of my trip (ORD-LAX in UA F), and I've got a few things on my mind.

I have to pack for two weather extremes, Singapore and Seoul. Singapore will be in the 80s, while Seoul will be below freezing. I hadn't even thought of that until two nights ago when I was talking to my friend who was about to fly home to Seoul. She said something like, "Oh, I can't wait to see snow again!" (We're both in the SF Bay Area, so that's thankfully something we don't experience.) But most of my trip will be taking me to warm-weather places. That's good, since I am in Chicago at my parents' house right now, and I can't stand the cold. I grew up here, but I'm certainly not made for Chicago weather.

Also, I'm trying to switch from the SQ A345 to SQ's 77W (the one with the new business class seats) at the last minute. Right now, the I bucket (business class award) is zeroed out, but they're still selling discount business seats, so I'm going to keep checking in case they open up some availability. If I were to rebook onto the 77W (SQ27), I'd have an extra stop in TPE and arrive into SIN a bit later, but I'd get to stay in LA for a few more hours seeing friends and get a better seat.

I've gotten lots of helpful advice from people on what to do at all of my destinations and compiled a little itinerary for myself. It's here, if you want to read it: http://qslack.com/trips/aw07/plan.pdf

Also, I made a little website that will generate flight paths for Google Earth. It's here: http://flyerstats.com