I had a chance to visit Vancouver, BC, Canada from October 23rd to October 25th, and all I can say is that I had a lot of fun. As usual, I had a bit of perception of what Canada is supposed to be like from a viewpoint of a person who lives in the US for almost 10 years, so undoubtedly, reality is not exactly what I thought it would be.
The purpose for my trip is to go for a Nexus card interview. The Nexus program is a joint program between the Canadian government and the US government to establish expedited immigration for prescreened travelers. It's $50 cheaper than Global Entry (the same kind of program, but it's a US only program), but the caveat is that the initial interview must be done either in a US state next to Canada, or in Canada. Guess what? I chose to do an interview in Canada because the next open schedule is in October rather than some distant month in 2016 (I checked the Seattle interview center), and I also got to travel to Canada!
Read MoreBakersfield is one of the cities that I've heard my friends talk about, but I never really had a chance to visit. The closest I get to Bakersfield is seeing the sign when driving on I-5 from Los Angeles.
But I got lucky! My friend who was from Bakersfield mentioned to me that there would be a county fair in Bakersfield, and as I've never been to any country fairs, nor have I been to Bakersfield, I decided that it's a good time to visit.
Read MoreIt's the end of the year again, and it's time for my to fly back home to visit my family in Thailand. However, this time is different because on the way to Thailand from San Francisco, I decided to stop over in Japan for 7 days, so I'll be posting more about my trip in Japan and in Thailand here. My itinerary looks something like this:
- Dec 19th -- Leave San Francisco
- Dec 20th -- Arrive at Tokyo Narita Airport
- Dec 27th -- Leave Narita and arrive in Bangkok
- Jan 11th 2015 -- Leave Bangkok to San Francisco
We'll get started by talking about my flight to Tokyo Narita. I originally bought a round trip ticket from SFO-NRT-BKK in Business class from All Nippon Airways (ANA) since they are in Star Alliance and I can collect miles for my next trip. However, I also had some American Express credit card points (so called "Membership Rewards" points) that I can transfer to ANA to request an upgrade for my flight from Business class to First class. It takes 40,000 points for a segment from San Francisco to Narita. I decided to take a chance so I transferred the points from American Express to ANA, and request an upgrade. I requested the upgrade on September 24th and had been on the waitlist. My upgrade was cleared just on November 30th. This is my first time on any first class flight and I've been very excited about this flight!
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