Let's face it. Getting to Southeast Asia is just painful. Any way you slice it. No matter how many movies you have. No matter how much Ambien you take. It's just plain painful. Well, unless you have lots of money or lots of points and go first class, which we don't and didn't.

Even with all that, I'd say the trip went almost as well as I could have hoped. I had a slight brain fart when booking flights, which I will explain, but it worked out.

So we had to be in Phuket by Tuesday morning at 8am. The flight we could get would put us into Thailand at 1am. The idea of traveling for 29 hours and then spending a night in an airport to meet new friends - made we want to cry. We opted to leave a day early and get acclimated.

Our flight path was Charlotte - LA - Seoul - Phuket. We had a really difficult time booking tickets. Prices kept jumping. I'm still kicking myself for not booking the Signapore Air tickets at a super low rate last summer. We ended up booking LA to Phuket pretty reasonable and then we purchased Charlotte to LA with points.

The problem? Stupid me forgot about connection times. On the way there we theoretically had enough time. However, at LAX international flights are in a terminal at the end of the airport and terminals aren't connected. Add onto it the fact that the airline would only let us take one personal item (not two like our domestic flight) and we were now forced to make it by the baggage cutoff. We literally ran outside of LAX down the entire length of LAX and made it to the desk with minutes to spare. Had we missed this flight we would have been spending a day in LA.

Dripping with sweat we get to our terminal simply to wait for the delayed flight. Yes, how stupid is that? We were most impressed with what seemed like dozens of the most well manicured flight attendants I'd ever seen waiting to board our flight. Overall, I will say that the staff of Asiana Airlines were extremely polite and responsive.

Josh and I boarded our lowly travel seats and watched the lucky few climb the stairs to the promised land of first class. One day. I loved how quickly and efficiently these large planes loaded. Shortly we were up in the air and I was choosing which movie movie to start with. Bourne Legacy? Ah, yes. Good choice. Josh chose the same thing. So much for the benefit of our own screen and selections.

After figuring out that our super fancy Dr. Dre headphones will only allow us to be fancy in one ear on Asiana Airlines (sorry Best Buy, I'm pretty sure that means Josh will be returning), Jeremy Renner had me starting to forget about the next 12, actually 20, hours ahead of me.

I had heard mixed reviews on the food. Overall, Josh and I thought it was decent. It was without extra cost, filling and edible. That's more than I can say for most American Airlines. At the beginning of the flight we were given a choice of Western or Korean meal. I tend to think that eating airline food is adventurous enough so I went for the Western meal. Josh pretty much can't understand anything anyone is saying, so he always gets what I'm getting. Make that two Western meals. We had two meals on this plane and it all blurs together. I think we had beef, broccoli, potatoes, salad and mango cake. Later we had chicken, rice, fruit, vegetables, bread an some other stuff I never got to.

After the movie I have no clue what Josh did. I, however, was ready to sleep. I apparently passed out for a good 5 hours which is great for me. I woke up for another meal, watched Pitch Perfect, yet again because I'm obsessed, and we were coming into Seoul.

As we fly into Seoul you can tell its cold. The windows are icing and we can see islands with snow caps. It was pretty amazing. As soon as we get onto the jetway you can feel the 27 degree air hit you. We landed in Seoul a bit early and already had a 2 hr layover. Luckily you don't have to go through immigration to transfer.

The line to get up to the gates looks disastrously long but it goes quickly. The security check spits you into - is this a 5 star mall or an airport? Okay. A few things about the Seoul airport. It is by far the prettiest airport I remember traveling through. The key word being remember. Secondly, where the heck are the trash cans? I had to go on a hunting expedition to find one at the gate. Thirdly, someone please teach me how to connect to their wifi.

We finally get on our last flight and are on our way to Phuket. This flight is only 6 hrs but it almost killed me. I slept for 3 hrs (completely missed takeoff) and then was wide awake those last 3. I was over it.

But alas we landed. At 1:05am we touched down on Monday morning. About 29 hours after leaving. The Phuket airport was a breeze. We were through immigration and had our luggage by 1:45. Not wanting to mess with taxis I had prebooked a transfer through our hotel. The swarms of taxi drivers pouncing on us made me glad of that choice. The lavender scented wet cloths and ice cold waters waiting in the back of our town car made me super glad.

For the first two nights it is just Josh and I to relax. We (I) splurged and booked and ocean front room at a 5 star resort. Heck it's our 10 year anniversary trip and the rest of the time we will be with a group right? Plus, splurging in Thailand is a little different.

As we entered the open air lobby Josh and I both commented that it reminded us of the place we went for our honeymoon fitting. We easily checked in and found our room. I'm not sure what we were more excited about, a shower, the comfy bed or the fact that when we opened the patio door we discovered we were on an isolated beach. Ah.

From January 5th through the 20th, Josh and I will be on the Raddest Photo Trip Ever. Yes, that's really the name of the trip. You will hopefully be able to follow our journey here as we head out to Thailand and Cambodia. We are stoked!

P.S. I have no intentions of drinking elephant dung coffee. Thanks for the many suggestions.

Our morning started out a bit slow. We knew this was our last normal full day on the island. We had decided to spend a few hours that morning back at our favorite beach Hideaways before heading down south for our afternoon cruise.

We did our morning run to Java Kai and were headed off. We got to Hideaways by 9 and all the spaces were taken. We had a few options.

1) park valet at the St Regis and walk just a bit
2) Park on the end where we had seen some folks park in the past but was obviously not a spot
3) Wait a few minutes as people tend to leave this lot very quickly
4) Decide to park in between the last car and a fence by taking it at a 45 degree angle thus hitting both stationary objects.

Can you guess which option we went for? And when I say we, I'm excluding my name from that. To make it even more painful a nice couple came out and freed up a spot in the 5 minutes Josh was gone to get a pen and paper.

So that was a lovely start to the morning. We proceeded down to the beach as there wasn't much more we could do now. We were shocked to find only 4 people down there. Quickly we were the only 2 left. I'd say that between 9-11 on weekdays must be the perfect time. People started showing up as we left. There is nothing more peaceful than enjoying your favorite beach in solitude. Josh and I had fun trying to figure out how to use his panoramic photo app. We must have looked comical because it required me to stand directly behind him and run around him in circles as he spun with the camera. We finished it literally a minute before someone arrived.

Around 11 we finished our scrabble game and headed back to the cottage to get cleaned up. It was a bit of a drive to the port and we were going to grab lunch.

For lunch we stopped at Puka Dogs in Poip'u. I love hot dogs. These hot dogs are pretty popular for two reasons I think. First, the bread goes all the way around. It's basically a loaf with a hole bored out. Then the toppings. Yum. You first choose a garlic sauce: mild, medium, or spicy. Then you choose s relish: mango, banana, pineapple, coconut, etc. And finally a mustard: typical, Dijon or Hawaiian. I highly recommend the jalapeño garlic sauce/mango relish/Hawaiian mustard combo. I love hot dogs so I thought this was pretty yummy. Obviously $6.50 for a dog is expensive but it was big. My only complaint was it was a lot of bread and I wish I had asked for a side of the sauce to dip it in. The lemonade (only drink) was good too.

The location was pretty close to the port so it was an easy drive if to Port Allen. After missing the turn once we got straightened out and found the office for Captain Andy's. I was concerned I hadn't dressed appropriately but looking at everyone else I had chosen right. FYI - I wore a long spaghetti strap sundress and brought a lightweight long sleeve shirt I could throw on over if it got cool later. Several folks wore bathing suits underneath. Whatever you wear make sure you don't mind it getting wet. And it's windy so I wouldn't suggest short lightweight dresses.

We got checked in and then were taken to our boats. There were two groups of us and we were color coded in our passes. We were on the Southern Star which is a gorgeous 65 foot catamaran. Make sure you book that boat. Apparently the other boat is inferior and doesn't have the same great food.

We were really impressed we the whole trip. It was a 4 1/2 hour boat ride putting us back to port right after sunset. The trip up the Napali coast was much rough but we got a lot closer to the shore. Note that for pictures. They let us up into the bridge for pictures and even though the package had said one drink free it was an open bar. No, we didn't really take advantage of that. About 3/4 of the way in Josh started getting queasy so we took it easy. It was a great experience to view the coast from down low after seeing it up high.

I'd highly recommend this charter especially after watching some of the other boats get slammed around out there.

We got back to the shore on our way around 7:30. Another longish drive home and we were in bed for one last time in Kauai. Quite sad.