I've arrived...

Hello from Thailand!

After one truck drive, three plane rides, two layovers (12 hours of waiting total in Taipei and Bangkok), one bus ride, one trolley ride, one ferry ride, and one taxi ride, I'm now on Koh Tao (Turtle Island)!!!
When I checked my email in Taipei, I received a message from Rebecca with the name of our hostel. Once the taxi dropped me off at "Lotus Resort", I began to walk around and ask random people if they had met two Canadian girls by the names of Rebecca and Erin. Turned out that no one had. Not to worry though, after about 10 minutes I saw Reba walking towards me from our beach house! We hadn't seen each other in eight months and after traveling for such a long (but smooth) journey, I was SO excited to reconnect. I dropped off my bag at our cabin and we headed out for green Thai seafood curry and beer. After chatting for about 3 hours, we jumped into the ocean as it began to pour. Needless to say that my first day in Thailand has been surreal.
My trip was really comfortable and I would recommend China Airlines to anyone. The vegan food was actually tasty and the flight attendants were a huge bunch of friendly folks. I actually enjoyed having three seats to myself and was able to sleep for about three hours while crossing the Pacific. I haven't really slept since and I'm pretty sure that adrenaline is keeping me going at this point.
Tomorrow we might hit the snorkeling scene, or, better yet, we might take in an entire day at the spa.
Will write again soon with pictures,
love Rach