China '99 trip

week 2

may 26-27, 1999

Return...

Wednesday, May 26.

When I awoke, I realized the finality of my vacation-- I was going back home and will be sleeping in my very own bed and all the comforts of home in about 24 hours. The freedom! The flight wasn't until 4:30pm so I had a full day ahead of us in Beijing. We had a very relaxed morning-- a long breakfast and some shopping was slated on the agenda. My mom and I shopped at the silk store that Susan and Anna were drooling over. When we walked in, we were not impressed by their wares. I bought three T-shirts. Ma got herself 3 metres of fabric to make a pair of pants. Ma wanted to go upstairs and look at the porcelin objects on display and I said no way-- we have to pack and get ready to get to the airport after lunch. Dad and I ate in the hotel room-- those instant noodles mom packed came in handy-- I ate 'em up. Dad ate the leftovers from dinner last night. We had the tseow tse place again... there was one waitress who was eyeing me the whole night-- our server, no less! (The freaky part is that the girl was a spitting image of my big sister in pharmacy... weird!) My mom opted to go eat with the Yongs out.

We had to vacate the room by 12 noon. So we did-- Dad and I sat in the lobby until 1:30, our scheduled time to leave the hotel for the airport. Ma came back with the Yongs on time as well as a doggie bag with food. (I did not discover its contents until I got to the airport...) We got a couple of taxis and got to the airport.

Dad and I got stuck in the small no A/C car. Technically that was a mistake since Dad's mandarin isn't the greatest-- it's functional but not enough to have intellectual conversation with a taxi driver, per se. Checking into the airline was a huge headache-- lining up (a la the Chinese style of cutting in was apparent but was quickly resolved when Mr. Yong spoke to a airport official). We got to the gate, sat there, and waited. During the rest time, I unpacked the food my mom bought. I discovered there was some dim sum ('lo pak ko' / raddish cake) items and some fresh soy milk. I down much of it but saved a bottle of soy milk for the ride back on the plane. (that would later be a huge mistake.)

The ride back wasn't too bad-- it felt it would take forever. We did get good seats near the front of the plane. Food and service was okay but nothing extraordinary. Watched a few movies-- can't remember what they were right now.

Arrival in Vancouver

Since we theoretically gained a day by crossing the International Dateline, I'll say the day is still the same. We arrived in Vancouver airport a little late (after a slight delay in Beijing airport). Instead of waiting for 2 hours, we had a little over an hour to get everything cleared through customs again and board our plane. The airport there is gorgeous-- it was somewhat surprising to run into my brother's friend, Sajiv, there. He arrived about 10 minutes after us (we were lined up in customs). He had to take the adjacent line to us (we queued up in the Canadian residents line whereas he had to line up in the foreigners line) and we talked. He was in Vancouver to get married! The strange thing was that he was staying in our house the previous week for his high school reunion (the reason why he knows my brother-- they're classmates way back when...) Of course we congratulated him for his upcoming marriage-- he invited us to come and stay since we were already there. (He knew we were in China and assumed we'd fly straight to Toronto.) The thought was tempting but I was getting sick of living out of a suitcase that the desire to go home was much greater than visit a place I'd love to vacation. (West Coast, baby!)

Ironically, our line was slower than his line so he waited for us to clear customs. Sajiv also helped us with our baggage. Since we had go upstairs to find our Toronto flight gate, we parted ways. It's a shame because I wanted to see who Sajiv was going to marry-- photos sometimes doesn't do people justice.

The flight to Toronto was a greater nightmare-- while being taxied onto the runway, the fire alarm goes off. We have to go back to the gate and have technicians check what the heck was wrong-- we wait for 45 minutes for them to determine that they couldn't fix it but shut that part of the system down. What resulted is that we missed our connecting flight back to Windsor and were housed at a nearby airport hotel for the evening. I made a collect call to Windsor a couple hours after our plane to Windsor was supposed to arrive to tell Pat that we were okay and were delayed and staying in Toronto for the night. I was going to call my friends that evening but I don't think they would have appreciated a 1am phone call from me! Also, I had to get up early the next morning to catch the 6:45am plane to Windsor. That left me with about 4 hours to get some sleep. Problem was that my body said it was afternoon-- I was still on China time.

In Windsor... at last

Thursday, May 27.

The rooms that we got from the hotel were nice-- I got the room with the Murphy bed (it folds up into the wall) and a big bathroom and my parents slept in the ajoining room with a king-sized bed. We had a $20 meal voucher so we made the most of it-- my mom ordered a fruit salad, soup and a BLT sandwich. I watched George Michael: Unplugged on Much More Music. I've waited forever for MuchMusic to play it for me to tape it and they decide to air it when I'm on vacation!

We took off from Pearson Airport and arrived in Windsor without any difficulties-- in fact, we arrived in Windsor early (the last thing I would expect, considering my experience this summer). Pat came in a little late-- he had hospital rounds to do and thought he could get it done beforehand but 10 minutes late is not bad.

We got home around 8:30am. Pat had to go to work. The dog went crazy when he saw us-- after all, he's been locked up much of the time when my brother was taking care of him. I unpacked much of the stuff in the suitcases and started doing the laundry (did I say that I had to double up on the underwear for one day because I thought we'd be home the previous day??? GROSS!)

First order of business was to see if my CDs was in working order... at first many of them wouldn't work but after repeated attempts, they finally read. I wonder about this Toshiba CD-ROM...

IT FEELS GREAT TO BE HOME... THANK GOODNESS VACATION IS ONCE A YEAR...