I'm the type of person who works best when under pressure. For example, I worked on assignments the night before they were due, write report cards the weekend before I have to hand them in, and pack the night before a trip. Sometimes, or usually, historically, I've been up late at night (ahem, into the wee hours) packing, or organizing, throwing stuff into my bag as I think of things and awake to find an overfilled bag which I then repack the morning of my flight. I have even been known to go through my bag en route to the airport, which I definitely don't recommend. It's also not really functional. And it's really stressful. This year I vowed to be different. I started thinking of what I needed for my trip the week before, so I didn't need to be shopping for it the night before, or again, morning of my flight. I planned out my week, went shopping early on, planned when I would do laundry so my clothes would be dry, and decided to spread out the cleaning so I could actually accomplish it (I love coming home to a clean house). I was very productive, and even managed to clean my sink! Friday comes around, and I have an appointment, so I figure I'll run some errands, since I have a bit of extra time. Well 3 hours later, I'm fixated on finding reusable twist ties (which I finally found at the last store and decided I didn't even want). That's OK though, because I still managed to get home by 5. I got take out since I had no food left in the house (timed that well) and sat rolling the clothes into my bag. The great thing was that even though I had packed, repacked, and then tried it all on and repacked again...I had time because I was so organized! I had clean sheets, a clean house and a packed bag. I had eggs for breakfast ready and all I had to do was set my alarm. I got into bed nice and early, 9 pm....and lay there for at least 2 hours. Let me tell you, 3 am comes pretty quickly when you are constantly waking up to check the time!
Me and my $9 Starbucks sandwich!!
I got ready and made it to the lobby of my building with 2 minutes to spare before my taxi arrived. The driver was very friendly and the drive to the airport passed quickly. I was very early for my flight but had been unable to check in online and didn't want to risk a huge line up. Which of course, there was not. Aw well, I'd rather be early than late.
The busy airport:
The flight to Vancouver was uneventful and I found my way to the Air Canada Lounge, since my mom had given me passes. Well, apparently it's not open 24/7, which I think is super lame. I found my way to a comfy spot beside a fountain and wasted time until Sarah arrived. At 8am, we met at the lounge, only to find that our passes were no good in the international terminal...bummer.
It turned out fine as Vancouver has some comfy seating. We downloaded some information for the trip and ate some food, waiting the 3 hours till our flight started boarding.
Ready for China!
Boarding went pretty smoothly, besides the fact that all the overhead bins were closed which confused everyone who thought they were all full, instead of empty like they were. Thankfully, there was an empty middle seat in my row so I was able to move my bag to under that seat and have a little more room. And since I was in the aisle seat, I didn't mind that this was the view:
The flight was painless; I watched 3 movies and listened to my audiobook for a couple of hours. We got fed 2 pretty good meals and a snack. And I was able to drink 6.5 Litres of water in the day, so I figured I was doing pretty good.
The lineup through customs was long but painless, and the 4 minute "people mover" (it was actually called this) to the baggage area was no problem to manage. Once we arrived, Sara's bag came quickly and we left in search of a taxi. I'm not a huge taxi fan but I hadn't figured anything else out so off we went. It took awhile to find, since nobody understood when we asked for a "taxi" even though I once heard taxi is a universal word. Once we arrived in the basement of the airport, a girl hurried over to help us find what we were looking for. They were taxi helpers. They had us fill out a form and got us all organized when I started thinking about it. They wanted 310 yeun, which is over $60! We asked for another way and she said bus, we asked for cheapest way and she said meter taxi would be about 170 yeun, which is under $40! Um, yes. She was so mad though as she roughly pointed in its direction, though she did write the name of our hotel in Chinese for us first (at least that's what she claimed to have written). We got in our taxi, who was a really jerky driver and we spent the next hour and 15 minutes jerking through rush hour traffic. The total bill for our cab: 170 yeun....pretty big savings!
When he dropped us off, he had to run into a corner store to ask for directions, our hotel didn't have any English sign on the front at all! Not even a little sign on the door. The girl at the front was friendly, and we found our room with no trouble. By this time, we'd already been up for over 24 hours and just wanted some food and water and sleep. The girl at the front recommended the place next door (and by recommended I mean she pointed without any English to the left and then asked her phone to translate.) When we walked by, we didn't love the look of it so we decided to go to a different place. We ordered 2 dishes to share and a small bowl of rice each.
Needless to say, don't order the meat in China. It was cold, tough, and had a weird flavour...so who knows what we ate. We ate the veggies out of the dishes (which were few) and the rice before heading out. Back at the room, we showered and got into bed. I was asleep within minutes, don't ask me what time it was! At least we made it until evening!
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