I No Speak English

Back in The City and seriously jet-lagged.
Lots to catch up on and not enough time in the day.
Trip was great, but glad to be back.
Will summarize (and post pictures) another time.

No, this is not a poem, I just seem to have forgotten how to speak English properly.
So instead, I’ll type up an entry from my travel journal.

July 16, 2006

Woke up at 7:30am and felt deathly hung over. My head hurt and my eyes felt like I’d need metal clamps to keep them open. Then I recalled that I hadn’t slept till 2 the previous night – or should I say, this morning? Agh. 7:30am was much too early.
But wait. Today was the day we were leaving for China. I could hear my parents were already making breakfast in the kitchen. So I forced myself out of bed and to the kitchen. My dad had prepared a colossal breakfast – he said we needed to finish all the food in the house or else he’d have to throw it away. But force-feeding never sits well with me, particularly this early in the morning and particularly before a trip. And sure enough, I’d only gotten through two-thirds of breakfast when I threw up. Great.
There was no point in trying it again, so I threw a couple granola bars into my backpack and got dressed.
My cousin (one that I hardly know and is ~15 years older than me) came to drive us to the airport. We happily waved him off and went to check-in when the news reached us:
Our flight had been delayed.
For EIGHT HOURS.
Oh fuck me!
We ended up going back home since we didn’t want to wait around the airport. With what little food was left in our house, I made myself a proper breakfast and ate it without any signs of regurgitation, then sat around playing Starcraft. Yeah, I know, I know. You don’t need to tell me that’s pathetic. Trust me, I know.
After lunch, I watched Mulan, then uploaded some new songs to my MiniDiscs, and finally – FINALLY – it was time to head to the airport… again.
After the morning dress rehearsal, we were very familiar with where to go, and this time checked in without a hitch. And because our flight was delayed, its passengers were all scattered to the wind, and we barely had to line-up to check-in.
The bad luck was not over yet though. Apparently, the airplane that wasn’t functioning properly in the morning could not be fixed within those eight hours, and we were to be taking a different plane that was just arriving from Beijing. But after a 13-hour direct flight over the Pacific Ocean, it needed to be “de-planed,” I believe they called it, so boarding time was further delayed. All in all, we didn’t end up leaving until 7pm for our 9:30am flight!
And worst of all, the replacement plane also ran into a bit of a problem with one of its washrooms, so that when we finally boarded, the plane smelled quite literally like shit!
I don’t think anyone was happy with the prospect of sitting in this shit-hole for 13 hours, but I was just glad we were finally leaving. Air Canada is giving everyone $100 per person credit to be applied the next time we fly with them (within the next year), but that’s a mere trifle compared to the amount of damage this delay must’ve cost, especially if people had connecting flights in Beijing. It’s not real compensation, just a gesture really.
Anyway, I hope the rest of our trip goes more smoothly, because I’d hate for a trip like this to be overshadowed by bad luck and frustrations. This trip is important to me, as it is more than just a vacation but a landmark. This is my last summer as a carefree student, my last summer before university, my graduating trip, and a trip to discover my roots and see all the places I’ve only heard about. I have been looking forward to this trip for years.
Yet right now, as I sit on the plane writing this, I don’t feel any of the excitement I ought to feel. I don’t know why, but there’s been very little hype building up to this in my household than normal. Normally, a trip like this would be a huge deal. Yet this time, everything was so last minute. My mom says she’s only got the first two days of our month-long trip planned. Two days! But such is the way of my mother. She’s never been as organized and responsible as me – something I’m sure I inherited from my father. If it were me, I’d have every day planned down to the hour, if not minute (remember the Banff/Jasper trip? That was my masterpiece).
But perhaps it’s a good thing that there hasn’t been too much hype surrounding this trip. That way, I don’t build up expectations. Because disappointment on this trip will be a hard blow for me.

Hrm. Now this is just weird. I’m writing out HTML tags! You know you’ve been blogging too much when your paper-and-pen journals contain HTML tags. Haha.
Anyway, that’s all from me for now. Zai jian!