China - Day 9 - August 6th

Home sweet home! Or so I thought... My flight to Hong Kong was scheduled for 9:30am, and I had around 4 hours wait in HK before flying to Vancouver and then to Victoria. I got to the airport early, at 7:30am and went through check-in and customs pretty fast, which was awesome. I had an over priced, bad cup of coffee and waited... and waited some more... at 9:30am they announced that the flight was delayed to a time that will be announced later. I figured I was safe because I had so much time in HK, so I just kept reading by book. At around 11, I was starting to get agitated (to say the least!) because they couldn't tell us when the flight will leave and wouldn't tell us whats going on... at 12:30 they brought everyone lunch (rice and hot dogs). Not a good sign. I only ate the rice. By that point, they said that the HK airport is shut and there are no flight coming or going because of a typhoon, but a little while afterwards one of the passengers checked online and there were flights leaving the HK airport... Hmmmmm... that created a bit of a mess around the gate! To make a pretty long and nerve wrecking story short, they cancelled all flights from Guangzhou to HK because the typhoon was right in between those 2 cities. Some flights were leaving the HK airport but my flight to Vancouver was actually cancelled too.

I had to re-book my flights, but Southern China airlines wouldn't do that for me... they said that Cathay Pacific needs to do that because I was flying with them from HK to Van and that I need to call my travel agent. Travel agent? Whats that? We don't use those in Canada anymore... I called Cathay Pacific and they said Southern China airlines has to re-book my flights... Hmmmmm... after a lot of arguing and trying to communicate with staff that can barely speak English, I got someone from Southern China airlines to talk to someone from Cathay Pacific. All of that was with the help of Shawn and his wife, an American couple that lives in Guangzhou and was trying to visit family in the USA. He could speak Chinese, which helped a lot! They could have gone home, but they stayed for another 6 hours, helping me sort out my flights, get my bags back and get back to the convention centre. I don't know what I would have done without them!!!!!

Finally, at around 7pm, my flights were booked. I was scheduled to fly out of Guangzhou at 9:30am on the 8th of August. The airline would not help with the hotel, etc, because its not their fault (weather related). The argument that it is not my fault either did not stand a chance... Lucky for me the convention centre agreed to let me stay for 2 extra nights at the convention price (very helpful, because it was a 1/3 of the normal price!), and all I needed to do was get my bags back, get myself back to the convention centre and call Air Canada in the morning, to book my flight from Vancouver to Victoria. The only problem was that it took over 2 hours to get my bags back!

After checking in again at the convention centre and dropping off my bags in my room, I knocked on Stephens door (he was staying there until the 7th, before taking the train to HK). His face was so priceless, I wish I had my camera on me... he looked like he had seem a ghost. After I crashed on a chair and gave him the low down, he decided i need a beer and some food. He was right. I'm so glad I had someone to talk to after that crazy day :)

I have decided I hate China and that I will never visit it again (3 weeks later, as I am typing this, I'm thinking that never is a long time, and not really realistic...). Everything worked out in the end... or did it?!?!