So I was back at the conference centre again, and I had a plan. I was going to take the train to HK with Stephen and catch my flight to Vancouver from there. I really did not want to go to the Guangzhou airport again... but first, I had to confirm my flights and book the last leg of the trip, the flight from Van to Vic. I though it will be a pretty short and straight forward phone call to Cathay Pacific, but I ended up spending most of the day re-booking my flights.
Apparently, the girl from Southern China airlines that told me that everything is re-booked and gave me the flight numbers simply lied. I normally want to think the best of people and I would love to just pretend that she made an honest mistake, but there is no way around this one. She did not book anything for me. In fact, there was no space on the flight to Van she supposedly booked for me! It took a lot of crying (good thing I was speaking to a male customer service representative... haha) and explaining that my visa expires on the 8th, that I need to get back home and that I was told I have a reservation on that flight to get the guy on the phone to feel really sorry for me and pull some strings to get me on that plane! The flight from Van to Vic was easily booked, but I was told that I can't catch the flight from HK. I had to take the Guangzhou-HK leg of the trip because that is how my ticket was purchased and it is not a re-routable ticket. Let me tell you, next time I will definitely buy a re-routable ticket!! After around 5 hours (and $30 later) a new e-ticket was emailed to me. Phew!! That was such a relief...
On the 8th, things were actually fairly smooth to begin with. The flight from Guangzhou to HK left on time. There was a slight delay in the flight to Vancouver. Van was the first stop, then the plane was headed to New York. I guess that was why it was completely jam packed and we had to go through security again just before boarding the plane. They searched through our bags and everything. Im not sure what they were expecting to find as we already went through security...
The flight was long (13 hours), but it went by pretty fast; Cathay Pacific is a good airline. I watched a lot of movies, including the Flying Scotsman. Great movie! I spotted him wearing Specialized Tri shoes, 06' model. Not too authentic... it just made me laugh because I'm sure most people watching that movie would never notice something like that or would have no idea what model year these shoes were. I guess it just proves that I am a geek and have been involved in the bike industry for a little while...
I missed my flight to Vic. It was because of the short delay in the flight from HK, the long custom line and the even longer wait for the bags... I run across the airport to the domestic terminal just to learn that not only did I miss my flight, it was also booked wrong... so I had to go back to the international terminal so Cathay Pacific can fix my connection flight. I was back in the domestic terminal pretty fast, which was a nice change compared to the way things worked in China! Everything was a lot more smooth and efficient in Van...
I was home by 7:30pm on the 8th of August, after around 30 hours of travelling and only 2 hours of sleep. It took around 1 week to finally sleep at night and stay awake during the day... I have never been happier to be back home... :)
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