Description
Map of a long journey to Hong Kong
Fields
Drawing, Storytelling
Year
2012
Family Reunion Travel Map
  • Travel journal 
    Sometimes things don’t go according to plan…
    This is the story of my unfortunate travels from Toronto to Hong Kong for a family reunion.
    We flew from Toronto – Edmonton – Vancouver – Hong Kong and It took about a week long to get there.

    December 20-23 2008
    My mom and I were stuck at the Edmonton airport. We arrived at 10pm on Saturday night and had 8 hours to kill before our next flight. When we proceeded re-check in, we were told that our flight was cancelled due to weather conditions in Vancouver. Things got worse as the morning progressed and all the planes were further delayed. When we finally we got on a plane – whew! – we were nearly about to land and suddenly the captain’s voice came on through the speakers announcing that the Vancouver airport runway had just CLOSED due to snow. We were heading BACK to Edmonton, right back where we started.
    It was worse this time around because Air Canada simply handed me a slip of paper which indicated that I should call a number in order to rebook a new flight. It took an hour to get through to someone on the phone just to hear that the earliest flight would be 9:30am the next morning. We had another full day and night of waiting. It didn’t help that the airport staff basically told everyone to cancel their Christmas plans and go home. Thankfully, mom had some friends in Edmonton (where she studied) and they kindly took us in for the night.

    Greyhound adventures
    Mom decided that we should take a greyhound bus (1 day trip) from Edmonton to Vancouver instead of waiting for a flight and so we found ourselves at the bus terminal in downtown Edmonton waiting to buy tickets for an overnight ride.

    Stuck in Vancouver
    As we approached Hope BC, our bus had decided to break down. I couldn’t believe that this was happening, it broke down just hours away from the Vancouver airport! I was so frustrated at this point because we had missed the flight from Vancouver to Hong Kong again. Our choices were to try and find a cab or hitch a ride with another passing bus. Another problem was that our luggage had be put on a different greyhound bus.
    We managed to hitch a ride with another greyhound bus that was packed with other stragglers standing in the aisle and I was never so happy to simply be moving along. Though we missed the flight again, we could hopefully catch one for tomorrow. It was 4pm when we finally arrived at the airport with our luggage. The lines were insanely long (so long that cookies were provided). While my mom waited in the domestic line, I decided to march over to the international line (which we’d already tried) and speak to someone else about our situation. Ironically, it just so happened that one of the staff members was on the same bus as we were and the lady behind the counter had heard all about the greyhound bus. I think she felt a little sorry for my mom and I and took us to the back room where we were finally given two plane tickets for the following day!

    Finally off
    At 2:30pm the next day we were finally ready to board the plane to Hong Kong. I was so happy and relieved. Of course we had to have one final mishap before departure. It took about 3 hours to de-ice the plane, which would make the entire flight time approach the pilot’s regulated travel cap of 16 hours in air. The pilot could cancel the flight. But thankfully we took off…Due to the time change, we completely missed Christmas and landed on the 26th of December. It was a long and crazy journey, but we were there and that’s all that mattered.