Dance, Sing, Floss, Travel: Strange Experiences

So, I am almost at the half way mark of my flight to Hong Kong. ALMOST at half way and its 6:14pm, Toronto time. I still have 236 miles until the half way mark. Can you believe that as I write this post I am 3718 miles from home? It’s actually insane; I think maybe I ought to be diagnosed for dementia. I haven’t cried yet. At the same time, I kind of feel like I am going to wake up soon and it all be just a dream. How can it be real? How can I be on a flight to HONG KONG!!!! Here, I am, little me stuck in the middle of the biggest plane I have ever seen. When I say stuck in the middle I is quite literate. I am in the third compartment out of five on the plane, sitting in the middle row in between two people, I do not know. Did I mention that my flight was delayed an hour so, if my calculations are correct, I am going to miss my transfer by an hour. I know, my worst fears confirmed. I am kind of freaking out. Well, not complete, like I figure it will all get worked out. But this just creates so much more work. I plan to take each experience as it comes, because I really have no way to prepare myself. All my faith is going into Kurtis’s supposedly lucky guitar pick. I guess we will truly see how lucky it is! ;)

You know what I think is soo weird. When I arrive in Hong Kong it will be 2 am our time and 2 pm their time. This means, I will have missed 12 hours. Also when we arrive I will have been awake for 20 and a half hours without any sleep without any sleep. To make things even better, that’s when I will have to find a flight to Bangkok. The one thing I am really confused at is who to call, do I call The YE chair, my host parents, MY parents, WHO??

08/08/2011

Ok so it is 5:16 am, Thailand Time, 6:21 pm 07/08/2011, Toronto Time, and I am in a hotel in Bangkok. Here is how it all played out. I arrived in Hong Kong 2:30 pm, their time, (2:30 am our time) and had missed my transfer flight. There were agents from Air Canada waiting for me with a voucher for a hotel in Hong Kong and flight out the next day. I called my parents and they had already looked up and there was a flight leaving for Bangkok later that afternoon. So I had a choice, I could spend the night in Hong Kong or I could fly to Bangkok and not know where I would spend the night. I decided that I needed to get to Thailand as soon as possible and then find help there. There were a lot of guests who missed their transfer flights so; it took them a while to deal with mine. By the time I received my boarding pass, I had twenty five minutes to find my flight and some decent food to eat. I had then been up for twenty three and a half hours straight. Gate 2, my boarding pass said gate 2, well, I was at gate 40. So off I go ignoring my hungry stomach on search of gate two. I get to the end of one very long hallway to find, I am only at gate 20. At the end of gate 20 was a high end shopping mall of sorts. Intertwined between all the Prada, Gucci and Chanel stores were fast food restaurants. The signs were also quite confusing, all the signs directing me to gate 2 were pointing in different directions. By then I had 10 minutes to make the plane. So I decided to risk it ran up an escalator to the nearest fast food joint. Popeye’s Louisiana Style Chicken, yeah that’s right LOUISIANA style chicken, in HONG KONG. I grabbed some chicken strips chose one of the signs and just ran in the direction of the arrow. I arrived on time and ate my chicken strips in the line to board the plane. I then slept for the whole two hour plane ride to Bangkok. When I arrived in Bangkok, I still wasn’t sure if I was sleeping in the airport, if I should get a hotel. I didn’t know what to do. At baggage claim, I found a man working at a desk and asked him, where I could find a phone to make a local call. He gave me his cell phone and helped me go through my list of emergency numbers until I reached Pi Dew, one of the YE coordinators. Her and her mom, YE chair On, were staying in Bangkok to pick up Annie, an exchange student from Florida who was arriving at 11pm that night. So we went back to the hotel, I had a shower and went to bed. I woke up this morning at 4am when they were getting ready to take Annie back to the airport. I have since skyped Ben and my mom. There are stray dogs barking outside my hotel window, just thought you should know. And that is my day 1 adventure.

In the Toronto airport, I bought a small purple notebook, to carry around, to write down thoughts, I want to always remember. I thought it would be cool to let you know exactly what I was thinking as different things happened.

Chantel’s Thoughts:

August 7^th, 9:22am Pearson International Airport,

“Ok, so I think it just hit me. The announcements were in like mandarin or something. OMG! Just for the record, I didn’t cry, nope not yet and guess what, I’m in the middle seat. So when I do ball, it will just be awkward. I haven’t read Mom and Dad’s card yet. OMG what am I doing?? Thailand?? This is insane.”

August 7^th, 2:11pm Flight to Hong Kong

“So, now I am bored. Plus I am really confused because the screen thing says we are supposed to land at 2:00pm? But that’s in 24 HOURS not 12? Maybe they have their am and pm messed up. I hope so! Jeesh. 12 more hours! ZOMG! I am currently 1551 miles away from home, NBD, and there are still 6312 miles to go. AGH! By the way, I didn’t cry. I got a little wet in the eyes but that is all. It still hasn’t sunk in that I am leaving for a year yet. I just really don’t know what I am doing.”

August 7^th, 10:45pm Flight to Hong Kong

“Wow, twelve hours, no big deal, that is just TWO SCHOOL DAYS! So one sketch, one painting, 2 movies, 2 friendship bracelets and no sleep later, I am three hours away from Hong Kong. Woot! Woot! The sad thing is even though the flight was incredibly long it felt short. Like I couldn’t imagine it ever ending so I didn’t and it’s almost there.”

August 8^th, 1:25am (TO time) Flight to Hong Kong

“We are descending! Yippee, now I just have to find a flight to Bangkok, OH GOD! My ears are going crazy (like hurting). OWWWW! For the note I did take my decongestant.”

August 8^th, 2:09am Landing in Hong Kong

“Funny thing is I just had an OMG I am in china moment. I truly have no idea what I have gotten myself in to. MY EARS ARE STILL KILLING ME! I think you know you’re far from home when NORTH AMERICA, isn’t even shown on the map. It kinda makes you feel like there is no turning back.”

August 8^th, 2:27 pm (HK time) Landed in Hong Kong

“It’s so beautiful! I have never seen anything like it. The way the islands look like a pod of surfacing whales. And the mountains are so huge and green. I think I am going to like Asia.”

August 8^th, 2:32pm STILL LANDING IN HONG KONG

“I have tears in my eyes. I have done it. I have left Canada. I did it. Woot! It may be 2:30 in the morning in Toronto, but I couldn’t be more awake. Oh mon dieu, C’est très belle et difficile a comprendre. Je pense que c’est une idée dans mon imagination. N’a pas vrai. Une autre tempe, oh mon dieu.”

August 8^th 9:51 pm Bangkok Airport

“29 hours later and I have almost made it. The weirdest part is it just feels like a really long day, when really a full day has already passed. It is just so strange. This whole experience so far is strange.”

I think that last quote, really sums up my whole flight experience, strange. Today I will board another flight to Khon Kean to meet up with my family. I was talking to my host brother this morning and he said we could visit my school today just to look around. I will keep you updated.

xoxo