A Day of Travelling

Everything went great Sunday night and we were able to leave the house without forgetting anything important. I'm sure that there are a lot of important things that we will come to wish we had brought; but so far, leaving them at home was intentional.

Our shuttle to the airport picked us up right on time and despite the high level of excitement, Deacon managed to fall asleep during the van ride. This proved to be a common theme for every leg of the trip.

Our first airport was Calgary and after getting a little help to point us in the right direction, we figured out how to read our boarding passes and got to the correct gate with lots of time to spare. The first thing I wished we had included in our supplies? Some candy. I tried to distract the kids from noticing a candy store we were walking past and it occured to me that we could have brought our own treats. It was fun to watch Deacon as the plane prepared to take off. He kept asking if we were in the air yet and we just told him that he would know it when it happened. He was wide-eyed when we lifted off but that ended up being the last takeoff he would be awake for.

Vancouver's airport was really nice and it had a huge marine aquarium that was full of anemones. I don't know if it was planned or not, but the terminal also featured a raven that flapped around and squaked at travellors from different vantage points.

We were flying with China Airlines and Heather and the kids didn't seem thrilled with the airplane food. I feel like I have discerning taste and high standards of what good food is, but I can also thoroughly enjoy sub-standard meals when they're what's available. It is because of this gas-station-pizza-sub phenomenon that I had no complaints about the food - just so long as it kept showing up on little plastic trays every few hours.

 

It was a long flight to Taipei Taiwan and when the door opened on the Skytrain shuttle, the warmth and the humidity communicated to us that we had covered some distance this time. The airport had a really neat vibe going for it. The stairs and flooring was exactly what you would find in a public school built in the '80's and they had antique telephones on the walls and security cameras mounted so low that you had to be careful not to hit your head on them. This was also the kids' first sighting of a squatter toilet. The signs and currencies didn't make any sense to me and it was kind of an uncomfortable feeling to be in a place where I couldnt speak the language. By this point we were savy enough travellors that we found our way to the correct gate despite Taipei Airport's attempt to hide it down a seemingly abandoned hallway without any staff in sight.

The journey was wearing on all of us, but not enough to dampen our excitement as we boarded our third plane, knowing that the next stop was Bangkok. I snapped this photo by leaning over Deacon's seat which he had chosen because he hadn't yet fallen asleep next to a window. I'll show him the picture later.

The airport in Bangkok was nice and new and the kids really liked the escalator walkways that went up and down like ramps. After clearing customs we caught a taxi outside and I spent the entire two hours talking to the driver. I was really pleased with how quickly the language has come back although I did mix up the words "fruit" and "flowers" and he didn't seem to like my joke about traffic.

Finally he parked the car at an alley that was too narrow to fit through and we walked the rest of the way to our hotel on the bank of the river.

And so, 27 hours after leaving our driveway, we were finally able to sit down and relax as we enjoyed some complimentary glasses of Italian soda. The alley our hotel is situated in, also happens to be a little market. So the next order of business is to go out and find something to eat.

- C