First night of our China vacay!….in Halifax. Oh well. Fortune cookies and pizza!

So we were delayed leaving Halifax by almost a full 24 hours. I’ve never seen fog like that! It could have put a damper on our trip, but we had planned for the worst-so we had actually booked our ticket to China so that we would be overnight in Toronto. This allowed for us to remain calm when our flight to Toronto was cancelled-right? Yeah. Not so much. Nicole and I calmly told the guys everything would be fine-and then looked at each other and said “we’re totally screwed” the minute they turned around. But Nicole played travel agent and booked us a new flight for the next morning….plenty of time to catch our scheduled 4:30pm flight to Shanghai later that same day. So we booked a room at the hotel attached to the airport-The Alt hotel. If IKEA had a pornographic film department-this would be it. Very strange hotel. But, we were given a suite for the price of a regular room-I think they were pretty overwhelmed with all the cancelled flights. We had a view of the runway and we watched anxiously for planes to take off or land. Nothing. I employed my friend Greg to teach me in the ways of flight tracking and he quickly found our plane, let us know that we were, as we guessed, screwed, and that there was a 50/50 chance we would get out on the flight in the morning. I became obsessed with watching the plane tracking app! Amazing! -and so we did what any warm blooded Canadian would do, we got out our weeks supply of emergency rum and wine, ordered pizza, and played a game. There is nothing more disappointing then ALMOST leaving on your epic trip. But, it all worked out. Greg texted me at midnight and let me know that our plane had landed in Halifax, so as long as the weather continued to improve, we would be out as scheduled in the morning. So, we stayed at the Dutch porn hotel, got up super early, and we were on our way to Toronto on a super rough flight.
We found our gate in Toronto and ordered a beer. (It was 10am. On vacation. And we’re not quitters-we’re Canadians) So, it was starting to look like this actually might happen. We actually might go to China! We did some duty free shopping, bought more Pringles for the snack stash, and waited. I then employ my friend Greg again to find our plane..is it in Toronto? is it ready to go, etc? He lets me know he has located our plane, it is in the air, enroute to Toronto, and it is 2 months old. Hold the phone WHAT? Our plane is TWO MONTHS OLD. Now I’m hyper ventilating. I mean, I’m all about new car smell, but 2 MONTHS OLD??? Now you have to understand that I have an irrational fear of flying. I realize this is ridiculous considering how much I fly. But, I’m logical, and flying isn’t. So, I Ativan myself and try to get through. And it usually works. BUT, 2 month old plane flying? Move over Ativan, this is a job for wine.
Actually, the plane was actually lovely and was very very new-although the seats were impossibly uncomfortable (not very padded) . We decided to book the seats in the final 6 rows which are only 2 seats across instead of the usual 3. This way we’re not disturbing anyone when we want the bathroom or to get up and stretch. They’re at the rear of the plane..and so a little more rough on take off and through turbulence. But it hit me somewhere over the arctic…..this is a 15 hour flight. Everyone on this flight will have to poop at least once. And they did. I think twice. And then there was our extremely uninterested male flight attendant. He hated us with the heat of 1000 suns. I mean HATE.  But honestly, I was being taken care of by wine and Ativan, so it wasn’t so bad. Ish.
We left Toronto at 4:30 Sunday afternoon, and we arrived in Shanghai – after flying over the North Pole!- at about 8pm Monday night with the time change. We easily made it through customs-they were very friendly-and found our group. Arrived at our EXTREMELY nice hotel around 10pm and did some unwinding. The room was huge and had a full soaker tub in it and an incredible view of the skyline. Pop out the Pringles and the emergency-emergency rum.

The strange thing is in our minds it is about 10 am-so we were not tired in the least. So after some shenanigans and drinks we forced ourselves to go to bed-big day tomorrow! The Bund in Shanghai!