We started our travelling extravaganza with brunch at Cafe du Soleil with my sister Kim. We thought the smoothies and special breakfast would be our last Canadian food for three weeks. Kim then drove us to Vancouver International Airport, where we quickly discovered that our plane had been delayed, for 6 hours. Kim had already driven away, as she had a ferry to catch and it seemed silly to skytrain home just in time to skytrain back to the airport, so we stayed and made the best of it. We toured all the Hudson News stores and restrooms at the airport in an attempt to discovered where is the best place to buy Pringles and where one should eliminate them after.
I am a firm believer that Pringles are the best air plane food. I love how easy they are to carry on a plane, how hard they are to crush when compared to their bagged counterparts, and I especially love how if they are left unopened before take off, the lid will protrude upwards once at cruising altitude. I know Lays now produces a Pringles can imitation but it's just not as good. Dave and I purchased a lot of Pringles at Hudson News and the best was near the "aquarium" by the Milestones.
Having six hours and two 15 dollar meal vouchers to kill at the airport wasn't that difficult. After our Hudson News and restroom investigation, I took a nap while Dave read and texted simultaneously. Following some down time we lindy-hopped around the closed area and then had dinner at the Milestones. When boarding time finally came, we felt as though we could be considered YVR experts.
Our thirteen hour flight to Guangzhou went as well as one could expect. We were seated behind the barrier separating us from our upper class brethren, which fortunately provided us with highly valued leg room, but on the flip side it also made us incredibly jealous of the first class richies on the plane. After a nice nap on the plane, our seat neighbour awoke a began looking a photos on his computer. We had exchanged niceties at the being of the plane and we had detected a Slavic accent of some kind in his voice. Now he was looking at aviation photos, photos of the inside of cockpits that were not dissimilar to the plane we were currently on. The slide show continued with old family photos, the Slavic accent seat-mate in the air force, posing in front of planes. Then the kicker... photos of the twin towers. My heart started racing. Could he be a spy? a rebel? a insurgent? a radical? I poked Dave and made the universal eye signal that he should look at the computer. Obviously Dave would automatically understand my thought process and come to the same conclusion as me. He would understand that if one of us didn't become John McClane (if you don't understand, watch Die Hard) and stop the terrorist plot something awful would happen. However, the photo slide show had moved on. Instead Dave, misreading my ques, started up a conversation with the man who I thought was about put a fire-y end to our honeymoon. As it turns out, the man is a pilot and was on his way to Guangzhou to begin working for China Southern Airlines. The rest of our flight went by with the man giving us helpful advice on the finer points of airline travel.
We arrived in Guangzhou Airport and hurried through customs. We were very happy when we walked across the street to Guangzhou Pullman Airport Hotel. The bed was fantastically comfortable and the shower was glorious. Notable feature: the bathroom had a glass wall with a remote control for the blind... see photo!
Both Dave and I were thoroughly jet-lagged when we hit the streets of Guangzhou. It's crazy, hectic, cars were everywhere, people scurried across the streets and into stores. The horizon was obstructed by heavy smog and it hurt to breath. We quickly made our way into a Starbucks and found a nice window seat to observe the citizens of Guangzhou. With our hotel check out time coming and our flight time nearing we made our way back to the skytrain. On the skytrain, we had many admirers. Many locals seemed interested in the tall people on the train, especially the blonde one.
Before we knew it, we were boarding the plane to Chiang Mai and waving good bye to Guangzhou...
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