It has begun. This will be my last post from Canadian soil. Trying to sleep last night was a mission in itself. For some impromptu reason a noise manifested itself from within the walls of my room right by the head of my bed, and my head. It was like there was a team of lego men hiding in the wall doing heavy construction. I ended up moving to the couch where I actually got some sleep (5hours) before getting up at five thirty.

After getting to the airport about 2 hours early, the weirdness began. It started with my own idiocy. My dad dropped me off at the very front of Terminal 1 at Pearson. This is the new terminal and it is the size of Donald Trump’s ego…times ten. I’m carrying about 400 pounds of gear so moving anywhere isn’t going to be pleasurable. I get in and notice the gates go from A to Z. Departures to asia are at Z. I’m at A. I manage to navigate my way through the mindless hordes of senile seniors on their way to Florida and get to the gates that go to Beijing. As I get to the lineup for boarding passes, the helper monkey lady asks me where I’m going, to which I reply PKK. She then asks if I’m flying direct, or through Vancouver. I inform her I’m going through Vancouver, to which she tells me that I should be at Gate A. Great, I got my chance to battle through the masses of pastel polyester and golfclub bags once again. But the fun doesn’t stop there…oh no…

I got my boarding passes from the automated machine that Air Canada makes you do now, in some kind of futile attempt at speeding the whole process up. They fail miserably. So I’m waiting in the motionless line and I notice a putrid scent coming from the guy infront of me. Now as some of you may know, I’m no stranger to smells, but this guy smelled like he had just taken a golden shower, minus the shower. Turns out it wasn’t the guy infront of me. A few people farther ahead had brought one of those styrofoam coolers you buy at the beer store and filled it with raw fish. They were hoping to check this in as baggage along with everyone elses stuff. Keeping it closed was two thin straps of tape. This was a classic WTF moment. As in, what the fuck were they thinking? Who brings raw fish along for the airplane ride? I’m sure you can guess where they were going too. Luckily another security/helper monkey lady came along and denied them baggage check before they got to the counter, which is swell because I had no interest in having every piece of clothing I own reek of rotten snapper.

When I finally got to the check in, I had to go through a big deal because when they checked my visa, they noticed that it was valid for 60 days but my return ticket wasn’t until December. They decided to let me go because it’s up to the Chinese to make the final say. So I’m in Vancouver now and I’ve got something great to think about till I get to Beijing…

Filed under: transport