Dig to China, Dig to China

Well, it’s been a very long few days. A lot of it is a giant blur... but here I am, safe and sound in Hong Kong. I apologize if this is very rambley... I’m still somewhat jetlagged and my mind is fully in BC. Here is a general overview of the last few days. There will be more interesting, clever anecdotes later in the week.

Pre-Boarding

We had a full day planned in Victoria, as my flight wasn’t leaving until 9pm. We had been whale watching a few weeks ago but only saw the top of one grey whale from a great distance away. Because of this, we were offered the opportunity to ride standby for free later on. We figured that would be a wonderful way to spend our last day together but it turns out that a lot of other people also thought that would be a good way to spend the day. Before we even left home, we found out the boat was full. We were disappointed but it was sort of a blessing in disguise because it allowed us to have a much more relaxed departure from Departure Bay (our neighbourhood in Nanaimo, never so aptly named).

At the airport, I had begun to get a horrible pain in my side. It turns out it was all nervous indigestion. Nothing a few Rolaids and frantic text messages to Priya couldn’t handle. Priya thought it was endearing and lovable (I believe those were her words) that my first thought was I’d need an emergency appendectomy while miles high in the middle of the great blue yonder.

Saying goodbye to Harold was the hardest thing ever. I know I’ll see him in just a few more weeks, but I miss him like crazy (we sure do spend a lot of time on Skype these days). How do I walk away from my fiancé and go through the doors to the terminal? As a going away present, he gave me his grandmother’s locket with a picture of him in it. Now he is with me wherever I go.

It’s All Up in the Air

It should be noted that I have only flown a handful of times (all domestic) and that I’m not a good flyer. I have been known to drive or take the train/bus extremely long distances (Mexico, BC, California) to avoid flying. My first flight was only about 20 minutes long from Victoria to Vancouver. It was a small Air Canada Jazz plane and the flight attendant was awesome enough to sit with me for a portion of the flight and really calm my nerves. After, she walked me to the International Terminal for my next flight. I think I shall write to Air Canada about how great she was.

My layover was 5 hours (during which I struggled hard to stay awake) before my red-eye flight direct from Vancouver to Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific. The flight was mostly smooth. I had a window seat and a guy, who clearly hated small talk as much as I do, had the aisle seat. There was a lovely empty seat between us... lots of room to stretch out. I woke him up once because the turbulence was scaring me though; I swear at one point the plane just dropped a few hundred feet.

I won’t bore you with all the flight details... here are the highlights: individual televisions for each seat that were fully equipped with movies (I watched Letters to Juliet and bawled my eyes out), tv shows, music, and video games... amazing food... actually managed to sleep a bit... flying over Tokyo at night was so surreal (it looked like a circuit board full of lights and copper wiring)... right before landing something jumped out of the water near the boat and I think it was a dolphin.

Enter: The Foreigner

Immigration, baggage collection, and customs took about 5 minutes (once I managed to find them in the massive Chek Lap Kok airport... I actually had to take an internal subway just to get there!) Katherine and Belle, two of my new teaching colleagues, were kind enough to meet me at the airport. I appreciate that so much because I would have been very lost otherwise. They helped me buy my Octopus card (used for transit as well as for many other services) and we all took the 45 minute airport shuttle to Tin Shui Wai where we went for lunch, bought a few things, and they helped me get settled in to my hotel.

Harbour Plaza Resort City

Before I left, I booked a room at Harbour Plaza Resort City until September 11th. It is in Tin Shui Wai, the next town over from Yuen Long, where my school is. This place is amazing! It is located right beside the bus station and the light rail trains, there are TWO malls attached to it, a grocery store, multiple restaurants and bars, TWO 7-11 stores (complete with $1 slurpees), a movie theatre, a pool, a gym, tennis courts, a putting green, a huge track, a soccer field, and a very large park with a very neat jogging trail that has built in exercise stops throughout (sit-ups, push-ups, etc). I like it so much here that, after a telephone conference and a video, Harold and I have decided this will be our new home.

Currently, I am in Tower 2, but tomorrow I sign papers and then on Saturday, I will move to Tower 1. I checked out the suite today... it’s small, but big by Hong Kong standards. There will be plenty of room for us both, along with all our stuff... and now we get to stay at this awesome place that really is both a resort and a little city all to itself.

Here's a link to the resort and here is my exploring the grounds:

http://www.harbour-plaza.com/en/home.aspx?hotel_id=hprc&section_id=home&subsection_id=overview