On Wednesday, 18 January, we woke up at 5 am to leave for the airport at 6.30 am. Fortunately, we did not have a hard time waking Zach up. He was very excited about this trip and has been waiting for long time. He put his toys in his turtle backpack to bring to Canada. He brought a shovel for digging snow, a robot, a small brachiasaurus, a small car, and his cousin, Maddy's picture (he said that because he misses Maddy a lot and wanted to give Maddy's picture to her). We left our house at 6.30 am.
After checking in at Cathay finished the immigration process, we still had time to have for breakfast at Starbucks. We got a nice spot to sit, so that we could change Jake's diaper before getting on the plane. Jerome took the shot at Starbuck below.
As usual, we left our stroller at the gate so that we could use it in Hong Kong Airport. Our stroller divides into two pieces, the car seat and the wheels. We put the wheels in its bag and the Cathay's person put a special tag on both the car seat and bag.
After 4.5 hours in the plane (CX 718), finally we arrived at Hong Kong Airport at 2.30 pm. We only had 2 hours to transit and catch our next flight which would depart at 4.40 pm. Unfortunately, we had to wait for long time at the gate to get our stroller back. They misplaced the wheels. One of the Cathay guys said that because we put it in the bag, they did not know that it was a stroller and brought it to the next plane. Of course that doesn't explain why they put those special tags on the stoller. At that time, we thought that it was lost. But we tried to keep a positive attitude, hoping we would get the wheels at the gate in Vancouver as the Cathy guy promised. Of course, Jerome had to carry Jake in his car seat all the way to the next gate.
At 4pm, we got on our plane that would bring us to Vancouver. But when we checked our boarding passes, we noticed that we were not seated in the same row . I was in the bassinette row with Jake while Jerome and Zach were seated five rows behind me. I was very mad at that time. I insisted that we be seated together. We had booked the seats earlier (two days before). After almost thirty minutes waiting and arguing with the airline attendants, they finally arranged to have us seated together.
Our flight to Vancouver was quite short at this time, from Hong Kong it only took 12 hours! We did not why. We arrived at Vancouver at 1 pm. Whew, after such a long flight, we finally we arrived in Vancouver.
Canada Customs was very busy, it took almost 2 hours to get our turn. So many people arrived in Vancouver at that time. Maybe most of them want to celebrate Chinese New Year in Vancouver. Then we went to the Budget Car Rental at the airport, picked up our car then we went to our hotel.
Vancouver welcomed us with a bright, sunny day without rain. Yes, there was sun in Vancouver during the winter. We thought that it like summer. Jerome said that it was a good sign for our vaccation in Canada.
We arrived at the Coast Plaza Hotel on Comox Street at almost 5 pm. We got a very good deal for our suite for one king size bed room with living room and kitchen plus free wifi internet connection and a daily newspaper. In addition, this hotel is very close to Stanley Park. We were enjoying the room and the view when Tammy called us. Then, we walked down to English Bay Beach. Zach was not tired at all. He was very excited. He ran around on the beach. He loves the beach. We met Tammy on the beach and then had dinner at the Tampopo Garden sushi restaurant nearby.
Zach in English Bay Beach Vancouver
We all are very jet-lagged. This morning, we woke up at 1pm and we had to cancel our lunch appointment with our friends, Dean and Madeline. After lunch, went to Oakridge Mall to buy boots for Zach and warm clothes for Jake. We had dinner at the White Spot Restaurant.
So far, the kids and I can adjust to the cold weather here. The weather is not really cold, just around 4 celcius and there is no snow.
galuh
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