Day One: En Route

I've arrived! But not without a somewhat rocky trip here.

Cab arrived at 4.30 am and I picked up H. (a project colleague) en route to the airport. On board the flight to Toronto, we met up with P., another colleague, who’d boarded ahead of us. Uneventful flight to Toronto, during which I mostly slept. On arrival, I got to enter the hallowed enclave of the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge for the first time (P. and H. had upgrade certificates and were flying business class, so were allowed to bring me into the lounge as a guest). Hot damn, those lounges are nice – free breakfast, computer access, loads of papers and magazines to take away, etc., not to mention ample comfy seating and nice loos.

We only had a short time in Toronto before P. and I had to get our connecting flight to Vancouver – H. had a different flight, though we were all due to rendezvous in Vancouver and carry on to Seoul together, on the same flight. Well, shortly after getting on our plane, the problems began. We dithered on the tarmac for almost an hour, before the pilot came over the PA system to say that there was a technical issue and we had to return to the gate! It turned out to be a faulty oil filter – the problem was fixed, but not before we were delayed by two hours in Toronto. Given that we only had an hour and a half to make our connection in Vancouver, had the flight been on time, we knew there was no way we were going to make our Air Canada flight to Seoul. H. would be on that flight without us.

Needless to say, it didn’t make for a very pleasant flight, not knowing how or when we’d be able to carry on (and on a petty level, I was annoyed that the nice bulkhead seat I’d snagged for the transpacific flight was now lost!). But on arrival, the ground staff in Vancouver managed to get us on a Korean Air flight to Seoul, just an hour later. Luckily, Korean Air was very nice (even though I was stuck in the middle of an aisle). The plane was a Boeing 777 and therefore pretty sweet. The service was very good, as were the amenities. Plus, the Korean Air stewardesses were completely adorable – cutest uniforms I’ve ever seen! We got our onward connection to Hanoi as scheduled, where I managed to meet up with H. again and explained what had happened.

By the end of the flight to Hanoi, we were all just about at the end of our tethers. So, so tired. By the time we got out of the airport, met our local representatives, and met up with some other people from Halifax who’d arrived earlier, it was well after midnight. I stuck around for a beer and a quick chat, got myself settled into my room and unpacked, then finally got some sleep around 2 am.