Neverending Sunday

It's amazing the things that have happened to me in recent years when it comes to my attempts to travel by plane:

• Schedules have been updated without my knowledge, resulting in a missed flight
• General weather inconveniences (usually involving snow) would cause nuisance delays 
• Planes have skidded off runways (not mine, thankfully), leading to completely closed airports and a night sleeping on a bench in a friend's hotel room

On the other hand, it could be said that since I travel a fair bit more than the average person, it stands to reason that the odds of something happening to me whilst in transit are higher than most.

The Hong Kong-Australia-New Zealand trip contained the most number of flights I've ever taken in a single vacation (which, incidentally, came to a total of seven legs).  For the first six, nothing of significance happened.  My last day in Hong Kong was a Saturday.  I leisurely woke up in my brother's living room, checked the weather, then decided to check on my flight using the airline's app.  My flight was scheduled for 4:30pm, so I didn't expect there to be much information.  When the app first opened, it said it was on time.  Within a few seconds, the graphic changed to "Delayed".  What I saw underneath the graphic made me call wildly for my brother to get on the internet and confirm what I was seeing.

My flight was now scheduled for 2:00am.  Sunday morning.

I had to look at that information a number of times before I could believe it.  I checked the airline website, I checked the airport website, and my brother checked the internet at large.  Despite some discrepancies of an hour or so regarding the departure time, they were all saying that my flight was delayed for roughly 10 hours.

This was disheartening news at first.  As much fun as I'd had with my brother, I was ready to go home.  I'm sure he was ready to be rid of me too, as we had spent 3 solid weeks straight together.  However, unlike the other times I've been stranded somewhere, I didn't have to worry about where I would stay, what I would do, or how much extra I'd have to spend.  All of that was taken care of.  So in this case, I was pretty lucky.  So I took it all in stride.  I had a good nap in the afternoon while my brother went to his ultimate frisbee practice.  I got an extra dinner at a Thai restaurant that my brother had never tried before.  I wasn't able to do any decent airport shopping since the stores closed around 11:00, but that was probably for the best.

While waiting at the airport, I found an article that revealed the reason for the delay.  As you know, flights are based on the same plane flying between two cities.  The plane I was supposed to take was coming from Toronto the day before.  That plane took off on Friday at 10:00am and would have arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday at 2:00pm, which then would have been available for my flight at 4:30.  After takeoff, the plane had to turn around and go back to Toronto.  Why?  The toilets on the plane were backed up.  For the safety of the passengers, they had to turn around.  Back on the ground, the either fixed the problem or got another plane (hopefully the latter!).  That flight didn't leave Toronto until 8:00pm on Friday night, which meant they wouldn't arrive in HK until 12:00am Sunday.  So, again, in the big picture, it could have been a lot worse for me.  I could have been on a plane with backed up toilets.  I'm trying not to think about that too much.

Another piece of good news was that I ended up with an empty seat between me and the lady sitting in the aisle seat.  We wasted no time in claiming our halves of the free seat.  We left mostly on time, and the flight was uneventful.  After 14 hours of flying, I finally landed at home.

It was around 4:00am.  Sunday morning.

I did my best to get myself out of the airport as quickly as possible.  Alas, I was unable to get the kangaroo, emu and crocodile jerky past customs, but I didn't really have the strength of mind to argue at that point.  My other brother came to pick me up.  We stopped for a greasy fast food breakfast, then he drove me home.  I walked into my dark condo, my internal clock utterly confused.  A short while later, the sun started to rise.  I was wide awake, and about to start my Sunday again.

"I walked around the world a hundred times and realized, that freight trains and paper planes are just like you and me"

My Own Dear Photograph

It took a few years and a couple of tries, but I finally got my own Dear Photograph.

Dear Photograph is a website where you submit a photo of a photo from the past in the present.  In other words, you go back to where a photo was taken years ago, hold the photo up so it matches the background, and take a photo of it.  There's usually a story attached to the photo, typically in the form of a letter addressed to the old photograph.  Some of the stories are incredibly awesome.  Some are sad (there are a few that people have taken in New York where the Twin Towers used to be).

For me, my ultimate Dear Photograph was to go back to Ocean Park in Hong Kong and take a photo in the same spot where my dad took a photo of me and my brother in front of the mountain with the seahorse logo cut into the landscape.  I had tried to do it 2 years ago during my last visit, but I didn't get the chance.  As I was planning this trip, I realized the first trip happened just over 30 years ago.  So, this time, I was determined to get the photo.

I don't remember very much about that visit to Ocean Park (nor of Tokyo Disney World, which we also visited during the same trip).  I was pretty sure it was going to have changed a substantial amount.  I mean, Hong Kong changes every 30 days, let alone 30 years.  As I entered the park, I could see the seahorse on the mountain right away.  So my first order of business was to get to the spot and take the photo.  I manoeuvred myself into position, and took the shot:

For context, this is what the spot looks like today:

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm not standing as far away from the mountain as I was during that first photo.  But I was standing as far back as I could.  After some more investigating, I figured out that the spot where my dad had taken the photo was likely outside of the park, which in the present day has been turned into the tour bus parking lot.  So, I guess I technically didn't have to spend the 345HKD to get the photo.  But I made the most of it anyway.

It's actually a really nice amusement park/zoo.  As you can see, the cable cars take you to the other side of the mountain, where there are roller coasters and other rides, along with aquariums with sharks and cages full of monkeys and birds.  It was also really really quiet.  I had purposefully chosen a day when I figured attendance would be somewhat lower, but that day the park was noticeably empty.  Vendors were standing around, looking bored.  There were almost no lines for the rides.  The seats at the shows were half full.  I'm sure during peak season this place would be seriously packed with mainland tourists.

I'm not sure why this was such a big deal for me.  It's nice to know that something from so long ago (okay, "long ago" in comparison to my life so far) is still around.  It amuses me that my brother who lives in Hong Kong now was not born yet when that photo was taken (he was actually in utero, so I always say that, physically, he went to Hong Kong with us that time).  I guess I am and always will be a sucker for nostalgia.

Dear Photograph, it took me 30 years to come back, but here I am.

"So you can keep me inside the pocket of your ripped jeans"

The Most Anti-Social Restaurant

The moment we came back to Hong Kong, my brother had to go to a work function.  For some reason, they decided to hold their Chinese New Year Dinner two weeks after the fact.  So I was left to find dinner on my own.  I was pretty tired after our flight from Melbourne so I decided to go to the interesting ramen restaurant that my brother had taken me to before we left.

This restaurant is utterly fascinating.  It's the most anti-social set-up I have ever experienced.  There are 3 or 4 rows of booths that look like library cubicles.  Every person, regardless of whether you're alone or in a group, has to sit at one of the booths.  Each booth has a call button and a faucet where you can dispense your own water.  The back of the booth has a bamboo screen that partially hides the corridor in between the rows.  You fill out the sheet for your custom bowl of ramen, including how you want your noodles cooked, how oily you want the broth to be, how you like your green onions sliced (thin or thick), how much of the spicy sauce you want to add, how much garlic you like, etc.  Then you press the button on your table and a server shows up at your booth, but you don't get to see their face because of the bamboo screen.  The only way you can tell them apart is that they wear their name tag on their belt.  They take your order, say something in Japanese, bow really low so you can see it, and then walk away.  Minutes later someone else returns with your order, says something Japanese and bows again, then lowers the screen all the way down so you can eat in privacy.  Here's the crazy part: almost everyone orders a noodle refill.  In order to do that, you take the little coloured tray that they give you, place it on top of the button, then press the button so a little music starts to play.  Someone raises the screen, takes your coloured tray, and disappears.  They come back moments later with a bowl of noodles that you then add to your bowl of broth and continue eating.

This is what it looks like:

When you're done eating, you just take the copy of your sheet from the little box on the right side of the table and bring it to the cashier to pay.

For those of us who find ourselves awkwardly eating alone: Best.  Idea.  Ever.

"Now I'm four five seconds from wildin', and we got three more days 'til Friday"

Discoveries

Things I have discovered in Melbourne:

The Great Ocean Road is something that I quite honestly had never heard of before I started planning this trip.  But it's one of the top recommended things to do in Melbourne.  Okay, so it's not technically in Melbourne, but it starts really close to it.  Modelled after the Pacific Coast Highway, it was built by returning WWI veterans.  They were conscientious enough to realize that they should avoid exposing the vets to more explosive situations, so they didn't use dynamite to blast the path through the hills along the coast.  They did it all manually with picks.  Crazy.

The Twelve Apostles are a great example of what happens when you have a lot of time and a lot of water crashing around you for eons:

It was pointed out to us that there were never 12 of these to begin with (it was just a better name than the "sow and piglets", as they were originally called).  But it's also amazing to consider that these will eventually disappear altogether, and that new ones are currently forming.

If things had happened differently, I would not be in Melbourne.  I would be visiting Batmania.  Not kidding.

I had never before had any interest in cricket.  I just didn't get it.  But during these past couple of weeks the occasional lack of TV channel choices in our hotel and in almost every bar has forced me to watch the Cricket World Cup.  I also met one of my brother's friends who, not only knew the rules for cricket, but also really likes cricket.  I have to admit, it's starting to grow on me.  I even kind of understand what's going on most of the time.

"And I will stay up through the night, let's be clear, won't close my eyes"