Always make sure connecting flights are relatively close to each other

My flight from Beijing to Vancouver was uneventful. I took a bunch of pictures of clouds and some of the mountains below while I watched a bunch of the in-flight movies. There were several great movies playing. I watched some serious drama first which nearly put me to sleep and then I watched Coraline. For a kid's movie, it's pretty creepy but it was good. I also pulled out my laptop and watched an episode or two of Supernatural. I'm now on season 4. I'm still near the beginning of the season. For our meals we had a choice. Dinner we were offered beef or fish. I took the beef, it was okay. There was some rice and gravy with it. We also got an amazing brownie on the side. Breakfast there was a choice between noodles or eggs. I chose the eggs but I really wish I had taken the noodles. Those at least smelled good.
I talked off and on to the guy sitting next to me. He was on his way to St-Johns for school. I felt a little bad for him since he had another long flight ahead of him. It was about half way through the flight that I started to question how long I would have to wait for my flight when I realized that the wait would be over 12 hours.

My flight from Beijing arrived at 11.30 am on the Friday and my flight out of Vancouver would leave on Saturday morning at 9 am. When I initially booked my flights I could have sworn I saw that my flight was scheduled to arrive at around midnight. I asked a volunteer for directions to get to the booking desk for Air Canada so I could see about catching an earlier flight. The first man I spoke to told me that I would have to leave the airport entirely and the second woman told me to go pray at the chapel because it can't be done. I wanted to throttle that woman but instead I thanked her and left the baggage claim. I easily found an information desk and explained my situation to the lady working there. She was nice and pointed me to the direction of the Air Canada ticket booth in the airport. It was a bit of a hike to get there but when I finally did I jumped into the line. Luckily there were only 3 people ahead of me and I got to the front quick enough. I explained my situation and the man told me that there was a flight leaving in an hour if I'd like that one. I said yes, paid the small fee to have my tickets transferred (since it was done at the last minute) and thanked the man. He also checked in my bags since I wouldn't have had time to get into the other line to do it (plus I still had to do the security check to get to my boarding gate). I immediately went to the boarding gate even though my stomach was protesting that I should get some food first and it didn't take too long to pass through and I was on my way to the boarding gate. Before I went all the way I stopped by at a payphone to tell my mom that I would be arriving home that night instead of the following day. On my way to the boarding gate I got pestered a lot by people trying to sell credit cards. It took forever for them to take no as an answer and when I walked by them again to check on the status of my flight they pestered me again about it.

We were about 10 minutes late to board the plane and it seemed to take forever to take off. My seat was in the middle on the first row right after the business class. Since there were two seats I got no little TV in front of me. I believe mine was folded up in the armrest to my side but the man next to me was hogging it so it was a little difficult to pull out. It didn't matter too much though since I didn't end up wanting to use it at all.

I chatted for a while with the girl sitting next to me (who grew up in China) and we ended up chatting with the flight attendant as well. We talked about various things but mostly kept on the topic of China. We drove a few of the other passengers crazy since we were laughing quite a lot. The guys sitting in business class ahead of us were a little peeved since there was an opening and they could pretty much hear the entire thing. Oh well, they taunted their free wine and fancy food at the us the entire time. When the flight attendants came by and asked if we wanted to buy anything to eat I ordered a chicken wrap but found that I couldn't eat it. I had gotten so hungry that it was too heavy for my stomach to handle. About half way through I thought I was going to throw up so I gave up on eating it and went to sleep. I slept off and on for most of the flight while I had a constant feeling of nausea. It wasn't the best flying experience. I was even more upset when the pilot announced that we would be arriving much later at the airport than scheduled. The only thing I wanted was to land and possibly collapse on a couch or bed. When I finally did arrive at the airport it seemed to take forever to get my luggage (which was the same in Vancouver, my bags seriously came out last). So as I stood there waiting ready to pass out my mom snuck up on me. It was nice to see her again but really strange at the same time. We talked a bit but I had a some trouble hearing her since my ears were still a little messed up from the flight. When we finally did get my bags she helped me carry them to the car (even though I insisted I could do it myself).

The drive home was long. I was starving and getting hungrier by the minute. Luckily I wasn't feeling sick anymore so that was good. When I did finally get home it was really strange. I hadn't been there in 5 weeks. My brother came outside and helped me carry my backpack into the house and into my bedroom. I also brought down my other bags and gave some of the gifts that I could find right away to my family. My special gift for my brother was a cone hat. He loves hats and it was the only thing he had asked me to bring back for him. I gave my dad 2 huge bottles of beer with some incents and my mom a pearl necklace and jade earrings. I then finally went upstairs and ate. There was some left over noodles in the fridge that I reheated and practically inhaled before I had a bowl of fruit loops. Food never tasted so good. By the time I went to bed it was almost 2 in the morning. My own bed was really, really nice to sleep in. It was soft and fluffy and my cat slowly crept up towards me. The entire night she kept jumping under the covers and then over them for a bit. I woke up with her curled in a ball near my face. She was purring away. I got out of bed since it was almost 1 in the afternoon. I don't want to be jet lagged for work on Monday.