Toronto Part 1

The almost 22 hour trip to Toronto via Vancouver has been the longest 22 hours of my life.

It was around 9am on the 11th of June when I woke up and began what I feel would be the longest day of my life. I had breakfast with my aunt at Pancake House in Sucat. A Php175 worth every peso spent on it. I had the biggest pancake I've ever eaten. I was so filled up that when my aunt told me that she would treat me at the Dampa sa Sucat, I thought we would just be having a light meal. But no! We had an order of Tahong, 2 big, juicy crabs, an order of seaweed, and half a kilo of shrimp. For those who do not know, I am allergic to crabs, shrimps and the like. I just couldn't resist the temptation of having a bite of these scrumptious crustaceans.

I arrived at the airport at around 2pm. I was not able to check in right away as we had to wait for one of our team mates who got caught in traffic in Guadalupe (due to the San carlos Seminary problem). The processing went smooth yet thorough. We were seated near the rear of the plane. Considering that plus the regular interval of turbulence gave me both a headache and a bad stomach.

We rode a PAL flight to Vancouver which had swell features that impressed me a lot (for being a first time out-of-country traveler, I get pleased very easily). There were 2-3 onboard movies with the option to listen to "radio" having our own head piece. What really impressed me was the variety of music played in the different channels. There was even a channel for story telling for children - this is what I listened to throughout half of my trip. I even fell asleep listening to an episode of Rugrats!

The plane food was quite good. I confirmed that when we took the connecting flight from Vancouver to Toronto but I'll tell about that a little later. My allergy started kicking in halfway through the flight when I began to feel itchy all over. Good thing that the stewardess was kind enough to give me anti-histamine tablets to lessen the effects. Good thing that they were Filipino as I began to feel a bit conscious with the words I choose when speaking in English.

Anyway, we arrived at Vancouver traveling back in time to around 1:45pm June 11 Vancouver time. I had a problem with immigration though and had to pay US$31.00 on tax for excess cigarette boxes. It's ok, I'm getting a refund for that and it’s not for me. It’s for a friend of my aunt. They say cigarettes here are a luxury and that the box labels contain pictures of damaged lungs and all. Yucky but I haven't seen those yet.

The immigration people are pretty friendly. They smile a lot but are very adamant on rules and procedures. Another thing I learned was how to identify the conveyor belt of flights coming from the Philippines. If you see hundreds of boxes beside a conveyor belt, mostly balikbayan boxes, then you would know that these belong to Filipinos (or Chinese because one Chinese family had to pay a lot of tax for his entire luggage). Anyway, we were met by a friend of Paul, my team mate, and her husband who gave us a short tour around the airport and the airport's parking lot. We can give Vancouver a tour as we were to board the plane 3 hours later. At least I can day that I got to step on Vancouver soil! hehe... Anyway, I took a number of pictures. I found it pretty neat to see a flock of crows. Never saw one that actually flew freely. There was also a pretty looking sparrow. Anyway, they couple were very friendly and even bought us a cup of coffee at Starbucks. It is difficult to remember that they have a different currency and I often fall into thinking that the stuff came cheap.

We left Vancouver at 5pm. We were actually the last people to board the plane and the gate keepers in charge came close to panic trying to find us. We were not the last people to board the plane though. There was these couple that looked Asian but doesn't seem to be Filipino. We rode Air Canada, which I assume is Canada's flag carrier. The plane we rode was an Airbus 320 much like the Cebu Pacific and Air Philippines planes we have. They also shake like our planes during take off and during turbulence. The food was awful though and my stomach began to churn a lot. Good thing we were 30 mins to landing. We arrived at the Toronto airport a few mins past 12 midnight.