Day 85b, Jan 18 - A long way back to Home Sweet Home
- So my parents had 5 bags to check along with 2 boxes
- apparently most of it are food items for relatives
- They had taken a couple of the broken and disregarded luggages that they found at the place we were staying
- I took a pic of each one because I knew there was no chance they would be able to recognize them again
- we had almost a 3 hour wait for our 11pm flight since we wanted to get there early in case anything weird happened while trying to check in
- it was fairly smooth, except having to pay regular prices for drinks (ie 5 times it would cost in the city), just felt so ripped off, but we had some extra Vietnamese bills and we were thirsty
- we had seats in the back of the plane where the rows were 2, 2, 2 which meant I had to sit by myself
- wasn't too bad since it was only a 5 hour flight, the meals on Korean Air are quite tasty
- Lynkin fell asleep so he didn't eat his meal, which I didn't mind, the boy needs his rest
- we got to the airport in Korea at around 7am local time which meant we had to wait only about 3 hours for our connecting flight
- The boys played some games while the adults slept
- so here's the strange part to wrap your head around: our flight took off on Friday at 10 am and was in the air for over 12 hours, and we landed in Toronto on Friday at 9 am
- we sat in the last full row, the cool thing was that it meant our row only had 2 seats instead of 3, so I had some extra space between me and the window and we had extra luggage space underneath since the row in front of us had 3 people
- Took some photos over Korea, Japan, Thunder Bay, and Southern Ontario, lots to see and marvel at
- 3 meals were served including a rectangular slice of pizza
- we all tried our best to take naps, I know it wasn't enough because my eyes were burning, never had them feel like that before
- I got to watch Antman and the wasp, Venom, Crazy Rich Asians, and the Teen Titan Go Movie
- I know that sounds like a lot, but in total, that's about 7-8 hours of a 12+ hour flight
- after being at so many airports (about 12 flights), I can say that Pearson is so plain, ugly, and not efficient
- luckily for us, this was our destination, otherwise you have to get your baggage before getting to your connecting flight
- that's after you walk 15-20 min to use the new automatic custom stations which we had to try more than once to get a receipt
- then after we showed the receipt to the person, we still had to lineup and speak to a customs agent
- The baggage took forever (felt like close to an hour) as it felt like they were only releasing 5 bags at a time
- didn't help that my parents couldn't recognize their bags, so Layson had to check the tracking stickers on all of them
- and the 2 boxes my dad had, he had to go to another area to claim them
- as you can see, Lynkin feel asleep waiting
- after all that, Linda then used her Uber app to get my parents home, and then we used the airport website to get us a minivan to get home
Things we were glad about being home:
- The cats recognized us and were very purry
- normally after a trip we go get pho because we are homesick and it's comfort food, this time we got pizza, good delicious glorious pizza
- Santa had come by and left the kids a chromebook for Christmas, they were very pleased
Things we had to deal with
- had to call CAA since our car battery died and needed replacement
- called Lynkin's school to find out that he can just start next week without having to reregister him (not what we were initily told)
- searched for 20 minutes looking for my wallet, eventually found it where I looked for it initially, but had not recognized it since there was so much dust on it
- cleaning up after the cats as they recently decided the carpeted dining room was their urinal
- Linda had to go to Costco as we have no food and tmwr is Saturday and it's supposed to be a snow storm
- so overall, quite pleased about our return home and the condition of eveything which was mainly due to Doug and Susan helping us out during our absence
- started up my work phone and noticed I missed some emails, usually I am able clear my emails instantaneously
- we are all very tired since for most of the last 30-40+ hours we've been awake
- 4 countries and about 18 cities in 85 days, just wow, can't believe we (let's be honest, Linda) was able to plan and pull it off
- I'm really glad I was able to blog it as it'll be a nice reminder of some of the many adventures we had
- thanks for all those that read and followed along, I may put up another post in a weeks time
- hope to see everyone soon after some.more naps