This is all real and it’s all happening!
The flight I took out of Vancouver is at a great time, in my opinion. It’s a regularly scheduled Air Canada fly that goes every day, I believe. It departs YVR at 1pm, arriving in HKG 13 hours later (just after 5pm the following day). This means that even if you don’t get any sleep on the plane, when you arrive you don’t have to stay up too long, you’re tired anyway and, in theory, will fall asleep at a time that is close to reasonable to settle in to the local clock and adjust quickly.
The flight just feels incredibly crazy long. I watched two moves and an hour long episode of TV and there was still over 8 hours remaining in the flight. When I see how many hours are left on the countdown and think about what I would normally be accomplishing in that much time it seems so strange. But what can you do? At least these flights have individual TV screens and a great selection of things to watch.
I was in the middle bank of 4 seats and luckily had one empty one beside me, which I claimed. I was able to put my feet up a bit a sleep for a few hours somehow, folded up like a pretzel. I felt pretty good when I disembarked. Everything went quickly and smoothly, and Braden was at the airport to meet me. It was so great to see him and finally be here together!
We took the MTR back to our apartment, which takes about half an hour, and I got to see the place we rented again now that he has moved in. Wow, is it ever small! I knew it was small, but seeing it again in person was a whole other thing! It’s going to feel a lot more like home once all of our belongings arrive.
We went for a walk around the neighborhood to explore, I learned how I’ll be walking to my office building, and Braden showed me a few places to check out today while he is at work. We went for dinner and luckily he was tired too so we crashed fairly early. I was wide awake by 3am and couldn’t get back to sleep, but hopefully I’ll settle in over the next couple days.
Today I explored everything again in daylight, did a bunch of tidying, unpacking and organizing in the apartment, went for lunch, and caught up on emails. I’m not used to the temperature here at all yet. It’s fairly cool out today (around 19 degrees) but everywhere indoors is extremely air conditioned. I’m wearing jeans and a hoodie and it’s freezing. Lots to figure out, as expected!
A Life Shift 