I was a little bummed out about flying out of Hong Kong on Christmas Day but since I was taking my whole annual leave plus 4 days I didn't think I could take any more time off. But at least I was going to arrive in time for dinner. However the trip was over 20 hours long. My flight out was at 11am changing planes at Tokyo and Vancouver before arriving in Montreal at 9pm the same day. There is a 13 hour difference in time zones so that's 23 hours of travel time. I finally arrived in Montreal around 9:30 and waited for my bags. It took a while but when they finally came out on the conveyor belt I noticed that my large bag was missing. Apparently the lock had caught on something ripped it and the zipper off the bag. The contents, however remained untouched so it must have happened just before the bag came out. I went over to baggage claims and the guy pointed to a sign containing a long list of damage that the airline was not responsible for, including zipper damage. Oh well.
When I finally came out to the waiting area, no one was there to greet me. I was under the impression that my family was going to be there to greet me. When I phoned home I found out that they were told that the plane was going to be an hour late instead of 30 minutes. Likely story. After a delicious home cooked meal we opened all the Christmas presents(I was surprised almost all were unopened when I arrived), and I showed my HK photos along with my live commentary. Temperatures weren't so cold, hovering around 0. Slept most of Boxing Day but woke up in time for the big family Christmas dinner with 2 other families, the Youngs and the Daouds, my sister's fiance's family. While friends Brian and Brendan visited, I convinced them to go out for donuts.
On the weekend Brian picked me up in his new sports car, and we drove down to Ottawa to see our old friend Chris who was married with 2 kids living in a turn of the century home that they were slowly restoring. After dinner we stole Chris away for a few games of pool, all of which I lost, enjoyed some Canadian beer, and a demonstration of Brian's home theatre in his basement. We slept over at Brian's and grabbed some breakfast at Denny's before returning Chris to his domestic bliss.
Saw 2 films at the theatre and 2 on video. "Jackie Brown", Tarintino's toned update of "Pulp Fiction", "Titanic" was an epic, "Austin Powers" was very funny in parts, and "Emma" was Jane Austin. Ordered buttered popcorn but couldn't eat much as it was still morning for me and back in HK.
On New Year's Eve the temperature dropped to -26 celcius, not including wind chill factor(+26 in HK). I was going to stay at home but friend Luc called and convinced Brian and I to go to a party thrown by old schoolmates. My first drive downtown was a bitch but the party was fun. Nearly all the girls were pregnant. I felt old. After the party we three grabbed some smoked meat sandwiches at the Main on St. Laurent. On New's Years Day the family had dinner with the Daouds. Over the next couple of days the temperature went back up to around 5 and then dipped back to -3 before the freezing rain hit. My brother converted my Citibank commercial on video so my family was able to make fun of my acting skills. My mom insists that I wasn't too bad.
The Great Ice storm hit the day we left for Toronto. Power went out around 9:30am and half of the trees, which were loaded down from the freezing rain, lost branches or fell down completely. My mom, my sister, her fiance, and I waited at the airport for 6 hours for our plane to leave. We stayed over at our second cousins overnight and took a chartered flight to Trinidad early the next morning with about 50 people from the wedding party. Five hours later we arrived in the Caribbean, temperatures of 32 degrees and sunny. All the wedding guests helped bring in some of the 42 bottles of alcohol purchased for the wedding reception. After dumping our bags with relatives, the youngsters and I were wisked away to the two stag parties, one for the girls and one for the boys. Drinks at Smoke & Bunty, strippers at Copacabana(they didn't take off much but could move really well), and saw David Rudder in concert at the Pelican. Met some beggars on the street who were really friendly asking how we were doing, recommending restaurants close to the bar, and chatting us up even after getting around to asking for money. It's the Caribbean so it's too hot to rush into anything, unfortunately this also applies to banks and other official institutions.
The next day we went with a group from the wedding party to Maracus Beach for some beach time and delicious bake & shark(have to add some dried mango and pepper sauce...yummm!). There was a local saying that the water was so clear that you could see your big toe, and it was true. Uncle Gerry and Aunt Ann, with whom we were staying with, were perfect hosts helping to organize our day and preparing delicious meals including bujol(swordfish, onion, and tomato for breakfast), fresh fruits, fresh seafood, chicken & peas, roti, pastel, alu pie, doubles, and kalalu(looks like stringy green porridge but delicious). They had a gate around their home and three guard dogs(due to the high degree of crime on the island) including a huge but cute rotwieller named Nikka. We visited Grandma and the graves of Grandpa Look Kong as well as Grandma & Grandpa Sancho and other relatives. Unfortunately someone had dumped a dead dog right on top the grave of my great grandfather; very disrespectful. Grandmas asked me to removing the rotting corpse but I wasn't about to touch it without the aid of gloves and a large shovel. Finally we resolved to let the grounds-keeper to do the job the next day.
There was a party at our relatives before cousin Judy taking us to the pan yard to see the steel bands including the Catelli All Stars, the Amico Renegades, the Invaders, PhaseII, and Starlight. We met Wayne Berkeley, a costume designer for Carnival, and got a tour of his workshop. Went into a music shop to buy some calypso cds but could only get the clerk to recommend one(David Rudder-never would happen in HK). Back in Canada my dad and brother reported that it was now 4 days without power, their kerosene heater was running out of fuel, another ice storm hit knocking out power for 3 million people, the Canadian army had been called in and everyone else on the street had left for relatives or the emergency shelters. I told them it was still sunny and 35 degrees.
At the wedding the Look Kong family was frantic in their preparations, however it was a beautiful ceremony with cousin Alyson looking radiant. On the way to the park for photographs, Grandma's shoe broke and the car she and other cousins were in overheated. At the park someone from the Chinese consulate in Trinidad came up to me and asked if the bride was Chinese. At the reception we had our fill to eat & drink and danced the night away hearing that David Rudder calypso tune("High Mass") about 3 times as well as other songs including "Who Let the Dogs Out" and "Jump Start Your Bumsey"(neither available on cd until closer to Carnival). My dad phoned saying after 5 days power had been restored at our home.
After the wedding and a lunch the next day about 30 people from the wedding party including the bride and groom left for the beaches of Tobago, an island an hour away by plane. We stayed at a hotel right on the beach in Store Bay. The waves were a little rough and at one time a school of fish swam right into us, pelicans dive bombed after them, and while we were distracted a huge wave came down upon us driving all out of the water. I ended up half carrying my mom out. Ran into my godmother whom I hadn't seen in years, staying next door at the hotel. We rented a car and drove around the island through the tropical rain forest. My mother preferred the beach at Pigeon Point which had calmer waves but us kids preferred the excitement of Store Bay. I had on 45 sunblock and was the whitest person on the plane back. We had to change planes in Toronto and due to a delay in Trinidad barely made our flight back to Montreal. We arrived in Montreal but our bags didn't and had to be delivered the next day, however at the time we weren't sure if they were lost and my flight back to HK was in a day and a half(lots of baggage problems this trip). Made it back to HK in one piece.
An eventful trip with lost & damaged luggage, lots of food, driving in the snow, shovelling the driveway, beach time in the sun, attacked by fish & kamakaze pelicans & killer waves, store clerks who weren't trying to make you buy stuff, and a wedding in Caribbean during the worst ice storm the century in Canada as well as the chicken genocide and another stock crash in Hong Kong.
Derek
