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puddlelilies.com / proofreading negates the immediacy of feeling

Month: July 2014

  • Today. We arrived at Taipei around 5 in the morning? Then waited 3 hours in lounge chairs at gate A8. There is this thing where the airline calls the flight, and asks for anyone with kids or who needs extra help to go up to get on the plane first. This was when everyone stood up and crowded towards the gate. A secret code, I guess. Julie and I sort of just looped in behind something that appeared to be a queue and got on the plane. I dozed a lot on this one, taking us to Hanoi.

    The air stepping off the plane was warm, which was nice after the air conditioned plane. Lots of air conditioning. Our hotel room is like a fridge and we have warm blankies to keep us warm. I have wooly socks.

    Change to itinerary. We go to Halong Bay tomorrow morning instead of Saturday as was planned due to incoming tropical storm, which is expected to land Saturday.

    We met our tour group at 6pm and trip group leader discussed the particulars of the trip.

    For dinner we went to a restaurant serving what people is Hanoi might eat at home. I liked the fried morning glory and the various chunks of meat. I ate something from a cow I don’t usually eat: marrow or tendon or something. I could chew it so I wasn’t fussed.

  • We’ve made it to Halong Bay to find that the storm is coming earlier than expected probably, so we’re not allowed out on the boat overnight. Boo. But I am on a boat right now, only just for a little while – we get about 2 hours. So we’re going to the caves and then we get lunch and that’s it. Better than if we were getting here tomorrow, as originally planned, when the bay will be shut due to the storm. Better to be safe, but riding out a typhoon would have been hardcore.

    We’ll overnight at a hotel by the bay and then back to Hanoi tomorrow to pick up our original activities there (tour of the city, water puppets, etc.) And then the next thing (I don’t have an itinerary handy.)

    There is nothing like being freezing cold on an air-conditioned bus and then stepping out into the warm, sticky air outside. It’s rainy today, so extra sticky. I like the heat, just being careful to drink water (haven’t been doing this as much as I should).

  • Monsoon! Or, quite possibly, typhoon.

  • I have no idea what time it is right now. This is kindof a lie, since I just looked at the in-flight navigator that the passenger in front of me and to the left has up on their monitor (making it so I don’t have to turn on mine.) It’s 12:30 in the night in Taipei, and 9:30 of the morning at home. Currently I’m somewhere over Japan and trying to sleep. Also it’s Wednesday now, so I got a little bit of Tuesday, but otherwise it’s a day that didn’t exist. I wonder what the Lindsie in a parallel universe did on that day. Did it exist for her? Am I the Lindsie in the parallel universe? Probably.

    I’ve slept 3 or 4 hours (can’t tell how long. Time is calculated different here.) which is the usual for me on a plane. I would love to sleep longer since it’s a 12 hour flight and time goes faster when you’re asleep.

  • It’s just past midnight and I just put on my pajamas.

    Posts will not be this frequent after this. The trip to, and being in the airppost has afforded me a lot of free time.

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    Here is a picture of me (Maybe? I don’t know how this will work on my phone) having just arrived at YVR. I appear much more awake than I was feeling at that point. I have since had a green/white tea combo that was delicious and perked me up a little. I met up with Julie at about 10 or so, and we checked in and found out that we can’t take our knitting needles on board with us! So into checked baggage they went. Good thing we asked. After that we went to Wendy’s for our last western meal (presumably) for a while.

    I’ll put Julie into context now, since I’ve received permission to talk about her here. Julie and I met when we were in the art program at Camosun. She was very very quiet the first year, but we’d get to chatting about fashion and fabrics and such. In second year she got quite talkative, which amused me, considering how little she spoke the year before. It must be noted that we graduated from Camosun ten years ago.

    Lately, Julie and I meet up to watch the musicals that come through Vancouver (The Lion King, Cats, Wicked, Les Mis, etc)

    Now I have to board so hopefully this uploads before I go into airplane mode.

  • I made it to the ferry, where it is super loud! I am glad to have some knitting with me because I don’t think I would have been able to hear music or a movie above the din. I didn’t try reading but who knows. The people around me were speaking Italian so it wouldn’t have been to difficult to concentrate (had they been speaking English, I totally would have eavesdropped and therefore not paid attention to my book).

    I’m tired. Amd getting hungry. Oh! Total bummer: I brough two slices of pizza to eat on the trip, but I ate a third slice at home and it gave me a tummy ache! Not wanting to feel gross on my trip, I threw away the other two once I got on the ferry. Fun fact: ferry doen’t have compost. I know this because I asked, having a prime contribution. But no.

  • It’s travel day today.  I’ll start leaving Victoria around 5 this afternoon to catch a 2am flight to Taipei, with an additional flight after that to Hanoi.  I’m going to be messed up after this.  I hope greatly that I sleep on the plane.  (In the middle of this itinerary I’m goint to meet Julie at the Vancouver airport, where we have planned to get up to hijinks, but this may devolve into her poking me to stay awake.)

    Here is a list of things I’m taking to amuse myself when I’m not asleep:

    1. 2 young adult fantasy novels (the Seven Realms series numbers 2 and 3)
    2. Knittin’
    3. new playlist of music made up off all the old random songs I have on my computer (this was a good idea! – see below)
    4. Movies: Capt’n America 2, Thor 2, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensiblitily, and 2 episodes of Endevour

    I was super nervous yesterday, to the point of panicking.  But I went to a flamenco workshop around mid-day and this helped a lot.  I had pre-registered for this in hopes that it would be a good distraction, and I was right.  Not only is physical activity good for nerves, I also saw some dance friends there.  Friends are also good for nerves.  By yesterday evening, after flamenco and then pizza for lunch, my anxiety had advanced to the “dance party phase” thanks to my new playlist. The dance party phase is FAR SUPERIOR to the nervous-panic phase.

    Today I wait.  I’m spending this morning puttering around and tidying. Trying to be calm.  This afternoon I’ll go to accupunture, come home from that, and then leave.

    PS. I had almost finished consuming all my perishable foods when I noticed that I had 2, nearly full, cartons of rice milk in my fridge! I’ve been spending spare moments eating cereal.

  • Musings on having only three days left before my trip to Vietnam.

    Today was my last day at work before my trip. It didn’t really hit me, however,  until about ten minutes before I left, when I had a feeling of “now things are starting!”

    The day went surprisingly quick for the kind of day it was. I kept finding things to do. Also, people kept coming by to wish me a good time. I feel I deserve points for not only remembering to change the message on my voice-mail, but actually recording it, which is one of my least favorite things to do ever. I deserve extra points for listening to it when I was done to make sure it was audible and sensible. I doubly hate listening to myself. (For assistance, I wrote myself a script a few weeks ago AND set a reminder so I had no excuse whatsoever. Except maybe if I didn’t want to.) I especially enjoyed writing on the vacation board that I won’t be returning until August 11, exactly one month from today.

    This evening I started packing and re-packing and generally editing my bags. It was in a bit of a manic fashion so I thought it would be best to leave the house so I’ve come to the studio to watch a bellydance show. This is the group is was in a show with last year, and I didn’t really get to see them, but what I saw- the finale, from a weird angle behind a lot of people- looked interesting. I can’t really pack until I do laundry tomorrow, anyway.

    Edit: bellydance-circus fusion.