Home Sweet Home

Yahoo! I'm finally home! Did ya miss me? Did ya even notice I was gone? For those of you out of the loop, I went to China with my mom and some other relatives. We visited her childhood home, saw a tiny bit of Hong Kong/Macau, and then spent a week on Hainan island (China) with other relatives. Add in more travel time for me (had to fly to Sacramento and get Mom before heading out to San Francisco Int'l airport) and I was gone for just over two weeks.

We were originally scheduled to come back on Friday (after a 3 day post-China extension in Hong Kong), but Mom developed the "China hack," probably because of being tired, the air pollution, the smoking, and the weather. It was hot and humid, but the hotels and restaurants were cold so all that temperature change didn't help. Also, it was impossible to regulate the temperature in the hotel rooms, it was almost always too cold or too hot. If we turned the air off, the humidity was unbearable, but with the air on, it got too cold. While in China, we desperately tried to change our flight, but no such luck. The airline said they were overbooked and wouldn't even put our names on a waiting list.

So since we were going to be in HK anyways, I decided our best bet would be to camp out at the airport until they put us on a waiting list. As it turns out, we didn't have to resort to such drastic measures. Here's how my day went.

• Left the hotel in Haikou (Hainan Island) at 6:15 am to catch the 8:50 flight.
  
• Had security question me about my contact lens solution (the same solution in the same baggie that went from OC to SFO to HK to Haikou). Had no idea what the guy was saying. My aunt also didn't understand him. Two other security guys were like, why are you questioning her and waved us on.
  
• Flew to Hong Kong. Went through immigration, picked up our luggage, then promptly turned around and went upstairs to Departures to find the Cathay Pacific counter.
  
• Contrary to what we were told over the phone, the flight still had open seats and the wonderfully kind agent got me an aisle seat with Mom next to me. It was done quickly and easily and best of all, no flight change fee.
  
• We had five hours before our flight so we decided to just walk around the airport for a while. We could have gone into HK, but we just weren't up to it. I tried calling the hotel to cancel our reservation, but that was a joke. Couldn't find an internet cafe without a huge line.
  
• Decided to go to the boarding gate, which involved passing through immigration/security and then taking a train to the boarding area. Forgot to take my camera out of my pocket, so had to get wanded.
  
• Found a free computer/telephone center sponsored by a local telecommunications company and e-mailed the hotel to cancel my HK rooms, my brother so he could pick us up from the airport, and my honey.
  
• Didn't trust the e-mail to the hotel so found an HK phone number and called hotels.com. The poor girl (I assume she was in India) didn't know how to cancel my reservation because it had been made online by someone other than me so I got transferred back to the US to a wonderful agent (Joye, I love you!), who couldn't hear half the things I was saying (and vice versa) because of our lousy connection, was patient and helpful and cancelled my reservation no problem, tried to get the hotel to waive their cancellation policy (billing me for one night because I was cancelling too late)-no such luck, and said she'd send me some sort of vouchers to use on a future booking. Such a relief to know I wouldn't have to pay for three nights I wasn't using.
  
• Bought a cup of tea to drink on the plane, but didn't realize I'd have to go through another security check by the airlines so it was taken away.
  
• Had the child from heck sitting behind us. Threw a tantrum the first 45 minutes so the flight. Either cried or kicked our chairs for most of the flight. Had a huge person sitting in front of me, who reclined his seat all the way for most of the flight. Was unable to sleep more than an hour or two. But we were coming home, which was really all that matter.
  
• Thank goodness my brother read his e-mail and was waiting for us at the airport (so I didn't have to deal with Super Shuttle or Bart or a taxi and yet more expense). Went to my aunt's (the one scheduled for surgery next week). She looks awful, but was so happy to see us. Had my first upset stomach of the trip, maybe from lack of sleep? Called the airline and was able to change my flight home.
  
• Went out to dinner, but finally had to rush everyone so I could catch my flight.
  
• Got to the airport 40 minutes before the flight took off. Cutting it a little close, but since it was late, the airport wasn't busy and I got through check-in and security in 15 minutes.
  

Right now, I'm suffering from the worse case of jetlag I've ever had. Still deciding if I should go to work tomorrow or not. I'm just so happy to be home.