eurotrip 2004

Leaving Toronto was bananas. What with packing up all our stuff, arranging for flights, saying goodbye to our two families and numerous friends...oh yeah, and BUYING A HOUSE it was busy to say the least. However, with power babysitters Margie, Randy, Emma and The Aunts (team babysitting at its best) we managed to get ourselves on the road.

Departure from Toronto was not as smooth as could have been hoped for. While Ji held up his part of the bargain valiantly, I could not do the same. I woke up and hopped out of bed to discover that the piece of glass I'd stepped on in the basement the night before (not wearing slippers because I was running down just for a moment, and for the 340th time that day) was still in my foot. Hiss, boo, half hour of needling later still not quite right, but I had succeeded in making us just a tad late for leaving. Then we hit traffic, blah blah blah Gardiner, check in, and then at check in - with oh, about 40 min to the plane leaving - the check in lady says, "Oh, and please go quickly because you have take a bus to the plane." Me - "Well, now that we're checked in they know we're coming, right?" Her - (nicely) "Yes, but if you're late they'll just off load your luggage so they aren't delayed."

So, with barely a kiss goodbye, Ji and I race away - him on his awesome, compact super stroller - and boot down to the security check. Where there are freaking slow people going ahead of us. A family with twins and another kid, all under three, and they don't know how to collapse their stroller. Ji and I have our routine down pat and are waiting there, chomping at the bit, stroller in processable-format, WAITING for these idiots to go through. Grr... Finally, I dodge us over to the next metal detector and we get ahead of the slow family, and rush down the big hall, down the escalator, to the BUS.

I thought on-tarmac airport buses were only for countries that were too poor or inept to build terminals. But oh no, it turns out that Toronto's might new terminal is nothing but a sham, a Potemkiterminal if you will. You enter the massive halls, get checked in, and are then bussed ACROSS THE RUNWAYS to an outlying Air Canada building to get your flight. So, Ji and I hop on the bus, me trying to breathe calmly...if we miss our very first flight, won't that bode just a little badly for the trip? After 6 minutes of waiting, the bus finally leaves, with the sloooow fam aboard too (double grr) and then goes at a snail's pace to the middle of the runways where it STOPS. Yes, stops. Stops stops stops. For 8 minutes while SIX, yes SIX planes trundle past. I am just about to have my head burst open - and trying to placate Ji all the while, when fina-freakingly we go on.

We get onto our stupid plane, and all of the people from the bus follow us aboard. So, uh, they would've taken off with 25 people missing from the plane??

The flight across the pond is perfectly nice. We don't have in-seat TVs, but we have heaps of goodies and toys packed by Gramma, which Ji enjoys greatly. The slow family appears to have no toys whatsoever and they spend their time alternately cajoling and threatening their kids. They are directly opposite us, and we have no choice but to be alternately smug and annoyed, until one of the kids pukes all over the Dad, at which point we finally - ok, *I* - finally feel sorry for them. We are also in the company of a 93-year old marathon runner who ran his best time ever in the previous day's Toronto Marathon. This incredible man, a long-white-bearded Sikh who is travelling with perhaps his nephew (or great-great-great-great nephew) looks nary a year over 69 and is certainly a lot healthier looking and less pinched looking than most marathoners.

All of the air canada flight attendants are, for the record, at least 56. There is not a single person working on the plane under the age of 50. Good for them, bad for Emma.

When we get to Heathrow we are pretty well rested - it's 5 pm for us, 10 pm for them I think. There's only one wee problem - I pick up the luggage, get all three 35-kilo hockey bags onto a rolling cart, then have the big giant knapsack, a small knapsack, and Ji and the stroller. Hm. I actually cave in and ask around for a porter. No porters. Whaddaya mean, no porters??? Isn't this ENGLAND, the home of, like, Jeeves, and the Queen?? No, no porters. So - having no idea how far I have to walk to the left luggage place - I take control of the rolling luggage cart, put the very heavy backpack on, put the little backpack in the stroller, and then get Ji to push the stroller.

We go about a foot a minute, with me coaching Ji all the way.

Everything goes smashingly - even past the candy store! - until Ji spies the exit doors, at which point he drops the stroller, and SPRINTS out the doors. Too many fun arrivals for the boy. He clearns the doors as I'm flinging off the giant backpack, and dropping it. I sprint after him, and everyone awaiting their families have a fine giggle watching me power run to Ji and scoop him up like a sack of potatoes. I somehow manage to convince him to continue pushing the stroller (shameless candy bribery) and we make it down the ramp, through the hall, and to the left luggage.

Coming up next: Heathrow airport hotel and Amsterdam! Stay tuned...

So...

After we got to the Left Luggage depo we had to check in our 3 mountainous bags at the excrutiating, exorbitant rate of 5 pounds 50 pence per day. For 8 days. You do the math -- I did it and then had to promptly forget how much it meant in actual, Canadian dollars (I had previously gone through a very, very long mental thought process of: how about leaving them with John Johnson? Well, aside from the fact that it would be kind of rude. And I have no time in London. And how would I get to his place with Ji AND the luggage -- Emma's helpful advice was to take the tube, before she recollected JI AND THE LUGGAGE -- and then the cost of a cab would be the same, and oh, how about leaving them at the hotel, but they wouldn't do it, yadda yadda).

So I gritted my teeth and tried to hand my bags over.

But the counter help dude (non white British, basically like every British person I met while in London / Heathrow except for a snotty, skanky makeup saleslady, but more about her at the end of the story) who was a very young British Indian fellow had absconded. Me and another guy were standing there, like, uh...hello? Rows and rows in the back room of fancy luggage, and no employees to be seen, and meanwhile Ji is getting the hit of sugar from the previous candybribes, and after oh say 11 minutes I turn to the other guy and say "Hey, maybe if we steal some stuff they'll come out." He pretended I was talking to Ji, I think... At last the employee came out, helped the other guy, and then was very nicely profusely apologetic. Newsflash to idiots everywhere: APOLOGIES WORK. Take note, Fed Ex.

"So sorry Ma'am, we are completely overworked, and I am the only one working now, and I have just been training a new employee and I have only been here two weeks myself! So very sorry!". Apology accepted! Post haste! This skinny man then hefted my bags up onto the xray and Ji enjoys seeing various toys and random craft items turned skeletal. A bicycle! A bolt! Three paper clips!

Cheerfully waving goodbye to our friend the luggage man, we went out to catch our bus. At 10:32 we discovered that our bus, the Hotel Hoppa #8, only runs until 10:28. What kind of international airline hub has buses that only run until 10:28? Back to the airport (ok, only 6 metres away, but still) to change some money. Changed some Can $ and US $ and got, basically, nothing in return. Going to England and spending your money is basically like hanging out at home, only throwing half of your hard earned cash into the mulch pit. When one is accustomed to traveling in Asia, where travellers from Canada become veritable KINGS in the tropics, it is an unpleasant - nay, downright displeasing - experience to go to the UK and become a pauper. Why bother? AND the money changer charged me 3 pounds (like, 50$ can) for each transaction!

Ok, so then we did something fun - despite all the nuttiness we were really quite upbeat, hard to be otherwise when travelling with a 2-and-three-quarters year old - and caught a London cab with a really cool back section and two pull-down seats and an intercom system that fascinated Ji. Ji yabbered and yabbered all the way to the hotel - 3 miles away - and when he got out, the cabbie said in a very cute British voice, "He's a talker that one, isn't he?" Right, my good man.

The hotel, The Comfort Inn, was comfortably American in the lobby, but the room we were shown to was teensy, tiny, itsy bitsy, weeny. The door to the room was narrower than any door I'd ever seen, as was the hallway. There WAS a coffee machine and tea and kettle, but aside from that, that was it. The only thing on TV was some weirdo show called "Jules and Lulu", about this smarmy, mean, 'gay' guy who went around with his ugly little dog called Lulu and trashed people's houses, trying to get them to get rid of their ugly old stuff. The "competition" involved having Jules go into two couples' houses, and push down the stuff he thought was ugly, then choose about 10 different ugly things from the house (eg, one-eyed doll; hand-drawn football posters). Then the 2 couples had to take turns throwing the things they thought James had found MOST ugly (top 3) into a garbage truck that had been painted pink. So, there were endless shots of each sort of sad and ugly thing getting thrown into the empty back end of the pink garbage truck, followed by crushing reaction shots of the couples, and superior laffs from Jules. The whole point was that the couple who trashed the top 3 ugliest things first would get a free home makeover from Jules, but the losers would've just trashed their stuff (which, in one couple's case, included, like 300 pounds - money pounds that is - of sex toys). It was sooooo bad, and it failed to capture Ji's attention, though obviously I was transfixed. Note: I tried to find an image of this show on the internet, and the show is soooo awfully bad, I couldn't find a single one. Free 7 pounds - money - in coins to someone who CAN find a picture.

So, we went to see if the gym was open, which it wasn't, so we went to walk around the halls. It was around 2 am, but what the heck, Ji needed exercize. We found a nice Romanian-sounding doorman who gave Ji a ride on his porter's cart, and then we sidled up to the bar and sweet-talked the very pretty Russian barmaid into giving Ji a free glass of milk. Whoo hoo, back in the high life again!

The next morning we woke up at 9ish their time, showered, and got ourselves organized to catch the Hotel Hoppa #8 back to Heathrow at 11:30. So long, London. And the bill for the hotel was only a mere 168$ Can!

At Heathrow we were let off at the wrong terminal (thanks for NOTHING stupid bus driver who had to check his schedule to find out which terminal BMI planes left from, and still got it wrong), and had a loooong walk to get to the right one, but it was kind of fun all the same. The stroller turned out to work superbly with the big red knapsack on wheels in tow. Ji was quite cheery and had a fun time as we trekked around, went and checked in, searched in vain for Turner's book at the WH Smith (cheers to Turner, jeers to WH Smith), had a burger at Burger King - and yes, Emma, he also wondered what they call a Big Mac in England, but we didn't go to McDonald's - and I got some awesome honey yogurt at the Boots.

Then we flew to Amsterdam, hopped off the plane, zipped over to the trains, and jumped right on the train headed to the Hague. Ji very kindly fell asleep for the entire train ride, and was pretty happy when we got off the train.

It was actually very nice to get to the Hague as it was homey and familar and reminded me of Mum and Phet and Emma. We found out how to walk to Mai Anh's apartment, and incredibly enough, juuuust as we got to her door, she came riding up on a bike! Yay, friends!

Next: Condo in The Hague! The North Sea! Dolphin toilet seats! Acorns!

HOLLAND: STILL FUN WHEN YOU'RE NOT HIGH

...Did you know The Hague means "The Hedge"?

Ji and I had a really good time exploring The Hague with the prime bonus of having a FREE homebase 5 minutes from the train station and 5 minutes from the epicentre of downtown and 5 minutes - actually 3 minutes - from the Dutch parliament, the famous Maurithaus art gallery, and from the tasty shwarma hut Phet and I had tried our last time visiting the city.

Mai Anh's husband Egbert (hardy har har...but not really funny in Vietnamese or Dutch...) owns a gorgeous, 4 year old condo in nice brick complex that has been built into the area of town where all the major government ministries are. Everything in The Netherlands is always built tidily and compactly but attractively. Egbert's brother, Henk Jan, tried to tell me there was a bad area of town that was ugly but I still don't believe him. Anyways, the condo building is funky, brick, and inside the place is very high-ceilinged and ikea-ish. It's been decorated by Henk Jan, who is a lawyer and who is living there while a very fancy new condo is being built for him in Rotterdam. So it's all sleek and white and blue and bachelory (no wastebaskets in the bathrooms), and is chock-full of chrome kitchen appliances.

Mai Anh, who had only arrived a week earlier due to visa insanity, seems to have settled in cheerfully. She's going to school at an international development study centre, and the class is made up of students from all around the globe (she mentioned being particularly struck by a) how awesome the african girls' hair was, and how paltry her own seemed in comparison and b) how loud, rude and unpleasant the americans were). She'd already gotten a bike, and was prepared with food to cook dinner for Ji and I as soon as we arrived, so we sat down and talked and chatted and caught up while she fixed the rice and veggies. She cooked us deep-fried tofu - but the only oil she had was olive oil! It was a little much...but she seems to be taking all the weird stuff (swiffers, convection ovens, yogurt) in stride.

We met Henk Jan who came over to join us for dinner, and who is a very kind and interesting guy. I had noticed a beautiful old photo - the only one in the house - in the living room, and Henk Jan explained that his great-grandmother had been half Indonesian. It was so interesting - I'd thought he and Egbert (ha) looked somewhat different than most Dutch guys...slightly shorter, and despite their freckles and fair hair, there was just something different, and so, I guess that was it. He told a wonderful story about how she was just 15 when she married their great grandfather, who was Turkish-French and went on to have 10 kids, and they owned a tea plantation. He explained that her name was Ambrosia Reemrev - back in those days, half-Indonesian illegitamate kids took the name of their father, only backwards - thus, her father had been a Vermeer. (He wasn't making any claim to the painter Vermeer, just the name). Interesting, eh?

The next day I checked out Mai Anh's guide to the Hague, and found out that there was a kid's science centre in town. Ji had begged and begged me to take him to Legoland in the UK after seeing their brochure ("More than 50 different activities in 150 acres!" "Papa Mole's Ice Cream Shop!" "New Pick a Brick Shop!" "Baguette Bar and Pasta Patch!" "Johnny Thunder Adventures' (sic) Show!") in our hotel in Heathrow - damned pamphlets! - and so I figured this would be a good replacement. We took out the trusty stroller and walked and walked and walked in a very Dutch fashion for about an hour and a half. I knew I could've taken a tram, but thought the walk would be more interesting, and indeed it was. We saw ducks, canals, dogs, cobblestone walkways (which JI identified specifically as cobblestones), an old brick church, a really funky fridge shop selling animal-shaped fridges, some neato daycare centres, and whole brigades of devastatingly beautiful blonde Dutch children pedalling along on their bicycles with their stunningly beautiful and ridiculously healthy looking Moms behind them.

The science centre looked promising from the very begining and we had a great time there. We started out with caf lunch - Mum, Phet, you may recall the excellent caf meals at such places as the Rijksmuseum - which was great: meatball soup, cheese, fresh buttermilk, and other tasty treats. The science centre itself was really nice, mainly because it was smaller and quieter than any science centre I've ever been in (ok, which is really only the one in Toronto, but so what). Ji had a fantastic time pretending to be a bunny in a gigantic walk-through, blow-up rabbit hole; then he tried snow-shoeing on small white plastic balls (HILARIOUS); threw velcro balls at a velcro target; drew pictures of iguanas and pasted them up on a board; and checked out some neat animal displays. I tried to interest him in the upstairs section of the centre, which was kind of like a natural history museum (neanderthals! a mini-mosque!) but he was not into it, and kept insisting on going back down to try the snowshoes again. Alright, alright. We went back down.

Before we left we went to the craft making centre and for 2 euros 50 cents [when I got to Amsterdam I asked the lady there, 'ok, so these are euros, what do you call the change? is it cents?' and she just gave me a really puzzled look, but it turns out, yes, they're called cents] we made a gorgeous flower in a vase.

The craft lady, who was very kind but anal (as I guess most craft ladies are) tried to interest Ji in making a gecko because it was easier, but Ji insisted (DUH) on making the harder flower. We did our level best to follow the instructions, and even used a flower-cutout-template rather than wildly create freeform flowers, and Ji was incredibly good about controlling his use of glue, crayons, and crepe paper, and we managed to put together a reasonable facsimile of the example flower shown to us. It was nice, too, because it gave us a present for Mai Anh to thank her for her hospitality.

After our tram ride home, we had a nap, and then in the evening Henk Jan took us out in his car to Scheveningen (no, that's not the right spelling, but just say that really fast with a swedish chef voice and you are pretty perfect with the pronunciation). Scheveningen is home to the NORTH SEA. I hear that in the summer it's a real hotspot of tanning europeans, but when we went it was a monster beach home only to sand and 2 (fool) hardy windsurfers in wetsuits. It was damnedly cold. I had on my long sleeved shirt, fleece, and jacket, and had tied my scarf around my head and looked demented and was still whipped raw by the wind. Ji was in heaven, though, what with the sixteen thousand tonnes of sand to be played with.

The seaside seafood huts were not, however, open. So, we carried on to a restaurant overlooking the picture-perfect inner harbour of a nearby river. Henk Jan recommended the place, which turned out to have tasty food but OUTRAGEOUS restaurant decorations. I think it was called 'The Jungle' or something, and it was - yes - a jungle themed restaurant. It had a live monster parrot at the front door that Ji terrified into a cacophanous 8 minute screech. It also had "vines" trailing down from the ceiling, and "animal noises" playing over the sound system. There were also many other cabana-type acoutrements, like boards on the walls and such, but my all-time favourite item was in the bathroom.

I took Ji for a pee, and in the stall discovered that the restaurant had clear, see-through toilet seats that were filled with liquid, and plastic dolphin figures. Y'know, like one of those snow shakers or something...or like a teething toy for infants. It was SO COOL. I noticed in the paper the next day that there was a whole ARRAY of similar toilet seats for sale from the local home decorating shop. Like, basketball-themed floaties. And ikea-ish floaties. WHY DON'T WE HAVE THESE IN CANADA??? Importers take note: this is the wave (har) of the future!

After dinner we drove back through the Hedge and got interesting commentary from Henk Jan on the UN justice building, the embassies, and also about a funny corner where there were two lawfirms of the same name side by side - ex-husband and ex-wife who had broken up and set up shop next door to each other. Henk Jan also took a phone call from a client and spelled out his yahoo email in Dutch - "y" sounds like the french egrek, and "h" is like ha. Ha ha. back to top

AMSTER AMSTER - DAM DAM DAM!

Keen stats about Amsterdam...

Inhabitants: 738 763

Mayor: 1

Bicycles: 600 000

Bulbflowers in parks and public gardens: 600 000

Bridges: 1 281

Skinny Bridge: 1

Barrel organs: 4

So, therefore we can calculate that there is a 1:1 ratio of bicycles to bulbflowers, but that you are more than 99% more likely to see a regular bridge than a skinny one, and that there would have to be 3 more mayors elected in order to play the full component of barrel organs in the city, and that finally although all the inhabitants might like to simultaneously ride their bicycle to a park and pick a bulbflower unfortunately 138 763 would be sorely disappointed in their attempts to do so.

Ji and I joined the numbers of the nearly 16 million annual day visitors to Amsterdam by taking the early train from The Hague down to the 'dam. Our target site: NEMO, the biggest science centre in the country. The ride was pleasant, and with the help of our trusty stroller we navigated out of the main train station, angled left by the canal, past the old houseboat we'd rented on our previous visit, past the infamous "Boatel" floating hotel, beyond the floating Chinese restaurant (Ji wanted dim sum but I lied and said they only served it on Saturdays), and over the gangplanks to the canal-side science centre.

I'd hoped for a tasty caf meal, but apparently some American designer had been involved in the set up of the centre, and all that was available were hot dogs, slushies, and sugar drinks. I ponied up for a hot diggity and 2 big choco-milks which we scarfed down and then we made our way up to the play areas. NEMO is in a cool, funky-shaped building, but apparently does not have any windows. Why do science centres do that? Can't light be shed on scientific experimentation? Inquiring minds want to know. The first floor of NEMO was great: huge, human-sized bubbles for kids to play with, dominoes a foot high to set up, time-delay video cameras, you name it. The second floor was more like 11-year-old-boy paradise, with giant do-it-yourself electrical circuitry (as you may recall, I FAILED electricity class, but I did my best to explain to Ji how the circuits ought to work...thank god the other parents weren't paying attention to my half assed science abilities. I probably would've been ejected from the centre). We also enjoyed climbing up bridges to pull levers and pretend we were in a flour mill.

The third floor, though, did me in -- all black, and STUPENDOUSLY LOUD. Like a bottled audio assault. 6000 Dutch school children attacking the displays. I just did my best to stop Ji from seeing the water play area where all the grade 7 kids were flirtatiously dunking each other and doing their best to mock the assignments they were working on. Damn kids, don't they know how their teachers have laboured over trying to present their outing as "educational"?? Finally we reached the topmost level, which was blessedly quiet and where Ji and I played with a bunch of puzzles and I helped him figure out the Towers of Hanoi, and he keyed down by spending about 20 min drawing and erasing on a whiteboard.

We left, bleary-eyed and hungry, and set out to look for some food. Down the main drag ("Mama, why is it called a drag? Usually a drag means something bad." [And also: Ji also thinks everytime I say we're going on any 'main road' that there are going to be candy apples and trampolines along the way like there are at the Sauble Beach Main Drag]). It was a crazy shopping the in Amsterdam, absolutely hoardes of people going on sprees for everything from stroopwaffles to mittens. We avoided the shopping entirely and got take out snacks from the excellent Albert Heijn grocery store. We sat beside a couple of older Indonesian ladies smoking cigarettes and coughing on a park bench and enjoyed our food - the wind was blowing the smoke away, happily. Meatballs, pre-cubed cheese, dutch chocolate, fresh orange juice, and an apple. Mmm!

That night we tried to relax and hang out with Mai Anh, but Ji was in a foul temper and required major disciplinary action, so the chatting was hampered. We tried to go shopping but Ji was having NONE of it and threw a hissy fit while crossing the road. Grr. He went to bed early, and I stayed awake on our comfy nest of pushed-together couches and watch the neighbours go about their busy across the street in their apartments. Pleasant little hives of activity.

The following day we had to decamp, and I figured it'd be a pretty relaxed day of travel: get to Schipol, fly to Manchester, see Gilly, Larry and Harriet.

And was it as easy as all that?

Stay tuned...

THE FACE OF ADVERSITY

Right.

Get on the train from The Hedge to Amsterdam (Dam on the River Amstel, duh..."The name Amstelledamme occurs for the first time in the toll concession of Floris V, Count of Holland, dated October 27, 1275"). Have 4 minutes from ticket purchase to train departure. Race with stroller and big knapsack to train. JUMP on train, doors close immediately behind. Get stroller and bag organized. Find seats next to long-legged teenager. Give Ji snacks and drinks to occupy him. Watch scenery (cows, canals, darling garden plots) go by.

Get to Schipol too early to check in for our 'easy'jet - yah, right - flight to Liverpool. Liverpool because they don't fly to Manchester. Ah well. Sit and play with a fairly cranky Ji, then go and double check our upcoming flights at the Malaysian airlines counter. Then, an hour later, can finally check in at easyjet. Get boarding passes, check bag, carry on with stroller to security check.

8000 people in security line up with 2 guards processing. Many irate passengers trying to get ahead in the line. I edge the stroller in near the front 'pretending' to be an addle-brained mother. Fortunately I am not lynched and my neighbours allow me free passage, perhaps sensing that Ji is not at his most complacent and calm level. Wait. Wait. Wait. Entertain Ji. Wait more. We move one foot per 5 minutes. Argh. Fortunately, being cheerful for Ji helps me to retain my sense of sanity. Eons pass. Glaciers melt. New forms of life emerge from algae ponds. Finally we go through security.

I see a McDonalds play area and take the opportunity to give Ji a chance to run around without being squashed back into the stroller. He eats fries and I try a McDonalds salad. Not bad... Not actually good, but not bad. A very friendly McDonalds employee (on crack? ecstasy? This IS Amsterdam after all) smiles cheerily at Ji and bids us farewell as we go to catch our plane. We grab a bottle of scotch for Gilly and Larry as we go through the endless endless terminal halls. At our gate, we discover that our flight has been delayed 45 min. Oh yay. I am not pleased and am quite tired but Ji gets into a scenario of pretending that he is a policeman in a prison and that the entire airport is the prison, and he is giving me a tour of the prison, and we while away about another hour engaged in that fantasy.

After needless, endless delays, we finally get our boarding passes checked, drop off the stroller ("Just set it over there, ma'am"), and get on the plane. The flight attendants appear to be grade 8 dropouts, but they are very, very cheerful (several mini-fridge bottles of rum?) and have adorable british accents. I buy a cup of coffee - well deserved, much needed - and Ji fortunately has a nap all the way to Liverpool.

The Liverpool airport is like the Luang Prabang airport of the UK - no airbridges, no buses, just get out and walk, mates. Ji demands to be carried to the airport. Ok, ok, only a few more minutes. Then, while all the other passengers waltz through the EU section of passport control, we are stuck behind a Chinese guy who the passport checker refuses to help until all others have passed. The Chinese man, holding his phrasebook in front of him, does not speak a WORD of English. The controller tries gamely to ask him where he's going, who he's meeting, and where he's staying. Travller smiles widely, brandishes phrasebook. Somehow gets stamped through after controller fills out his form for him while we wait.

We are now 1 hour late to meet Larry, who is picking us up with Harriet, his 7 month old daughter, and by christ I know that if I'd been waiting for an hour for someone I hadn't seen in, like, 3 years, and I had a 7 month old who hadn't yet had lunch, I'd be freaking cranky as hell, and so I am getting anxiouser and anxiouser as we wait for the luggage to be walked over from the plane and put on the carousel.

I ask to step out just a minute to tell my friend with baby that I'm here. No go. Wait, wait, wait.

Wait.

Wait.

Luggage comes out.

Our bag is, like, last.

Wait for stroller.

All others depart. Still no stroller. Wait. Ask man to check. No more luggage. No stroller. Go to baggage lady. Her: "Well, they must have left it in Amsterdam. Let me just check." Me: !!!

Lady checks, calls luggage men on plane. No luck. Kind luggage man talks to Ji while looking for stroller. No luck. Lady makes me spend 15 minutes filling in a fucking form about my lost stroller. Can I go tell my friend with baby I'm here? No.

Fill in form angrily. Tell lady I am GOING TO WALES THIS VERY EVENING AND WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE FOR STROLLER DELVIERY. Also ask what will happen if they don't find my stroller. She says fill in another form for reimbursement. BUT I'M GOING TO MALAYSIA AND NEED THE STROLLER. She, remaining impressively calm and polite, says sorry but I'll have to fill in the form and I can go to talk to the easyjet (!!!) people if I want after leaving.

Angrily, with tears in my eyes, I storm out with Ji in tow.

Larry is cheerily waiting with his beautiful, chubby-cheeked daughter, who despite not having eaten is as smiley as can be and is a wonderfully welcome sight.

I make a brief foray to plead my case to easyjet (!) to no avail and stomp away from their desk mad. Then we drive to Altrincham where Gilly, Larry and Harriet live.

Have a very, very nice visit with Larry and learn all about what the Foggs are up to and what life is like in the UK. Get home and enjoy looking around G,L & H's cozy new house - excellent godzilla toys in the bathroom, maps of Ireland and southern ontario helpfully available for perusal, an incredible home made couch, great books, and a fine cup of tea help to cheer me up. Plus, Larry feeds us a feast to tide us through to dinner time, which will be in Wales.

Then, we have to pack the car with all of our stuff which, as is normal with a 7 month old, ends up being QUITE ALOT. We zoom around town in the Foggmobile - zip to the poncy area of town for wine, race through the local loblaw's equivalent for caviar, mackarel, rye bread and cream cheese for Larry's upcoming appetizers the night to follow, grab a fleece jacket and hat for Ji (it is rainy and damn cold), fly over to Gilly's office and pick her up only about 1/2 an hour late.

Gilly is marvellous as always - beautiful, very pleased to see us, and also thrilled to get to hang out with Harriet and Ji in the back of the car. We leave for Wales.

We try to visit and talk but Ji is in one of his demanding-attention times. Endless, endless, endless questions as we drive. We all try to answer as best as we can, but get a bit weary. Harriet is a MODEL citizen and burbles away happily.

We drive (well, Larry drives) further. We stop to pee at a packed McDonalds. We carry on. Drive, drive, drive. It starts to pour rain. Larry drives intrepidly. We get to the Welsh border. Drive. We get stuck in a crazy one lane traffic jam after about 3 hours of driving. We drive. VERY slowly. Get out of traffic. Drive. Stop for groceries. Drive. Drive. Get to the small town we are looking for - spookily dark, very wet and windy.

We drive carefully to the edge of town, just near a cliff overlooking the sea. Larry drives over a bumpy grassy dirt path that is so overgrown it threatens to pull off the bottom of the car. We all cheer for the car and for Larry. We get pass the first field. Then, we must open the first gate. I've been told it will be windy, but I am in no way prepared for the concrete slam of the wind as it knocks into me after I open my car door. I get whupped by the wind, and fumble ineffectively with the lock for a painfully long time. I finally get the catch, the car goes by, I shut the gate and get in. To the next gate.

I get out, into a puddle. The rain is fiercer now, as we are closer to the ocean. The wind is of epic proportions. I am frozen. This new lock is ever so helpfully not at all like the previous one. It has an entirely different mechanism. Oh, good. At last, the gate swings open. I am begining to feel that I am on a quest of sorts. I have been entrusted with my one and only son, and I must weather the hardships of the day to GET TO THE WELSH COTTAGE. If I fail in my quest, I will die. I just know it.

The third gate is the worst of all. We are right by the sea, and if the wind was bad before, it has now gone into its most primal form of all. It is pure wind. The air is driving sleet. My hands are numb. Why, why in god's name would ANYONE want to live in this place? How did the poor miners who built the houses which Gilly assures me really are just up ahead ever manage not to collapse on a daily basis? And why is the goddamned lock on a spring this time???

But somehow, when I finish the 3rd lock, I'm proud. I've done it! I've gotten us to the Welsh cottage where we will enjoy an excellent cup of tea, build a cozy coal fire, and get into our puffy warm bed with our sweaters still on.

It is a glorious victory.

JI HONG: PRINCE OF WALES

After all the drama involved in getting there, Wales turned out to be well worth the difficulties.

Ji and I woke up the next morning well rested, got out of our wee bed, and went down to enjoy the wee coal fire Gilly had gotten started and we looked out of our wee window and beheld the WIDE OPEN SEA. It was stunning. Naturally, we hadn't been able to see a damn thing the night before except for blistering rain, and we had noooo idea where the hell we were. Turned out we were perched on the side of a vast granite chunk, with high mountains behind us, and beyond a small sheep pasture in front of the house was a big drop down to the ocean, and then just waves upon waves.

Ji and I went out exploring and walked down to the beach - very much like Big Bay, only with even bigger rocks on the "beach". The wind was bananas, and we had to hobble along to get to a tiny little alcove in the rocks to shelter ourselves and where we had a nice snuggle and watched the waves. We were extremely lucky and had sunny weather. It wasn't warm, but it wasn't the pits like the night before.

In the afternoon we went on an adventuresome trek with all of the friends who were with us. The gang from Bob the Builder and Pingu had banded together and rented all 3 of the cottages, so we had Inga from Amsterdam, Dan who was British and very cheery and good with Ji, Liz and Nick and another couple whose names aren't springing to mind but who were also really nice and the wife is in teachers' training. Anyways, we set off in convoy and drove through the Welsh countryside under blue skies and beaming sun.

Ji and Harriet were in fine moods. Everyone had just settled down a notch after enjoying warm beds, good food, and hot tea. The drive was lovely - all bendy curvy roads, dour grey rock houses, and sheep artfully placed hither and yon. We stopped at a town about 20 minutes away and hiked down to the beach, and then hiked along the beach to a town accessible only by sea. Cool! Along the way we talked and visited and picked up bits of sea glass and slate. The cottage had wicked slate countertops in the kitchen, and I brought home a cube of washed up slate for Phet so he'd know what they looked like.

Our goal was to get to a beach-side pub, but after about an hour and a half of hiking we got there and they had shut 10 minutes earlier. It was nuts -- there were about 16 other hikers who were desperate for drinks too. Shurely the proprieter couldn't be far away in a town accessible only by sea? Well, if he was he didn't have any interest in making a stack of money because the pub remained quite shut.

The hike back was not quite so easy - we hadn't yet had lunch, and Harriet was due for a nap - but I piggy backed Ji and he was a trooper and kept up his good spirits and we made it all the way back up to the car. Then we stopped for some much needed food at a wee grocery shop, went home for pea soup and port, and then Ji and I had a delicious nap. In the evening we had a big huge dinner in honour of Nick's birthday at his cottage. Ji entertained everyone to the nth degree, though he was a bit concerned that there wasn't a dancing spot at the party. Dan helpfully showed him the bunkbeds in his room, and Inga gave Ji a glow in the dark rave stick that Ji thought was the BEST. Larry had made up about 5 trays of mackarel and caviar appetizers and Ji scarfed a whack of those down, and after Gilly had gotten Harriet off to bed she came and enjoyed drinks as well.

Dinner was great - all of us in a wee dining room that we filled completely, enjoying coq au vin, mashed potatoes, and roasted vegetables, and then apple pies that Gilly had made from scratch. Ji proposed a toast to Nick - "To your graduation." "No, Ji, it's not his graduation." Much laughter. "To your birthday, happy birthday Nick!" Cheers all around.

On Sunday Ji and I checked out the garden behind the house (full of prickly trees and berry laden bushes, remarkably lush given the brutal landscape) and found a neat hidey-house on the property, but it was kind of rainy, so we couldn't hang out for too long. After a nice lunch we packed up the car and headed for home. The drive would have been perfect except that there was some insane "construction" going on that made the highway go down to one lane, virtually stopped, for about an hour and a half. No sign of any trucks, workers, or work being done on the road. NOTHING. Just blocked off fine-looking highway. Freaking Welsh nutcases!

The rest of our visit with Gilly and Larry was great. Ji got to go and visit the Bob the Builder studio which was really, really cool. We also got to see the Pingu studio, which was my favourite. AND we had lunch with all the animators. Sweet deal! Larry took us out to the local park which had a very picturesque duck pond and fed us well. I cooked up some semi-Thai food which seemed to go over well, but really mostly what we did was play with Ji and Harriet. And watch the incredible 25 EPISODE PINGU DVD. Wow.

Our final episode coming next: Departure from Europe, Entry to KL.

BACK TO KL

The day before we left for Malaysia, the "Easy"jet people called. They had tried to deliver the stroller to Gilly and Larry's old address, and of course were not successful, but were willing to try and get it to me later that day. Just for the record, I had given them the wrong address when I filled in the form, but immediately after arriving at G & L's I had called and left a detailed message with the correct address. They, however, hadn't checked their messages for 3 days. Niiiiice.

So finally the delivery man came by with our stroller and we were once more capable of travelling long distances without the need to resort to arm pulling and hand dragging and bum whacking.

The morning of our departure Ji and I went for a lovely walk around the neighbourhood to admire the cute English houses. It was a very pretty area, but the houses still seemed sort of delicate and it appeared that the wind would easily whistle through them because all the windows were single pane. Just didn't inspire confidence. The other thing we found funny was how they were all set down right on the ground - no go with basements, Larry said, because of flooding problems - and not one had a porch. Such a shame! A country where you could probably, actually, sit out on a covered porch almost any day of the year and nobody had gone to the trouble of building one. Was it the whole anti-social, reserved thing?

Still and all, the homes in Altrincham were well kept, tidy, and all had pleasant gardens. We enjoyed seeing all the berry trees - way more variety than in Canada.

After lunch with Gilly, who'd ridden home on her bicycle, Ji and Harriet had naps, and then we got ourselves organized to leave. L drove us to the airport, stopping at the ATM so that I could take out the big stack of cash I would need to pay off the left luggage men. For some reason the other day at the Loblaws-equivalent my VISA had been rejected and I was a little bit terrified of getting to left luggage and being told to bugger off if I couldn't pay my bill and then all of Ji's toys would be confiscated and end up being parcelled of to nephews of the left luggage men. So I took out the exact equivalent of an arm and a leg in pounds - money, not flesh.

Immediately upon our arrival at Manchester airport it began to pour rain. I grappled out the umbrella, Ji, the knapsack and the stroller, and we mangled ourselves into the airport and waved bye to L and H who were in a no stopping zone. We checked in with the kindly BMI folks and went through to our happily sparsely populated gate and watched the planes trundle slowly along the runways. The ticket taker man was very helpful and got Ji and I on in record time. The flight was perfect: less than an hour long, free coffee.

On arrival at Heathrow, we were greeted by a fine portent that our upcoming long haul trip would be a good one: a double rainbow! I ooohed and ahhhed and tried to capture it on the video camera. Ji was nonplussed.

At Heathrow we had to go on the long hike from one terminal to the other, but it was a worthwhile stretch for our legs. l located the Malaysian airlines desks and the line didn't look bad (we WERE three hours early), so we headed over to Left Luggage to trade our arm and a leg for three 35 kilo hockey bags. It was intriguing, we gave the man our ticket, got 2 of our bags, and 1 of someone else's, and I had to point out the fact that the 3rd bag wasn't ours. I still wonder what we would've gotten if we'd kept that one...

Then I had to get a ridiculous mass of luggage plus an increasingly cranky little boy from point A to point B. This time rather than get Ji to push the stroller, I kept him in the the stroller (Heathrow was ALOT busier during the afternoon than late at night!) and pushed the giant roller of luggage, with the giant knapsack on my back while pushing him in his stroller. It was not easy going. There were 5 gazillion people in the airport, all looking up at the departures screen rather than at me trying to pass them. I got to the between-terminal doors and had to go through with the lugagge and then come back for Ji. I had visions of him being kidnapped and flown to Bangladesh or Iceland. He was all of 3 metres away from me, but still. Through another set of doors, and then we were just about there. I tried to get into the Malaysian line up, but our bags were too wide for those stretch fabric line divider rails and we got stuck. I pulled Ji back, managed to wrestle the roller out and found a sympathetic Malaysian airlines employee to talk to.

Very, very luckily he took pity on us and not only drove our luggage around to the ticket desk, but he also let us cut to the front of the line. Right on! We managed to get all of the monster bags onto the conveyor belt, much to the check in agents surprise. I plied Ji with M&Ms and somehow managed to answer all the necessary questions and get our boarding passes. He, amazingly enough, remembered to have me get his travel knapsack out of the big bag so he'd have something to play with on the flight. Well done, Ji! Finally luggage-less, with our passes in hand, we headed up to the departures level. We snagged some snacks from the Boots, got out 10 pounds to pay for further food for dinner, and then went to try and find a play area.

First, though, we had to go through security which was remarkably quick and painless. Immediately past the security area was a veritable yellow brick road curving along through aisle upon aisle of luxury goods and make up. Ji was walking around through the goods while I followed when he came upon a tantalizing display of lip gloss. He asked if he could have some, and I leaned over to help him, when we were suddenly accosted by the make up saleslady. She was all of 22, all in black, with short spiky hair. Pretty, of course.

"Those aren't for touching," she said, in a cold voice.
"They're testers, aren't they?"
"No."
"But don't you let other people test them if they would like to?""Yes, but don't touch them."
"Why not?" I asked, getting annoyed.
"You wouldn't put lip gloss on your SON, woud you?" She asked snottily.
"Yes, actually, I would and I do quite often." What kind of person impunes your gender-raising of your child??? Biaaatch.
"Hmpf!" (She actually made that noise)

While I could have made the point and tried the gloss, I decided to try and make her feel bad by telling Ji he wasn't allowed any lip gloss, at which point he started to bawl on cue. Probably she was like, so long sucker, have fun with your cranky kid, but I hoped she'd feel bad. We went over to the MAC counter where I cannily pretended that I was going to test the gloss, picked it up, put it on my finger, but then smeared it on Ji's lips. Heh heh, those creeps can't outwit ME!!

Ok, so there was Gucci and Louis Vuitton, and chocolates galore, and way more make up than necessary, but unbelievably, in such a huge and busy airport, the play area consisted of 3 - yes, count them, 3 - of those wooden balls on spiral metal rods toys. Man, the Calgary airport has about 16 times as many of them, PLUS a mock airplane for kids to climb on. Calgary 1, Heathrow 0.

The other mothers had congregated near the play area and we hung out for awhile with a posse of Eurasian kids - 2 nice girls, 1 very cute one year old who had his own (trashed) laptop (with no keys) to watch Bob the Builder on. Wow.

Interestingly enough, the play area such as it was captivated Ji for an hour and a half. Then we got Ji a sandwich - we was getting really cranky by now - and then finally our flight was called and we walked to our gate. Ji ran around in a controlled area near the gate and then we boarded. We were super lucky and had great seats - me, Ji, empty seat, then a skinny young man. Right on!!! Ji had fun settling into the plane, trying out the phone and tv as soon as we were airborne. We played, read, had some drinks, they brought the none-too-tasty food around, and after that at about midnight Ji conked right out and slept for EIGHT HOURS. Line up all the gods in heaven and pass out the prizes - my never ending thanks are being relayed to you on a nightly basis from now on.

I couldn't sleep. I watched Dodgeball on the movie channel, played tetris, and rubbed my bum to keep it from going to sleep. But it was fantastic: whenever I checked the flight time monitor, it was like we were years ahead of the game. Nipping off 6 hours from the flight made it seem like time FLEW by. It seemed like no time at all before the stewardii were waking everybody up for the descent. My dry eyeballs had enjoyed about an hour and a half of sleep, but I wasn't complaining. No sir, not me. I was thrilled with the trip.

And what better ending to all the travel than having Ji race out of the arrivals doors with me NOT having to sprint after him because, after all, his Pa was waiting for him on the other side. Hurray.