Seems that everything has gone wrong ever since Canada came along...

I may be coming to the end of the chapter of my life in which I would say over and over that I adore flying, and can imagine no happier state than walking around in a strange place with everything I need in a backpack and a stylish notebook and inspiring pen to immortalize my profound thoughts on the world. Yesterday, after some number of hours awake that I can't seem to quite count, and said backpack cutting deep grooves into my shoulders, the only profound traveller's thought I had was that tomorrow had better be an F-ing dream or I'm never getting on a plane again.
Anyway, lessons learned. Don't buy the super deals on plane tickets. Don't put up with nasty old ladies at the ticket counter saying that you have to go somewhere else that you've already been to do her job for her. She has a telephone. And she has the whole problem right in front of her on her computer screen, which you paid several hundred dollars to have placed there. Don't get worked up, but also don't stand in line for two hours just not wanting to rock the boat when you know you're going to miss your flight. Don't cough just before going up for your turn in line at customs when the whole world is on high alert about an airborne flu pandemic. And if you buy a piece of fruit to eat on the airplane, eat it on the airplane.
I heard a Korean Buddhist proverb from several of my students last year about a young man who was given a horse and his parents were so happy, but then he fell off the horse and broke his leg, very sad, but then he didn't have to join the army, very happy, but then the invading army took over his village, very sad.... and so on. I think the whole story comes full circle a little bit better than my version, but, then again, maybe not. There is not necessarily a perfect ending to our stories, just little poetic circles here and there.
I'm happy to say that I'm starting to learn from these experiences, and decided not to try to sleep in the airport in Vancouver like I did in Seattle, and instead checked in to a lovely expensive hotel called the Abercorn, and enjoyed the bag of treats the Air Canada baggage claim desk gave me instead of my suitcase....
(I would just like to add a note here that in spite of all of the excessive lines and dehydration and goings without chapstick and extra charges and having to take off your shoes and jacket and everything else, I accidentally brought a bottle of cough syrup with codeine in it and a pair of scissors through at least three scanning machine, plastic gloved, sour faced police check points, and no one noticed. Furthermore, between three different airline counters I learned that it's completely against international law to send luggage along without the passenger, which isn't to say that my bag didn't go to Seoul without me, but that none of the airlines involved would admit to ever seeing it.)
Anyhow, I have no idea what I've done to my bank account, but my card wouldn't work to supply a surprise $100 deposit at the lovely hotel. (this is probably the guy falling off the horse and breaking the other leg...) The lady at the counter clearly didn't like my Tivas and greasy hair and rabbit-chewed guitar case, and looked happy enough to toss me right back out onto the highway, sans free shuttle to the airport, but took pity on me when I shook no less than four different kinds of currency out on to her counter (Korean, Japanese, Canadian, and USian), and we couldn't figure out what it possibly would add up to or how I could buy anything to eat without it. (gets a brand new wheel chair from a government with socialized medecine.)
I did discover that I have a friend in Vancouver, who I met in Korea last summer. (the guy meets a nurse at the hospital when his chair breaks.) He sends me his number to rendezvous, but I fall asleep and have only enough time to enjoy a continental breakfast and a short Canadian walk before putting the backpack back on and returning to the airport. (the nurse is already married. probably to the guy who gave him the horse.)
Don't pass up a chance to visit Vancouver. It is absolutely beautiful.
Signing off. Like I said, today had better be a dream from heaven or I'm de-planing in Tokyo and taking the ferry.