23 May 2006: Day 11 - Goodbye Alaska, It's Back To Vancouver!

After a whole 10 days traveling towards and being in Alaska, it’s finally the time to leave. My dad wakes me up at 11am today, only coz we need to check-out only at 12pm.

So by 12pm we’re out of Captain Cook Hotel – yes, tt is the hotel in which we are staying – and off to… church! Coz we have mass at 12.10pm and since the day before was Ascension Day, we had to attend.



This is Holy Family Cathedral, the Catholic Church in downtown Anchorage which is incidentally just opposite our hotel.



After mass there, we had lunch at this place called the Solstice Bar and Grill.

I ordered a blackened chicken wrap.



It consists of pieces of pan-seared chicken breast, melted Monterey jack cheese, lettuce and tomatoes in a ranch dressing, all wrapped up in garlic floured tortilla. And comes with fries.



After lunch, we walked back to our hotel, where we waited for our shuttle to come fetch us to the airport at 3pm.



This is the view from the bus as we’re heading towards the airport.



Or views.



And me, in spectacles. Heh heh heh.



At the airport, we encounter a little hold-up in checking in… coz the lady checking us in has never heard of the country Singapore at all, and is unfamiliar with how surnames work otherwise. So my father is called Tan and my mom, Lim.

But baring the hold-up, the bags get checked in smoothly, and we get our boarding passes.

My parents find going through homeland security customs a novelty, coz they require you to put almost everything through the metal detectors, which include your shoes. My dad can’t get over tt fact about the shoes.

Small problem occurs coz he forgets to take his wine-opener out of his carry-on bag, such tt when the homeland security guy is checking it, he gets held up coz the wine-opener consists of a corkscrew and a blade. He ends up surrendering the whole device.

From there on, it’s on to the gate.

We think we have a lot of time coz our flight from Anchorage to Seattle gets delayed 47 min… until we remember tt we have a connecting flight from Seattle to Vancouver, and chances are tt flight won’t be delayed also.

So after buying Starbucks coffee – before realization struck – we hurry over to catch an earlier flight to Seattle in an almost mad rush, but we finally get on AS 148 and leave about half an hour before our original flight.

After tt, it’s a plain sailing 3 hours and 7 min on AS 148 to Seattle.

We get into Seattle around 9.30pm... Except tt we have to go from domestic to international terminal to catch our flight to Vancouver, which boards at 9.50pm... and is the only flight left till 6.00am the next day!

We encounter a bit of rushing and a fair bit of panic, but it's all good. We get to the gates just as boarding is commencing. The plane is supposed to take off at 10.20pm but it takes off at 11.00pm. Fortunately the flight time is a total of 27 min!

We get off at Vancouver International Airport at 11.25pm. Taxi-ing on the runway while waiting for an available gate, queueing up for immigration, and claiming our baggage, we get on a taxi by 12.10am.

And we reach our hotel by 12.30am.

And the best thing? Or the strangest thing? That after you live in a place for so long, the moment you come back to it, you are overwhelmed by this feeling of familiarity, like you are coming home.

I feel like I am coming home. To Vancouver.

Ironically, in less than 2 days I am leaving it.