| It was like an episode of 24, except... hmm, it was a 26 hour long stretch of utter chaos, or shall we say Elaine-ness. =) It all started when I decided to visit Elaine's family in Vancouver, B.C. My trip began with a yummy dinner of all-you-can-eat sushi, and continued to the next day with dim sum, shopping at a 2 dollar chinese store, bubble tea and finishing with chinese style banquet featuring alaska king crab. I was in food heaven and all was well. Then the rollercoaster decided to take us for a ride. Scene 1: At 11pm on Thursday, Elaine's brother announced to the sleepy-eyed crew that his passport was missing. Given that we were going to cross the border to Seattle the next day, we all went passport hunting. Elaine and I even drove to her aunt's house to look for it. But our efforts were in vain. Poor Stephen had no choice but to stay home. Scene 2: Fast -fwd to 9 hours later. 8am Friday. We just packed everyone (Elaine, her sis, her parents, her two aunts and I) into a van and started driving for 2 seconds, before Elaine shouted out: "I have Stephen's passport!". I'd learned to expect this sort of thing from Elaine, but oh boy. Of course, Elaine insists she doesn't know how the passport "walked" into her purse. Alas, I'd learned to expect that too. Everyone laughed and we took off for our trip in a very pleasant mood. Scene 3: Crossing the border took a slow 40 minutes, but we passed time by running back and forth between our two car caravan to pass food and drinks. We then took the first exit across the border to fuel up our cars. Elaine moved out of my car to switch with her aunt, who was driving the other car. As I was flying down I-5 about 16 miles out, I received a call from none other but miss Chan herself. She has "inadvertantly" gotten onto I-5 north instead of south and took the next exit to turn around. Umm, no problem... except the next exit north is unfortunately in Canada. Oh yeah, she has crossed back into Canada. Did I mention the lines has got much much longer by now? Fine, we'll wait for her at our next stop. Oh, oops, one minor detail, Elaine switched to another car, but her passport was still sitting happily in my glove compartment. I grunted. We turned around. This time it was 40 min to cross into Canada and 1 hour to come back into the States, accomplished with shamelessly cutting infront of other unpatient drivers. Finally, at 12:30, we all successfully crossed the border and driving on interstate-5... in the right direction. Scene 4: the day progressed relatively smoothly with a visit to UW + our future home, shopping, and sitting intermittantly in horrendous Seattle traffic. At 6pm, we arrived at a friend's place to pick up Elaine's car. We both unloaded some luggage and the crew got some refreshment. But things just had been going too well to suit our taste. You see, Elaine's aunt's car is from an age where they lock the doors automatically after a minute. Not knowing this dirty little trick, Elaine's brother dutifully left the key in the keyhole. And soon we found ourselves locked out with the key looking back at us oh so innocently... And so with neighbors gawking suspiciously at us, we tried our hand at breaking into the car... unsuccessfully... multiple, multiple times. ... ... Meanwhile, our dinner reservation in Vancouver changed from 7pm to 7:30 to 8:30 to...oh never mind. A wonderful mechanic came to our rescue an hour later. They must be millionaires, if they can make 40 bucks in all of two seconds. hmm... At 9pm, we are finally back on the road again. I joked to Stephen that by 11pm all chaos shall vanish, since even chaos must know to obey the 24 hour rule, right? Right. Scene 5: Who would have known there's be a line at border patrol at 10:30pm? Why don't people just stay home on the weekend?  Since our car was the last one of the now three car caravan to get back into Canada, we celebrated among ourselves for finally approaching the end of quite eventful day after passing customs. I was again flying down the highway, with my mind fully set on a nice meal of midnight snack in Richmond. Oh, but naturally my phone would ring again when I was 20km (hey, think metric in the friendly Canada) past the border. Elaine's voice was alarmingly calm and pleasant: "Where are you now?" "We are pretty close to the restaurant." "Oh, Mmm, Can you turn back?" "WHAT?" "Uhh, I can't drive my car with an American plate into Canada without paying a 25% tax. I have to park in the States." NOoooo! Silence. dry tears. bye bye food. bye bye sleep. "Sure, I'll come get you." Just to play along with my despair, the next exit off the highway was in a short 6km. Scene 6: 12:30am Saturday. Canadian Border. Passed customs once again. I had an eerie feeling that among all of us, we have seen all the border patrol officers working that day, on both sides. My very tired and starved brain figured that it was the 6th time my car has cross the border, all in the same day. It was 4 more times than my entrance through the front door. But hey, isn't 6 a lucky number?  I imagine Elaine will have a very hard time convincing her family to go down to Seattle again. At least not for a while. Although her aunt did think it was a good idea for a diet plan. I for one, do not want to see the border for a while.  |
