Canada and Alaska

Well, our plan to get onto local time didn’t work out so well! We were awake at about 5 am and we concluded that there was no point fighting it so we decided to just get up and get going.

We got the airport well before 7 am, despite the fact that our flight was not departing until 10:17 am. It can sometimes feel a bit indulgent booking first class domestic flights but this notion was dispelled completely when we saw the length of the economy check-in. It was quite unbelievable. First class check-in, on the other hand, was a walk-up affair where we personally attended to and we breezed through check-in in a matter of minutes. Of course, getting through airport security brings you back to earth pretty rapidly though!

Once we got through security we headed to the lounge for breakfast and to while away the couple of hours before we had to get to the gate. We boarded the Embrauer 175 and had a pleasant three-hour flight to Vancouver.

We booked this trip uncharacteristically well ahead of time. As a result, some of the decision-making rationale was a little hazy. A case in point was arriving at Vancouver airport and wondering about how we were getting to the hotel. It seemed that we had made no arrangements here. No matter, we thought, we’ll just order an Uber and be on our way. Turns out that Uber is the future in Canada, literally: they don’t have it yet! So, we hopped in a taxi for the ride into town to the Hotel Georgia.

After checking in, we went out for a walk but only got as far as the shopping mall across the street. We did a bit of shopping and then had a light Japanese dinner. After dinner, we went for walk along the water and then headed back to the hotel for an early night.