Things seemed normal enough from Vancouver to Toronto. I wasn't worrying much at all knowing that there are lots of daily flights between the 2 major North American cities. Or was I too optimistic?!

When it was almost time to board in Toronto, I didn't see the aircraft at the gate. Soon, an announcement came along telling us the flight has been cancelled due to the inbound aircraft not able to leave La Guardia airport in NYC. Didn't sound too big of a deal, everyone got rebooked into the next flight an hour later. I felt relaxed since I didn't make a definite arrangement to dine with any of my friends in NYC.

At 18:00, I boarded onto an aircraft fully packed with people trying to get to NYC. We waited hot. It was passed the scheduled departure time when a flight attendant notified us we were waiting for our pilot. We waited and waited. Eventually the pilot arrived from another aircraft and had to immediately go through Canadian and US Customs. I couldn't help but spoke to the lady sitting beside me, "Why can't they just shuttle the pilot on the ground and forget about the Customs?" Finally, the pilot came on board, did the routine checking, waited for the runway and we took off at 19:45.

I never adapted well to turbulence, particularly if I had an empty stomach. An hour long flight should've been manageable. I was not too concerned at first. Then I heard the pilot, "We are now over New York City. There is too much fog and the visibility is too low so we can't land. But don't worry, we have enough fuel to circle in the sky for 45 min. We even have enough fuel to fly back to Toronto. So I am confident that this will be alright. We will wait for approximately 45 min. and hopefully the weather conditions will improve. If not, we may fly to somewhere near like D.C. and refuel....." 45 min later, the pilot spoke again, "We have circled in the sky here for 45 min. This is the time I am comfortable with and we must move on. La Guardia is closed and in fact all airports in NYC are now closed and the fog is not going to clear until few hours from now. The team has discussed and we agree that we should return to Toronto. We don't want to fly to D.C. to find out weather conditions there are also bad and then we might not have enough fuel to go back to Toronto. So we will now return to Toronto at once."

Flying back to Toronto, with an empty stomach, experiencing turbulence. The bits of junk food didn't seem to help at all. Airsick came to me as we were half way through the return flight. How glad there was this airsick paper bag or else I would've made a mess. Rested a bit more, I asked the lady beside me for her paper bag too.

Joy, what a relief when we heard the pilot saying, "Fortunately we don't have to go through customs because we took a detour." You can imagine me, in the middle of throwing up, feeling a slight relief mentally, and went back into more puking. Yuck. I feel sorry for those sitting near me. I bet I looked awful and it was gross, but they felt sorry for me having not been eating for a whole day and can't stand that turbulence.

The first thing we heard as we came out from the aircraft was, "There is no more flights to NYC tonight and the next one to La Guardia is tomorrow morning at 9:15, that's been sold out. The next one is 1:15 pm. You better go to the ticketing area and use the white courtesy phone to call reservations to rebook yourself." The first thing I said the the airline personnel was "Toronto is not my home town, what am I supposed to do tonight." Her unsympathetic voice just said, "You're on your own. Weather is not covered by airline."

Lining up for a courtesy phone to call reservations, I found many travellers in the same boat, all worried and helpless. The gentleman in front heard of me needing a place to stay and offered me a coupon to the lounge. Before I got to worry about accommodation, it was my turn to talk to the reservations agent. Given there was no more flights to NYC that night, I inquired about flying back to Vancouver. Afterall, I see no reason for me to just be in NYC for a day. And his response was, "Actually, flying to Vancouver is a bit more complicated than rebooking because the flights are quite full." Since I don't mind flying to other NYC airport, any NYC airport, I booked a seat on a 8:30 am flight to Newark. At least, it was much better than taking a 3:15 pm flight to La Guardia because by then the 1:15 pm flight was full too.

Afterwards, I asked the airlines' employee where the lounge is. Guess what, "It's in the security area. You can't go in there (without a boarding pass). Plus, it will be closed once our last flight takes off. You can't stay overnight in there anyway. If you were to stay in the airport overnight, I would suggest you to go to the far end where the Vancouver and Hong Kong flights check in. They close late and it is a more quiet area." "But that means it will be closed once the flights leave, so it's not that good either." "Not really, lots of people sleep there overnight."

Having no interest to camp at the airport, and not wanting to bother any of the Torontonian friends, I found myself a hotel nearby. I got to the hotel past midnight. And yes, I flew for a whole day again. In order not to miss my flight, I had to take the 6:15 am shuttle to the airport. Having jet lag at the same time, I didn't get to sleep much that night. At least, I took a shower and had a good bed. My pale face from airsick still frightened me the next morning.

Wasn't there some wise sayings about there are always others who are more unfortunate than yourself? As I was boarding the Newark flight, I overheard a gentleman in front. Apparently, he attempted to fly to NYC twice on Friday, 3 o'clock and 6 o'clock flights, and both times had to return to Toronto. I didn't feel so bad then. No wonder so many people try to get on this Newark flight. There must've been like 6 flights of people whose plans got interrupted including many business travellers.

Experiencing as much turbulence as the night before, I got airsick again. This time, the gentleman across the aisle offered me his paper bag. I felt so sorry for those passengers who were sitting around me... I must've looked very pale.... The fog in NYC was all gone. I never quite imagined I would need to take a bus from NJ to NYC. Oh well, no big deal. I finally got to Manhattan at noon. What a relief.

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Bank of NY Building

Interesting artwork!

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Grand Central Terminal

The Grand Central Terminal, where thousands of subway and train passengers transit through, offers a distinctive architecture in the mid of a modern city.

A discouraging display caught my eyes. It is quite difficult to imagine and believe the American national debt has climbed to such a high spot. And it is likely to grow even more.

How many trillions?

As the aircraft was circling on the runway and came to a stop, the pilot notified us that there was an engine problem and we had to return to the gate. It took the mechanics a couple hours to diagnose and fix the engine problems. Lots of delays is the essence this little trip. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the good times I spent in NYC. Perhaps it was good that way, none of my friends seemed to have notice I got a pale face haha.

Fixing A340 engine, wonder how tough that is.