Air Canada Sucks - the ongoing saga of the lost luggage

Okay, my luggage is still 'in tracing'. Not lost, no Air Canada wouldn't want to admit that. I came back from Montreal on Aug 10, but my luggage is still not at my house. To me sounds like lost. Did you know that Air Canada does not have a customer service phone number (probably because of people like me)? After 5 days of my luggage being lost I was given a fax number and that was it. The central baggage department told me that after 5 days it is really out of their hands and all I have is the fax number. Boy, that makes me feel special. Of course Air Canada won't give me any details as to when they will consider the bag gone for good. Which means I can't file a claim with my home insurance because the bag may miraculously appear some day.

I hate them, I hate them, I hate them. I can not stress enough how frustrated I am with Air Canada. If they lost it, that's crappy, but just let me know so that I can get on with my life and start replacing my stuff. Of course, most of it I can't replace because I actually took clothes I liked that no one carries anymore. God forbid I wanted to wear stuff that I liked on my trip.

Gilmore Girls on DVD

So, it is a beautiful day outside, but I seem to be inside watching WB shows on DVD again. This time it is Gilmore Girls (1st season). This show is so good and I can't wait for the 6th season premiere next month. Exciting things are happening for those crazy Gilmore Girls. I love a show where the main character carries a book everywhere she goes (just like me).

Last night I played a couple of games of softball. I've been sub-ing for a friend's team at work. Whenever they don't have enough women and will get that auto out I get called in. You know I used to be not a bad ball player, but really I need to play more than once every four weeks. But, we won both games last night and the scores were crazy 15-11 and 16-14 or something like that. It was fun though and I got someone out at home plate, so that was cool.

Has anyone picked up the Explore magazine this month (Canada's outdoor magazine)? (PS thanks Liz for getting me interested in this mag.) This month they have 'The All - Canadian Adventure Life List - 100 Things you have to do out there". It is so cool, I've done about ten of the things on the list and I can't wait to add some more to my life experiences. Number 18 was actually in my last blog, having your picture taken on the Long Range Traverse overlooking Western Brook Pond in Newfoundland. Woo hoo! I know my brother has a few of these and I can't wait to take the mag to the cottage to find out how many my father has done. I recommend this issue to anyone that loves our great outdoors.

Just a quick note about the blog: you can leave comments for my blog at the bottom of the blog by clicking on comments. You will need to sign up as a user, but this way everyone can see you making fun of my adventures and poor grammar. My sister Rachael tells me she has some comments to make about the last blog (something about being embarrassed about her addiction to Buffy).

Mel Report Summer 2005

Okay, my first Blog. Let's see how this works for the Mel Report. (Just in case you didn't know, my name is listed as Wo Kai Li - my Chinese name.)

Wow, I can’t believe the last Mel Report was after my trip to Europe. That seems so long ago. What in the world have I been doing since February?

Well, first off for today, my father and my step-mother Sue have moved to London (Ontario, not England). I haven’t seen the place yet, but I hear it is really nice. It means a longer trip to the cottage for them, but it sounds like they are enjoying it.


Other big news, I bought a new motorcycle and it is beautiful. It’s a Honda Shadow 750, the other bike was a 250, so this is much bigger and I am still getting used to it. This summer I made it to Friday the 13th and the run to Port Dover. Apparently around 100,000 people show up in town for the day. It was a beautiful ride up (even though Tim did get us lost a couple of times). The ride back wasn’t as nice as it was raining pretty hard and the 403 was not a fun place to be in the rain on a bike (if I never have a transport truck pass me in the rain again, that will be great). We saw a ton of beautiful bikes and it was a really fun day. The bike was pretty dirty by the end and I spent most of the next weekend cleaning it up (ah the joys of owning a motorcycle). Rain on the Bad Ride as well. Actually, now that I think about it, I seem to get rained on a lot on my new bike. But, it is so pretty! Here it is at Dover.

Back in March I went to the annual Toronto Math Alumni event. I was asked to run the pool tournament this year, I beat the dean of Math a couple of years ago, so they thought I would be a good choice. It was a lot of fun, from there I was asked to help with my 10 year reunion at Waterloo. I was asked to talk to my classmates to get them interested in going back to Waterloo. I can’t believe I graduated ten years ago. It seems like yesterday (at least some of the time).

March of course, also brought along St. Paddy’s Day and some green beer. A group of us from work went to the Irish Pub in Mississauga. There was a great band and some Irish dancers.

Congratulations to my friends Liz and Michelle who got married this spring. My friends Christi and Mike welcomed their son Alex to the world a couple of weeks ago, so congratulations to you guys as well.

I made it to a few concerts this year. I started it off with Maroon 5. Not a great way to start the concert season off. I really like their album, but I don’t know. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for a concert that day, or I let everyone else’s thoughts on the band (many people were making fun of me) influence my thoughts, but I just wasn’t that impressed. The lead singer is pretty full of himself.

But, a couple of weeks later I went to see Green Day. Wow! Definitely in the top 5 of all of the concerts I’ve been to (and I’ve been to a lot). Billie Joe can put on a show. I definitely recommend that if you get a chance, you go see this band. Now, the fact that their new album is called ‘American Idiot’, might be influencing my thoughts on why I like them so much. I didn’t sit down the entire concert! A couple of weeks later I bought tickets to see Green Day again at Molson Park in Barrie. The Barrie show was this past weekend. My friend Tim made the trek to Barrie with me and was able to get us to the front of the stage. So, we hung out in the heat for a couple of hours waiting for the show to start. A couple of women fainted near us. They wouldn’t let you bring water in and there wasn’t any water to purchase around the concert area (ice cream and popsicles, but no water). It is just getting crazy at concerts. Anyway, once the first band came on, the crowd surfing and the moshing started. I had so much fun, probably because Tim was making sure that I didn’t get kicked in the head. Then Jimmy Eat World came on the stage and the crowd surfing got a little crazier. Someone landed on Tim and kicked me in the back of the neck. We got the security guards to pull us out of the pit so that we could make sure Tim was okay. The paramedics checked Tim out and he decided to tough out the concert. Well, I really wanted to back front and centre for Green Day, so I left Tim off to the side and said I would be right back. Famous last words, it felt like forever before I was able to get back to him. I made it back to the stage for the first song and Billie Joe was right there. It was very cool and then it got very scary. The moshing was much crazier and it became really hard to breath. So, I figured that I really needed to get out of there. It was pretty much impossible to go back the way I came, so I tried to get to the security guards and get them to pull me out. Well, it took another couple of songs before that was able to happen. I remember Billie Joe introducing the songs, but I can’t remember the band playing them. I finally caught the eye of one of the security guards and he must have seen the look of fear on my face because he was able to pull me out of the pit. I believe that is where my huge bruise came from. The next day I couldn’t walk, my bad knee was swelled up to twice the nice of normal. But, it was so worth it! I’m hoping that next time they are in town I get my butt back into the mosh pit and realize that I won’t die. I know I keep saying that I am going to try to only go see a band once (that way I can see more bands), but you know me, I get obsessive and right now I’m pretty obsessed with Billie Joe. See how close I was?

In May my friend Julia and I saw The Killers at Molson Ampitheatre. It was a fun concert, but boy did we feel a little old and straight to be at that concert :) The problem with this concert was the sound guy. I think if looks could kill, that sound guy would have been dead a couple of times over. The first two bands were almost impossible to hear because of the band sound. I think we would have jumped over the sound board and attacked him if it had of continued through The Killers set.

My friend Karen and I went to see Erasure at Massey Hall. What a great smelling concert. The lead singer was in fine form. He is so flaming, it was fun. For Blue Savannagh he came out in gold sequined boots, sparkly blue speedo underwear and pink fans. He was definitely having a great time and so were we, we danced throughout the whole show.

Not too many sports this summer, just hockey. Our team just finished our round robin in playoffs and we went undefeated. Our championship game is next week. We play the team that was really upset that we beat them. They hadn’t lost a game all season and then they lost to us in playoffs. After the game we won they were asking us how much we paid the refs. They were some sore losers, should make an interesting game next week. We have the best cheerleaders: a couple of the brothers perform a song and dance after each of our goals, they do cartwheels and walk around on their hands. It makes for some fun games.

I saw two movies in the theatres this summer, the beginning of a series and the end of series. It was great to see The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy on the big screen. Not as great as the books, but definitely entertaining. Must read the books again. And of course, I went to see Revenge of the Sith. Midnight showing where I almost got attacked my an out of control jedi (well, I guess it was my fault for almost walking in between vader look alike and an Anakin). Oh the cheese! ‘Ani hold me like you did by the lake’, I can’t believe this movie came from the same guy that brought us the original Star Wars. Now, it wasn’t as bad as Attack of the Clones (which I still haven’t been able to stay awake through), but was no where near as good as the original three.

I’ve been up to the cottage a couple of times this summer. The last time my sister and I had a blast tubing behind the boat. There were some excellent wipeouts. So much fun! I passed my test for my boating license. I’m hoping dad will teach me how to drive the boat this summer. Maybe this weekend!

Back in July, Dad, Sue and I threw Jason and Megan an engagement party at my grandmother’s in Goderich. We rented some Sumo wrestling suits. I believe a good time was had by all. Unfortunately, Alfie did get hurt. Sumo suits can be dangerous in the hands of the Woodalls! Here are Megan and Sarah trying to take each other out. I believe Megan was the grand winner of the day.

On my continuing quest to see the world, I was able to see more of Canada this summer. Liz, Michelle and I headed to Newfoundland for a hiking trip. If you ever get a chance to get out East, I highly recommend it. It was so gorgeous. We drove and it took us about 20 hours to get to the ferry in Cape Breton island. Once we got into New Brunswick we hit maritime time. It took 15 minutes to get a coffee and bagel at Tim Horton’s. That laid back thing took some time getting used to. After an 8 hour ferry ride, we made it to the west coast of Newfoundland and our first day of hiking. It rained quite a bit on our trip, here I am with my pack in the rain.

We did a two day hike through Green Gardens at Gros Morne National Park. At first, it really didn’t look like anything green, it more looked like Mars with all of these red rocks. But, then we definitely understood the name. It was quite pretty and we were able to look out over the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Then we hit the chest high thistles. I’m not sure how these did not affect Liz, but Michelle and I started our cursing at this point and I don’t think we stopped for two weeks. After the killer thistles we came upon the sheep. All of a sudden there was this field of sheep staring at us. And it appeared that they were all hanging out in the area where we were to set up our tent. So, we had to watch out for thistles, sheep and sheep poo. Well, the sheep let us have our camping spot, but they definitely let us know that they weren’t happy about it. The next morning the sheep were around again. Unfortunately, we got in the middle of the herd and they started to chase Michelle. Here is our lonely tent in the middle of the sheep field.

After the run in with the sheep, we made it out in one piece and headed to the ranger's station to take our test. Yes, my vacation included a test. To hike the Long Range Traverse in Gros Morne National Park you need to prove to the ranger that you are capabable of reading a map and using a compass. This was a very stressful time, if we didn't pass what were we going to do for the next six days? Well, I think the ranger was just impressed that we already had our map. The group of guys that were taking their test at the same time as us, didn't even have a map and hadn't brought their compass inside for the test - we were happy that they were taking the North Rim and wouldn't be on the Long Range with us. The point of being out on these trails (well, this was a trailless trail) is to be away from other people. Now, there was another group on the same hike as us - the group of 4, but more about them later. So, we passed our test and the ranger really liked Liz's GPS (it was pretty cool - the map was downloaded into it and it had different sites marked for where we needed to get to). After passing our test we headed to a regular camp ground and got ready for the next six days. Up at 6am to pack, get breakfast, drop off the car and wait for the taxi (we left the car where we came out of the trail and took a cab to the starting point). Well, we waited for the taxi. Luckily, my phone did have coverage and we were able to get a number for the cab company - they had forgotten about us (a bit of panicking ensued). But, they did pick us up and we made it to the boat dock in time. To get to the start of the long range traverse you have to hop on a boat tour of the fiord (well, what used to be a fiord). When the boat dropped the ten of us off at the dock all of these people started taking pictures of us. Here is the veiw from the dock, we then had to climb up for eight hours to get to our next camp site. It didn't feel like 8 hours, it felt like forever.

So, here we are at around the beginning of our day. Six hours of the rocks and boulders and tuckamore. What can I say about tuck (it rhymes with a word that we said a whole lot throughout the day). It pulls at you and grabs you and doesn't let you out. The only good thing was that I didn't feel in danger of falling because there was no where to go once the tuck got a hold of you. At one point Michelle and I got stuck in the mud and were ready to just stay there and die. Liz has the patience of a saint to put up with our complaining.

Why did we put ourselves through this? For the below shot:

Unfortunately, I could not appreciate it when I was there. I was so tired and just wanted to get to our campsite. A couple of days later, looking back through the pics on the camera I realized that I was actually there and it was spectacular. We had another two hour hike after this to get to our campsite. When we spotted the yellow tent of the other campers I don't think I have ever been happier to see anything in my life. The group of 4 offered us some tea, the sweetest raspberry tea I have ever had. We were so tired, that I think we would have been happy to just lie on the tent pad and never put up the tent. The camp site was gorgeous: a stream went through the middle of it. The next day we made our way along the sort of trail (there were a lot of game trails - as we found out) and actually made really good time. Our second camp ground came with our own private beach. Unfortunately, it was freezing and the bugs were crazy so we couldn't really enjoy it. We ate inside our bug netting and then hid in the tent. The night before we shared the camp ground with the group of 4, but unfortunately, one of the group of 4 got really sick on the second day and two of the four stayed at another site and the other two decided to keep hiking to try to get out. With no cell phone reception there was no way to get help for their friend. We found out when we finished the trail that the guy had gotten dehydrated and had been airlifted out.

The third day started out okay, we thought it would be similar to day two. Well, we soon learned to not mention any thoughts on this trip as they backfired on us every time. Remember how I mentioned the many game trails before? Well, we ended up following one of them and after a while we were lost (sorry Liz, we were misdirected, the GPS told us exactly where we were and the map told us where we wanted to be, we just weren't on the trajectory we were supposed to be on). So, while Liz tried to figure out which way we should go, I looked up and there in front of me was a caribou (probably twenty feet away) staring at us. Unfortunately, we didn't have a camera close by. We saw a moose swimming across a lake and Liz came across a moose in the bushes. We finally found our correct path and looked down at our next campsite:

There was a waterfall and rapids (for those of you from Goderich, it was very similar to Benmiller Falls except that the water was freezing, but felt so good on the feet). It rained in the evening and the next morning it took us forever to get across the river with our packs (it did not help that our campsite was marked incorrectly on our map - thank god for the GPS). Then the fog rolled in and we could only see about twenty feet in front of us (so the day was spent picking a rock and taking a bearing and then picking anothe rock and taking another bearing). I suspect it looked similar to Scotland (those of you who have been let me know).

At the end of this day we had to hike down what I'd like to call a cliff (but not quite that steep). So many times my pack got caught on the rocks and I thought either I'm sliding all the way down, or I'm never going to get out of this spot. It was so exciting to get to the bottom of that hill. We then camped and looked forward to our next day when we would summit Gros Morne mountain. While we were setting up the tent we heard this noise and looked up and across the little pond to see the following:

Momma and baby moose. They tried to hide in the bushes, it was so cute. The next morning there was a crazy wind storm and we thought we might lose the tent. But, we didn't have to get up early as we had a very lazy type day. It was very exciting, no packs, no packing up the tent. It was great. Well, until we got to the top of Gros Morne and the fog had once again settled in:

Liz was not happy with mother nature at this point. So, we made ourselves some chairs out of the rocks and waited her out. Then the fog lifted and we had some beautiful views. The fog came in again the next morning for our walk out. We smelled so bad! We had an awesome meal when we got out (so hungry for something that was not dehydrated).

The next day we drove from the west coast to the east coast. St. John's. We took a drive to Signal Hill and looked out over the Pacific Ocean. Now, if any of you have driven in downtown St. John's you may realize that the streets are crazy. The maps didn't have names and the streets changed constantly. I thought Michelle might kill me for suggesting that we go into the city.

The next day we went for a one day hike on the East Coast Trail. It was so pretty, looked like the caribbean. Here is a picture of Michelle in her best Indiana Jones pose.

We then headed to Cape Spear, the most easterly point in North America. There were a bunch of whales out off the point. It was kind of cool to say that I was at the most easterly point. After this hike we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast. A real bed (well, I had a cot). It was so awesome, we spent two days at the Bed and Breakfast. While out on the east coast I broke down and had fish and chips. It's been over a year since I switched to being a vegetarian, but boy was that fish tasty! The next day we took a break from hiking and went horseback riding (my frist time) and kayaking. Michelle's horse kept biting my horse's butt. Freaked me out, but control was kept and I had fun. Kayaking was fun, but we did not see any whales and didn't really see any Puffins (I really wanted to see Puffins). We did get to take the kayaks into a couple of caves, which was cool but freaky. The next day we left the b&b for our last two day hike. This one was back onto the east coast trail to see 'The Spout'. The Spout was pretty cool, this underground river meets the ocean and forces the water up through the rocks. It sounded like a dragon (like Smaug) was breathing down under the rock and every so often the steam would be his breath.

By the end of the trip I could sleep anywhere! Then we headed for home, a 14 hour ferry ride where I pretty much read the entire new Harry Potter. So much better than the last one! Well, that's it for my trip to Newfoundland. Well, there was lots of other stuff that happened and over 600 photos between the three of us. The next trip is going to be much more calm. I'm heading to the British Virgin Islands with my friend Tim to hang out on a Catamaran sailing around the islands for ten days. Hopefully I get over my fear of the water and can actually take my diving certification out for a spin.

So, last week I went to Montreal for work. Didn’t really feel like hanging out in Montreal and was happy to be going home. Then Air Canada lost my luggage. It has now been over a week and no luggage. So, I have now bought new glasses and a new camera. The camera has a 15 day return policy, what do you want to bet Air Canada finds my luggage in 16 days. Don't rely on gold cards for insurance on flights, check the fine print. My gold visa isn't paying for anything and Air Canada is only giving me $100. Thank god for home insurance. But, it is such a pain, must of the clothing I took is irreplacable. It is hard enough for me to find clothes that fit and now I have to go and try and find more. Crappy air canada, it was from Montreal to Toronto! But, my favourite part is that when I call the baggage department they tell me that the luggage is not lost. When I ask if they know where it is they say no, so I keep asking them if they understand the definition of lost because I don't think they realize that that is the definition of lost. (Liz, I think in this case I'm correct.)

My sister, Rachael, has moved in with me for a month or so. It is great having someone in the house again. Back in May, Jason's friend Rene moved in. It was great having someone that cooked all these vegetarian meals. Rachael isn't quite as on board with the vegetarian thing. But, we have had Thai and Indian since she has been here and so far she's liking them. While she's been here I have gotten her addicted to Buffy (the Vampire Slayer, that is). As some of you know, I am addicted to shows from The WB. I have every season of Angel, Buffy, Roswell and Felicity on DVD. We are currently in the process of watching the third season of Buffy. TV shows on DVD are just so addictive, you can just keep watching another episode (plus I have a 5 disc DVD player so you can pretty much put the entire season in all at once). During my recovery from the Green Day concert I watched the entire final season of Roswell in one day (18 episodes). So, I am now back on my Jason Behr (lead actor) kick. He's just damn good looking. But, knowing me I will be off that in a couple of days and on to my next obsession.

Well, that's about it for me. I know this first blog is pretty long. I had a lot to talk about. Now that I have found this site, I can write about what is going on every couple of days (I can hear the groans out there).

I hope everyone is having an excellent summer and I hope to hear what is going on with everyone soon.