After leaving the plane, you follow the mad crush on to a shuttle, which takes you to the arrivals area. From there, before you can reach the baggage claim, you have to go through Immigration. They look at your passport (signage indicated that there *may* possibly even be avenues of entry for people without passports), and your disembarkment questionaire. A stub from the questionaire is torn off, and stapled to your passport, along with your permission of landing stamp. And that’s it. Ced was asked to write down the last name of the person he was staying with. My officer didn’t say anything other than “Thank you.”

From there, its down an escolator to the baggage claim. Each baggage claim conveyor belt circles a carpetted platform upon which an Office Lady walks, holding a sign with a short list of passengers from that particular flight. Its a most unglamorous runway, but has that sort of feel nonetheless.
Luggage in hand, we approach Customs. There is a broadcast announcement being looped, indicating that due to the increase is “terrorism, muggings” and a third item I forget, security measures at Customs have been tightened They warn us that the procedure now takes longer than it used to, and thank us for our patience. Having flow in both Canada and the United States since September 11, 2001, this is the part I am most leary of. Not that we won’t make it through, but that it will be a complicated, illogical, and annoying process. The Customs agent asks to see our passports, and a few generic questions about our trip. When we tell him that we’re going to Tatebayashi, he breaks into a huge grin, and even laughs a bit. Its hard to tell if he’s pleased with our destination, or just amused, but either way it seems to put him in a good mood. He asks if we have anything to declare, and I mention the two bottles of liquor we’ve brought with us. Again, big grin and laughing. He indicates that we don’t need to declare alcohol. He wishes us a good trip, and we’re through.

Apart from waiting for our luggage to arrive, the entire process (Immigration and Customs) took about the same amount of time as obtaining our boarding pass and checking our luggage in at Pearson. There were no lines, and everyone we had to deal with was polite, professional, and *friendly*.

In short, it was a very positive way to begin a vacation.

Flying West is an odd thing. Push ourselves 37000ft into the air, and then hold as still as possible while the earth rotates below us. The sun barely wavers, and every so many degrees, the current (local) time flashes on the screen to show our success. Minutes pass, feeling like hours. Its an excrutiating, bright business, flying West in the middle of the day.

On the other hand, meals are still included (a rarity for Air Canada any more), featuring smoked salmon (and styrofome ramen), and the beer is free if infrequent.

We’re approaching the date line, and I’m puzzling over the idea that its not always midnight here. But that that’s probably just the recycled air talking. Nonetheless, eyes glued to the screen, to see what will happen to the time.

By the time we land in Narita, we will have been up for 21 hours. From there, its through customs, to the cell phone rental, and then the train station. Another few hours (from whenever the train leaves) to Tatebyashi. So the rational thing to do would be to sleep, a bit, now, while there’s a plane to carry us. You can guess how likely that is.

But oddly pretty, as well. Given the amount of concrete sprawling over and under head, somebody had a good thought. They’re in the process of painting the concrete supports and sidings, with vaguely constructionist lone-star motifs and what. Abstract lines in earthy reds and greens. I like.

And green green growy-things everywhere. Along the overpasses, across the boulevards. Its all lovely, and ridiculously inpratical in this heat. But lovely.

Oh, and I quite like all the service roads and u-turn lanes.

Road trip!!

All a-frenzy, we organized, postponed, and packed, ready to be on the road first thing Tuesday. No small feat, considering we’d just gotten back from Summerfolk, hours before.

Turns out we needn’t have frenzied. Since we were importing computers for commercial use, crossing the border was no longer a simple matter of hopping into a car, and heading for the bridge. Commercial import requires hoops, paperwork, and lots of patience it turns out. Everything gets cleared through a broker, rather than through customs, which is nice, and is not.

Brokers are far more pleasant to deal with. But the process takes, well, over a day it turns out. Commercial invoice filled out and faxed to the broker, and its time to hurry up and wait. We’re told that once the invoice has been processed, we’ll need to wait 3 hours before crossing. I’m still not clear on what those 3 hours are for, as nothing was verified at the border itself. But those 3 hours weren’t an issue. It would take that long to drive to the border anyway. No, the real antsy waiting comes from waiting to hear that the invoice has indeed been processed. How long will that take? “No chance today,” is the answer. But tomorrow? First thing? “Maybe.” Connie did all she could to light a fire under them, and it was still mid-afternoon the following day before we got the go-ahead.

Leave town at 4, reach the border shortly after 6, and find out at customs that we have to go through the trucker’s secondary inspection. After a bit of confusion regarding how to get there, we find ourselves in a quiet office, where 2 customs agents are sitting, drinking coffee and casually rearranging office supplies on their desk. Its a quiet day—this should go fast!

We walked up to the first agent, and explained that we had been instructed to come here by the border patrol. We were carrying in some goods for commercial import, and here was the paper work from our broker.

He looks confused.

“What is it you are trying to do?”

Bring some computers down to our U.S. office. Everything should already be taken care of by our broker. Here’s the paperwork we were given.

He flips through the paperwork like he has no idea what he’s looking at. He twists in his chair, to look behind him, a vaguely paniced look on his face. I’m beginning to think we’re in the wrong place.

“Have you seen your broker yet?”

We weren’t aware that we actually needed to physically visit the broker, but we certainly can if that would help.

He frowns, then says not to bother. He reached for another form, and says that we were supposed to have filled this out before coming to him. Its a manifest, no big deal. We just need to reiterate the information that’s on our invoice, although I’m not sure where we were supposed to get one, before seeing him. We take the form, and step to the side in order to fill it. He changes his mind, and tells us that he really would prefer if we did go see our broker before coming back.

Where’s the broker?

He points towards a second door. We step through the second door into a long narrow hallway, that’s lined with maybe 30 offices, each one marked with a faux-iron, overhanging sign. Livingston, our broker is to the end of the hall, and up a floor.

The folks at Livingston are friendly, and much more helpful. No, we didn’t need to see them at all. In fact, there was absolutely nothing they could do for us other than assure us that we had done everything we needed to do, yes we were filling out the manifest directly, and no they don’t know what’s up with the customs agents either, but they are always “like that”.

Back down to the first floor, and up the hallway. Since we are no coming back to the custom’s office through the second doorway, we have to go through the line-up of truckers who are also waiting to clear. This line-up is maybe a half-dozen long, and disgruntled. The customs office is not actually any busier now than they were in we were last in it. In fact, there are now three agents at the desk. We watch through the door window as one of the agents picks up his stapler, and squares it on top of his post-its pad. Once its just so, he pushes it straight back, to line up agains the edge of his desk. He glances up, almost making eye contact with the first trucker in line, pauses a moment, and then goes back to adjusting his stapler. He stands up, stretches, and walks off stage. He returns with a piece of paper, looks at it for a while, then taps at his keyboard a couple of times, stands up, and returns the piece of paper. He gets a fresh cup of coffee. The truckers explain that these guys are ass holes, that this border crossing in particular is hell to get through. They explain that we’re not actually waiting for the agents to do anything. They don’t have to make any decisions, figure anything out, or anything so complicated as that. Our brokers have all ready got everything in line. All the agent needs to do is compare the manifest to the invoice, and make sure everything’s been signed. If anything looks like a problem, they don’t deal with it; they just send it back to the broker. If everything looks good, they just stamp the invoice, and away you go. It should take 30 seconds tops per load. But because they have the power, they make you wait.

Eventually one of the agents signals that the first fellow in line can come in. Sure enough, he’s stamped and cleared in no time at all. Another 15 minutes of fidgeting before the next one. And so on.

Although everything was in order before we left, it was over an hour before we were through customs. What’s especially ironic about this, however, was how lax the whole process was. No one cared who we were, not our names nor our citizenships nor our passports. They didn’t particularly care what we were bringing over either. All they cared about was that we had filled out the appropriate forms, and jumped through their pointless hoops. We could have been anyone. We could have been smuggling anything in. How’s that for heightened security?

Every May, for the passed hundred and ten-odd years, Quadra Island has celebrated May Day. Apparently the first May Day, celebrated back in 189-something consisted of a May Pole dance at the local school. Its grown since then, and has gradually been pushed to the last weekend of the month (in the hopes maximizing the fair weather to drunken attendees ratio (May 24 weekend was a short-lived, ill advised idea)). These days, there is a parade, a barbecue, face painting, belly dancing, bag pipes, a grease pole, the auctioning off of boxed lunches, and a proper May Day court added to the mix.

The parade begins at 10:00PST, with home made floats from the local school, day care, and community groups. The theme, this year, was ancient cultures, so the floats (which were largely pick-up and flat-bed trucks overflowing with people in costumes) included “Caribbean Cave Girls”, “Vikings”, and “Buddha”. (See the coming photo gallery, for a picture of each and every float =D)

The parade runs along the road leading up to Rebecca Spit. Once the fire trucks have passed, everyone follows along behind the parade, up to the Spit itself, where the real festivities begin.

We have the coronation of the May Day Queen, her first and second Princesses, and their escort (all elected from the sixth grade class). The Queen recites the speech which earned her the title (it highlights the history of May Day festivities on Quadra Island, and the Queen’s own ambassadoral properties), and then various community members thanking various other community members for their various community contributions.

This is followed by the May Pole dance, a surprisingly co-ordinated effort by the fourth grade class. I’ve seen children perform May Pole dances in the past, but on Quadra Island, the children get a “coach”, and apparently oodles of practice leading up to. They may each have their own sense of rythym and speed, but no one got tangles or lost, which is usually the best part.

After the dance, the lunch box auction began, and the crowd quickly dispersed. The kids divided between the beach, and the grease pole. The grease pole is an odd tradition, which has been around for at least 25 years. They take a large pole, maybe 30 feet high, and slick it down with lard. They then suspend a bag at the top of the pole, which contains $50. Whoever can reach the top of the pole to grab the bag gets to keep the money. Kids can exert an amazing amount of energy, if not agility, for the promise of $50. Nick (boyfriend of Sarah, Ced’s sister) has fond memories of this as a kid. Apparently the trick is to dip into the water, and then roll in the sand. Once you’re good and gritty, you can begin working the lard off the pole by trying to climb it. Of course, by the time you’ve got all of the lard rubbed off, you’ll be too exhausted to climb to the top of the pole. But some other, more patient, kid will be not far behind, to slither his way up to the top.

We missed the African drumming and belly dancing, having wandered down to find some shade by the beach. Its a typical Canadian beach, with rocks instead of sand, but there are dozens of run-away logs which have washed up on the short, which are suitable for sitting on, or dragging back out to the water for a sort of raft.

Most of the festival, however, is just folks visiting with each other in the commons. Eating, and talking, and watching the kids, and slowly getting heat stroke.

We snuck off early, and found our way down to at the general store, where they sold (among other things) the most amazing smoke oysters. I had always thought of smoke oysters as being a heavily processed food, for which proximity to ocean would offer no advantage.

So wrong.

The Oyster Man (located on Cortes Island, which is the next one over) over plump, juicy and sweet, with no oil to be found. And best of all, they do mail order.

We also tried an environmentally conscious local pilsner (“Think Global, Drink Local”), which was thoroughly non-descript, which also means not bad at all. Shaftbury Summer Days, its called.

This evening is the May Day dance, featuring an African Drumming band from New Guinea, who may or may not be the same drummers missed at the Spit. And a barbecue at Sarah & Nick’s.

On my dad’s recommendation, we took Humphries Limousine Service to the airport, rather than the airporter, and that early in the morning, I’m glad we did. Humphries only drives one party per trip, so there was no booting around town to pick up other passengers before heading towards the airport, and no smiling politely at strangers, when really I just wanted to scowl at the dark. Humphries also charges a flat rate per trip, rather than per head. A roundtrip from Kitchener to Pearsons was $196, tax included. Airways Transit is $65 per person per trip, plus tax. Go figure. Plus, we were driven by a lovely woman, who, it turns out, normally drives a school bus. She was warm and vaguely maternal, and terribly efficient, which made 4am all the more bearable.

This was our first time in the New and Improved terminal one, but to be honest, I was much too sleepy to notice much. Flying domestic in Canada is a LOT less hassle than flying domestic in the US. We only had to show our passports twice (when getting our boarding pass, and again when actually boarding the plane), and no one asked us to remove our shoes.

The flight was non-eventful, although we did learn that if you request a “special” meal, you get feed before everyone else. Air Canada serves the following “special” meals, at no additional charge (you just need to let them know 24 hours in advance):

• Asian Vegetarian
• Baby
• Bland/Ulcer
• Children
• Diabetic
• Fruit Plate
• Gluten Free
• Hindu
• Kosher
• Low Calorie
• Low Fat/Low Cholesterol
• Low Sodium
• Muslim
• Non Lactose
• Oriental
• Strict Vegetarian
• Vegetarian Lacto-Ovo

The Asian Vegetarian breakfast consists of sauteed vegetables (eggplant, onion, tomato), a hash brown, and some sort of loosely held together, savory patty with the slightly gritty texture that beans provide. Plus the fruit bowl, juice and bread that comes with the standard breakfast. It also comes with raspberry jam for the bread, which the standard breakfast, oddly, does not.

We arrived in Vancouver at about 8:30PST, half an hour before schedule, which turned out to be a good thing. We decided that Tsawwassen is where we wanted to catch the ferry, rather than Horseshoe Bay (Tsawwassen is close to the airport, but a slightly longer ferry ride), we found a kiosk in the airport which sold bus tickets to the ferry terminal. $26/person included the ferry ride, but the next bus wouldn’t leave in time for us to catch the next ferry (its still an hour long bus ride). The lady at the kiosk suggested we might take a cab instead, which would run us about $50, and then pay for the ferry as walk-ons ($10 each). This is also what Brigitte had suggested. Sounds good, but on our way towards the line of cabs, we passed a limo, who offered to take us to the ferry for $56. We opted for style, and had a very lovely ride out. It took about 30 minutes.

The Queen of New Westminister is a huge ferry (I couldn’t even begin to guess what her capacity is, but it took them well over half an hour to load all of the vehicles), with all of the expected amenities (restaurant, gift shop), and takes about 2 hours to cross over to Vancouver Island (Nanaimo). We bought a couple of maps of the Islands (though none of them show Quadra Island in any detail. By detail, I mean listed by name).

Paul and Gwenn were waiting for us at the terminal, and after collecting everything into the car, we headed for Katerina’s, a tasty Greek restaurant in downtown Nanaimo, for some lunch. Hwy 19 was, by Ontario standards, a very pretty drive up the lee side of the island, although I’m given to understand there is a more scenic route, if one isn’t rushing to catch a ferry. It took about 2 hours (I think) to get up to Campbell River, where we did indeed miss the ferry. In this case, “missed” means that we arrived 30 minutes before it was due to leave, but its a very small ferry and there was a very long queue. Luckily, there’s a new ferry every hour, and directly across the street from the ferry terminal is Java Shack, a quiet little cafe which sold fresh fruit smoothies and iced coffees.

We just barely made it on to the next ferry, for the 15 minute ride across to Quadra Island. Once across, Paul took us around to see the (undeveloped) property that he and Hannah had just bought. Its a nice-sized wooded lot, not far from the ferry terminal. Apparently there is a new retail plaza in the works for across the street, so they are planning on putting Hannah’s pottery shop right next to the road, which should attract traffic from the mall. Most of the trees on the property are balsam fur, although there are also some spruce in the back of the lot, which it sounds like they plan on keeping (the whole back of the tree lot, that is, not just the spruce).

Paul’s brother, Robert, is in town, who is, by all regards, “a character”. (More about him later.) He had bought ribs, a variety of cheeses, pate and wine, which, in addition to Hannah’s salmon and rhubarb pie, made for a lovely dinner. A cold shower to refresh, and lots of catching up (this was the first time Ced had seen his family in about 4 years) meant it was still quite late (well after midnight, EST) before we saw bed.

The weather is sunny and hot, the mosquittos are in full force, and tomorrow (well, today, actually) is apparently May Day on Quadra Island. Parades, pagentry, and a couple hours of volunteering at the concession stand, await.

The day looks something like this:

• 0400EDT – Humphries Limousine Service will be escorting our tender early morning selves to Pearson’s, where we will pass the time as unconsciously as possible, until

• 0700EDT – a snazzy 767, courtesy of Air Canada, will hurl us through the air and in the general direction of the Pacific Ocean

• 0857PDT – we’ll fall to the ground, in a hopefully controlled manner, rested, refreshed, and ready to take on the Vancouver Public Transit System, that Great Bringer of Us to the Horsehoe Bay Ferry Terminal

• an hour or two later-ish, there’ll be an exciting boat ride towards the Nanaimo Harbour Ferry Terminal, home of tasty confection, where C’s father will be waiting for us

• an hour and a half later will find us on the road, heading up towards Campbell River

• a couple hours later, and the slightly less exciting (read: much shorter) boat ride across the river to ::da da dum:: Quadra Island

• vacation will commence.

Our Lady of the Inside Out Pocky

Big Jesus Barn (before exit 138 on Northbound side).

Exit for Xenia (35 east) where Stephie’s Grandpa lives. (insert D3-20, D2-5->8)

0512.1015

Car packed. Lenore settled. Trip tik in hand. We’re ready to go…. aren’t we??? ;_;

0512.1241 [odo: 205783]

Finally on the highway, delayed because Portus sucks. Listening to Jem & The Holograms (Arakune Dec 2000 mix CD). Rainy & general Mothers Day traffic fun. Nasty fluffy roadkill by 8 east exit. Too fluffy, actually. Might have been a stuffed animal. C drives.

0512.1246

C observes that we need to buy fuel.

0512.1247

Eating timbits & listening to Boss Drum. Still not on 401.

0512.1251

Stop for gas at Petro Can in Kitchener. 64.4/litre & shiny pumps.

0512.1253

C learns the cold hard truth that the bank does not love him.

0512.1257

Bad news is Silver City is hideous. Good news is we’re finally on the 401! =D

0512.1304

After a long and exhausting first leg of driving, we’ve finally made it to Michigan!

0512.1305

No wait. Just an out of town license plate.

0512.1325

Never pour coffee cup to cup while other traffic is cutting you off while bouncing over the potholes on the 401 at 130km.h - it just makes girls grumpy and soaks the tim bits.

0512.1500

Tailgatting Kills.

0512.1514

Passing Puce Rd, Puce ON

0512.1515

Crossing Puce River, Puce ON

0512.1534

Now listening to Chumawamba. Climate is getting noticeably warmer =D Approaching the Ambassador Bridge.

0512.1537

Flash rain while crossing bridge. Love these sun roofs!

0512.1600

C wants a bumper stickers which reads “Go, youza’, go!”. Waiting in the backlog @ customs. No music T_T

0512.1606

Cleared customs despite the fact that Stephie has no documentation declaring her legitimacy in either country. Narrowly missed the spot check line.

0512.1611

Detroit rocks. Really made it onto 75S this time.

0512.1651

Entering Ohio. In search of meat ::slaver::

0512.1653

Off highway for food, fuel, trade off driving.