It’s been an extraordinary couple of days. Travel is absolutely marvellous - new places, new ideas, new scenery. Fascinating. But it’s also incredibly nerve-wracking, especially if you have a nervous disposition. *Ahem* Raises hand.
In Australia, if you book a plane ticket, you get your seat allocation when you check-in. After that, it’s just a question of waiting to board. I have never - never - seen anything like the madhouse at the United Airlines desk in San Francisco. There were people waiting for standby, arguing, shouting, pleading. I have no idea of how the staff cope, it must be the most stressful job in the entire world. They made all sorts of offers to confirmed passengers to give up their tickets and take a later flight - cash, food vouchers, first class. There was one woman with a baby who had actually booked, but only managed to get on the plane because she threw an impressive tantrum.
We went to the gate number on the ticket. It was the wrong number. The Customer Service people couldn’t help and didn’t seem to want to. We found the right gate ourselves and then sat around in a stew of nerves waiting for seat allocation, which came at the absolute last minute. Our poor little Aussie eyes got very wide, let me tell you! By the time we sank into our seats, I felt like I’d been put through a wringer.
On the other hand, Vancouver is simply beautiful. I had thought I could happily live in San Francisco (I still do), but now I believe living in Vancouver would make me ecstatic. The weather is gorgeous, warm, light breeze, blue skies - and yes, I know that is pretty rare. We’ve just been blessed, I suppose. I’ve been trying to imagine it locked in the chill of winter, or miserable with rain, but it’s hard. Today, we went to Chinatown, and to the tranquil Sun Yat Sen Garden, then to Stanley Park and then up to Grouse Mountain, where we sat and ate a lovely dinner as the sun set over Vancouver. It was extraordinarily beautiful. My Beloved was very brave in the cable car up and down the mountain. He doesn’t deal well with heights. They had tandem paragliding over the forest and the mountain and the sea. It looked wonderful and he wouldn’t let me go. Rats!
Here’s my favourite photo of the day. You can see beautiful scenery any time. 
The shops in Vancouver Chinatown sell every kind of produce you can possibly imagine - and some you can’t. This shop was selling dried geckoes. The mind absolutely boggles. How on earth do you cook them? What sort of dish would they go into? They looked like teeny-weeny pterodactyls on sticks.
I know I wouldn’t be brave enough to eat them. Would you? Have you? Eaten something extraordinary, that is?
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Eww! I thought those were bats. I couldn’t eat gecko, I have enough in and out of my house. Most of them are cute.
Sorry about your airport experience. I try to fly into the smaller airports when I go to the California. It not as chaotic.
Hugs, Danette
No I couldn’t eat them I am not a game person in that way I love food of all different types but there are somethings that I will not try.
Even if you had a bad time at the airport it sounds as if everything else is great
Have Fun
Helen
My sister and b-i-l had a similar experience the first time they went to the US. They had two small children with them then - I think they were 4 and 6 - and the airlines wanted to seat them in four different sections of the plane. I thought it totally bizarre that they didn’t seem to care at all. Eventually they got two seats at the front of the plane and two seats at the rear. They had similar problems with all domestic flights in the US, and have had both times they’ve been there since.
Geckos on a stick? Were they sugar- or salt-coated, like a lollipop? Maybe you just eat them straight from the stick like a toffee apple. The most bizarre food I’ve eaten was years ago at Yarrabah, an aboriginal community in northern Queensland. I went to a local wedding and ate baked dugong (tastes a bit like pork) and curried turtle (gamey flavour). Both animals are protected except for native Australians for special occasions. In Bamaga, at the tip of Cape York, I ate the fruit that grows above a cashew nut - very tart, sucking-moisture-from-mouth. You can’t eat the nut under the fruit as in that state it’s poisonous. I never did find out exactly what had to be done to it to make it edible. A few hours after eating the fruit I got on a plane home and began feeling sick. For a week I blamed the fruit for the violent illness, then found out I was pregnant.
So sorry for your airport/airline problems! It’s been about 5 years since I’ve flown, never had any bad problems (that I remember).
I will admit to ordering Ostrich once, just for the experience. That’s about as “gamey” as I’m willing to go. May not be much, but ’twas enough for me!
Guess your vaca has to have highs and lows, but all in the same week??? Yikes!
It sucks that the airlines have to be that way to people. It seems that most of them are rude from what I’ve heard. I’ve only been on a plane once when I was about 6 months old, so I remember nothing from my experience. LOL!
It sounds like you’re having a good time in Vancouver. I have to say that I thought those geckos were bats too. I couldn’t eat those on a bet especially since I own a gecko as a pet. The things some people will eat are disgusting and the stuff on that table that I can see look it.
Living in Singapore you see shops like this everywhere. The dried seahorse gets to me but I’m so used to it now that I don’t even bat an eye.
RC
Hi Danette, I found out that bats are lucky creatures in Chinese culture. They were depicted all over the Sun Yat-Sen garden. So hopefully, they don’t get eaten??
Helen, I’m with you - not gastronomically adventurous at all.
Gosh, Elaine, you lead an interesting life! The poor little geckoes just looked dried to me, maybe salted. The shop also had a squillion different sorts of dried fungus/mushrooms too. Fascinating!
Hi Denise!
Thanks for the link to your blog. It’s the first time I’ve been over here!
It was so much fun hanging with you in San Francisco!
Gecko on a stick? Ugh.
I’m game to try most stuff, except for bugs. Have you Aussies seen Quigley Down Under? It’s about an American who comes to Australia–an “old west” American–I don’t know what year it’s set, but definitely pioneer days (here in the US). They feed him gigantic SLUGS to make him better when he’s sick! I don’t think I could do that. I know some people eat chocolate covered ants and grasshoppers and such but I haven’t tried thos. I’ve eaten all sorts of game–from squirrel to turtle to rabbit, but no bugs. Uck. Bleh.
Denise, so sorry you had airline troubles. I don’t fly much, but Northwest did a fabulous job from here to San Francisco and back. Word on the street was that if you booked a flight through Orbitz or an online “cheap flight” organization, you could get bumped if you didn’t print your boarding pass the night before, so I did, both ways. No worries.
I know Southwest USED TO have a cattle call for seating. First one on the plane gets to choose the seat, so the line got long for boarding. But they’re the only ones who used to do that. I admit that I never heard of such treatment of passengers as what went on for you, at least not with an established airline, but with the cutbacks in flights I suppose anything is possible. Maybe all the airlines are doing this now. Hmm. I hope not.
I hope the rest of the trip goes easier, and I’m so glad you’re having a good time in spite of the airline troubles.
Hmm geckos. I don’t think so. I have eaten springbok (it’s kind of gamey), crocodile but the one thing I ate which bothered me was fish lip soup when I lived in Singapore. In my defense I will say it was a set menu and simply plonked in front of me. The girl beside me said it was a delicacy. It tasted good but I kept thinking about all those poor lipless fish and couldn’t finish it.
Glad you liked Vancouver. It’s such a beautiful city or it was when I was there many years ago.
Good luck with the rest of your air travel Denise. We certainly live in a different world these days, don’t we?
Hey Terry, - ah well, them’s the breaks. I think travel is just like that. I’m simply so grateful to be where people actually speak English. They do even understand me most of the time, though sometimes I have to repeat myself.
Wow Dani, you have a pet gecko? Is it a nice pet? Companion-y? Or just very quiet? At home, we have Asian geckoes all over the house. They’re really cute and they eat flies and cockroaches (yay!), but they have driven away all the native lizards. They’re aggressive little devils. *sigh*
Hi hi hi hi!
Your shoes were KILLER, darlin’, just killer! And you didn’t even trip when you ran up to accept the Passionate Plume award! Of course, you did run over one or tw…never mind. What happens in San Francisco stays in San Francisco!
Rhian, do you know what the cooks actually do with dried seahorse or geckoes?
You sound so cool about it all. 
Cassondra, my friend, you are so very welcome here! I love your posts on the Romance Bandits.
Everyone, Cassondra looked after me so well at the conference. Whenever I felt like an orphan, I scurried to her side to be a Bandita Buddy. Worked like a treat! She’s a very patient woman. 
Quigley Down Under is only vaguely familiar. Don’t think I saw it. But you are really, truly adventurous - all that game! I’ve had emu, but not crocodile. The other night I had elk meatloaf and it was delicious! Though I doubt the elk would agree.
As for the airlines, we’ll see on the next flight. Fingers crossed it’ll be better! And yes, we are still having a fabulous time, heading for the Rockies.
Louise, I am so with you on the lipless fish. I wasn’t even aware fish had lips, though I suppose they must have. Hope the writing’s going well for you - fingers crossed you’ve finished!
Hey, Arwen, my friend, welcome to the madhouse!
Those red shoes have been everywhere. They turned up on Esri Rose’s blog - http://elvesamongus.com/2008/08/07/the-last-of-the-shoes/ and Jennifer Stevenson’s - http://smokingpigeon.livejournal.com/29109.html
I’m thinking they are definitely a tax deduction!
Mind you, I do hate to think of what (or who) I may have punctured with the heels in my rush toward the Passionate Plume award! I’ve never been very well co-ordinated. *sigh* Unless you were just saying that to wind me up… 
Hmm…
Me? Wind you up?
Why would you say that? 
I’m sweet and innocent. No really! LOL
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