The Canadian Government recently changed its visa requirement for us Malaysian passport holders. Unfortunately, we didn't know about this until we went to the airport to check-in. We were then told that we would require visas and without valid visas, we would not be allowed to board the plane. Mega panic - CNY break ahead - Canadian Consulate in HK not open for another week and next available flight out not until 10 Feb!!! Ahhhhhh......but........no choice.....had to go home and rethink. Tasha was mega upset.......
Lucky for me, some friends stayed up half the night with me trying to find alternative ways for us to get to Whistler (Thanks again Fred and Elke, you are my heroes!). To cut a long story short, we eventually rerouted and took the long but only way to Whistler. First we flew into Seattle via San Francisco. Waited in Seattle until Monday when the Canadian Consulate there opened. Got there soon as it opened and got our visa done. Once we got our visas, we checked out of our hotel, got into our rental car and drove as fast as we could to Whistler. We made it there in time for dinner!
2 good things came out of this detour though. First, we had a 2-hour stopover in San Francisco and were able to catch up with the Blacks who kindly came to meet us at the airport.
Andrea, Tasha and Nicole
Girls without 2 front teethSecond, the kids got to visit the Space Needle in Seattle. They learnt all about it on Little Einstein, so it was good for them to be able to visit the real thing.
Although we were days late getting to Whistler, everything turned out ok while we were there. It hasn't snowed for quite a few days in Whistler and it started to snow on our first day there. It was a wonderful experience for us tropical folks to wake up seeing snow from the windows.
View from our bedroom window
The 1st morning was a bit of a rush but we managed to get the kids fed and dressed (believe me, it's not easy), collect our rental equipment (minor hiccups there) and sign the kids into ski school. Once they were in, Geoff and I were so relieved (the past few days had been really stressful, for me anyways), we decided to take it easy. We signed ourselves up for a half day ski lesson in the afternoon. But before that, we drove to the Market Place and got ourselves some pipping hot coffee!
We signed the kids into ski school for 5 days. Tasha, as expected, enjoyed her skiing lessons tremendously. She went from Level 1 on day 1 to Level 3* at the end of day 5 and during day 4 and 5, she went down the Blue Run (FYI, I can only do the Green and that still scares me)! I wasn't sure about Andrea initially as she was not keen on skiing. When in HK, she won't even put on her skis at the dry slope run. But she surprised us by liking ski school and wanted to go everyday. By the end of the 5 days, she could ski down a baby slope and stop all by herself! I am so proud of her!
Geoff and I took it easy. We only skied 3 half days. The rest of the time, we spent walking in the village, having long lazy lunches - just spending time together without the kids, which is a rarity on our holidays. We also managed to go for a Ziptrek adventure - an adventure which took us up the rainforest (yes temperate rainforest, but rainforest nonetheless) and then zip down on wires all the way down into Whistler Village. The air was also unbelievable clean and fresh; a very big deal for us living in HK. It was great fun!
After ski school which ended each day at 3pm, we took the kids for various snow related activities. We had fun playing with snow (making snow angels and snowman) on the golf course behind our chalet. We also went tubing - turned out Andrea enjoyed this better than any of us - of course she was the only one who did not have to to lug her tube up the slope. No prizes for guessing who had to lug 2 tubes!
All in all, a great trip.
For the complete collection of our photos, go to:
www.pbase.com/gztlee/w09
1 comment:
Post a Comment