I arrived at YVR around 10:30am after pulling an all nighter tying up loose ends before leaving the country for 2 months. Exhausted, I was greeted at the end of a long line by an airline representative who told me that my carry-on luggage was limited to 5kg. I pulled out my portable luggage scale and weighed my bag which was a little over 10kg and my check-in luggage was already at the maximum allowable weight….Sh!t. As we shuffled slowly towards the check-in counter I began to fill my pockets with the smallest & heaviest items from my bag. Camera and lens went around my neck. Flash, point & shoot camera, book, batteries, hard drive and whatever else I could fit into my pockets brought down the weight of my bag to around 6.5kg. I had to hold my pants up as I approached the check in counter feeling rather disheveled. Luckily, the ticket agent was having a good day and decided to be nice. The check-in process went smoothly and she let me slide through with my over weight bag. I took a moment to gather myself and unloaded my pockets before heading through security.
Once aboard the plane I fell asleep immediately. I was startled when I awoke at cruising altitude with no memory of takeoff whatsoever. The 9 hour flight passed fairly quickly between sleeping, eating and a bit of reading. I arrived in London around 7am local time feeling somewhat rested but still quite tired. After a long wait to get through UK customs I set off to meet up with my girlfriend and travel partner Kei. She had arrived at London Heathrow earlier in the morning and caught a shuttle to meet me at Gatwick airport where we were scheduled to fly out the following day. We grabbed a shuttle to the nearby Best Western where we happily spent the entire day sleeping. We had some dinner at the hotel restaurant and planned out our following day. Around midnight I went outside to capture some interesting images and here’s what I found:
We were up before our 5am wake up call because we had slept so much already. We ate leftover food before catching the shuttle back to the airport to begin the first leg of our European adventures…
