Outrunning Snowmageddon

We are now in warm and sunny Singapore! We left home Thursday evening, just hours before the big snow event was scheduled to start, and made our way to Buffalo, where we stayed overnight at a hotel near the airport. Worried about our one-hour connection time in Toronto, Todd had our Buffalo-Chicago flight moved to an earlier time. Despite having to stumble out of bed at 5am, we were glad we arranged the earlier flight, as we took off just as the storm was getting really bad in Buffalo.

We got to Chicago an hour late but still had plenty of time before our connection, which by some miracle, was still scheduled to leave on time. All around us, other flights were being delayed or cancelled. We had a nice, leisurely walk from one terminal to the other through Chicago O'Hare's awesome walkway, complete with music and light show. That almost made up for the hour sitting on the runway once we got on the plane. Finally, we took off, and 15 very tedious hours later, we staggered off the plane in Hong Kong.

Todd, because of his frequent flying habits, was offered a business-class upgrade for the Hong Kong to Singapore trip. The airline very generously offered upgrades to his family members (i.e. Julia and Kate) but refused to offer one for me as I had a different last name. It really wasn't a big deal to me (I just wanted to sleep through the flight at this point) but Todd, being a persistent kind of guy, eventually persuaded the airline to give all of us upgrades. I was pleased in the end that my kids did not get to experience business class travel for the first time before I did, at age 41! Todd and I had an excellent meal, washed down with lots of wine. The kids, having eaten sufficiently earlier, declined the entree but happily accepted the rich chocolate dessert.

So finally, after 24 hours of travel, we arrived in Singapore at midnight local time and were enthusiastically greeted by my brother Joe. We've been here a couple of days and are having a wonderful time so far with Joe, Jill, Oliver and Martin. I'll be posting lots of photos soon.