With SO much to tell, it’ll take me a month to really talk about the experience!

I was sick as a dog on the flight over! Bronchitis, coughing, inhaler, you name it. I tried to get as much rest as I could but had a load of things to do before leaving, including baking about 86 pecan bars and over a hundred lemon tarts for my dear mother-in-law’s seventieth birthday celebration. Pecan bars and lemon tarts are her favourite! I got my hubby to buy the other cakes, but I wanted to make those personally for her because I knew I’d be missing the celebration.

Two interesting things happened on the flight over to Singapore. It was a direct flight from Toronto to Hong Kong and we flew over the North Pole. I got to see Baffin Island and a bit of Greenland! I’ve always wanted to see Baffin Island, ever since I saw a map with it labeled as part of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. And ever since I read about the Franklin expedition. Fascinating to see the ripples of sea ice. The arctic is a desert and the air was so clear!

The other interesting thing that happened was very silly and seemed only to confirm the notion that I do indeed get premonitions.

Mostly the premonitions are for major things, like people dying and stuff, but this was a premonition about a silly small thing–or rather small in comparison to the grand scheme of things.

Whenever I travel, and especially if I take naps, my hair, under my hijab tends to get really messy. It can be beyond ANNOYING to have messy hair under your hijab! It’s like it’s plastered all over your neck and peeking out from the folds of the hijab around your face. Really awful!

So I went into the bathroom to just open up my hijab and retie my ponytail, and I had the weirdest premonition, I could see my bright orange bauble (elastic hair tie) flying out of my fingers and landing in the toilet.

You know how small and cramped those airplane washrooms are! Well I had no more than laughed at the notion when that’s precisely what happened! The little orange elastic hair tie thing jumped out of my fingers and landed in the toilet. It didn’t even just land there, it went right down the chute!

What to do?!

I did have a kind of underscarf/hair band thing that somewhat kept my hair at bay, but it wouldn’t nearly be enough, and I hadn’t had a chance to get a haircut before I left so my hair was in danger of peeking out from the bottom of my hijab.

Those elastics are SO important! Such a tiny thing can make such a huge difference to your comfort level!

But I got an idea. After fixing up my hair situation as best I could, I approached the flight attendants on the Air Canada flight, asking if they had an elastic band. One of them was kind enough to hunt one down for me!

It was the cheap rubber kind and it would snag and tear my hair but it would do for now!

I’m one of those people who packs every thing imaginable and believe it or not I did have some proper hair baubles (elastic bands) in my toilet kit, but it was packed in my suitcase, for just such an emergency!

When I got to Singapore, it was steamy and hot and exotic and full of palm trees and big purple blooms of bougainvillea!

Which I’ll describe properly tomorrow!