We’re not used to that level of fancy. Dim lighting, velvet chairs and lots of non-brown people. Don’t get us wrong, it was fun and we loved it. But we, meaning me (Ali), were clearly not ready for it. This was a high end Sushi restaurant in Toronto’s financial district. And we were served peas for appetizers. Spicy peas literally still in the pod. I wasn’t paying attention when they were served and the set up – the crux and the start of my downfall.
It was freezing. Everything seemed to be closed by 5 pm. And I learned the hard way that black ice is no joke in Ottawa. Suffice to say, my introduction to Canada's capital six years ago was rough. Every hour I seemed to dream up a different plan of going back to Toronto. But after about a week, I decided slipping deeper and deeper into my misery wouldn't help. Toronto was not getting any closer.
We had two hours to get out of Nanjing -- a concrete jungle of 8 million people on China's east coast. We needed a cab to get us and our gajizzlion bags to the train station, while also trying to communicate to our driver where to go. Several meltdowns later (from all of else including our cab driver), we got to our train in the nick of time.
