Evening mountain glow
A sword and one lonely shoe
Oh, Canada, eh?
After several weeks of planning, packing, re-packing, contingency planning, worrying about sword cases, worrying about airports, worrying about trains, worrying about whether I had forgotten something important, and generally behaving exactly like someone about to leave for a week-long trip with a samurai sword, I finally headed north to Vancouver.
The day began at approximately 4:45 a.m., which is an hour best experienced only under protest (thank you, UberSharon™ 😊).
The flight itself provided an unexpected gift. We happened to be on the Mt. Hood side of the aircraft on a spectacularly clear morning. Mt. Hood was magnificent—snow-covered, sharp, and seemingly close enough to touch. It was so beautiful that I committed what would normally be considered a social crime and gently woke the sweet Japanese woman seated beside me, who was on her umpteenth hour of travel from Tokyo, so she wouldn’t miss it.
Fortunately, she was delighted rather than annoyed.
She immediately (and apologetically) leaned over me and began taking photographs.
Many photographs.
Approximately all of the photographs.
I’m choosing to believe this creates a cosmic obligation for Mt. Fuji to return the favor when I am riding the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto later this year.
The next challenge involved Lady Nene.
For those who have not been following along, Lady Nene is my iaito, and transporting a sword by commercial airline always feels like an experiment conducted by people with questionable judgment.
The good news: United accepted the case without drama.
The better news: the sword arrived.
The mildly annoying news: TSA had cut my lock, opened the case, and re-secured it with zip ties.
The best news: all of my ridiculous contingency planning turned out to be entirely justified.
Weeks ago, while planning for this trip, I had packed zip ties and a nail clipper specifically in case this happened. The lock wasn’t there for decoration; the sword case needs something securing it closed during transit. If TSA decided to remove the lock, I needed a Plan B for getting Lady Nene home.
At the time, this felt slightly paranoid.
As it turns out, it was simply prudent.
Waiting at oversized baggage was its own form of entertainment. Gathered around the carousel were a howling dog, four golf bags, two enormous bicycle cases, a giant conga drum painted with roses, and eventually Lady Nene herself.
It felt less like baggage claim and more like an island for misfit luggage.
From there, one by one, the things I had worried about began quietly fading.
The sword arrived.
The train was effortless.
The hotel was exactly where Chad said it would be.
Even getting lost turned out to be temporary.
For weeks I had maintained a low-level anxiety about Vancouver transit. Trains. Tickets. Machines. Wrong platforms. The usual travel concerns.
The reality?
Tap credit card.
Get on train.
Get off train.
Tap credit card.
That was literally the entire system.
I had spent weeks worrying about something that turned out to require approximately three seconds of effort.
My next challenge was navigating from the train station to the Pan Pacific Hotel.
Normal people would have opened Google Maps.
I did not.
This is because I apparently did not feel I required directional support.
I felt I required Emotional Directional Support™.
At no point did I think, “I should open the device in my hand that is capable of determining my exact location on Earth.”
Instead, I texted Chad.
To his credit, Chad responded in the style of an experienced concierge rather than a frustrated cartographer.
Basically, my navigation methodology was simple:
- Follow the wind (wind comes from water, right?).
- Walk three city blocks.
- Start becoming suspicious (no water yet…).
- Open phone.
- Ask Chad.
- Turn around.
- Follow Chad.
- Keep texting streets I am passing for Emotional Directional Support™.
- See the sails.
- Receive “Atta Girl!” from Chad.
- Arrive.
No navigation expert would endorse this approach.
Yet somehow it worked perfectly.
I was staying at the hotel H and I would have chosen the last time we were in Vancouver, more than a decade ago for our 10th anniversary.
Back then, the Pan Pacific Club Floor felt a little too extravagant for us. So did the restaurants we looked at longingly and promised we’d come back to someday—perhaps for our 20th anniversary.
Life, of course, had other plans.
The real arrival moment, though, happened not at the airport, not at the train station, and not even at the hotel front desk.
It happened upstairs, gazing out the windows of the Club Lounge on the 23rd floor.
There was lemon water.
There were mountains.
There was the harbor.
Floatplanes drifted across the water.
For the first time all day there was nowhere I needed to be.
No luggage to move—they had exchanged it for a claim ticket when I walked in.
No train to catch.
No directions to figure out (thanks, Chad).
No logistics to solve. The concierge simply said, “Let me know your claim ticket number. We’ll put it in your room when it’s ready.”
Just a comfortable chair and a view.
Ah.
A little later I settled in with a cup of Earl Grey tea, a few Turkish apricots, and the realization that something important had quietly shifted.
It wasn’t excitement I felt.
It was relief.
I wasn’t traveling anymore.
I had arrived.
Outside the windows, harbor seals played in the water below.
A bald eagle flew so close to the hotel that conversations stopped and heads turned.
The smaller birds immediately began harassing it, proving once again that size alone does not determine confidence.
The travel infrastructure, meanwhile, received excellent marks.
The white button-down shirt survived a 4:45 a.m. departure, airport security, a flight, a train ride, an extended Vancouver wandering expedition in the hot sun, and hotel arrival while still somehow staying respectable—even crisp.
The Honeylove layer was flawless.
The dark Lee jeans were comfortable and civilized.
The Walk Shop shoes carried me through airports, trains, sidewalks, wrong turns, and correct turns without ever becoming the topic of conversation—which is the highest compliment I can give footwear.
Speaking of shoes . . .
Later that evening, before dinner, I implemented a travel trick I had recently learned.
When placing valuables in the hotel safe, include one shoe.
Passport.
Wallet.
Cash.
One shoe.
The logic is simple.
Future Sandy may forget valuables in the safe.
Future Sandy is unlikely to leave the hotel wearing only one shoe.
I am pleased to report that the system appears foolproof.
Or at least Sandy-proof.
At 5:30 that evening, I had a reservation at a restaurant called Five Sails.
There was champagne.
There was a sommelier from Avignon.
There was a forest floor made of bones.
There were flowers.
And it deserves a post all its own.