We left for the airport at 8:30am, Mom my picked us up and I drove her car to YYZ (Toronto Airport). We arrived at 9:55am. Our flight was at 1:00pm. The night before, we had trouble checking into our flight because our first of three flights was with Air Canada (even though we booked the whole ticket through Air China), whilst the second and third flights were with Air China. I had to go to the library to print our boarding pass, because ALSO our printer decided not to work).

Anyways, at the airport we checked in at the Air Canada counter, but they really couldn’t do anything… The lady that helped us was in training, which wasn’t the issue. They also were unable to check us in to our second and third flight (even though they thoroughly grilled us about our Chinese visa, our stay etc. etc.). The lady told us we would have to check-in in Montreal after our first flight. We mentioned that we wanted to get the 24 hour transit visa in China (because I heard you had to notify the airline) and that’s when the Air Canada Trainer lady said “you can’t do that, you will be in quarantine in Beijing. I KNOW THIS FOR SURE.” I told the lady that I had researched it, and that it wouldn’t be a problem, but she insisted that she was right. This gave me incredible anxiety, but it would end up being super easy to get the visa in Beijing. For a link to that process go here

So, the Air Canada counter was unable to check us in, and they sent us on our way (to the wrong gate even, because they confused my seat number with the gate, oh dear!)

We had a flight of beer before our flight at the Mill ST. in Terminal 3 before boarding.

The first flight was no problem, and Jives and I even got to sit together! The lady next to us had three bags, so we had to put our backpacks (our only luggage) at our feet. Thank goodness it was a short flight.

We arrived in Montreal late, and asked the arrival gate lady where to go. She was super nice, and suggested we exit security and find the Air China desk. So we ran out of security and found the desk. There was not a single other passenger there, and they were about to close the check-in counter. The first lady said she couldn’t help us, and directed us to someone else, who did exactly the same thing. SO reluctantly a third lady checked us in to our stupid Air China flight. HUZZAH!!!

We hurried through security again and found our boarding gate, and GABY!!!! It was only 30 minutes before we boarded the flight. We had seats in the very back row (with a free seat beside me). Gaby was a few seats ahead. We arrived in China 13 hours later and at about 6pm Beijing time.

If you are looking for a cheap way to book train tickets in China (or anywhere in asia) we highly recommend 12goasia. We have used this site many times and love it!!!!