The Miracle of the Internet

My Oldest's plane took off at 6:30 a.m. (right on schedule) yesterday morning. It arrived in Calgary 9 minutes late (at 6:50 a.m., Calgary time).

His next flight left Calgary at 8:45 a.m. (Calgary time) and arrived in Vancouver at 9:30 a.m. (Vancouver time) ... 21 minutes later than scheduled.

They left Vancouver at 12:20 p.m. and arrived in Hong Kong at 6:00 p.m. (4:00 a.m. our time). They were scheduled to arrive at 5:20 p.m.

They left the gate in Hong Kong at 6:57 p.m. (Hong Kong time); took off at 7:13 p.m.; landed in Bangkok at 8:46 (Bangkok time now); and arrived at the gate at 8:54 p.m. (7:54 a.m. local time).

Twenty six hours and ten minutes after they left home ... they arrived at their final destination. Four different flights. He ended up on standby for the flight to Hong Kong (but as luck would have it, he boarded his flight as planned). They were scheduled to arrive at Bangkok at 8:40 p.m. (Bangkok time). Their plane touched down at 8:46 p.m.

That seems quite amazing to me. All of the variables that could have varied their estimated time of arrival ... and they arrived six minutes late.

I just Googled the name of the hotel he will be staying at for the next few days and took a quick peek at the gallery of photos. Guess which photo I had to check out first? http://www.s31hotel.com/gallery.html# (whoops ... that didn't take you to the picture I was looking at. Check out the bathrooms!). How could I be so wrong?? I guess if I had to travel to Thailand as a refugee, I could hack it under those conditions ...

Isn't amazing what you can find out when you have an Internet connection, flight numbers and the name of a hotel?

P.S. He hasn't updated his Facebook status yet, to announce his arrival in Bangkok ... but I'm sure it won't be long. Facebook will be his way of checking in and updating us on his Holiday Status. He is half a world away ... yet still connected. Amazing.

**Facebook update as of 10:28 a.m.** "Made it safe and sound! In Bangkok now! I'll keep you posted." 31 minutes ago near Bang Kapi, Thailand