Table Of Contents
Some of the Canadian judo circuit tournaments are back-to-back; it makes sense to make the trans-Pacific trip for two tournaments at a time. In this case it is the Ontario Open and the Manitoba Open. Since I am now registered with Judo Ontario and on the provincial refereeing committee, I kind of have to go to the Ontario Open.
Plus, we had a paper at Onward! and I wanted to be there to talk it up to people. It would have been better to also be at HATRA, but I couldn’t do that.
So, the itinerary was Wellington to Toronto (to Waterloo), where I’d stay till Sunday, and then to Los Angeles for the week, and back east to Winnipeg for that weekend, then back to Wellington. Nine flight segments over 5 days (counting days is sort of complicated).
- Oct 16: WLG-BNE, BNE-YVR, YVR-YYZ
- Oct 20: YYZ-LAX
- Oct 24: LAX-YVR, YVR-YWG
- Oct 27: YWG-YVR, YVR-SYD, SYD-WLG
Outbound to Toronto, October 16
It’s always the 6am flights to Australia for the connections. Online checkin didn’t work, so the Uber on Wednesday morning was at 0354. I guess the other options were walking (starting at 2am?) or biking (leaving my bike there for almost two weeks?). But I also had lots of luggage. Anyway, I was in the international lounge by 0420, where I posted my September report on October 16. Let’s see if I beat that this month (nope!).
The flight to Brisbane was lightly loaded (50%?) and then I had to wait for Air Canada staff to show up at T-90 before I could get my boarding pass for that flight. The Brisbane connection was scheduled for 2h50 (but longer due to early arrival), so I had to wait a while in the Air NZ lounge. I think lounge staff in general are actually pretty good at remembering who comes in: the person there remembered who I was when she called to see whether the AC staff had shown up yet. At that point, they had, and when I went to get my boarding pass, the AC staff made sure that my luggage was correctly loaded onto the connection. At that point it also showed up in baggage tracking in the Air Canada app, which continues to become more useful.
I again managed to get an upgrade on this flight (from premium economy to business) and it was great, also allowing me to compare the Air NZ and Air Canada services. The Air Canada supper is in large quantity. I worked on my Discovery Grant resubmission. Sleep is still not easy for a daytime flight which arrives at 6:45AM in Canada; it’s the other direction which is easier to sleep on, but also performance is less critical at trip end (unless enchaining trips!).
Landing in Vancouver, I was surprised to see that my bags were automatically transferred onward to Toronto without me needing to physically bring them through at customs. That helped a lot! I guess someone or something looks at the picture of my baggage while the NEXUS system processes my entry.
I often fall for the bad hashbrowns at the YVR Maple Leaf Lounge. This time, as has happened often recently, the lounge was pretty much at capacity, and I had just eaten, and would again on the next segment, so I resisted!
Flying from Vancouver to Toronto, the announcements were in fluent French, and then I tried to order in French, but that was the other flight attendant. “No, I actually do speak English” but most of the time it was the bilingual FA serving anyway. The guy next to me had the sniffles, but fortunately I didn’t catch anything.
The “fun” part was bringing my stuff from the UP Express station to Marco’s place. Getting off the train is fine. Lugging skis and two big rolly suitcases 8 minutes from the Bloor station to the Dundas station, not so fine. Anyway, I managed.
I once again took a shower at Marco’s place and then Marco, Blake, and I went bouldering at Rock Oasis, where I also met up with Jeremy from the OAC. (Blake has gotten pretty good at bouldering pretty quickly). Late-night food in Toronto is not as obvious as one might hope, but we did have some Korean at the Yummy Korean Restaurant (yes, that’s the name) at 10:30pm.
Stop in Kitchener/Waterloo, October 17-18
This trip did involve discharging a lot of obligations as well as life maintenance.
Well, there was no sleeping in on Thursday. I took the 9:42AM train to Kitchener, so not too early, but not sleeping in. I had rearranged my stuff to be easier to transport, but there was still two suitcases to drag. I definitely did not want the GO train to GO bus shuffle. Fortunately, I got the train all the way to Kitchener and then my tenants were kind enough to pick me up and deliver me to my place where I could leave stuff. I also took note of the expired smoke detector and furnace filter which I’d get replacements for.
I put some air in my bicycle tires and was off to do all the errands, starting with the dentist. Props to the passport office in particular. I brought them passport pictures taken the previous day in Toronto, plus my pre-prepared application, at 2pm on Thursday, and they had my passport by noon Friday, despite some broken computers on their end on Thursday.
Thanks also to Jon for hosting me in Kitchener for a night.
I also took my students out to lunch at the new Vietnamese place in the plaza, ran through practice talks (2× HATRA) and MMath seminars, returned my bike, got a flu shot, and caught the bus back to Toronto. I also gave away a (big heavy) natural history book that I’d impulse purchased to an audience that will surely appreciate it.
Fortunately, my luggage was subsequently reduced to one (heavy with paper) backpack and sometimes one suit jacket bag (when not inside the pack). My mobility greatly increased for the rest of the trip. It’s fortunate that Waterloo was right near the start of the trip.
Ontario Open, October 19-20
The GO bus is not comfortable and it’s hard to do work on it. I took the first GO bus back to Square One and then transferred to the Pearson GO bus. At Pearson, I picked up a rental car. Greater Toronto is not really feasible without a car. Things are too far and transit isn’t good enough. It’s marginally feasible to get to the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre in Scarborough from the airbnbs I usually stay at (walking, Uber), but getting to Scarborough is no good, and definitely it is not possible to get to the airport as quickly as I need to for my packed travel plans.
Renting a car is often an annoying and slow experience. NZ rental experiences usually have been fastest in my experience. Pearson is also often annoying and slow in general, though I can fortunately avoid some of that with NEXUS. It still takes too long to pick up luggage.
I did, however, have intense dysphoria driving around the GTA on Friday night. It was so terrible. Gerry had invited the Ontario Open referees to visit his judo club at the JCCC. In a case of user error, I programmed the airbnb and not the dojo into my GPS, causing an extra half hour of rush hour driving. Afterwards, there was drinks at York Mills, which was easy enough to get to, but horrendous to leave, due to the 401 being closed. The drive from there to the airbnb would normally be 14 minutes but took 46 minutes and felt like an hour.
| Trip | Distance | Time |
|---|---|---|
| YYZ - Scarborough | 38km | 51min |
| Scarborough - JCCC North York | 17km | 26min |
| JCCC North York - York Mills | 5km | 8min |
| York Mills - Scarborough | 22km | 46min |
The tournament itself was good. The big Canadian tournaments (Ontario Open, Quebec Open, Edmonton International) are continuing to get bigger and I think they are now above pre-COVID numbers. Back in the late 2010s there was some concern about tournament numbers, but at least at the Canadian Circuit level there is reason for optimism about sufficient numbers. The flip side is that we were refereeing from 8AM (roll call 7AM) until 21:30 on Saturday. Hopefully we can have 6 mat areas next year.
Our plan to have a referee dinner was squashed by the late finish, and options were basically nonexistent, because of the Pan Am Sports Centre’s prohibition on outside food. I took 4 of us to Caribbean Wave nearby and then drove people back to the hotel. The TPASC facility is pretty modern and fancy, but the location is bad, and the restrictions are annoying. And it’s just not big enough for the number of fighters we have now.
I’d looked at the timings from last year and figured that I should be able to get to the airport just in time for my flight to California. I often give people rides from the Ontario Open; this year’s ride was to Sandra flying to PEI. I’d reserved the rental car start on Friday for 19:00 but actually got to YYZ at 17:52, actually getting the car keys around 18:15. They adjusted the start time to 18:00 (though I sucessfully complained about the extra hour charge they had added with a 19:00 return) and I managed to return the car at 18:28, after checking typical drive times throughout the weekend (there’s always traffic). There used to be an extra hour of grace time but Alamo now has it at 30 minutes. Not a great rental experience, but what is?
SPLASH, October 21-24
Onward! Well, that’s where I had one paper with my collaborators from Tartu. Also, my student Alex and I had a HATRA paper which he presented on Sunday while I was on the mats in Scarborough. I debriefed him about it when I arrived, and he went to PLMW on Monday before missing his Tuesday morning flight to his next conference (but nothing bad happened).
The YYZ transborder Maple Leaf Lounge was crowded, as they all seem to be these days. Fortunately, the 21:00 YYZ-LAX flight was on time (and the earlier flight would have been 17:30, 20 minutes after I got to the airport). With an 23:30 arrival into LAX, it is possible to take the FlyAway bus to Union Station, but options from there to Pasadena are limited at that time of day. I was offered a $30 taxi ride to Pasadena, but who has cash, and I don’t have Cash App. Instead I took a $35 Uber (plus, grumble, tip).
Monday was light on scheduled activities, but not light enough for me to really be able to explore the area. There is a tradeoff between carrying more clothes and doing more laundry. Anyway, I had to do laundry again.
I found myself again along Old Route 66 walking across Pasadena from my hotel near the eastern end to the middle. This isn’t the best way to see Pasadena, though maybe it is the most representative. Pasadena City College has a lush green campus with very college-looking buildings, and I had an OK banh mi across the street from it.
Walking in parks (e.g. South Arroyo) or on mountains (Mount Wilson) is nicer, but I couldn’t really fit that in.
On Monday and Tuesday, I did drop by SPLASH and talk to people, as well as finish my Discovery Grant proposal and volunteering. I remembered that Rohan Padhye’s fuzzing work could well be relevant to one of the projects I’m working on.
I registered for two days of SPLASH, Wednesday and Thursday, but was also around a bit on Monday and Tuesday. SPLASH is an order of magnitude bigger than SCAM (though that was a colocated event and I can’t speak to ICSME which it was colocated with), and I know a lot more people at SPLASH than at SCAM. It was nice to catch up with people who I haven’t talked to for years, what with this pandemic and being in New Zealand and all. The layout of the conference hotel was one of the better ones I’d seen for encouraging the hallway track; sometimes the venues feel spread out and there is no concentration of people.
I did spend quite some time finding the best place to stay nearby. Pasadena isn’t cheap, and it turns out the bus isn’t that reliable, sometimes taking a 10 minute delay. The Astro Hotel was entirely satisfactory, though.
I didn’t find the food in Pasadena to be spectacular. It was OK. The breakfast sandwich from BC Donuts (also run by Vietnamese people) was the highlight. Pizza from The Luggage Room was pretty good, and I liked Mama Lu’s Dumpling House, though not everyone did.
It was also great to meet one of my collaborators, Karoliine from Tartu, and help with practice runs for the talk. I was talking up the talk all week when I was there and we had decent turnout.
Our talk was on Thursday afternoon and I had to leave right after it. But, my flight to YVR and then (next morning) to YWG was delayed, so I didn’t have to leave immediately.
Manitoba Open, October 25-27
The final significant stop on this trip was a return to Winnipeg, where I’d spent a long weekend last year, for the Manitoba Open. The last Onward! session on Thursday ended at 1730 and my flight was originally scheduled for 2035, with one to two hours (depending) from Pasadena to LAX on transit. Having received a flight delay notification, I actually left the venue at 6 and arrived at 1945. I did not make the same mistake as Alex, did not put my bag in the FlyAway under-bus storage, and got off at Terminal 1, walking over to Terminal 7.
Annoyingly, they could only check my bag through to YVR due to the “overnight” connection. So I’d have to wait to pick up the bag in Vancouver and arrive early enough to check it in again. In the end, it was a 2h44 delay, and I was at the gate in Vancouver at 0215, arriving at the Panda Pod at 0300. I had upgraded to business, so at least I was waiting on the plane in a comfortable chair.
Panda Pod
I thought I’d try out the Panda Pod near YVR. With a departure for YWG at 0815, I figured that I’d better get there at 0715, so I set my alarm for 0620 (3 hours of sleep).
Good thing the Panda Pod is semi-cheap. $95 isn’t really that cheap but I don’t see anything cheaper in Vancouver or Richmond. I’ve stayed at a nice trailer on Sea Island a couple of times but didn’t see it this time. Yes, I’ll pay $95 for 3 hours of sleep, though I didn’t pay an extra $25 for being able to set my alarm for 0640 instead, with a potentially-unreliable taxi back to YVR. I would have had 6 hours if there was no flight delay, and 7 hours if I didn’t have to handle my bag.
Panda Pod is basically dorms with walls I guess. It seemed clean. I did not investigate the showers, but it does provide showers, tea and coffee, and kitchen, none of which were the optimal use of my 3h. Front desk is staffed 24h, poor guy (though friendly enough even at 3am). The pods are less isolated than, for instance, the YOTELAIR at Amsterdam Schiphol. I didn’t dig into my bag to find my sensor to check the CO2 level, since I wanted to try to at least get some sleep.
I took the SkyTrain back to YVR and arrived at 0708 in time for boarding at 0740. YVR baggage in the morning always seems to have lines, though the priority line was shorter. Again, the Maple Leaf Lounge was full, but it’s not like I had long to wait, and it’s not like that food is worth it.
Arriving in Winnipeg
LAX-YVR-YWG is a triangle, so I had 6 hours of flying instead of 3√2 hours. I wouldn’t really expect nonstop service LAX-YWG. YWG isn’t exactly the biggest city in Canada.
I landed at YWG around 1300. Miguel and Laura picked me up. I needed to do laundry, so they dropped me off at a laundromat downtown, and I did that, failing to get a haircut nearby (there was a place, but it was full). It turns out that my airbnb had a laundry machine that I could have used, oh well. The airbnb was great, except for a beeping noise I heard from the bedroom, which was out of the host’s control.
I had a banh mi for lunch at the best banh mi place I’ve ever eaten at, Banh Mi House. Then I had another one for dinner before the referee meeting. Sandra brought some oysters from PEI for the hospitality suite afterwards. Thanks!
Tournament
Some events are larger and some are smaller. The Manitoba Open is definitely smaller than the Ontario Open, running 3 mats instead of 5. Perhaps it’s about as big as the New Zealand Nationals. The Quebec Open is even bigger than the Ontario Open, with 8 mats. In any case, the Manitoba Open was well-run, and we finished at 12:15 on Sunday. We had 74 matches on our mat on Sunday, plus I picked up an extra 3 in a three-way tiebreaker. In addition to the hospitality suite on Friday, Judo Manitoba took us out to sushi on Saturday, and we finished early enough for that to happen.
I also had two mochi donuts (Umaido) after dinner. (I ordered one and got a freebie). I chose the airbnb to be close to the tournament hotel so that I could get a ride to the tournament venue, but it is also happily close to the banh mi place, and also a donut chain location.
I thought I’d try the pho at Banh Mi House on Sunday, after getting dropped off at the tournament hotel. No point going to the airport 5 hours before my flight. The pho was excellent but the banh mi is superlative.
Then I took the bus (pretty full on a Sunday afternoon) to downtown Winnipeg (not as much of a place as one might hope, but better than Phoenix) and walked from there to the airport, managing to get a haircut ($25) along the way. I tried to get change for a tip but the guy was like “oh you have a $5 bill, I’ll take that”.
I met up again with some referees flying just two provinces west at the airport and then visited the not-as-crowded YWG Maple Leaf Lounge, working on the October summary while there. (Almost done now!) I also read some of the backlog of magazines that I’ve accumulated. Despite leaving a heavy book in Ontario, I probably left with more paper than I came.
Back to Wellington via Sydney, Oct 27-29
I did not manage to upgrade the YVR-SYD flight. My status wasn’t high enough and there weren’t enough seats in Premium Economy. Oh well. I still managed to get some sleep. I was sitting next to someone from Toronto who was visiting a friend in Sydney but had never been to Australia before.
Since my bag was checked anyway, I was lightly loaded for my 9 hour visit to Sydney. It was scheduled for 9 hours but was actually more like 7.5; we arrived 40 minutes late and it took the Australian Border Force another 20 minutes to clear us for deboarding. I managed to get outside 13 minutes after getting off the plane. Before my flight, I realized that I needed a new Australian ETA: not only did I have a new passport, but my old ETA had expired anyway. No problems with that.
I tried to visit the Eve St wetlands but there was a pretty blunt sign about it being a “NO GO ZONE” at the moment. The Landing Lights wetlands had some new-to-me birds though, along with lots of pied stilts; worth a visit. I got a burek and eclair (the latter from yet another Vietnamese bakery) and then took the bus back to SYD a few hours early, where I did more OAC admin and tried to catch up on 3 weeks’ backlog for the te reo Māori course.
The flight from SYD to WLG arrives at 2340. I hadn’t left my bike at the airport for 2 weeks, so the options were to walk or to take an Uber/taxi. I took an Uber.