We spend our last 2 days in Kuala Lumpur
By now the government of Canada has requested all citizens to return to Canada. Also, by now we have had several flight changes and cancellations. Our original flights home through Hong Kong were cancelled while we were in Coron Philippines. We were rerouted through Japan. We make new arrangements to fly home on March 17 instead of March 19 due to the growing concern over the pandemic. Our toll free number for Air Canada no longer works, we found a new number for Air Canada on social media. After finally contacting Air Canada we had to wait for a callback from them. They did call within one hour. Air Canada had to phone us back to confirm pricing on seats. It cost us $250 extra to get home. We then booked our seats with ANA (a Japanese Airline) via phone. ANA is wonderful to deal with. ANA could teach Air Canada a few things on customer service.
The Chinese returned after WW2 to find the tin mines flooded where they originally worked. Yap Ah Loy, an influential Chinese figure back then, had opened a tapioca mill on Petaling Street in an attempt to allow the Chinese to stay employed. To this day, Petaling Street is sometimes called ‘Chee Cheong Kai’, meaning ‘Starch Factory Street’ in Cantonese, referring to its history as the centre for the production of tapioca flour back then.
We left home January 7, and returned 2 days ahead of schedule on March 17. We were in 5 countries, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines and our return flight transferred through Japan. We flew on 12 flights and 2 ferries. This whole time covid-19 was spreading around the world. We were checked and double checked for fever or contact tracing. We arrived in Canada without even a question on our health status. Canada dropped the ball on covid-19 prevention right from the start. One year later we get our first vaccine shot March 20, 2021.