We woke up late in the morning. We had all slept in, wanting to catch up on the sleep we had missed in the past few days. Our first order of business once we woke up, was food. We decided to have breakfast at the hotel buffet again. This time, the three kids (us), had breakfast alone while Mom relaxed in the hotel room and Dad worked out in the gym. We had a similar breakfast as the day before, eating hoppers, eggs, toast, sausages, and pastries with our milk tea.
The Cinnamon Grand!
(Image by the Jayasinghe family)
We met up in our hotel room again before we decided to run a few errands. We went to a couple of jewelry shops to look for some gifts, and items for ourselves, which took a long time. We also had to search for a replacement the back of my earring, which I had lost some time ago. These earrings happened to be from Sri Lanka (my grandparents bought them for me), so we went to the shop that the earrings were from and dropped them off to get a replacement made.
Then we went to lunch at our grandpa’s house before we went to swim. We had traditional Sri Lankan food, including rice, and several fish and potato curries. After lunch, we headed back to our hotel to relax for a while.
We had decided that we would try swimming with Killer Whale Aquatics for one practice, just to see how different it was from our practices back home, so we headed to their home pool after relaxing. Svara was not old enough to be in that particular group, so Simran and I tried it out by ourselves. By the end, we had decided that it was…interesting. Our first mistake was on the very first lap that we swam. Most swimmers circle swim as to not crash into each other. Swimmers stay on one side of the lane, depending on which direction they’re swimming in. In America, we usually circle swim always staying on the right side of the lane. In Sri Lanka, however, they swim staying on the left, as it is with several other countries. We got in the water and started swimming, on the right, as usual. The coach blew his whistle over and over, so we stopped swimming, just to realize that we were swimming on the wrong side of the lane! After executing several other mistakes like this, the practice went by in a flash, and we had learned many new things in our short visit.
Killer Whale Aquatics! (video by the Jayasinghe family)
After swimming, we went back to the hotel, only to quickly change, and get back in the car to visit our mom’s cousin on her dad’s side. We were still very tired, and after having some some food there, and talking a little bit, we drove back to the hotel and slept after another tiring day of vacation.
At Bandaranaike International Airport with our mom’s cousin! (Image by the Jayasinghe Family)
We arrived at the Bandaranaike International airport near Colombo, Sri Lanka, at 4:00 A.M. We got off the plane, and met our mom’s cousin (our uncle, sort of) who holds a high position in the police force. They were our “escorts” which meant we would get to skip the lines. After we had met, we headed onto security. Security checked our passports and visa’s but stumbled upon a mistake. They had gotten my birth date wrong. The police escorted my dad to immigration to get the problem fixed.
At the Bandaranaike International Airport with our mom’s other cousins! (Image by the Jayasinghe Family)
Our next stop was getting our check-in luggage. We went downstairs and waited near the conveyor belt for our luggage. Once we had collected our suitcases, we went over to a money exchange store and exchanged some of our U.S. dollars into Sri Lankan rupees. We were almost out of the airport, when we had to meet two more of our mom’s cousins. We all had a quick greeting, then went outside. There was a police jeep and a car that would be taking us to our hotel. We loaded our things into the jeep, then got inside the car. It was about a half hour drive to the hotel, and we got to experience Sri Lankan driving.
At first, on the road leaving the airport, the driving was what we were used to. However, as soon as we got off of the highway, we were exposed to the terror of driving in Sri Lanka. Cars didn’t stay inside the lanes, they just drove anywhere they wanted to! Sometimes they even went over the lane with one half of the car in one lane, and the other half in another lane! It was crazy! People honked and went between cars with only one inch between each other. But the mind blowing thing was that we didn’t see any car crashes! All that people are focused about is getting to the place they need to go and not crashing. It works out in its own way.
Cinnamon Grand Colombo! (Image by the Jayasinghe family)
When we arrived at our hotel, which was the Cinnamon Grand, we got out of the car and unloaded our luggage. We said goodbye and went inside the hotel to check-in. The lobby was amazing! It was very beautiful and modern. Once we had checked in, one of the employees showed us to our room. We got into the elevator, and went up to level 5. On the way, an employee told us what level breakfast was on and that breakfast was from 6:00 A.M.-10:00 A.M. When we got to our room, we quickly explored it and found out that it was amazing! We had two adjoining rooms, one for our parents, and one for us. In our parent’s room, there was one king bed, and in our room there were two queen beds, one for Kiran and one for Simran. I would be sleeping on a rollaway bed, which I was fine with. We were all so tired, that we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer. We slept for a few hours and then woke up at around 7:00 A.M. Since we had been on a plane for 7 hours from Seoul, South Korea, and since then we hadn’t taken a shower, we decided to freshen up a little bit. We brushed our teeth, took a shower, and brushed our hair. After that, we lounged a little more, then got ready to go to breakfast.
Breakfast at the Cinnamon Grand!
(Image by the Jayasinghe family)
We arrived at breakfast and told a staff member our room number so they could put our bill on our room. We then took a long look at the breakfast buffet. The food line stretched from one side of the room to almost the other side of the room, and boy, was that room big! We grabbed plates and served ourselves food. I ate the usual: scrambled eggs, sausage, and baked beans. I sat down at our table and my dad reminded me that since we were in Sri Lanka, we had to eat some Sri Lankan food. I then served myself some egg hoppers, string hoppers, and a Sri Lankan candy called juggery.
After we were done eating our delicious breakfast, we went back upstairs to our room and rested for another half an hour. When we were done resting we got ready to visit a couple of relatives houses. Our first stop was our grandma’s younger sister on our mom’s side, (our mom’s aunt). We stopped there for about half an hour and talked. When it was time to head off to the next house, we got into the van and drove off. Our next stop was our grandma’s younger sister on our dad’s side, (our dad’s aunt). At their house we met our dad’s aunt and uncle, our dad’s cousin, and our dad’s cousins son, (our second cousin on our dad’s side). We ended up staying there about forty to fifty minutes and in that time we gave presents, talked, and played with our second cousin, (Vihas). When it was time to go, we took our dad’s aunt’s family with us, to our next stop, which, was our grandparents house on our dad’s side. When we had all somehow managed to fit in the van, we drove off towards our next destination.
When we got to our grandparents house, we all piled out of the car and greeted our grandpa and said “hi” to our grandma, who has Alzheimer’s disease. We sat and talked and ended up staying for lunch. After some time had passed, my dad’s aunt’s family left. We hung around for a little longer, talking. When it was time to go we got back into the van and drove back to the hotel, where we rested for another hour. After we were done resting, we freshened up for a little bit, then headed down to the lobby where we met our mom’s cousins (the same ones that we had met earlier at the airport). They had brought Akenya, who is another one of our second cousins except on our mom’s side. We sat down, got drinks, and talked. It would have been a fun time if we hadn’t been so tired. Since we were exhausted from the plane ride, it would take a long time to get fully rested, and we accidentally started falling asleep in our chairs!
After about forty minutes, my mom’s cousins left and we went to dinner with our grandparents, to a restaurant called Chutney’s, located inside of the Cinnamon Grand Hotel. By then the three of us were so exhausted that we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer and started falling asleep in our chairs for a long period of time. After some time, my dad took us back upstairs to our room so that we could sleep. He went back downstairs to finish dinner with our grandfather, and we slept peacefully. We got in bed, and we were all asleep as soon as the lights went off.
Today we are embarking on the wonderful trip to the beautiful island of Sri Lanka! Or at least this is what we told ourselves before we hopped onto our plane, for the next 22 hours. It was the 18th of December, and we were just about out the door and ready to go international!
At the Los Angeles International Airport! (Image by the Jayasinghe Family)
We woke up early that Tuesday morning, excited and ready to take the long journey to Sri Lanka. Kiran, Svara and I were jazzed up and excited, but our parents, having taken this flight before, advised us wisely that it was no party. Even with what they told us, we didn’t take them seriously and continued to be jumping beans. Boy, were we mistaken. We drove to the Los Angeles International Airport which took about two hours. When we arrived at the airport, we were still excited and not especially exhausted by the long drive we had just endured. We said goodbye to our grandparents, who had accompanied us to the airport. Everyone said their goodbyes and we walked to our terminal.
We would be flying on Korean Airlines for the first time. The airline had good reviews, but we did not know what to expect. None of the airlines that we usually fly on have flights to Sri Lanka, and Kiran, Svara and I had never been on an international flight except for when we were two. When we got to the baggage check-in desk, we were told that there was a problem on Dad’s ticket! He was actually put in a different flight. We ended up standing there for a long time waiting for the airline to correct the mistake.
While we were waiting, we had plenty of time to check out the screens behind the check-in desk. These featured a video of the first-class seats. Our dad had told us that we would be flying on the biggest passenger plane there is. Nicknamed the ‘whale’, our plane had two decks of passengers and could seat 500 people. Passengers flying premium or flying first class would sit on the upper deck. Those passengers would get private cubicles with remote control walls, and seats that converted into beds. Our dad took the liberty of reminding us that those seats would be where mom and dad were sitting if they did not have kids! After a short wait, the problem with the tickets got fixed and we checked in our baggage. Whenever we travel on a plane, we always have weight problems with the suitcases that belong to our parents. Especially this trip, we had to take a suitcase with just presents for our relatives. When we weighed our bags, a couple suitcases were overweight, but the person who was helping us said she would let them slide and sent us on our way.
We now hurried to the security checkpoint. We put our things on the conveyor belt and made sure all liquids and electronics were out of our bags. Afterwards, we went through the hectic process of putting everything back into the carry-on bags and making sure everything was still in our bags and checked that we did not lose anything. Then we hurried to the gate. Our mom poked around in some of the shops on the way to the gate. Somewhere along the way we realized that we had not had breakfast and we grabbed a bite to eat from a cafe on the way to the gate.
We made it with about ten minutes to spare. Soon, the premier passengers started boarding. A couple minutes after they boarded the top deck, or first class passengers, they started the line for us to board. We found our seats and realized that we had been given the bassinet seats. This meant that there were no people in front of the three of our seats. This was devastating information. Our seats meant that we could not keep our carry-ons by our feet. This was far from ideal, as we had packed our carry-ons as our survival packs with all the books and electronics that would have helped us survive the horrendously long flight. After settling in to our seats and figuring out how things would work, we buckled up and got ready to fly. We took off around 11:30, and soon after we were served our first meal about two hours into the flight. This would be lunch. After that our dad took our carry-ons down from the overhead bins, where the flight attendants had stored them, and we got out our electronics. I plugged in my phone and listened to some music to drown out everything else. Over the next few hours, I read some iBooks that I had downloaded, listened to music, and attempted to watch a movie. None of the movie selections that they provided were entertaining, and most of them were not age-appropriate, so I didn’t end up watching any movies on the flight. Kiran, Svara, and I got to experience the deliciousness that is airplane food, for the first time. They almost always had beef, chicken, and fish options. Sometimes there was a Korean rice dish option, but we usually stuck to what we knew. The last thing any of us wanted, was a stomach upset. After what seemed like more than ten hours, we were all miserable, and I turned around to ask our parents in the seats behind us, how much time we had left. They looked at each other and told us that we had a staggering nine hours left! It had only been four hours and we were dead.
At the Incheon Airport in Korea! Getting ready for our next flight. (Image by the Jayasinghe Family)
By the time we finally touched down at the Incheon Airport in Seoul, South Korea, we were all miserable. Sleeping on planes has never come easily to me or my sisters, and we did not sleep at all on the whole flight. We had a five hour layover in Korea, and all we wanted to do was to sleep. Incheon Airport has a Transit Hotel, where you could get a room for as little as six hours. Our dad payed for a hotel room and we all traipsed in. We dropped our bags and we were out! We slept for a couple hours and then we got ready to leave. It never feels good if you have to stay in the same, sweaty clothes for long periods of time, so we took a shower and changed into fresh clothes. We then proceeded to the nearest Starbucks like zombies. We were surprised at how different the Starbucks was! After a double chocolate creme frappuccino, I was still not ready to have seven more hours on a plane. But the universe never listens to what I want, so we boarded our flight to Sri Lanka!
We had better seating this time, and none of us had to have the exit row seats. Somehow this flight was more miserable than the thirteen hour flight. Knowing that this was the second flight was more grueling. This flight was also during nighttime so that was horrible. Since I couldn’t sleep, I put on my headphones, played some music, closed my eyes, and pretended that I was asleep. For some reason, my internal clock was very messed up. Since there was no WiFi on the plane, I did not know what time it was because my phone was still on California time. My thought process was more like, “Oh, there’s the food cart. I wonder which meal this is supposed to be.” The flight felt like way more than seven hours. Trying to pass the time was like looking at the clock every time one minute went by. Dehydration was my problem. I did not have a water bottle with me as we could not take outside water bottles on the plane. I would have thrown up if not for the countless little cups of water I asked for from the flight attendant. Slowly, the hours went by and by the end, I could not stand to look at the inside of another plane.
At the Bandaranaike International Airport with our mom’s cousin! (Image by the Jayasinghe Family)
We landed at Bandaranaike International Airport, at 4:00 am. The airport was about 40 minutes from Columbo. Kiran, Svara, and I were very tired, but excited that we were finally off of the plane and on solid ground. We were looking forward to the hotel and the rest of our trip. Our journey had come to an end.
To see the post on the next day of our trip, click here.
