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Today my love for Canadian people jumped another notch. I was in Halifax to speak for the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors. Let me take you through my twenty-five hours in Halifax.

The trip started fine with a visit to Tim Hortons in the Halifax airport. I got to my hotel, worked out, emailed/tweeted/wrote, and went to sleep. The next morning I got up and started feeling chest pain, but I figured it was because I did several sets of bench presses. So I go and make my speech and did a demo of how to use Twitter as a marketing weapon—pushing through the pain like the good Asian-American that I am.

After the speech, I started feeling even more pain, so I got on the phone with a doctor, described my symptoms, and he told me that I wasn’t having a heart attack. However, in the mean time, the people who ran the conference called EMT Ed Lundrigan (see his email to me), and he told me that I was nuts to fly home without getting checked out.

Big decision: Do I take a chance or do I go to the hospital? Being the logical person that I am, I decided to go to the hospital—for one thing, I was curious about the healthcare system in Canada. (I made this decision even though it meant I would miss pickup hockey in California the next day—aren’t you proud of me?)

So I go to the emergency room of Queen Elizabeth II hospital.

These very nice people rushed me through registration.

And I got my first of three ECGs in about fifteen minutes. Canadians sure have two things wired: Olympics hockey and healthcare.

Then I spent 20% of my trip or about five hours in this bed hooked up to oxygen, needle in my arm ready for a drip, and attached to all sorts of sensors. I learned two things: children’s aspirin is really used in these situations, and nitroglycerin gives you a helluva headache.

My main man Aran Hamilton (@AranH), vice-president of strategic partnerships of EnStream, got me to the hospital and waited with me the whole time. (All he was supposed to do was walk me two blocks from the hotel to the conference center before my speech.)

Come to find out, I have pneumonia—whoever heard of pneumonia causing chest pain? But that sure beats a heart attack, and Aran having to ship my body back in a bag in baggage.

Hours later, we get in a cab, unburdened by imminent death and decide to play tourist. Of course, our cab driver is guitar player for band who likes to practice while he waits.

It’s off to Nova Scotian Crystal, to meet with the boss, Rod McCulloch. This is one of the few places left that mouthblows and hand cuts crystal. It started when a bunch of employees were laid off by Waterford and moved to Halifax to continue the handcrafted tradition.

This orange stuff is the raw material.

This is the oven.

Blowing.

Shaping.

Rolling.

Molding.

I don’t remember what this step is—forty-five minutes before this I thought I was dying so slide me a break.

Two master craftsmen admiring their work.

Annealing.

Etching to cut off the base.

Believe it or not, the ideal speed for making the cut is 33 rpm, so they use a Sony turntable.

Chemical wash.

The really nasty stuff left after the chemical wash.

They make crystal hockey pucks and whatever the kettle looking thing is called for curling.

After the crystal tour, we took a walk along the shore.

And stopped at Hamachi, which is basically the Benihana of Halifax.

On the way to the airport, we stopped to fill a prescription for antibiotics. It took about five minutes to get the prescription filled.

I had to use the bathroom, but Shoppers Drug Mart’s was broken, so the kind people at this restaurant let me use theirs even though we weren’t eating there. “Unfriendly Nova Scotian” is an oxymoron, basically.

Then Aran and I went to the Halifax airport to fly to Toronto, so that I could get an early flight to San Francisco.

And the kind conference people arranged a ride for us in a private jet from Halifax to Toronto.

To summarize: in twenty-five hours, I gave a speech, demoed Twitter, got an autographed Roberto Luongo jersey, thought I was dying, found out I had pneumonia, learned about crystal blowing, ate Japanese food, filled a prescription, and flew on a private jet. Welcome to my life.

More news coverage of Canada.