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Home away from Home

Vancouver, Canada

After my experience with the American border guard, and the subsequent flight to Vancouver I wasn't expecting much. Probably more to do with my attitude than to do with what I was arriving to... Amazing. That is the only word that I can use to describe the contrast between the Canadian and American border guards. Now I've heard that Canadians are nice people, and I suppose all the ones I've ever met have been nice, but really, it was amazing. They questioned me, at length, in a similar fashion to the Americans, with I suppose similar questions and yet they managed to not come across as... well... jerks. Lovely begging to my stay in this country! Easy to get my visa issued. Easy to get through the airport. Easy to get my bag. Pleasant taxi drivers.

So having been in town for all of about 40 minutes Sarah and I decided that we would definitely need a bottle of wine. I thought that I wasn't jet lagged. It turned out that I was wrong. Although, while we were making the trek between the bottle-o and our house we were given very stern looks by two local police officers who happened to drive past exactly as we stepped into the road to jay-walk... Ooops. Luckily I managed to avoid being deported on my first day.

Luckily we found some vikings. But that is another part of the story. Anyways, to give you an idea, here it is really interesting when you look for a job. The service and hospitality industries here are amazing in the standard that they require. Looking for work as a bartender was quite daunting as most bars require that you have EXCELLENT cocktail skills. As much as it hurts me to admit that I'm actually not that savvy when it comes to cocktails, I managed to get over it and got hired in a Malaysian restaurant as a bartender. Amusing first night. The place's website is here http://bananaleaf-vancouver.com/ . It was fun and the people there were really nice, but I was wanting a day job cause I don't like working opposite hours to Sarah... It sucked. But it was only a couple of days anyways!

Now I am a "filing clerk" translation: general office bitch. It's good though. I'm working in the south of the city, just near a place called Richmond actually, but it's a nice mix of people. I am possibly one of the younger people there.

But everyone seems really nice and while I'm doing my filing every now and then I get to go and make a coffee and generally chat to people. Like I said, they are all really nice, so it's going to be a good place to work. Sadly I don't think it's going to be a place to work like the Doot, but it's still going to be a bit of fun. I take two buses to work and I still get there in around 20 minutes and I get to wear my jeans to work so it's a pretty good little deal. Can't wait for a paycheck though! CRIKEY!

Sarah and I decided that it was time to do some walking around and seeing stuff today instead of just gathering dust on the sofa. By the way, our apartment is really sweet, but that's another story. So we left home around midday, which was just after we woke up and headed around to a place called Granville Island. This place is famous for it's local brewery (Surprise Surprise that we ended up there), it's not a big brewery and I am led to believe that they only service Vancouver, but I'm not sure. Either way, we are planning a return visit for next weekend. I suspect we will be tasting some beer then as well.... But who can tell these days?

Well, I guess this is getting a bit long, especially for those of you that are sneaking internet time at work and stealing from the company... But briefly, this place is amazing. When we walk out the front door (as long as it's clear) we can see snow capped mountains, and the ski runs on them. The people here so far (touch wood) have been absolutely lovely. Even the beggars here seem to be nice. Not that I have spent

permalink written by  haveyouseenmypassport on March 18, 2007 from Vancouver, Canada
from the travel blog: To infinity!.. and... beyond... uh.....
tagged Vancouver
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Why doesn't this forest smell?

Vancouver, Canada

Easter weekend! For us that means four whole days off! For me anyways. Sadly for Sarah she only gets three days off. But after a somewhat same and dullish week I was absolutely totally ready for a four days of relaxation and general pottering!

Amber and Simon gave us a call Friday morning while we were recovering from hangovers and suggested that a trip to the wilderness might be the order of the day. We agreed and half an hour later we were on our way to the Lighthouse National Park. I've been pretty subdued in my attempts to get "out-doorsy" here, so when I came to the national park I was a little concerned that we were going to have to hike. While we weren't hiking as such, someone had the bright idea to go rock hopping!

Which was totally fun, if not a little bit scary. Sheer ledges and jagged rocks below are a good motivator to not fall off the rock you're currently hopping on. This lighthouse turned out to be a bit of a let down as it was on private property, but it is definitely a tourist attraction as we had to cue up to get photos of it. Not in an organised cue or anything, just polite tourists waiting their turn to have the photo. Ours turned out pretty well!
As entertaining as the Llighthouse was, we weren't even a third of the way through our day. Piling back into the jeep in the carpark we set out for Lynn Canyon national park. There is a suspension bridge there that is free to go across. Basically you're standing above a canyon (funnily enough Lynn Canyon) and below there are rapids and waterfalls and generally winderness like events.
Apparently some stupidly large number of people have been killed shile trying to jump off the waterfalls or swim down the rapids. That's sad. Many of them were in the 80's, or so I gather from the memorial stones.
Getting to the bottom of the canyon saw a break for lunch. Now I'm not sure why, but it seems that Canadians like to pop to the local national park to smoke a spliff. Why? I don't know wither. Everywhere we walked there was the extremely pungent smell of skunk being burned. Bizarre. But what's more bizzare is that the forest here has no smell. I didn't notice it when we were by the sea, but in the middle of the forest there was absolutely no smell. In the rare moments when the ganja wasn't in the air there was none of the wilderness smell that I thought there would be. But anyways.

So we had our lunch, did some more walking and had Amber, Simon and Mark over for a roast and a watch of the film Kenny. Kenny comes highly recommended to anyone who has not yet seen it. 2 bottles of wine, 1 bottle of Bacardi and a few beers later, we were all sufficients smashed to turn in for the night.

As if we didn't have enough excercise on the Friday, we decided to go roller blading around Stanley park with Sarah's friend Erika on Saturday. Now I'm a bit sad cause I finally came across some locals that I didn't like. Strangely they were both from the bike/skate hire places on Denman street in downtown Vancouver. Perhaps a life of hiring things to people who are clearly going to enjoy their day much more that you is enough to make anyone turn into a nasty pastie... Not sure. But these people are RUDE. Don't bother asking for your student discount either. The sign means that you just go in there expecting to get a discount. Skating was way fun despite the unpleasant people who hire out the skates.

I was trying not to get too aggressive about it, but Sarah kept egging me on and saying that she was a better skater than me. This could have resulted in disaster if I hadn't stopped just before the collision!

Overall a pretty active weekend. I am now exhausted.

And I have another day off.

I hope you're all well!

Cheers!



permalink written by  haveyouseenmypassport on April 8, 2007 from Vancouver, Canada
from the travel blog: To infinity!.. and... beyond... uh.....
tagged Vancouver and LynnCanyon
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Clambashing?

Sechelt, Canada

Ok, this wasn't really in Sechelt, it was on an Island called "Nelson Island" which is off the West Coast of Vancouver, and between Vancouver Island and Vancouver! Unfortunately Sechelt was the closest that we could get our little Blogabond map! And it's not surprising really, considering that Nelson Island has a full-time population of 0! The thing is this Island has a bunch of holiday homes on it and we were lucky enough to be whisked away by Shannon and John. Hilarity does not ensure, but it was a SWEET trip anyways!

==> Taking a step back for a moment, unfortunately it was a fairly un-eventful week. The highlight was possibly when I got to fill envelopes with bits of paper for the BC Education something or other. The lucky bit was that I was in an office with another temp who was ok with my constant blabbing on about general rubbish and life. So, thanks Heather, I needed to be a motor mouth, just like most days!

Now, back to the most awesome weekend ever. Our preparation was mostly done on Friday night. By most, I mean all of our alcohol shopping. We decided that one bottle of Bacardi and one bottle of J&B was going to be enough for us to get through the 2.5 days away. We were right. But anyways, we packed our bags and watched Teev until really late so that we would sleep. This turned out to be the less wise idea as we were absolutely shattered in the morning when Shannon and John picked us up at 6am. Still, we were so pumped about going to a private island (I was having visions of Skaramanga's lair, but that might just be cause I saw a man with three nipples), and generally having a lot of time off. The drive was nice, the scenery was pretty sweet and I kept on getting into giggle-loops because Shannon and John are pretty hilarious at the best of times. They were telling us all of the Canadian slang for various things, not all of which are blog friendly! So we arrived at the marina and got on Shannon's Dad's boat and headed over the rolling ocean to Skaramanga's lair (for anyone scratching their head right not, that is a James Bond reference: The man with the golden gun. You know, the one with "Nik Nak" the psychotic midget servant). So, we land the boat at Shannon's private jetty

and we're looking straight at the cabin! SWEET! Incidently, the boat that we got there in is parked in the photo, the photo was from when we were out in the dingy, cheating death>>> But more on that later. We were greated by Trudy, and sat sraight down for lunch. I must admit that I was looking for Nik Nak for a good portion of the time. I was however disapppointed as he did not appear. SO, we had plenty of time for doing outdoorsy type things as there is no teev in the cabin. I was a little surprised that I managed alright without it. After about 2 hours I didn't even notice there wasn't one! I have learned a few new card games. Actually, I learned them, but now I forget. Already. God damn you teev.

On this Island, there are a number of lakes for us to visit. We only got around to hiking to one of them, but it was pretty amazing. Just as in previous Canadian forrests, this one also had no smell. So weird. We did find a metal tap in it's natural habitat of the Canadian wilderness.


Smaller lake on Nelson Island
Arriving at the lake we weren't disappointed with the view. This picture simply doesn't explain how pretty it was, but hopefully you get the idea. On the hike back from the lake Sarah cried out in pain, for no apparent reason! Then we discovered she had fallen victim to a Tick! Not the kind that you want on your homework in grade 2, with a big red pen, no the kind that give you LIME DISEASE! We didn't know about the lime disease at first, Shannon's Dad filled us in later. It was a pretty gross insect that was sucking the blood from Sarah's belly region. It was Alright because Dale removed the tick without incident. Apparently the mortality rate for tick victims is quite low. Still, we were pretty impressed. So after that excitement we decided to go boating!

This was when were in the dingy. I'm not a huge dingy fan to be honest, but I'm prepared to give most things a go. So out we headed around the little bays that the Island had. It was amazing, some of the houses that have been built on this Island are just stunning. On cliffs, next to the forest


Purdy boat and water
whatever. It was sweet. Just a few moments before this shot was taken a man went past in a sea kyak/canoe thing. He nodded, although he didn't wave as I think he was too busy holding the rowing sticks. Still, it was nice. Life's better boating as they say here! So while enjoying the scenery and waving to other like minded "boaters" we were unawere of the danger lurking in the water. No, not a shark, not a croc. I'll give you a hint "It's big, it's heavy, it's wood!"... That's right you guessed it. A log.

Killer Log!
We hit this one despite me shouting "LOG". I was later informed that the most appropriate thing to have said would have been "LOG!!!" followed by the direction that the log was in. Thanks to pretty quick thinking on Shannon's behalf and some damn good log spotting by me, we only hit it at a crawl. Sarah's face was rather amusing. Sadly I dind't get a picture of it. Not to worry.

Our next major expedition was prawn hunting the following day. We managed to score a couple of shrimp and one rather large prawn that Sarah and I got to eat. Dale and Shannon told us that some Summers all you can eat is prawns cause you catch so many. Not this time, but not to worry! They were awesome. Tasty little buggers. Kinda cute and innocent looking, while they still had their heads attached anyways.


Prawn hunt with Sarah and Shannon's Dad

The next morning we pretty much cleaned up and went home. We were absolutely shattered from all of the activities and no teev. Thanks you so much to Dale, Shannon, Trudy and John. We had an absolutely sensational time! Seeing something off the tourist track was fantastic! We hope to return the favour to Shannon and John in Aus!


The gang on the Island

permalink written by  haveyouseenmypassport on May 23, 2007 from Sechelt, Canada
from the travel blog: To infinity!.. and... beyond... uh.....
tagged Canada, Vancouver and Prawns
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I havent yet left

Vancouver, Canada

well Im getting ready for my big trip I still have a few things I have got to get together however all and all im pretty ready. I might pick up some temp work to get some extra cash I am still 23 days away from leaving.

permalink written by  peace on July 19, 2010 from Vancouver, Canada
from the travel blog: Theres no place like here
tagged Vancouver and GettingReady
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My road trip from Vancouver to Edmonton, Alberta

Vancouver, Canada

It was indeed a worthwhile experience traveling by road from Vancouver to Edmonton. This trip offered me rare opportunity to explore the beauty and breathtaking sceneries in Vancouver and Alberta.

From water falls, to ocean view, it was just amazing.

permalink written by  itjobsinusa on August 24, 2010 from Vancouver, Canada
from the travel blog: My road trip from Vancouver to Edmonton, Alberta
tagged Vancouver, Edmonton and WesternCanada
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