Raccoons in Vancouver

We landed in VC (Vancouver) in the afternoon, but having gone 20 hours without decent sleep, I was pretty pooped out. We were picked up by Mr. Chen, a friend of dad's from church. We were going to stay at their house for the next few days. The house was huge; we had the entire basement floor to ourselves - complete with living room, bathroom, 2 bedrooms and even a kitchen! Oh, and a washer and dryer. I have no idea what the Chen's were thinking when they bought the house - were they secretly planning on our arrival years before we even thought about visiting them?! No, calm down, nothing so sinister; simply amazing convenience.

In fact, it was so amazing that I dumped my bags in the living room and made a beeline for the bedroom, pulled the curtains down and fell instantly asleep.

Later that night I woke up to find every one putting away dinner and getting ready for bed. I didn't feel like sleeping so I ate the leftovers while they fell asleep and then I sketched for about 2 hours while watching the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on tv.




Our second day in VC (Vancouver) was all about Stanley Park - a huge green area with an aquarium and many flowers. The thing that impresses me about VC is that people take their yards very seriously. It's like a badge of honor or something, but the colors are dazzling - whites, purples and yellows. The scene feels very Mediterranean.

First, though, Mr. Chen took us to see his beautiful church. It's very different from either the grand cathedrals or the modern American/ Canadian church buildings. Most of it was clear glass; services are lit by natural sunlight. It's surrounded by natural woodland and there are crows perched on every other tree.





Sorry, got off track.


Stanley Park was pleasant, until we spotted raccoons. Then we were impressed. These raccoons weren't afraid of the people at all; one walked right passed me. I watched it as it approached, waiting for it to see me and run, but it just kept trucking on through. We hung around, watching the raccoons. They fished in the park's stream and ran around in the grass. They were very cute, but hard to get a decent picture of as they were so fast.


We spent most of the day in the aquarium. After the Kenting Aquarium and Zoo, though it seemed a bit small, but the selection of animals were very different from the Kenting though. They had sloths, alligators, and fishes from the Amazon.


We even saw Beluga whales, but we were sleepy by lunch time.

I have to say, the food here this rather ... expensive. A small plate of salad cost me $4.50 (multiply by 30). And the rest of the menu consisted of fries, burgers, and more fried things. We made our way back to the Chens' ASAP but on the way we got to see more of Vancouver city, which is delightful mix of modern and "classical-looking" buildings.



We had a much more simple dinner (in comparison to the lunch) of bread, jam and cherries.

Oh Canada!

The strange thing about plane rides is the before and after. When I was taking off I felt like a 7 year old who had had too much sugar in a spaceship. I twisted my neck silly trying to see everything, tried all the buttons, flipped through those useless magazines and kept adjusting the tilt of my tv screen. I had an early flight - 12:05 in the afternoon so I was pretty much awake through out the flight.

We flew to Hong Kong for our transfer to Vancouver. The first flight was pretty pleasant; I watched an episode of my favorite TV show, The Office (which I normally have to download by means less than legal). But the best part was landing and seeing Hong Kong and its islands emerge from underneath the sea of clouds.


There were beautiful long stretches of white beaches (you can kind of see it at the bottom of the picture) and tiny dots of islets - my image of Hong Kong had always been a smog-y metropolitan - not this exotic island picture!

Maybe being hundreds of metres in the air helps.

The start of the second flight was just as exciting - I guess I'm a sucker for take-offs - and also because my dad had ordered western-vegetarian lunches. I had no idea what it meant so it was interesting to find out. ''Western'' turns out to mean eggs and dairy products. We had a lasagna dinner, but I found that when they said vegertarian, it means ''much cheese and eggs as we can substitute for vegetables''. It was like eating a block of pure cheese. It was so rich that none of us could really finish our portion. You had to eat a bite, drink some water and wait for it to settle to the bottom of your stomach before you could continue your abnormally lengthy meal. Lord, it was like eating weights. Also, everything tasted of mushrooms, even the fruit. Weird.

By the time I was feeling sleepy, however, my fun-metre was running an all time low. I was suddenly incredibly tired, but it seemed that everyone else, especially this Chinese lady and her baby to my immediate left, was not. The baby's noises, which were cute at first were now like thorns in my side. The boy kept saying ''Plane! Plane! Plane!''. At 12:05, he started his routine for the billionth time - by which time it was starting to sound like ''Pain! Pain! Pain!'' - which was what I was feeling. The mother obviously thought it was endearing, because she did nothing but order more Cup Of Noodles - the smell of which never went away for the remainder of the flight.

I read that, to save money, airplane companies turn down the flow of oxygen - thus saving about 8 dollars a minute (myth or fact? Frankly I can't remember). By the end of the trip I was pretty much convinced that it was true, because I felt like an old sock. A rolled-up old sock. So it was a tear-jerking sight to see, after endless trips to the cubicle-toilet and vege-cheese meals, the first sight of Canada.

It was mostly green, with great stretches of lakes and many islands. It looked like a place worth exploring.


We were finally in Vancouver.



(More later, as my car-ride to Kamloops is here and my famliy and I are once again on the move!)

Land of Ten Thousand Lakes - An Introduction to Minnesota

Minnesota is known as the "Land of Then Thousand Lakes" as it is teeming with bodies of water - check out a terrain map of Minnesota and it looks like a human artery system.

The state is generally unpopulated (well, ok, sparsely populated), with little under 5 million people spread over 87,014 sq mi.







Yes, that puts things into perspective, doesn't it?


With all that great out doors, Minnesotans are very environmentally friendly - my St. Olaf brochure was printed on recycled paper. (Recycled paper - what's that?!!) People enjoy hunting (ok, not so environmentally friendly), camping, and, with all that water, fishing. Over 36% of Minnesotans fish!


The problem with the great out doors is that, being so great and outside-ish, it snows for about 1/3 of the year. People who stay indoors from the snow can get "cabin fever" - which actually isn't a fever at all but a mild craziness. Winter sports are therefore almost a must-do to prevent half of the population from going nuts - ice fishing, skiing, and (my favorite) figure skating are all encouraged. No wonder it's the 2nd healthiest state in the nation!




A huge majority of Minnesotans are of Scandinavian or German decent. So lots of blonds.

But they aren't a bunch of provincials - Minneapolis and St. Paul is known to be the home of artists and writers. There are festivals all year round for dance, visual arts, and music - especially folk music. It's one of the most educated and literate states in the U.S (wiki).



Other miscellaneous information include:

• they seem to have an over-abundance of squirrels
• many Minnesotans speak English with a Scandinavian-influenced accent
• lots of the people there are Lutherans

The snow worries me. Quite a bit. So does the accent.

But if I can learn to speak like a Norseman and dress in woolly jumpers, I imagine everything else will fall into place.

It'll be a very cold Renaissance.

Post Toast

Again another test to see how the RSS feed works.

Cheers!