Snow is Cold

Just remembered that on one of our midday restaurant outings we walked out of 2 restaurants before deciding on a place to eat. The first was an all you can eat Thai place that actually set RULES for its all you can eat menu!!! That’s just not cricket. Besides I didn’t think I could stomach anything off the menu..

After that we went to this authentic Korean place, which is always full (of Koreans, presumably), but Gurpal couldn’t understand the menu, so after waiting around for about 5 minutes, we headed out of there too :)

Eventually we ended up in Bento sushi, but we actually ate there, so that doesn’t make for an interesting tale :p

Right now Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas is on TV, what a quality movie.

Gurpal left today, marking the close of the penultimate Vancouver chapter. Now I have just a week and a half left :(

Anyway it does no good to brood. In the past few days we’ve been up to quite a lot. On Monday we went on a rather strange night out to first, the Beaver, then after declining the huge line outside Plush (again) we ended up going to the Roxy, which is a place we’ve often debated going to. There was a band playing who were actually really good, but there were some interesting (to say the least) people inside..

On Tuesday we went to meet some of Gurpal’s old friends and ended up getting smashed at the Backstage Lounge and, latterly, Tonic. It should have been a cheap night out because of the drinks prices but quantity over quality prevailed! We caught the aquabus over to Granville Island from Sunset Beach which was cool and saw a seal on the way. Then the girls became high maintenance (well, one in particular) and wanted to get some food before going to the bar, which wasn’t a hugely popular decision, then the same girl decided she’d had enough and left about eleven thirty! Gurpal was gutted as he was trying to get in with her :p hehehe. Actually he had an awesome night of rejection but told me not to write down exactly what was said to him :D
I wanna tell you anyway though cuz it had me in stitches. He went to speak to this girl who was next to us on the dancefloor, and they exchanged a few words, then she came out with, “I’m sorry, I don’t want to talk to you anymore”, so what can you say to that?? I went over and shook her hand because of the brutality of the remark, lol.

On Wednesday I took a day off while Gurpal went to meet his friend Gill, although we revisited the store he used to work at for nostalgia’s sake! Then on Thursday we’d decided to go over to Vancouver Island to see what Victoria was like. Basically, we didn’t have the best time of it as we spent 9 hours of the day on public transport…but the ferry crossing was really nice and picturesque, plus we got interviewed by a local cable channel who wanted us to compare the ferries with those in England! We saw a load of killer whales on the way home too which was cool. In Victoria itself we spent about 2 hours, about 45 minutes of which was spent eating in a poor excuse for a seafood restaurant, where Gurpal’s bag got nailed by a bird overhead, and the rest was spent running between the sites, getting a picture taken outside, but not actually going inside any of them! It seemed like a bit of a waste of a day to me but hey, at least we can say we’ve been there now, plus from what we could gather it sounds like there’s not much else to do there than what we accomplished anyway :) we missed the ferry on the way there by 10 minutes which was a bit of a pain in the ass, but got really lucky with all the buses as we got every connection pretty much immediately (the ferry terminal is miles away from downtown, so we had to transfer..). On the way home there were a bunch of noisy kids on the bus which wasn’t really what we needed, and some woman pushed me out of the way cuz, I think, she got pissed off with all the Chinese people blocking her path and turned round to go the opposite direction. Still, there was no need for that!

On my way home I picked up a Chinese takeaway from a new restaurant, which had no customers, which maybe gives some explanation for why both the chef and the serving girl came out to thank me for my custom, lol. Gurpal had gone out with his cousin for dinner but we’d agreed to meet later and go to see Doc Martin & Kaskade at Richards on Richards with Pete, his mate from home, Nick and his girlfriend Allie. I couldn’t believe that the last time we went to that club was back in May when Si was staying with me!!! Absolutely crazy how fast the time has gone. It was a pretty good night to be honest but they shut the party down at 2.15 after only a couple of encores :)

I still didn’t say anything about the Lawler gig (June 22nd) and the BT gig (July 22nd) did I?! Man that was pretty long ago too :( Lawler was amazing, the best set I’ve seen in a looong time, but I was a bit disappointed by BT. I had the choice of either going to see Deep Dish on the Monday or BT on the Friday, but seeing as I’d seen Deep Dish before and I’ve been a fan of BT’s music since forever I felt I had to choose the BT show. I don’t really regret it but it sounds as if the Deep Dish night would have been better! The problem was that I was expecting more of a live show than a DJ set, but it was pretty straight up 4/4 (although he played some awesome breaks mixes of his tunes early on), so I was a little disappointed not to hear a bit more diversity. They let some stupid wannabes on stage too who couldn’t even dance and just sleazed about, and the crowd weren’t friendly at all, so I guess they kinda all contributed to me not thinking it was that fantastic! Still, I got to meet BT backstage for a little bit so I was happy :)

Apparently my IQ is ~138. Cool :)

Shit I completely forgot that on Friday night I went to see a Canadian Football game! Daz had been on about it for a while and seeing as he’s leaving next week (I think) this time seemed like the ideal opportunity.

We scored tickets through the Hostelling International (HI) trip, well actually Daz phoned me and asked if I wanted one but I thought I’d ask Yuki if she wanted to come first but she had to go to one of her friend’s parties so by the time I phoned back he’d already bought them and I had to phone up separately and got the very last one they had! (Deep breath.)

All was well though because his tickets were S103-105 and mine was T103, so one row behind in the same section. It was quite cool because we met up with the other guys who were heading down in a bar an hour before we had to leave so we had a couple of beers and a get to know you chat beforehand. It transpired that I was sitting next to our tour guide – a standardly crazy and enthusiastic Canadian chick – which was cool because she was getting involved with the crowd cheering and stuff. Over excitement about any small thing that happens seems to be de facto in American, or should I say Canadian, football, so she helped in rising to the occasion.

The game lasted for like 3 hours, but the time seemed to pass pretty quickly inside. The stadium is a giant indoor dome held up by air pressure, and when we left there was a very stiff breeze coming from the turnstiles and exit doors!! They have loads of random stuff that goes on in between plays, quarters, and halves like cart racing, people dressed up as coffee cups, the “felions” – team cheerleaders, yeah baby, firing mini footballs out of a fluffy subway sub, carrying giant sandwiches across the pitch, you get the picture, maybe :)

Apparently it was a pretty big game cuz they had the top section of the stand open, and there were like 35,000 people there, but the stadium has a capacity of some 60,000 so it was by no means full. Still, the atmosphere was pretty good, and the home time emerged as the 27-18 victors, or something like that. On the downside, pints inside were $7.50 a pop, and that’s not even for a full pint of flat, warm Molson Canadian – the Carling of the Canadian world. The queues were mental all game long too.

After we left the stadium I was feeling pretty hungry, as by this time it was after 10pm and I’d only eaten a couple pieces of toast and a couple of KFC snackers (which I had to queue for an inordinately long amount of time to get – fast food my ass) that were measly and unappealing, to be fair. We headed to a bar called Dix, which was quite akin to the Brewhouse in Whistler, but ended up just buying beers and feasting on the free monkey nuts (and then discarding the shells on the floor, which is apparently normal but made it look like a disaster area)… Our party comprised myself, Daz, his friend Phil from Whistler, Phil’s travelling companion Jim, our mutual friend Claire, and a Scottish girl called Anne who was leaving the next day and we just bumped into during the pre-game meetup.

We got tired of this bar pretty quickly because there were 2 bartenders to serve what seemed like half the crowd that had poured out of the stadium, so after a couple we headed down to the tried and tested Cambie. We were going to buy some pizza on the way but got distracted by the girls climbing on the tanks outside the army barracks (or army something) so somehow forgot. Me & Daz left the rest of the group to their horseplay and focused on the priorities at hand. We got a pitcher in and two portions of chips in the Cambie, but Daz had to escort the rest of the party in through the hostel back door so they didn’t have to queue, which left me to mind our space with the service number on a table full of, well, alternative types.

Soon after Daz got up this crazy dude who was clearly absolutely wankered came and led on the bench next to me. I was in two minds whether to get involved in conversation with him but had only made it to the hello stage when Claire came to the rescue. Unfortunately though the most normal member of the group started trying very hard with her so I had to wait for the chips to appear, then for Daz to come and claim his, before I could bail.

After escaping that scenario and devouring the pile of food I was feeling pretty full, and two pitchers later I physically couldn’t fit any more beer in! It was at this point that Daz noticed some rocker type guy who was also wasted had been quietly tucking into his/our third pitcher which was sat on the table behind us, but after a brief confrontation we decided to let it go :) then Daz put his pint down on the same table whereupon two guys who were having a play ruckus flew onto the tabletop and knocked Daz pint to the ground. I think this rattled him a little bit from the call of, “FOR FUCK SAKE” that went up afterwards :) but that’s understandable right? I thought it was some message to me that more beer wasn’t meant to be, so despite the fact that some hot 19 year old was giving me the eye I decided I wasn’t in the right place, physically and mentally, to stay at that point, so I headed home! On the way though I stopped off to pick up a couple slices of $1 pizza, as by this point it was almost 2am and I was worried what the consequences would be if I didn’t line my stomach with something else, and miraculously woke up the next day feeling fine! The game and all the ensuing results came out over $80 but hey, you only live once. Or at least that’s what I’m going to tell the credit card company.

This morning I went out and bought a bunch of 6 sunflowers (her fave) and got some croissants and donuts for breakfast. What a legend. I hope she was pleased anyway ;)

Today our agenda was to climb Grouse mountain, which is over in North Vancouver and one of the ski hills which borders the city. I’d heard reports of it being fairly fearsome (and Phil I think you might have missed out by not taking it in, or did you?!), but we weren’t phased so after dinner on the waterfront at the other side of the ferry (or seabus, whatever) crossing we headed up to the base of the mountain.

The climb itself was pretty ok up to half way, but then my legs started to tire a bit after it got pretty ropey higher up! Looking back at it from the bottom it looks insanely steep, but once we were in to it we were committed to reaching the end :)

I probably sweated out the equivalent of my body weight on the way up (as it was 26 degrees or something and I was carrying a backpack), but we made it in 1 hour and 25 minutes, which I believe is very respectable! It was a great feeling of satisfaction to make it up there anyway, and the views over the city are incredible. Unfortunately we missed this lumberjack show they do up there, but I pretty much know what happens anyway from other people telling me, but we did see the birds of prey jobby, which was ok I guess :)
Also saw a couple bears and 3 wolves which are kept in captivity there in an area enclosed by an electric fence, and rode a chairlift down to this lookout point, which was kinda surreal as it was the first time since Whistler that we’ve ridden a chairlift, then took the insanely fast gondola ride back down to the base.

We had been invited over to Cynthia’s house (where I stayed back in April) for dinner, which we thought was going to be an extension of Yuki’s birthday, but turns out it was her niece’s birthday too that day so they were having a party for her, and had in fact forgotten that it was Yuki’s birthday at all :) so that was kinda funny. We got there so late that the party was winding down anyway by that stage, so we grabbed the free food, had a quick chat, then scarpered, hehe.

Now I’m pretty much exhausted from the day’s excursions, plus the fact I went to bed at 4 and got up early (although exactly how early is a secret), and I think we’re supposed to be heading over to Vancouver Island tomorrow pretty early, so now I’m off to bed! Wanted to get this all down before going tho cuz otherwise it would be a mission to catch up again..! Hopefully I’ll get my ass in gear and put some more photos up too, as I have millions, but we shall see, eh? :)