Fishing trip pictures

Just some photos from our fishing adventure in Slave Lake a few weeks back. To take a look, click here.

Summer Days drifting away...

Its nearly August which means there is... sadly only one month of summer left. However, I'm glad to say that this summer has felt pretty long. Its just that I've kinda lost track of time because I don't really need to follow a schedule of some sort, although things have felt eventful lately.

Some of you know who Linda is. She went to Vietnam and while there took some studio photos. I don't know if she really felt like showing them, but they're not exactly difficult to find and I think they look nice so I thought I'll put up the link. You can find them on her myspace by clicking here.

Oh yeah, I totally misread the date on the Eskimos tickets that I have. They said August 26th, not July 26th. Man, I would have looked retarded going to Commonwealth on the wrong day. Anyways, I have around 6 tickets I can sell off for $5. From what I know they are lower bowl seats closer to an endzone and they come with a hotdog and drink, and a park and ride bus pass. I believe the game falls on a Tuesday night and starts at 8 p.m. Lets go support the Esks "defend the turf!"

Hmm... other than that I'm kinda done here. I would talk about the Karate BBQ except posting up pictures with captions would be so much better, but of course I have none. Oh I know! I'll type up something about the hypnotist show from when I went to Klondike Days.

Alright, its 11:30 pm and its Me, Larry, and Tony heading out to Molsons Brewery to watch a hypnosis show. Earlier in the day we watched him (Marc Savard) perform and we all had a really good time. We figured his adult show would be really great as well. The show is just starting so Marc is calling for volunteers and Tony and Larry go up. Larry gets let off the stage but Tony is deep into a trance, so he stays. I think I'll just tell one part of the act and let Tony choose whether or not he wants to share his experience. Now, skipping to near the end of the show, the hypnotist decides to have fun and tells all the guys on stage that the following be true: they're all 9 months pregnant. The girls next to them are nurses to help them and everytime Marc coughs, the guys get hit with an intense contraction. Hehe, the look on each guy's face was priceless. Oh, and according to Tony's nurses, he was having twins (boy and a girl!). While coughing and hitting the guys with consistent contractions, Marc decides to stick a microphone in some faces to see how some of the guys are doing. We had answers from "oh man I'm so sorry! I screwed up", "don't tell my mom" to Tony's articulate answer of "Screw you!". When the "babies" were delivered it was great! This one guy who was pretty big was very emotional, he was crying and just so very happy. It was touching and frickin hilarious at the same time =D. Then Marc goes to another person, a white guy with glasses and a red cap and looks at the baby and goes, "why this baby looks just like you! How are you doing and feeling?" Then the guy looks back, somewhat incredulously, and says "uh... my baby's black".

....

Ahahahahhahaha!!

My teef hurt!

The other day I picked up another package from my faculty. This one was to make sure that I had certain immunizations and that I would need to take a physical to make sure I was healthy. It also had for me a list of places asking where I would like to go for my field placements. They gave a map of Alberta and Saskatchewan, and it showed all these places I've never heard of dotting the provinces. Well, sooner or later I'd be living on my own for a while, but facing the prospect of it is kinda daunting. I can't remember how many times I'll get sent out, but its not really one long placement. Its a bunch where I'm gone for a few weeks, come back, then go back out. Anyways, the bottom line was that this is getting me closer and closer to that first class in September. I sure hope this is what I wanted to get into. This ... ahh... know what? I don't really feel like blogging about how I'm a bit freaked walking into this. I'll just keep it to myself for now.

In other news, I got some fun stuff lined up before I'm leaving. Does anyone wanna goto Klondike Days on the 25th? It would be cool to get a nice group of people and head out. I would like to grab a small core number for sure though, because inevitably the group splits up. But thats fine because people want to do different things. Also, I have a couple of tickets for the Edmonton Eskimos game on the 26th against the Alouettes, gametime I think being 8 pm. Anyone possibly interested? I guess I shouldn't forget the Karate BBQ we have this Sunday, anyone who wants to go? Just ask me for more info. Looks like I'm gonna have a ball before packing up, can't really ask for much more.

Alright, thats all for now. I'm gonna goto sleep and hope my mouth recovers from the sharp pokey scrape thingy the dentist's assistant uses.

Gone Fishin'

Before I forget, I need to give much thanks to Dev. He is the one who brought his camera and took all the pictures during our time in B.C. The Vancouver trip was a great experience. My only regrets is that I didn't keep track of how much I spent, and that I didn't see my aunt too much. In sum, it was a blast hanging out with everyone, so thanks for the memories guys! The trip has kinda divided my summer as well. I have "Before B.C. trip", and "After B.C. trip." Oh yeah, now I'm thinking of heading back there when the Olympics come back to Canada. That would be friggin awesome, watching Canada defend their gold in Ice Hockey.

As I mentioned before, I have some more travelling to do as I leave for Brunei at the end of July. Also, Keith is having a birthday party about less than a week before we leave and right after is the Karate BBQ, and I plan on hitting Kdays on the 21st. Anyone up for some rides??

Getting back on track, this weekend a bunch of families (Mine, Dev, and Tony's) plus a bunch of others went to Slave Lake for some fishing. We arrived Friday night and set up our little dome tent right away. We didn't do too much that night and went to bed because we wanted to get up early in the morning for some fishing. That dome tent sucked so badly, it last worked when me and Keith were younger. However, now that we're bigger than our parents, that thing didn't us all that well. I haven't slept that badly for a long time.

The next morning we had to walk to the dock and the group consisted of Tom, Helen, Dev, Ant, Keith, and my dad. Well of course, plus me. Tom had rented a boat for us. So we get on the boat and well, theres not much to tell. We fished! We had several fish that weren't big enough to keep, but my Dad and Ant came up with two keepers. My memorable moment at this point was that I had this huge bite, and although I was sitting at the back, my line got pulled to the front. Since I didn't anyone getting tangled in my line, I went to the front and I saw tons of seaweed in front, so I was convinced I was hooked on some seaweed. Except it was pulling on my line, and was pulling so hard I needed to increase the tension of my line. I'm pretty sure it was a fish of some sort since my line suddenly relaxed... Ugh, then we decided to move the boat somewhere else, and we were travelling into the waves. Whoever was at front got totally soaked by Slave Lake water. Yay! ....yuck...

We headed back for lunch and split into different groups. Now it was Dev, Ant, Keith, Edwin ?, my dad, and me. We didn't really feel like walking the long way, so we tried a shortcut. Imagine that we had to walk a U end to end in order to normally walk to the dock. Well, we tried to avoid going around by heading into the tall and somewhat ominous grass. At first it was fine, although a few thorny plants annoyed anyone wearing shorts. However, it turned for the worse when we realized that this area was right next to the lake, and it would be swampy. It was gross!! Shoes, socks, and pant legs were ruined! But you know, it was friggin hilarious.

We get to the dock in shorter time but a lot smellier, but whatever! We get the same boat as the morning, but this time it just completely sucks. Now, it wasn't working very well in the morning, and this time the boat decided to going forward wasn't in the cards. So my dad figured it would be best to idle in reverse (going in reverse would spray too much water at us) and to help us along, use the oars to paddle back to the dock. Yay! The renter of the boats got back to us and gave us another boat which was in much better working condition. So we got out, and this time me and my dad were the ones with keepers. YAY!! I caught a fish!!! Yep, I'm a real outdoorsman. That pretty much ends the exciting parts of the trip.

I think I have a few pictures because my dad took his new digital camera there. Hopefully I'll get a hold and post some up soon. Three cheers for camping!!

Photos!

I threw up a few pictures for those who wanted to see on myspace. Should be able to just click the picture next to my name on MSN Messenger.

Vancouver Trip... End

Well, this is the last one about the Vancouver trip. I seriously doubt anyone's read all of it, but I guess that isn't the point. I just wanted to be able to remember what happened.

Friday

On the tail end of the trip, we decided to check out Vancouver's lookout tower. Its one of those space needle looking towers like the CN Tower in Toronto, although not nearly as tall. It was actually not too expensive to go up and the tower provided a really good view. Damn it Vancouver has some really nice scenery. It was really neat because we were able to look at places we had already been, like Stanley Park, Grouse Mountain, and we could see where we parked our van. There was also a revolving restaurant on the next floor up, but we didn't go there.

Next we went back to Metrotown once again for some more shopping. I forget how much time we spent here, maybe an hour or a little over that. Either way, its a nice mall but its no West Ed. Nothing really too noteworthy to mention except we killed some time.

At 7 we went to the Richmond Night Market. Basically its a parking lot full of stores that mostly sell some kind of novelty item that you don't need, but its nice to have. You know things like laser pointers, hats, DVD's, squid balls (food), and swords. They do have a section for food. In fact, one of the things we saw was a strip of bacon wrapped around sausage. Yum! Anyways, for products like electronics, you should be a little wary. If you do your homework you can buy certain things like headsets, mouses, and so on.

We finished off our night by eating out at No. 9's again and would head back to the house to pack up.

Saturday

Well when we got back to the house we talked with Tess for a bit because it would be our last night staying there. We would hit the road around 8 on Saturday morning to drive to a place called Radium, which was still in B.C. I tried to get up early, but it was difficult thanks to Tess and her introduction of "Ladder Theory" to us.

So it was a drive yet again, and we killed time by the usual ways again. Sleeping, music, portable DVD player. This time for me it was mostly sleepy. I was actually seated in the middle and it was sooo easy to fall asleep!! Anyways, after about 8 hours we get to the hotel we're staying at. The reason we were stopping here was to cut the trip and spread it over two days, and to check out the hot springs.

So after settling in for a bit, we checked out the hot springs. It was basically a pool outdoors except heated naturally. You could see the steam rising up and as I've said before, this kinda stuff added a nice atmosphere to me. It also rained for a bit too so for a little while I was hot and cold. Brrr... it burns! Anyways, it was comfortable and we talked for a bit, a nice place to be. Afterward we headed back to the hotel and finished out the night by watching the Arrested Development DVD I got. Hehehehe...

As for Sunday, theres really nothing to comment about. Its just the finish of the drive and so the journey ends here. I think I'll post some final thoughts next time.

Vancouver trip Cont'd, Part III

Wow, when I look back, it seems to be an eventful trip. I'm just trying to remember the main things about the trip and not fill up on the stuff like how Tony got me a balloon (Yeah, I really wanted it... :S). It saddens me to know how quickly it started and ended. Anyways, better start getting to those days before my memory crashes.

Before I forget, we also went to Kit Beach. Although the weather wasn't really that great for swimming, we still got to play in the sand! At first I was gonna help Megan build an alligator, but it was kinda boring. Then Dev helped her finish it while Tony and I build a small sand town called Clamville. The reason its called that was because Tony kept finding clams, and when we were done, he made a big lake and dumped them in there.

Wednesday

Each morning I was usually among the first to wake up. I eventually started a routine where I would eat my cousin's cereal (Vector!!). If I recall correctly, this day was a bit of a sleep in day. The agenda for the day was Stanley Park. It took a while to get there but when we did, someone came up with a very good idea to rent some bikes. We all thought it would be really fun but the nearest bike rental places were apperently off the island of Stanley Park. Well, after a few minutes due to a traffic circle that came out of nowhere and well, forced us to circle, we found a place for bike rentals, but more importantly, parking space. Now there was an option of using tandem bikes (the bikes with two seats) and singles. Tom and Helen went for it, and in a what the hell mood, so did Dev and Tony. I for the life of me would have killed whoever went with me.

So we went off and decided to bike around Stanley Park. We saw some totem poles, acanon, light house thingy, a dragonhead replica that had gone on the front of a boat, and some beaches. I had a really fun time biking around and there was just sooo much to look at! Its too bad my descriptions would mostly consist of words like water and rocks because thats what surrounded us. Yet it pleasing to the eye. After the bike ride we headed to the beach again.

The most interesting thing was that they were filming for the movie Like Mike 2. However, watching them film wasn't too exciting. We stayed at the beach for about half an hour to an hour. I really can't remember. I was looking forward to my next meal which would be at some sushi place.

We went over by Robsons Street and walked into this nice Japanese place. I can't remember what this place was called, except that it started with an S. They had these cool tables and the booth that surrounded it was shaped like a boat. But we ended up getting a table in the corner inside what seemed to be the only table that could have seated 10 or more. The restaurant seriously put tables if there was a 5 foot circle possible. Everytime I walked outside of our booth, I would walk into somebody. As for the food, well it wasn't as great as it could have been, but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Afterwards we cruised Robsons St. for a bit of shopping. There I got the first season of Arrested Development from their big Virgin Records store, and a nice Canucks hat from somewhere. This pretty much ended the day.

Thursday

This would be the day we decided to tackle Grouse Mountain!! The hiking distance is about 2.9 km and the vertical is about 900 m. I looked forward to this because I could treat it like an adventure. So we started our ascent up, and it was kinda funny because part of the group believed we were only going up a bit of a distance, then coming back down. The other part of the group knew better. Once we started, we were gonna finish going up. On a sidenote, I don't think I could have done it going down. I just wouldn't be able to get my footing. Anyways, we start going up and I start sweating alot, partly because its a hard hike and partly because I just tend to sweat easily. Again, lots of nice scenery to look at and near the top there was this fog/mist that gave a really nice atmosphere. It was kinda neat to walk out of it and into the sunlight when you finally got to the top.

At the top there was a bunch of shows, and one being a lumberjack show. It was really entertaining, and nearby were some animals. I managed to get a glimpse of a wolf. Afterwards we ate at the restaurant they had, watched a few more things, and took the $5 trip back down the sky lift thing. Oh yeah, the way up cost $32.

Afterwards we went back to my cousins place to clean up. Then half of the group would go clubbing and the other to see a movie. We ended up watching War of the Worlds and I thought it was a solid effort. Unfortunately, it wasn't anything groundbreaking and that actually takes away from the movie. I enjoyed the first 3/4ths of the movie, but the end just kinda happened and finished it. Well, I want to read the book now. That would be the end of that day for us, which would lead us to the last two days of our trip (Sunday doesn't count, we were just travelling back).

'Till next time!

Vancouver trip cont'd...

Monday

During our stay at Victoria, we had a hotel room and we crammed the 7 of us. I guess I neglected to specifically mention who was on the trip, so let me do so now. We had Tom, Helen, Dev, Ant, Kevin, Megan, and myself. Anyways, before going to bed the movie American Beauty came on. Most of us ended up staying up to watch that movie. Previously on the drive I had watched Good Will Hunting so now that was two new movies for me. Both really good movies, at least in my opinion.

Anyways, back to Monday. We woke up and breakfast was a bagel. Nice!! To kill some time we went shopping again. Finally, we all went whale watching. The regular price I think was about $75, although I could be wrong. However, there was a student rate of $50 and Tom had some kind of coupon. At first he couldn't use it because he neglected to mention it when reserving spots for us, but after some Jedi mind tricks he was able to use it. Now for some killer whale watching!!

So we boarded this open boat thingy while wearing a jacket and a nice bright red toque they gave us. The reason for the clothing was because it would get really cold once we hit certain speeds. It was a fun ride in the boat and we saw some nice scenery (spelling?? and dammit Alberta and your flatness and lack of coastlines...). We travelled in the boat thingy for about an hour or so until we stopped to look at the whales. Due to regulations, we had to keep a certain distance away from the whales, but we got a bit of a close up when they swam toward us. This one lady seemed angry that the whales decided to swim closer to another boat, and vented a bit at our guide. She asked well how come their boat got to be closer to the whales?? Well, frick, I don't know... I guess the whales decided to swim closer to that boast to piss you off. Anyways, I believe Dev has some nice shots and I got to see a whale breach (basically the whale jumps out of the water and does a flip). When we were leaving, our guide said okay lets go back! So we all looked away and of course a whale decides to breach! Man, screw that! I'm going to Seaworld again for Shamu.

We also visited Mile Zero and to my understanding... actually... I still don't really know what the hell it is. But anyways, we ventured onto the coastline and took some pictures on the rocks. It was also a very nice scenic area.

After some ice cream stops, we need to make it back to the ferry back to Vancouver. Its a bit late so everyone is worried about the ferry being full. And being the super prepared people we are, we are taking the last ferry out. As we're driving theres a whole bunch of cars zooming through. It seems everyone is trying to make the last ferry!! Now somewhere along the stretch of road there is a big looming sign. On it all I could read was ....%....Ferry....Full. There is a big silent collective "oh crap!!" in the van! We get closer and there is a big silent collective "phew!" because the sign says the ferry is only 31% full or something like that.

The ferry we're on is a new one and its fairly nice. So we have another nice cruise and we go back to my cousins house for a night's sleep.


Tuesday

Dammit, my mind is drawing the biggest blank in the world. What the hell did we do on this day?!? Oh wait! I think we went to Metrotown. Basically the biggest mall Vancouver has is really two malls that just happened to be built right next to each other. The other one is called... Metropolis! Yay! Right next to these malls is an area called Station Square. We happened to park there and we saw a Thai restaurant in the parkcade. Yeah... okay... For the most part the stuff we saw there was pretty much the same stuff we'll see in Edmonton. However, they had a Nike store!! I'm convinced I would have bought something if I had stayed there more. Usually I hate buying clothes because I have to try it on and crap like that. I probably would have gotten a hat.

Afterward we hit up Granville market... place... thingy... whatever its called. On the drive over we would take East Hastings street. It was a street we would get a bit familiar with, as it is notorious for being a very seedy and dangerous area. Once, my dad unknowlingly took Tess, Keith, and I for a quick walk there. Some hilights include a guy who was literally pissed drunk. But carrying on, we managed to pick up snacks while at the market. I mainly picked up apples, I believe it was oranges for Dev, berries for Ant, and Tom had pepperoni sticks. There were a lot of neat little stores (like the kids area!) but there wasn't really anything that screamed, "buy from here!! Totally what you want and you won't find it in Edmonton!" Although Kevin did pick up a nice colouring book about the history of swords. Yes, a colouring book that was all about swords.

For our dinner, we would goto a Chinese restaurant called Number 9's. Yeah, I don't know why you would call yourself that, but whatever! I thought it was one of the better Chinese places, but about the same as a place like Good Buddy. It was good enough to come back here again though, I'll say that much. So after we filled our stomaches up we called it a night, which would lead us to...

Wednesday

Okay, this is for next time!

There and Back Again

Well, we're all back from the Vancouver trip. I had a blast, and pretty soon I'm going to be gone again. I have some camping trip to go this upcoming weekend, and on July 29th I leave for Brunei and come back August 23rd. It was fun hanging out with everyone and the things we saw and did.

We left on the 25th of June and came back July 3rd.

Saturday

We left Edmonton at about 4 am. For the most part, it was pretty much a straight drive except for gas breaks. We did have a quick lunch break though, but there was a concerted effort to limit stops. In total the drive there was about 12-13 hours. I was crammed into the back with Kevin and Megan. Actually, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Pretty much the ways to kill time was to sleep, listen to music, or use Megan's portable DVD player. There isn't much to tell since nothing crazy happened on the drive there.

At about 5-6 pm B.C. time we found the place we were staying. There was an arrangement where my cousins would take the 7 of us into their home. They lived in Coquitlam which was a bit far away from the places we would see, but that was the only negative. There have a pretty big home housing my Aunt and my cousins Tess (who is our age) and Vince (who is 24). Tess was always the cousin I would hang out with during family gatherings since we were close in age. I didn't see Vince much during the trip, although that was kinda expected. But anyways, we arrived at the house where my aunt greeted us. She helps us settle in a bit and jokes that I'm useless in helping navigate us around in Vancouver. Since this is the end of a long drive, we're all hungry but can't decide on where to eat. We wait for Tess to come home from work and she also ends up joking that I'm useless in navigating Vancouver. Thanks guys. Anyways, we eat at Red Robins and after that, the day is over.

Sunday

So the plan was to stay in Victoria after arriving in Vancouver. To get to Victoria with our rented van, we were going to take a ferry. Everybody woke up and got out the door relatively on time, but we just missed catching the 9 am ferry. We wandered the shopping area that was close by and took pictures near the coast. Soon we heard a big loud voice telling us to get our butts back into ours cars to drive onto the ferry. At the same time they started unloading the ferry that had currently docked. The cars unloaded and drove down the road we had crossed to take the pictures. At first everyone was all excited about the ferry and we stood outside for a while, but then it started getting cold and windy. The ride was about an hour and a half before we reached Victoria island. After checking into the hotel we went shopping. For the most part it was just wandering around. It pretty much would come to splitting up, with the groups being the two couples on their own and Me, Dev, and Ant just wandering around.

Our next meal would be at a place called "Barb's..." well I don't remember anything else about its name. But it had very good fish (halibut) and chips. Good enough to come back the next day. What was very cool was that were floating houses right next to the place! I wish I had a camera so I could show pictures, but alas, I don't.

Next was Butchart Gardens. Although there were only about 2-3 hours left before it closed and there was some light rain, it was probably the best time to go. I thought the light rain added a really nice atmosphere to the place and with us getting there so late, there was no one else there. I really enjoyed the place there and this was also a place of some stupid fun. First off, we picked up umbrellas and for the most part, we used them as swords to fight. The funny thing was that Kev saw some wheelchairs for use, so he decided to grab one. About 30 minutes into the garden, the genius decides he is sick of the wheelchair ,and we ditch it somewhere. Later on when we go back we find that someone already took it back. The funniest part is at the end when Dev, Tom, and Ant decide to have a quick wheelchair race in the parking lot. Somehow, Ant goes veering off to who knows where, and some guy sees them all and busts them. He just yells out, do you need to use that? Ant looks at him, looks down, goes alright, I'll get up. Meanwhile, it seemed that Dev and Tom weren't spotted, so they quickly finished their race. Tom won by the way. That was pretty much the end of that day.

Short Update from B.C.

Well, I'm still in B.C. but the trip is almost over. We've done quite a bit, so hopefully I can remember most of it. At the moment it seems everyone else is asleep. It looks like I'm one of the first to wake up. Its kinda funny because usually on a family trip that would go to Keith, and I would be the last to wake up. As much as it is a bummer to have the trip end, I imagine people are starting to miss their beds.