Trip to Victoria, Vancouver Island: including whale watching. Woo!

Victoria, a pretty place in Vancouver Island.

I'm back from my trip to Victoria. Which is in the south part of Vancouver Island, here is a map. As you can see from the map, Vancouver Island is a very big island, and through the source of all knowledge, wikipedia, it is 285 miles long and 50 miles wide (at it's widest point). So bigger than Wales then.

Ok so we left Vancouver pretty early (later than planned mind you, the Irish still don't keep time!), and ended up getting confused about what bus to take. The original plan was correct, but a change of plans was incorrect. This worked out for us though, for the bus driver took pity on us foreigners and gave us free tickets to get to the ferry via our next stop from downtown Vancouver, the airport. From the airport bus stop, we took another bus to the Ferry, which is located at a place that I have never heard anyone pronounce, Tsawwassen. Who knows how to say it. Anyways, at the airport stop is where our good deed of the day came from. There was an Englishman who was, well he looked vaguely annoyed and worried. Basically the airport had told him that there was also an airport tax to be paid, and they wouldn't accept travellers cheques as it would have to be cleared first, and they wouldn't accept his mum's credit card over the phone (he had just got of the phone with her). So the tax was about $24, and he didn't have the money, it was his first time travelling by himself, and well, he was a little upset. So we, Sabrina, Alex, Seun and I, decided to give him the money between us. He was very thankful, gave me his email address as he lives in Manchester and works in the Arndale centre, of all places, and said he would have to buy me a drink sometime! But yes, that was the good deed for the day. We felt good about it, and he definitely seemed genuine, and was very thankful, and quickly got the next bus going to the airport terminal he needed.
Right, so bus to Tsawwassen, apparently outside Vancouver is lots and lots of farm land, it looks completely different to what is essentially just a few miles away. Tsawwassen Ferry port/stop/terminal/whatever-it-is-called had one interesting thing to note. Inside the male toilets was a special bin, it was a sharps disposable, for needles and syringes. Yes, you read that correctly, it seemed a little odd, "You, the druggy, be kind, dispose of your needles in the appropriate place please."
Ok, so the Ferry ride, it was, well it was cold, and wet at times. However, the view was good still. All of the little islands on the way to Vancouver island were all pretty. Some had exquisite houses on them, and most had boats. Not surprising that with lots of little islands, transport by boat is popular.

Me and Sabrina looking out on the ferry

For entertainment during the long ferry ride was a few photos, exploring the kids play area and a card game or two. I have learnt a new card game called 41, thanks Sabrina! We eventually reached the stop at Vancouver Island, at a place called Swartz Bay. Here there was rain. Fun. But there was a sign/advert that shows perfectly how Canadians love the word "Awesome". Well, I thought it was funny. So the bus from here to Victoria is slow, unbelievably slow. However it was a double decker bus, which was unexpected. A Rainy hour later, the rain had stopped, and we walked to the hostel called Backpackers' Inn. It was alright actually, not expensive, nice place, room... wasn't big but adequate. When we arrived it was too late to go do anything, so we decided to walk about. We discovered buildings that were Christmas packages (The Christmas village)

Buildings or really big presents? (The Christmas Village)

, A bridge, some pretty looking views, and the chinatown. Which to be honest was rubbish, it was more of a china-block. It did provide a fancy looking tree though.

it's a fancy tree isn't it?

After a little bit of walking, we were obviosuly hungry. So we decided to look for a place that would provide food and drinks. Enter 'The Sticky Wicket'. This place, was Awesome! There were a few people inside, but when we had the food/drink, we could see why. It was very good. I was actually stuffed full. Lovely. Then we had desert sautéed strawberries in a rum sauce. Needless to say, this was delicious! That and there may have been a mini fight to get strawberries onto our spoons. Cocktails, also good, and the ale too. One of the cocktails I had was called a Pink Elephant. The Pink Elephant that no-body talks about. I hope someone gets that, the barlady said that to me and I laughed, but no-body else got it, but me and her. Some people. *shaking my head*

The Sticky Wicket, if you go to Victoria, you must go here!

After a few drinks, was back to the hostel to play a game I had noticed in the hostel, Jenga! Or as the Irish call it, tumbling towers. We do seem to play a lot of games here. haha. I think the others were getting annoyed with me as my tactic is to play highly risky manoeuvres. Well especially Alex, for his move was after mine. This was happening while there was live music, very funny live music followed by a lady on guitar with a beautiful voice, we liked her music a lot. This ended the first night. Well Ok, Getting into a very squeaky top bed of a bunk bed quietly because there was someone sleeping in the dorm room was how I ended my first night.

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The second day Helen was "hopping over" to see us and to go whale watching, along with whatever else we could fit in. Helen was taking a float plane, for free of course as she works for West Coast Air, and arriving at around 9am. So we decided that we would all meet at 9. Which in the Irish world means after 9. Ha, ok, to be fair Sabrina was ready by 9, Seun and Alex weren't. This was problematic as Whale watching only happens about 3 times a day with the people we wanted to go with, so in the end it was just me, Helen and Sabrina whale watching. This was something to remember. But first, we had to check out a place that Helen has been talking about since she had got here. It was Murchies, a place that does amazing afternoon tea. Although now it seemed that they are under new management and don't do it any more. We were very disappointed, so instead had scones and cake for breakfast. It was delicious. After that it was time to go whale watching.

We look like we should be on the sea. The problem with delayed photo's, you may look like a plonker.

First we suited up in what we called fisherman gear. Sabrina and Helen got orange suits, while I got the more captain style suit with blue on it as well (it's what I like to think anyway). Our captain was cool. We were on a small boat and I sat near the front, making the ride bouncy and exciting at times! Can you tell that I loved it yet? Well I did. Besides from seeing whales, we also saw sea-lions, elephant seals and some crazy sea weed type stuff called Bull Kelp. All of this was by Race Rocks. Some were cute.

Adorable isn't it! Smiling for the camera.

After looking at them, we joined a load of other whale watching boats. We were following a brother and a sister (I think), Orca Whales (Killer whales). They surfaced many times, it was quite cool to watch. The boats are only allowed up to 100ft to them. Which makes sense as when you see them they are actually hunting, wouldn't want to get in the way of that! The two we were watching were Transient Orca, meaning that they hunt other marine mammals, like Porpoises, Sea-lions etcetc. The other kind we could have seen are the Resident type, they swim in large family groups and hunt fish. There's a load of info in the wiki article if you want to read more. So where was I? Oh yes, whale watching, we did get pretty close to them, or should I say they appeared close to us! I would of got a fantastic photo of this too, if I wasn't staring at them thinking, 'wow, they are massive, and soo cool!'. I got some photos.

The Orca coming up one last time before KILLING!

Right, that was good, but I think a great part of this was purely being on the boat and skimming through the waves at high speeds. I basically a wide grin while this was happening. Just ask Helen. I was loving it! haha. It was only when we were out in the water that I realised how useful the 'fisherman' suits are. Underneath it I was wearing 3 layers already, that plus the extra gear made me comfortably warm. Unlike on land when walking around like this made you want to melt. So if you ever go out to sea, remember, it will definitely be cold! The other thing I noticed was that my phone got a text message, back at the harbour, I looked at it, apparently I we had crossed into US waters on the boat trip. So I can officially say I was in the USA briefly on this trip now.
So on the way back, bouncing along with the waves, Helen showed us her remarkable ability, she will sleep on bouncy boats like a baby. Kinda odd, but there you go. At the end we chatted to the captain of our little vessel, and asked him if there were any nice places to eat. I am so glad that I did, he directed us to a local fish & chip place by the water (yes, chips not fries!) which tourists generally don't know about. It is called Red Fish Blue Fish, and it was great! They even had mushy peas! I was unbelievably excited. They also get their food in a sustainable way and are environmentally friendly, so that's good too.

My fish & chips with Mushy peas, oh how I've missed you.

After this we had choices to make, as to what the 3 of us should do. 1st we looked into something we saw by the float planes. Scooters! They were funky old style ones, and had a flat rate after 4 hours. It seemed like a good idea, but we decided that getting up early the next day to go on them would be a better idea. Ride along the coast, then to the butterfly park. It would be a fun day, plus we could take pictures of us in 3 different coloured scooters. I was looking forward to my next day already. After that was sorted, we decided to chill out, take in the sunny sun sun, and the sea air. That and played with Sabrina's camera while she was on the phone to her sister. Mostly because Helen and I felt like playing, and our cameras had died for the day. Took some myspace style photos, and Helen as 'Cousin IT' style too. Apparently being a flame haired vancouverite means that she also gets sunburnt very easily. So after that we called her flame faced vancouverite (mostly as she was calling me dyl-bear, grr). To make sure Sabrina wasn't left out, we called her Ribena. Grabbed some popcorn, chilled some more. Then decided that we would go and see a play at the Fringe festival going on. The play we saw was "The Mechanical Bride", Starring Helen's housemate Kevin. He was M.O.M. and only appeared on tv/monitors. I liked it, it was funny, and importantly, enjoyable. After that we decided that we needed more food, and drinks, and the food should be in cake form, or something sweet. Yes food comes up a lot. Right, so we asked Hostel people, and ended up at a place called Detour Dessert Lounge. I had a London Fog, with lots of cinnamon, and the Bifky cake, full of chocolatey-ness and whipped cream to the side, and a strawberry. I don't have a photo, but I will nick one of Sabrina, who had the only working camera. The girls had wine and other delicious cake, and believe me, they were delicous, and large! The staff there were friendly and helpfull. Me and Sabrina played cards (snap, 41, Black Jack, Rummy), while Helen was feeling sunburnt, tired and had tea. We decided that we should drink stuff because of the games. But being as we are, we didn't want to spend lots of money on drink, and also, it probably wouldn't be the best idea if we were scootering the next day. We decided upon a glass of wine put into shot glasses. We asked the lady, and she had something better to put it in. Imagine a tall beer glass, but miniaturised to the size of a shot. It will brill-o! It turned into 3 shot glasses. After gruelling games of rummy, we ended up sharing the drinks as we couldn't decide if the looser or if the winner should drink! The plan for the next day had also been set, take scooters and explore, and also take float plane back as Helen made it sound very worth it. Also to try and get the student discount, making it $50ish instead of $160ish.

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Friday, the last day in Victoria.

We decided that breakfast should definitely be had before the scooter-ing begun. I had many ideas of photos to take, and with my recharged camera, it wasn't going to be a problem. We decided to eat at a place near to the hostel. It was a place that does an amazing, stomach filling breakfast. Food here is good, all of the time apparently! Ok, so after being stuffed again, we decided to check on the scooters. They were there, in the different colours we wanted. We were excited, we were ready, we needed our driving licences', Sabrina did not have one! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! stupid stupid stupid! 'Why did we not think about that yesterday!?' Is just one of the many thoughts that I had. Ok, so this meant that we needed a quick change of plans. We did consider having Sabrina take an electric scooter, as you don't need a licence for that. But they don't go as fast, or travel as far, so that idea was scratched. We even considered hiring a fancy old fashioned car, but figured that there would be a ginormous deposit for that. So basically we did no travelling on this day. Instead, we called Sabrina a moose, and then came up with the name Purple Moose, as Purple Moose are prohibited from riding petrol powered scooters. It's a well known fact! After coming up with that, we decided to go to the Victoria Parliamentary Building. It was, urm boring, so we walked out of that pretty much straight away.

Arrogant reflection shot of us in Parliament building

Maybe it would have been vaguely more interesting if we had taken the tour, but the lady talking had a very annoying voice, that we could not stand. So next option, find a park and relax. This worked. We went to Beacon Hill Park, the first thing me and Sabrina did was climb up the rocks and stuff, Helen just walked straight to a bench and stayed away from any sun! We joined up again at the bench, which was facing a pond full of ducks. Ducks that like to stick their heads into the water. It was Hilarious. One duck, which Helen named "Ducky" kept paddling his feet in the air, like he just didn't care. Yea, sorry, bad joke, but it was very funny at the time.

It's Ducky, he likes to shake his legs in the air.

Then we "climbed" a tree, I say "climbed" as Helen leant against the tree. It was now that Ben called me. He was picking up his girlfriend Hayley from the airport, but she was delayed. So he decided to see how things were going for me. Well, I was having this chat on a low branch of a tree, so the girls, being annoying creatures decided to take off my shoes. I could do nothing about this as I had my camera in one hand, and the phone in the other. I have no idea what Ben was thinking while this was happening, but he must have thought I was odd, but he probably thinks that anyway. More talking later, and Helen decided to up the ante. She started feckin pulling hairs out of my leg! Then Sabrina joined. Very much Grr indeed! and Ow sounds. I eventually got of the phone, and out of the tree, and out of being annoyed by the girls. Next we decided that Murchies was too good to not go to again, and made our own afternoon tea. I had Ceylon tea, of for those who don't know why that is good, Sri Lankan tea! It was just like being in Sri Lanka and having tea, minus the climate and surrounding, and the fact I had a massive sandwich. They made a great sandwich, it was odd, there was asparagus inside of it, but it worked.
Then it was time for the float plane ride! Me and Sabrina tried to get in with our student cards, but apparently only Canadian students are allowed. How fortunate FOR THEM. Means a more expensive ride, but my mind was set now, we were going by plane, so much quicker, and a great view. Of course, I was thinking of tailspin during take off and landing. How could I not? The flight was great, small plane it has to be said, but great fun. You fly lower than the clouds, and so can see everything below. I even think I saw Helen's house from the air!

A Shot from the plane of the little islands we passed

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So the plane flight was how my trip ended and I've spent the last two days writing it up. That and planning my next trip which starts tomorrow. I am taking a 5 day Moose Travel Network Bus ride to Banff and back with Sabrina. It will pass through Shuswap Lake, Banff, Revelstoke, Kelowna, and return to Vancouver. On the way are the possibilities to do these activities. As I have a Hostelling International card (from my time at Jericho Beach), this trip (bus ride and accommodation) comes to $299. Bargin! If we wanted, we can jump of the bus at any stop, and take the next one for no extra cost (minus the accommodation). However, I do have to do this in one go as I have to get back home, and get ready to leave this wonderful country and city. That and have Christmas dinner with friends. It's an "August Christmas dinner in July". The idea came from Lynda, as Australians like to party in their winter, hence, Christmas in July. But obviously it's August now so...

Yea, Anyway, I will not be taking my laptop, so the next posting will be a while away. Hopefully the weather will stay good, or at least manageable, today wasn't so great, a bit rainy, but hey, whatever. I will leave you with this, a guy I saw on the Skytrain yesterday, about to get married.

Oh yes, he was loving his friends.

rain rain rain. WHY!?!?!

I got soaked. Well, ok, not as much as Ben did, good thing he didn't ride his bike home. Today, no Lynn Valley, just Chinese food, and tea at Lynda and Andrew's from the now newly dubbed 'Manpot'. Good tea, and biscuits too. Today has been a lazy day, except for the running in the rain with a large bag, which I will need for going to Vancouver Island. To everyone reading this, I would like to say, haha! I will be having fun with Irish people, and on Thursday, when Helen joins us, with an English person too. I believe we will be whale watching at some point, and also going to have high tea at a place called Murchies. Because Helen says it's amazing. Although, now that we are Canadian mostly, we'd probably say "awesome". She has been talking about it since we have arrived, so I have high expectations.

Basically, I can't wait, and shall be leaving early in the morning, to go back into a youth hostel.

In other news, my parents don't get the grid system that we use here. They came around the house this morning, but got lost along the way. I knew where they were, so I tried to help by saying head west, blah blah blah. They did not know which way was west.
o_0? how?! I couldn't comprehend just how this was possible, especially as they use a map.
It's not just them though. (Yes this is becoming a rant, deal with it). Some of the people that have now lived here for a few months still don't have any clue about where they are going, where to go, or where anything is in location to each other! Me and Ben can't understand how someone can live in a city for so many months and still not know any directions!

Anyway, enough of that. There was a reason I mention my parents, it was the last time that I will see them before they return to England. They are spending time in Vancouver Island too. So I gave them some stuff to take home so I have more room for anything else. This does mean that I had to give away my squishable that I acquired whilst in Vancouver. It was a sad moment, the squishy fluffy puppy that guards my room has now gone.

My squishable guard puppy

Oh well.
Anyway, to Victoria in Vancouver Island!

Oh, also as an informative side note, Australians and Canadians get confused if you say that daddy long legs can fly. (they think it is a spider, look it up on wikipedia, it's quite interesting actually)

Start of 1st week off, Bike show & Capilano Bridge (week 11)

Yea, so Sunday didn't do much. I ... hmm, what did I do, oh yes I remember, I did do much! I walked from my house all the way to Mink. Out of all the stupid ideas I have had, this rates as one of the highest! Anyway, it took 1hr45mins, and along the way I saw that rare sight of Canadian Cricketers.

Cricket!

But no Zombies. haha. What was annoying was that throughout that whole day, with more walking, I stubbed my toe so many times! This is what I get for wearing flipflops. Whatever, after arriving at Mink, me and Ben went to a Bike show in Gastown. I've put the photos onto flickr. But I will show my favourites here. There were many nice bikes there, and so many people too.

I think the most random picture from this event came from the tiny dog on a massive bike!

tiny dog on massive bike

After the bikes, Ben went to his usual football match, and I stayed around Downtown as I had agreed to help Lynda take her box of surprises back home. I will get to that later. So what I did was to visit Helen at her workplace. She was kind enough to let me onto the docks, full of seaplanes. Looking at them just reminded me of TailSpin, awesome kids show!

oh-e-eh TAILSPIN! oh-e-oh TAILSPIN! (not Balu as some Germans would have you believe!)

Yea, so that was a nice bit of fun, but then I had to let Helen go back to her marathon work, she does many many hours you see. After that was back to Mink, and to help Lynda take stuff back home. The stuff was donated by her boss, and there was much of it, even Nicole, her workmate was impressed!

excited about opening stuff

It included a giant Teapot, Canadian sized if you will, that also said 'Tea' on the side. Obviously, once we had moved all of that, we had much tea! That and KFC.

Ok so today, Monday, the plan was to go to Lynn Valley with the Irish people (there are many of them, I am not listing their names!). Part of the plan was also to meet up at the library at 12. If there is one thing that I should have known, it is that these Irish girls can't keep time! Oh well, never mind! It turned out to be a good thing I suppose. Well, the day started of like so, at the bus stop, noticing that the weather looked like it would rain, I was not pleased.

"That better not be a rain cloud"

Because of this we decided to go to Capilano Bridge instead, and also, to meet at 12.30. At 1.10 they got there. Ha! What made up for this is that we have a plan for Wednesday to Friday. We shall be going to Vancouver Island, to Victoria first. It was all sorted out before we left for the suspension bridge. Oh right, it's a footbridge that has a rather large span if you were wondering.
So, Capilano:
Seabus -> real bus (no where near as packed as the time we went up the Grouse) -> using UK student card to get a discount, woohoo! So now the adventure begins below!

first odd thing to note, outside the entrance to Capilano Suspension Bridge, a place that is native American, the music was unexpectedly Irish sounding! Seriously, it wasn't just me who thought so, all the Irish people I was with (everyone else) thought so too. Right, so this area isn't just a bridge, otherwise I would be seriously annoyed at having paid $22 to get in. It's pretty much a an area of the temperate rainforest (what all the forests around Vancouver are), and there are little pathways that you can walk along to explore and learn (for the kids). The thing is, that you have to walk along this suspension bridge first!

Capillano Suspension Bridge, a long wobbly footbridge.

Nice. Here is the reaction of most people.

Peoples reactions, all happy or unconcerned. Then there is Seun!

As you can see all were excited, except Seun who looks decidedly scared. It wasn't so bad to be honest, it is shaky and wobbly, it is high, but it is a nice view, and feels safe. Although judging by some people, you'd think the floor was going to disappear, or that some crazed monster was going to bite their face of if they looked over. Seun wasn't this bad, but did require Alex assistance to get across... while Emma laughed. Evil.
Yea, the other side of the bridge leads to trails along the side of the mountain, and then there is also a walk along the tree tops.

I did not run back to the centre and scare the people behind me, honest.

Apparently this makes the trees stronger. It was all very pretty, and full of things to see. Pretty much every path, you'd look over and think, 'hmm, that would hurt if you fell', along with 'it's pretty'.

"Ummhmm, wouldn't want to fall down there."

We all had fun though.

Sitting around in a forest, as you do.

Afterwards we had a bright idea of going to a nearby museum. Little did we know that the nearby museum did not exist. It was a place to show of the native art, but it was closed for the day. Sabrina's idea, thanks Sabrina. She thought she saw a museum on a bike ride, how wrong she was. Haha, nah, it was all good. Afterwards we got a bus back through the Lions Gate Bridge, met up with Ben in Gas town, and had some food and drink, where Ben beat me at pool. Darn.

Ok, so today is now Tuesday, and I was going to go to Lynn Valley today, but the weather doesn't seem to want me to go. So today I think will be more chilling, maybe buying a small bag to carry stuff to Vancouver Island tomorrow, and eating Cantonese food (Dim sum) with everybody. I don't like the look of the weather forecast though for my last 2 weeks.

Yellow is predicted temperature, white is avr normally.

Hmm, Well, I suppose my last few days will be good. Also next week I am hoping to go to whistler, maybe the Rockies, so hopefully with the warmer temperatures, it will be good. However, this is only the forecast for Vancouver.
Not long left... I'm kinda feeling sad about it. But only kinda, too much to do to feel sad just yet!

=)

last day at work, Kayaking, and other stuff. (week 10)

So yesterday (Friday) was my last day at work. It was very sad. I've enjoyed working there, it's been so much fun with the people I work with. Ah, the number of times I must have said/shouted "FAIL!" to them, or insulted the face. It's been good there! On my last few days I have been adding random messages to the juice I put into cups, like little smiley faces, or "drink me!", stuff like that, on the Friday, the Flying Spaghetti Monster appeared on apple juice. I also took a few photos of people and things before I left. There wasn't too much time to be sad about it though, as Ashley forgot to bring a chain to tie me up with (she apparently had handcuffs prepared, but left them at home), and I had to make it to a bus stop in downtown by 6, when I finished at 5.30. Why? For me and Helen were going Kayaking!

Kayaking! I say again, Never done it, do want to do it again. It was good. We were Kayaking at Deep Cove (see my googlemap for where it is). This involved me running from work to the skytrain so I could get to the waterfront station (near Canada place), then running (or walking fast) again to the bus stop down the road where Helen was waiting and hoping the bus didn't get there before I did. The semi-running was actually pointless, the bus was late and we waited a few minutes.

We wait for the bus, 290 to Deep Cove.

Well, the bus came and we realised that we would have to upgrade our bus passes otherwise we wouldn't have paid the correct fare. What we ended up doing was playing the dumb tourist card, and got on the bus for free! Yay, I like the bus drivers here. The bus drive was interesting, it was through the more industrial areas of Vancouver, so not as pretty as I am used to over here. It was made up though when we went on and over the Trans Canada Highway bridge. The view of Downtown and North Vancouver was great from it. When we were on the North Vancouver side, the scenery was completely different. For some reason my brain was convinced that the smell of the air around there was just like Sri Lanka at times. It's very forest-y and full of nice looking houses around the far eastern part of North Vancouver. We eventually got to Deep Cove and were silenced by the view. This does happen a lot around here admittedly, but it was rather nice! First thing we did was, well besides from make sounds like 'ouu, and ahh' about the view,

The view of where we were Kayaking

was to go inside the Deep Cove kayaking club and get ourselves kitted out. This was halted for a minute for the standard waiver, basically saying its our fault if we die. Signed that. Then it was time for getting kitted out in Kayaking gear. First was the spray deck, to stop you getting completely wet from the paddling.

Oh yes, me and Helen are well aware of how we look.

Oh yes, we looked good and we knew it! We got that sorted, with the life jacket and the paddle too. Next was wait for two Kayaks, then to get in, and be told how to use or, or more precisely, what to do if you mess up. Our Kayaks confused Helen as the one she had been in before did not have peddals to steer a rudder on the kayak. As for pictures while on the water, they don't exist. I was not going to take my DVD camcorder anywhere near water, and Helen's camera was underneath the spray deck, or in other words, sealed away from the water, and from her hands. So no pictures, but it was very pretty, and the houses on the edge of the mountains/by the edge of the water were amazing to look at, and probably to look from. Wouldn't be surprised if celebrities lived there. We only had 2 hours of it though, and we arrived a little late, so we decided to turn back from our original destination, to make sure we got back in time. On the way back I saw Vincent, the guy who works in Science World and took us to see Batman in IMAX. needless to say it was a random encounter, but good, means I get to see him before I leave for England. On the bus ride home Helen and I decided to go to Lonsdale Quay for food, so we would be next to the seabus to go home. With that in mind we remembered The Cheshire Cheese restaurant, it does English food. So we both instantly thought of Toad in the hole, and that is what we had. Oh having this food was sooooo good! The sausages were proper sausages, not this rubbish Canadian stuff, proper and English, the gravy, well wasn't what was expected, as in we couldn't drown any toads today, but the Yorkshire pudding was great. What was unexpected was that it was served with salad. Yes, salad. What's with that? Odd people, reminds me of the time I was in Sri Lanka, ordered a Hot Dog, and received half a sausage (cut through it's length) and a leaf of lettuce in a hot dog bun. It's not right!

Toad in the Hole, but what's with the salad?

With that exception, it was still delicious! After the much needed food was the long ride home, sleepy style. Today was a good day. Yep.

AH! It's the day after (Saturday), and apparently I have left my keys at the Kayak place! Crud!
I will get it back somehow. but now I must go to Ninjitsu for the first time ever!
...
12 hours later
...
yay, they have been retrieved! Sabrina has them, for she went kayaking today at the same place.
However, I got to the place where ninjitsu was meant to be, and found no-body there! I was a little annoyed, especailly as I jumped of the bus and ran a few blocks to the place. The bus was stuck in a traffic jam at kits beach. So I decided to walk to Mink, and take the Burrard bridge, it has a very nice view of English Bay from it

English Bay from Burrard Bridge.

THe odd thing that I noticed was lots of Zombies. yes, I said Zombies, I didn't take photos of the Zombies or even talk to them. Not from fear of loosing my brain, or from being fictional (They were real!), but mostly because I was still annoyed. One Zombie had a wii remote stuck in his head, and was holding a wii remote and nunchuck in his hands. I thought it looked good. Ok, I've just looked it up with the help of google, it was "Zombie Walk 2008", It has been going on for a few years now, part art, part fun. There are also photos that can be found on flickr, I quite like this one of zombies attacking a bus! Somewhat odd seeing zombies in downtown. Well like any other lazy day in Vancouver, it was decided that we should go to the beach, English bay. And watched the sunset. I also took a picture of Ben Wearing Nicole's Sunglasses (Lynda's work mate), it's a lot like Ben's picture of me like Ray Charles, but he looks like a spastic Elton John.

Ben as 'Spastic Elton John'

I can't say that life here is boring, there is always somewhere to go/something to do. Hmm, what to do tomorrow? Get my Keys!

Anyway, now to other stuff, namely, how the rest of the week has been.
For the most part, there is not much to say really.
Well, there was the day that I became Canadian for a brief moment from me saying tom-aye-toe instead of my usual tom-ah-toe in normal conversation. This was at work, Ashley was Very happy, started bouncing for a while and laughed and pointed at me. It was a slip of the tongue! I am not starting to talk Canadian as my normal language! Grr, I don't think Ashley will let me live that down. This is what I get for talking like them to customers. Oh actually, talking about the Canadian tongue, on Friday I discovered that the trick of saying 'Beer Can' and finding it impossible to not sound like a Jamaican saying 'Bacon' doesn't work with Canadians. It ruined the phrase for me. Today I also discovered that it doesn't work with Australians too. On another lingual front, if you do come here, don't add 'o' to the end of words, like good'o or 'brillo!', it confuses the Canadians.

On Thursday Helen made a roast for us to eat. I can honestly say that it was good. There was chicken, mash, cranberry, gravy, vegetables, Yorkshire Puddings, almost all that one needs, she forgot about stuffing. But hey, its hard to remember that when shopping at a Chinese supermarket is a good excuse. This food is the reason we thought about Toad in the hole after Kayaking. On the way back from Helens, I saw a skunk, and for the first time ever, a Raccoon. This wasn't any ordinary raccoon though, it was a raccoon that was staring at me. Having never seen a raccoon before, I decided it was best to walk on the other side of the street, while it still stared me out. It was a little odd, but when it was being backed up by a skunk, I didn't want to take a chance. It did look cool though. That just leaves Coyotes to see around here.

Current things you may not know: My hair is now fluffy like! People like this. And generally like to pat my head. My parents went up to Jasper and further up the Rockies and are currently on their way back down, seeing dinosaurs. I keep being told to stay in Canada. I would like to, but have made plans. darn. Although a man named Jonathon is being a twat about setting up post dated cheques. Has he not heard of Direct Debit?! Grr, I am in a different country, as well as other soon to be housemates, how are we meant to do get this done by the 22nd? foolio.

Never did hear from Jane or Elissa, so dunno about hanging out with them to see vancouver-ian things to see around here. Anyway, future plans include Whistler, Tofino, Ice Skating, Speed boat-ing, the islands in general, hopefully whale watching, and more chilling out! so look out for more to come in my last 2 weeks here!

parents appearing... pt 2. and the start of week 10 (sat->mon)

Ok. So where was I? Oh yea, something along the lines of, parents, Ahh!

All right, so what did we do... Saturday well it was supposed to rain, so we decided not to go to the Stanley park, but went to North Vancouver instead. Ate at Lonsdale Quay, while this was happening I realised that I was not going to ninjitsu today either. Oh well.
Urrm, went to a shopping mall, had a snack there at a place called Cinnabon. This was amazing! I was addicted to the food straight away,

The Cinnabon (Classic Cinnamon Roll).

the cinnamon goes well. I decided to go to mink after and left my parents and aunty and uncle to themselves. Ate food with Lynda, Ben, and Sabrina. Yes, food occurs a lot for me! Then we watched a film I hadn't watched in years at Sabrina's, the film was K-PAX. People liked it. I would like to thank my mate Luke back at school for introducing me to the film! Go Luke, you're awesome! It was just as good as I remembered it.

Sunday, was work, yay... Weekends are so busy. After work I went to Jericho Beach for it was Sophia's birthday (German girl we met from the hostel), and she was having a bbq and we were going to see some drumming, drumming people here is something fun to watch. Anyway, we had some sausages/hotdogs on a small bbq, flame grilled, fire is what one might call fun! There was this random play going on at the same time as well next to us, it was Jack and the Bean stalk, but not as we know it.

The play, with random charectors

For Jack was "Captain Jack" the Pirate, and the giant looked an awful lot like Peter Pan. Yea, odd, but it ended an on even odder note, the giant ends up marrying a cow (it said moo, which means yes, I do), and another Pirate wanted to marry himself because the reflection in his sword was pretty. Odd doesn't really describe it!
Going back to Jericho beach was good, I forgot how beautiful it was, especially at sunset,

Jericho Beach, as pretty as ever.

also, in the hostel, I chatted to all the staff, they were cool as always.
Oh and there was Banana bread to be had of course! That banana bread is always great, especially when warmed up slightly and spread with butter. I really want the recipe for it. And yes, this is my paragraph dedicated to banana bread, because it's worth it.
After food and random play, and sunset, we went to the Spanish Banks (just west of Jericho Beach) to watch the drummers and took a car. There were 7 people though, luckily Ben had his bike, leaving 6 people, so we went like so, 4 in the back, being very squished. They were apparently 'Vrad', aka 'Vancouver Rhythm and Dance'. It was good, but then it ended, so we had the question of how to get 7 people back in a car as Emma had joined us. It was like this, 5 in the back, 4 sitting down, one lying across us. First this was Sabrina, we stopped briefly, got out, and then I was lying across everyone. I got to say, lying on top is more comfortable than being squished! But yea, good day, I like doing these random things every now and then, should do this when I go back home.

Monday is another day at work. work work work, only 4 more days! Met Jane and Elissa at work today (the random science world girls that want to show me Vancouver before I leave), and they maybe taking me about this weekend. Woo! What random thing did I do today after work today? Well, met up for food this lovely sunny day and ate at Canada place. Well, I didn't eat dinner, as I ate at 4.30 (as it was the only time to eat today, from lack of busy-ness). What I had was a rolo McFlurry. Ice cream is wonderful, especially when looking across the beautiful view that is the view from Canada Place. Are you people jealous yet? Sucks to be you.

Well yea, I have work all the way till Friday. After work tomorrow will be going to Granville Island with my parents. It should be good, plus, that thing I love, more food!
Oh and that day us people here had a bbq at the Irish girls house, me and Ben got bored while the girls decided to shop for food and took random photos (from here forwards, there are some before too I suppose). I do like this photo

haha, nice.

Anyway, until the next blog entry. See ya.

Parents appear on holiday. ermm.

Yes, my parents arrived yesterday, well half an hour later than expected.
The first thing they noticed about me is that my shorts were bright, for they got to see my board shorts that I brought. It was good, I also realised that my uncle's accent disappears when talking in Sinhala (Sri Lankan). It was quite odd to hear Sinhala again after so many months, and also good to know I can still understand perfectly! If I had suddenly had lost that abiliity, I may have to cry!

Anywho, yes, my parents arriving. I was half excited, half thinking. 'Ahh, my parents are coming! my life as I know it now is OVER!'
haha. nah, it should be cool. I have to admit, that hearing that they were coming to vancouver too was... well a bit of a shock. This is how it happened;
I finish uni, and my parents come to pick me up, while packing stuff, they tell me,
'By the way, we are coming to Canada too!'
I think this is where my face looked shocked, scared, worried, annoyed and like my heart had stopped, all at once!
'It's supposed to be my trip!', is what I was thinking. After that look I gave, they explained that they were arriving much later, for two weeks, and would be doing there own thing.
My heart had restarted, and I was ok again.

heh, yea, that is pretty much as I remember it.

oh wait... umm yea, today we are exploring canada point, stanley park, and granville island.

and I must leave as they are standing around me right now!!!

ok, byebye!

Plans ahead (and more of life : sun3rd-thurs7th) week 9-ish

Hey all.

So I have plans. That's right, me. With plans!
I was walking around the UBC botanical gardens with Sabrina on Sunday, and talking about what we were doing before we leave for Home, the real home (UK). We came up with the idea of exploring Whistler, and the Rockies, and pretty much as much as possible by leaving our jobs two weeks early. So it has been settled, I handed in my resignation notice to work on Monday, saying that I will be leaving the job on the 16th. When Ashley found out, she said that she would have to buy that chain earlier (As she said she would chain me up so I couldn't leave!). I replied, You may also want to buy the lock earlier too! Hmm, anyway, the UBC gardens:

So me and Sabrina had decided to go to the gardens on Sunday after she had finished work. The first challenge was getting there. The bus stops a little bit away from there, but after some walking, we discovered, how to get there. It involved walking along a street called Thunderbird, and going towards Tunderbird Stadium. I liked this fact.

We got there at 6pm, hoping that it was still open. The entrance said that it was open until 7, good, but that tickets stop selling at 5, not so good. We looked at the sign, a bit bewildered, then because of that a lady came out and said you can go in, suggested a route (to see the most in the available time), and then said that a donation would be nice. This worked out well, instead of paying $8 each, we paid $2 donation for both of us! Also, the lady obviously didn't realise that we were just going to walk around, rather than read every note about every plant, so we got around the whole lot almost! We walked to the north garden first, and got there by walking through a tunnel, a tunnel that talks to children

The tunnel likes to talk to children

There was lots to explore, but compared to how the map showed it, it was tiny. However, it was still good, and pretty. Anywho, besides from lots and lots of trees and plants to look at, there were a few things to look at, and so to mention. There were a few special trees, all of which had photo's taken of, and random bridges and stuff to be seen (like a tiny pool of water). The main thing to mention, is that there was a Sundial. Now, how many of you can read a sundial? I've been asking people this recently, just to see if it was only me who knew how to read it, most people seem unsure but know what part of the sundial to read, the shadow. Sabrina on the other hand looked at the metal part and seemed confused as to how it tells the time, because it could not move to point at the numbers. You read the shadow Sabrina! I thought this was funny. She's the only one to have thought this so far. Haha, I don't think she likes me bringing this up to our friends though!
Hmm, There were some fun things to look at, like the Minotaur. It was a tad bit bigger than us! There were also tall trees, European honeybees, and more trees! You can see the photos on my flickr, the start is here. My favourite picture comes from the end of the walk around the gardens, when we found a lookout point onto the beach.

Sabrina looking out upon the beach.

After the gardens, food was needed, Chinese was decided, and for $3 for a fill and tea, we were happy! Not happy with doing nothing for the rest of the day, We decided to rent a load of films out from blockbuster, and watched Evan almighty, it was good, not as good as Bruce almighty, but still good. The other two films are for next Sunday.

Monday - Handed in resignation, it was also BC day, so I got 1 and a half pay, plus I did some over time, so during that period, I got 2.5 pay. Much money that is needed for when I quit. It was Nadia's last day at work, she is returning to elsewhere in Canada. Lynda had a meal at hers. Eating for $20, makes for good random food! Obviously we played Scumbag afterwards too!

On Tuesday - After work, I watched Batman in IMAX with workmates. It was awesome! and the film was MAssive! although, we may have been a little bit close, to close for comfort, but still worth it. When I got back home I found that some of the original inhabitants for this house had come back. The conversation went like this:
Them: Hi there! Who are you? (They look confused at me)
Me: Hey, I'm Dylan, I live in this room (I point to my room), who are you people? (I look confused at them)
We had a good laugh talking for a little bit, so they seem like nice people.

Wednesday - I was meant to write an update to this blog, but ended up going to bed at 12, and walking up at 9 the next morning, that's right 9 hours sleep! Today was also Thanh Mai's Birthday, happy birthday! woo! Oh also, me and Ashley argued about words. Is it a "Zee-bra" or a "Zeb-bra"? That then lead to other words to complain about. Funny times at work, I'm going to miss them guys.

Thursday is today, not much to say, but had a BBQ at the Irish girls house. Good BBQ, food, conversation, company. It's all good! We also discussed more about what to do in our last few weeks, such as road trip to the Rockies, and Christmas in August+Sabrina's Birthday. I like the sounds of all of these, so watch out for them in future posts!

Tomorrow is when it gets interesting again, my parents are randomly arriving in Vancouver. So I have tomorrow and Saturday off. They will be doing their own thing though, but I will hang out with them for a little bit, before returning to my life here.

Dunno whether to get another bike though, I would do that tomorrow, but I have about $50 on me, so I can't buy a bike yet, also, I've spent a fair bit on bus tickets now, I don't know if it is worth it any more, especially if I will be travelling about. Meh, whatever, after Friday next week, I will be posting more interesting stuff here! So stay tuned!

saturday (week 8, the rain has stopped!)

Hello again. Once again I'm doing nothing, so here is another day update. I basically rant about life being annoying in this one, for the most part. Enjoy!

This week gets better as it goes along!
OK. this is yesterday for you.
wrote blog and emails. Walked out of the door to learn some ninjitsu, and then I get a text from Lynda saying the A.J. (A guy who does the training) was at her work place, and that the other guy was not available for training, so there would be session today. Slightly annoying, still good thing I got that as I walked out of the front door, rather than onto the bus.
So I decided to go back inside, get my laptop, go into the backgarden, and use the laptop while relaxing on the hammock. That was good. Lovely sun, that's right, sun, for the rain has stopped. Finally. Actually, it's sunny now, I will go to the garden again.

Chilling in the hammock, laptop by my side.

Oh wait I remember why I went back inside after about 30minutes. The Wasps were annoying me. Well actually, not the wasp, they did buzz about a bit, but then This giant Wasp-like creature landed on my foot. I did not know what it was so I thought, 'hmm, I've never seen one of those before. I wonder what it wants with my foot. hmm. I don't think I want to find out. I should go inside before it gives me a little sting and I realise that I am paralysed or something.'
It was rather huge... I will find a picture, or draw one.

Ok, after some googling, I think it was a Hornet of some kind. So not fatal, unless they all attack at once, good to know. I will not be bothered next time it lands on my foot.

Right, to the rest of the day. Well Helen had organised a Meal for us all at a nice looking restaurant in downtown called Wild Garlic Bistro. I put a shirt on top of what I was wearing so that I felt just slightly more classy. That was for 7.30, the fireworks were at 10. So the first place to go was obviously the place to be, Mink. Got a lovely iced dark chocolate drink made by Lynda's workmate Jason. He is awesome. (Why is it now that I am in Canada, I say this word all the time?)

Picture of the inside of Mink. Look there's Jason on the right, and Lynda on the left.

Ben was there too, (no surprise, after his double pay at work today... git), and so we chilled for a bit. Well Ben quickly went to H&M (yes, they have that here!) and bought a shirt to put on top too. While he was doing that I was trying to discover why I had no sound coming out of my headphones. The answer was that they were busted on the plug, crud. They are really great sounding headphones too! Also to add to my list of good things to have happened this week, I dropped my sunglasses. Now this has happened many times, and not much has happened. This time however, I caught them before they hit the ground, and thus broke them. So no more sunglasses, music, or bike. Good good good.

Yep, that's definitely broken.

Right, so when Lynda eventually left work (Jason finds it hard to get her to stop working when she has finished. She keeps wanting to help, it is hard for Jason), we looked for some sunglasses. They were all Kanye West style. All good, but I also have a lack of money from paying the rent, so no sunglasses today. Must wait until next weekend for the money to come in. But I will keep an eye on them.
Walked to the restaurant, and may I just say, walking is rubbish, we all need bikes! The Wild Garlic Bistro Restaurant is small, but classy, open kitchen, so it smells amazing, and candle lit. We decided to have Tapas, lots of everything to share was a great idea. especially garlic mashed potatoes. It was all good, and we all shared a chocolate cake for desert. By the time we finished, it looked like we were not going to be able to go to English Bay for the Fireworks final (Oh yea, all these fireworks recently are for the festival of lights, if you were wondering what is with all the fireworks). To get around this problem, we decided to walk to Burrard Bridge, as this was a location that was good for viewing and allowed all of us to get to our homes easily. When we were only half way to the bridge, the fireworks had started, so everyone but me and Sabrina went home. We continued all the way to Kitsalano Beach (Opposite English Bay) by bus, and saw a few fireworks along the way. We got there finally, sat down, saw a few giant explosions, then it was finished. Only we could have timed it better. The final was only half an hour, we thought it would be longer. We weren't to happy about that, so we ignored all the people leaving and sat by the beach in the park chatting and watching stars... and having the Beach patrol on the quad bikes almost run us over. I swear they couldn't have ridden any closer to our heads, they think they are so cool on their quads! It was good just lying down and relaxing, but fireworks would have been great.
Now a little sidenote, Bus tickets here work as so; when you have used it for the first time, it will work for any bus, skytrain, or seabus for the next 90mins. We realised this, and promptly got to a bus stop and waited. As the bus came, it didn't stop. I ran after it, hastily saying/waving goodbye to Sabrina and almost caught up to the bus, but it left at the next stop without waiting for me. My bus ticket ran out by the time next bus came, but that wasn't a problem, it was a packed bus. 5 people got off, and none were allowed on. I was very annoyed at this point, it was midnight, so I decided to walk home. Of course this wouldn't be a problem in the first place if some theif hadn't stolen my bike! It has been so much of a hassle without the bike, I've spent $20 on bus tickets, and need to buy more! This leaves me with little to buy another bike and to be able to have food! It's just ... annoying (add profanity, I did). I wish they knew how much so, maybe they do and don't care, in which case they are heartless people, but I guess we knew that.
It took 1 hour to get back home. I did however manage to get one headphone to work for most of the way. Still, it was annoying. Very annoying! I did meet a random old lady on the top, who was sympathetic, she said that's why she doesn't bother going to the beach anymore to see the fireworks. She put a smile on my face, so that was good.

Yep, that was the day called Saturday 2nd August.

Well, today (Sunday) is looking at the UBC Botanical gardens. I don't think anything bad can happen from that... hopefully!

Wed/Thurs/Friday (week 8, it is still raining!) - 1 month left!

Ok, so 1st the story on my bike is: no-one knows where it went. So assumed stolen.

Figures.
Ashley helped me do a police report, where they asked this question,
"do you know the serial number of the bike?"

Umm? no.
Who does? I would like to meet that person, then tell them to get a life possibly.

Anywho, this week is the week that was full of rain. I mean, loads, and loads of rain, it in fact feels like I am back in merry ol' England. There's rain - check, there is a cold breeze - check, there is a lack of sun - check. This isn't sunny Vancouver! One of my workmates was saying that this has actually been the rainiest month for Vancouver in many many years (I can't remember the number). Normally Vancouver is normally rainy all season, until the summer months, when it is sunny. Hmm, maybe it is a good thing that I am here only for the summer then! This is funny in the sense that I often find myself wishing that I was here for the whole year instead. It would definately give me more time to explore.

Right, enough ranting about that, here is what I've made of the week so far.

My bike, My Beautiful bike! Nooo! Me and Ben have lost bikes, and thus have noticed how there seems to be a rampant trade stolen bikes, or bike parts. As you walk around Vancouver, you will always see some random bike with parts missing, and not because the owner took said part away. For the first few days taking public transport, I looked out the window and kept thinking. "OI! that person has my bi... oh, wait no, that's not my bike".
Yes, I do miss the bike, even if it ate 2 trousers (yes, it did a second pair two, the eating slipped my mind, and so I was punished by the bike). I got bored one night and looked up bike stealing on the internet, and came across this video. I think that says it all really.

Rain, I hate rain when I am working because it means only one thing; a very busy day.
When it rains, Everyone suddenly decides to come to the science world building, which means that there is lots of hungry people wanting food from us. It's quite annoying, but I guess that's the reason this place exists.

Burrard street when raining at the bus stop.

Me unimpressed at the wait for the bus in the rain on Burrard street.

The fireworks on Wednesday (China's effort) was rather cool. We watched it from English Bay. It was rather loud, and large. The view was definitely better than on Saturday, it was also so packed. Everyone wanted to see the fireworks by the beach. It looked great so I was regretting not taking my camera as the location before looked poor in comparison. However, it was not as amazing as the Canadian crowd were making it out to be. It was like they hadn't seen fireworks before with all of their 'ou'-ing and 'ah'-ing. After every big explosion there were massive cheers and hooting. Seriously people, it's what fireworks do, it's not mind blowing. It was good mind you, I liked the set of fireworks that had a few go off in different directions so everyone could see the same thing (including people in planes above), fireworks in the shape of a smiley face. Yes, very me indeed. Seeing these fireworks made me wish that I had seen that Godzilla one, as that was meant to be amazing. This was just lots of fireworks, not in any discernible theme. The Godzilla based fireworks was meant to sound, look and feel spectacular. Oh well, maybe today's (Saturday) fireworks will be even better.

Hmm, back to my work, here is a list of things I have noticed:
i) A lot of people can't understand or talk English, which makes you wonder how much they take in when all the exhibits are in English.
ii) Admittedly, some of these people are only the parents, the child speaks perfect English (Perfect Canadian, which is wrong!). So you end up taking to the child, it's odd, but nice too.
iii) People don't listen to you when ordering! Argh! Ok, imagine this you tell them that the kids meal comes with a fountain drink (aka pop), milk or chocolate milk. They think about it, and then say yes. No, you choose one, so I can enter it in the till. Also, this isn't a language problem, as the non-native speakers listen and understand. Some people are fools.
iv) People really like my english accent. They really do. Everyday I will get a complement, or be insulted when they ask if I am austrailian. That happened once. I do like the English customers, they are baffeled by why I came here by myself, but think it is great that I did. We agree that the coins here are silly, the 10cent piece is smaller than the 5. Fools.
v) Tourists will always have a $100 bill, and use it to pay for a $8 dollar meal.
vi) American tourists will also have american $100 and $1 bills.
vii)Some people can't read menu's, as they use names from other places. People have asked for frappachino's, Bigmac's, Chicken nuggets, Supersize, to use there Starbucks coupon here... the list is endless. THIS IS A DIFFERENT PLACE PEOPLE! Baka. The starbucks wannabe's are the worst though, they are arrogant.
viii)None of us knows the name of this one science world guy that comes in every morning and asks for an americano in his coffee mug. He is a really nice guy, we all have a great chat with him, but none of us know his name! We all feel really bad because of this.

umm, yea, that's all about work for now.

Yesterday (Friday), was the start of a new month, which also means that I have only one month left! It's so weird thinking that my time in Vancouver is almost over. Kinda sad, I really do wish I was staying here longer, for the whole year. Oh well, with one month I still have many things I want to do, like see whales/dolphins/sealions, go to Vancouver Island, Lynn Valley, rockies/Whistler. Lots of places to see. Don't know if I will be able to do all of them though. To make sure I have the best chance though, I will be leaving my job in two weeks. So I should tell them this sometime soon! haha. Then much exploring! Hopefully other people can join me, otherwise I guess I will have to do this alone! Until I meet random people along the way that is.

Hmm, yea, that's my plan for this new month. The weather should pick up again, well according to the forcast it should.

The Weather forecast for 2nd-6th Aug in Vancouver.

Well, as for today (Saturday), what I have planned is fireworks at night, but something SUPER AWESOME for 3 o'clock. It is learning ninjitsu with a random person Lynda met. Ben and lynda can't join me today (they are working), but I don't care, it's ninjitsu! mwahahaha, it is going to be so cool!
Yes, I am a tad bit excited about it. I will try and get photo's too. As long as I don't get hurt too much, haha.

Ok. That is all for today, for I want to make lunch!

byebye for now.

p.s. How do people like the new layout?