Oh Canada we're leaving thee...

...well not today but in 3-4 days. Ahhhh it was definately nice here, though we might have seen more stuff with a more thorough planning, which for good reasons neither my girlfriend nor I am known for when it comes to holidays. We just dig food, that's really what we look for in other countries. Okay what crazy stuff did we do since my last post?

Well let's start with the PNE Fair, where we went on the first or second weekend. Fair's are always epensive but especially so over here in Canada. You can buy a day pass, allowing you to go on most of the normal rides, but the really good ones cost extra (8-10$). Plus the normal games where you can win plush bunnies and so on, cost at least 2$ and even if you win you only get a small to medium prize. You have to trade in several medium ones to get a large one and so on until you get a free choice. So you'll be spending at least 12$... Anyways here's a picture:


Then we went to play Beach Volleyball and have a BBQ with some friends of one of Binh's cousins over here. That was fun! I love the American/Canadian relish, it just makes anything taste great >;o)


We also went to watch the Salmons migrating on Grouse Mountain. The picture shows one of the fabulous sights Canada and especially British Columbia have to offer:


Later we headed up to whistler where the Olympic Winter Games of 2010 will be held and met some Inukshuks (which have also become the symbol for the Vancouver Olympic Games) at the mountain top:


We had a four day trip to Vancouver Island, where we stayed in Victoria and explored the small city and also went wale watching, spotting some live orcas though from a distance.


As mentioned as a possibility in the last post we drove down to Seattle and spent a nice weekend there. However we only did that last week:


While Seattle was actually quite nice, the border guard wasn't. His voice was more like a dog growling and barking than I have heard ever before. It was good fun though. Another thing we did was go to the Vancouver Aquarium where we had fun watching the Beluga wales, one of which splashed a wave of salty water on my girlfriend who filmed the whole thing (video link may follow later)...


Well that's the most interesting stuff anyways. I don't have much time now, so maybe I'll post more later when I come back from Crete, where I'll be heading with my university's chair for 'research' from the 30th September to the 6th of October...

Show you how Indiana Jones 'Knossos' looks, Steve >;o)

Staroc out.

Mighty Vancouver...

Well after discovering why most Americans apparently hate the Canadian's favourite beverage, namely 'root beer', I am again in a state that makes it possible for me to blog... So as a very short report of what we've done already, I want to start with the food here in Vancouver and since we are visiting my Chinese girlfriend's aunt that means pretty much all the Chinese food possible.

Allmost everything you eat over here is first of all authentic (going as far as celebrities from Hong Kong coming over here to have original Cantonese food that tastes better than at home... -we'll get to that later - As for the reason I guess Chefs earn a lot more here than over in China, which makes coming to Canada to cook an easy choice...) and second of all DELICIOUS. I ate the best sticky rice and congee I've eaten in my life over here and I won't even start to talk about the cakes you can get.

We already went all around the city. Pretty much meaning that we went to Downtown Vancouver and the Metrotown Mall quite often, which are some of the best shopping areas over here, which - do I even have to say that - naturally my girlfriend enjoys a lot (my wallet doesn't though *grin*).

Other than that we went to the biggest fair in all of British Columbia, the so called 'PNE', visited the Richmond Night Market and went to play Beach Volleyball at the beach close to one of Vancouvers Unis (the weather over here really treats us nicely with sunny 25-30°C). We also went to a nice Chinese style garden or park close to Chinatown, which even looks really pretty on the pictures I took. Here's one for you guys:

Alright, now to todays special event. My girlfriend's aunt works in a quite famous Cantonese restaurant here in Vancouver and she had heard that 4 Hong Kong movie stars were coming there tonight after a show they were doing for the biggest Cantonese TV station here in Canada. So we both dressed up and went there, to see if we could catch a chance of seeing them. That's how nice we looked:

Then when the celebrities were leaving we got a chance to take a picture with the actress my girlfriend likes the most, namely 'Ada Choi' or in Chinese '蔡少芬'. What?!? You don't believe me? Well here's the proof (and if you do not believe that that is a Hong Kong movie star -> look here):

Well that was quite exciting. We'll see who else we meet. Maybe next weekend we will drive down to America and if I meet everyone's favourite George W. Bush, I'll be sure to wear my favourite T-Shirt - you know which one I mean... Best wishes from Canada.

Staroc out...