May 15, 2008

  • It's so nice out...

    Just got home from a day of doing Tourism Passport stamps with Anna.  I now have 25 stamps in total, enough of both attractions and hotels to make the 15 stamp minimum (12 attractions) for the Privilege Pass as well as the 25 stamp draws.  Let's see...  for attractions, I've got Science World, Rocky Mountaineer (x2), Sun Yat Sen Gardens, VPD Museum, BC Sports Hall of Fame, Grouse Mountain, Capilano Suspension Bridge, The Lookout at Harbour Centre, Hastings Raceway and Casino, Stanley Park Horsedrawn Tour, the Aquarium, Canada Place Exhibition Info Centre, Vancouver Tourism Info Centre, False Creek Ferries, Maritime Museum, Space Museum, and the Vancouver Museum.  Plus a handful of hotel stamps to make 25.  woohoo!

    Anyway, I got home and it was still so very nice out (around 7:30-8:30pm), so I typed up most of this following post outside from my balcony table.  It was almost perfect weather:  warm, sunny, clear blue sky, with a nice cool breeze.  It could have been slightly warmer, but it was still very comfortable, enough that I went the entire day out in a t-shirt and one of my summer short-sleeved button shirts and left my jacket in my bag.  Had to use sunscreen for one of the first times this year.

    As I started typing this, I looked out, and I could feel the breeze on my face, the fragrance of flowers below wafted up into my senses, alternating with the smells of food being prepared in one or other of the apartments around the courtyard.  Bbq from a window somewhere, fried food from another, and then the wind carried the scents off to be replaced once again with fragrant flowers and spiced with the chirping of birds and the sounds of the types of human activity as would be associated with a sunny day.  As I continued to type and the evening light dimmed, the chorus of frogs croaking in the distance crescendoed ever so subtly into consciousness, creeping in below the increment of noticing.

    I went back in when the temperature started to fall and the mosquitoes became noticeable and went back to finishing this post.  Shari called about an hour and a half ago and I've been on the phone with her until about fifteen minutes ago.  It was an unexpected and welcome distraction to cap off the evening since I've been too busy to call the last week and a half.

    Enjoyable.

    Highlights (some duplication from last post):

    Sat April 26th: Stamps with Hollie and Lap.
          Met at Science World at 10, got my stamp from Membership, Lap was late
          Lap drove:  Rocky Mountaineer Train (x2 stamps), beautiful train, full kitchen,
                the bubble dome on the second floor was impressive - thought it would be
                nice to be on the train on a clear night and see all the stars above...
          Dr. Sun
    Yat Sen Gardens, got the question about how many (fake) birds were
                in the scholars room (2)
          the Vancouver Police Museum - the morgue was gross.  Lap bought a cap
               there that read LAPD... lol.
          the BC Sports Hall of
    Fame - I love that tabletop curling game,
          drove up to Grouse Mountain, took the gondola, and got the stamp from the top,
               bought myself this really nice chromed glass clear-bottom Vancouver 2010 stein
          and then the Capilano Suspension Bridge, where I got my two water bottle-clips

    Sunday April 27th: Dinner at Jiro - Vivian's going-away party.
    Tuesday April 29th:  Lookout
    attraction stamp plus a bunch of hotels sometime with Jane and Anna.
          We met some interesting people at the top of the Lookout - chatted with them for a while,
                they said they would come visit us at Science World sometime.  Good customer service there.
          I took some pictures of Vancouver from up there as the sky was dimming in the sunset
                (time reads 8:36pm on my camera for those photos).
          Anna left soon after the Lookout, she was feeling really tired and slightly sick, I think;
          Jane and I went to Griffins and then up and down Robson street for hotel stamps,
          had dinner at Zin restaurant with the 30% off from our tourism passes.
                Took some photos of the dishes, the interesting kush-ball-like lamp they had, and a vase.
          $33 worth of food, we paid just over $20.  mmm-mmm...  But the popcorn wasnt all I thought
                it would be.  The yam and regular fries mix was good tho.
    Wednesday April 30th, I think... or maybe Thursday: Shari came over and hung out...
          we walked around SFU, chatted about random stuff.  It was a nice day out.
    Friday May 2nd after work:  Watched The Hobbit stage production at Granville Island w/ P&Q
          Patti & Quinton and a friend of theirs came to SW after I got off work, I drove them down to
                Granville Island, where we met up with Adam (the swing dancing one), and had dinner at
                the Granville Island Marketplace... cabbage rolls I think for me and sausage.  We then
                went over to catch the Carousel production of The Hobbit.
                Enjoyed the production - the acting was quite good, as was the adaptation.  Wasn't perfect,
                but on the whole everything was exceptional.  The girl who played Gollum practically
                channeled Andy Serkis' performance from the LoTR movies.  I think they used one of
                those cool glowing polycarbonate Sting sword reproductions that Master Replicas made.
                All of the main cast gave excellent performances.
                Afterwards, we all walked up Granville Street to Granville & Broadway where we had
                coffee and snacks at the Chapters Starbucks, taking time along the way to examine
                the legitimate graffiti on the underside of the Granville Street Bridge.
    Saturday May 3rd evening: Jane's birthday at Moxies on Broadway
          Was going to go to stamps in the morning with Hollie and Lap at the Zoo, but was too tired.
          Dinner was fun; I got there early and wandered around Future Shop, bought Wii MarioKart.
          Navi dragged Amanda Chow, Anna, Elissa, and me out to Stone Temple after dinner
                for a short time; wasn't good so we went home while Navi went for club crawling.
    Sunday May 4th, evening: 
          Dinner/bbt at 41st and Victoria with Richard, Amanda, Elissa, Anna, Jane,
          Jane went home after dinner, Anna bussed with us downtown to
                the Scotiabank Theatre and then went home,
          Richard, Amanda, Elissa and I caught the 1045pm show of Iron Man, which ran until 145am.
    Mon May 5th-Fri April 9th: Floor training at SW,
          9-5:30 each day, with Roland, Ruth, and the other new trainees (co-ops and part timers)
          Much fun, learned a lot, played a lot, got paid.
          The stick bugs in Search, the baby ones, are really cute.  They feel cool running around
          on your hands.
    Mon May 5th, after work:
         Promised Dad I'd go with him and mom to this neuropsych talk
         given by Dr Karim Nader, Assoc. Prof in psych at McGill
         being presented through their McGill Alumni Society, so they picked me up after work.
                was interesting, about the possibility of altering traumatic memories
                with beta-blocker medication.
    Thursday May 8th, after work:
          Beautiful day out.  Drove Jane to Skytrain
         and then went for bbt at Crystal Mall with Elissa and Jessica.
    Friday 10 May evening after work:  Ashley's birthday from Triple O's at the Giggle Dam Dinner Theatre -
          picked Celina up on the way and drove down all the way to Po Co.
    Sunday 11 May:  Mother's Day.  Gave mom the gigantic mother's day card I'd bought a few weeks back,
          and a wheeled canvas tote cart that folds into a little bag, plus chipped in for mom's new Galapagos
          Imax bluray disc and player.  Went for dinner with family at Prince restaurant.

    Mon May 12th:  Stamps with Anna downtown at the hotels after work
         Anna, Jane, and others had gone to do stamps during the day (they got the ones
                      around SW that I'd already had), but in return for going without me
                      Anna was going to come down and do the CN Imax one with me
                      in the evening - we realised too late it was only available during the day...
                      so, we decided to do some more hotels.
         walked up and down Robson street for some (some I already had with
                      Jane previously), down Burrard for a few more,
         called up Jane afterwards for dinner at Moxies on Broadway (Jane's favourite),
                      had the Appetizer Platter and the sausage pasta penne, and then the xango dessert...
                      so good, but so stuffed after.  Took the remaining penne home.
    Tues May 13th:  Stamps with Jane.  Anna had school and could not come.
         didn't have water all day at my apartment because they shut off the
                     building's water for repairs starting 8am...  ugh.  had to wake up
                     extra early to shower and get ready.  Still uber-stuffed from Moxies.
         The irony was definitely not lost on me that it was such a gloomy, rainy day out,
                     and yet I was cut off from water at my apartment.  I had saved a lot
                     of water for drinking (in bottles), and pots of water in case I needed
                     to flush a toilet... but alas there was no water for hand washing.
         Met Jane at Waves on Commercial at 11:10am, had coffee,
                     I then drove us to our first stop.
         Getting Attractions stamps: (got my 12 attractions to make the 15 stamp minimum!)
         Hastings Raceway, had lunch there with one of our $4 off concession coupons...
                     too full from night before, only had fries... still... so... stuffed...
         Stanley Park Horsedrawn Tour
                     - we didn't even have to take the tour since we were able to answer
                     their trivia questions to prove we did it last year.  Nice.
         Vancouver Aquarium (cool new frog exhibit; beluga show, etc, took lots of pix);
         then downtown to park at PC and walk around there for a while,
                     had to use the washroom there...
                     so... gross...
                     we dropped by Tristan so I could see whether they had more vests in
                     grey pinstripe, but alas they didn't... they had an icky brown one
                     (not the brown I wanted) and a grey one - but not pinstripe and not
                     in the Medium that I needed... they said to call back in a bit to see when
                     they got them back in stock. 
                     I did buy a nice white silk thin tie from them that day for only $35.
         After that, we used our Manhattan Restaurant at the Delta $10 off coupons for dinner,
                     took pix of food to show Anna - they had buns in the shape of
                     pretzels, with a little too much rock salt on the top but otherwise good,
                     and Jane ordered a soup she really liked, and I ordered this chicken dish
                     with these delicious and chewy dough balls that were quite memorable.
                     We also got this dessert to share with several different kinds of chocolate
                     in fudge and cake form, and a strawberry.
                              For future note: they had an apple on each table, since they are
                              The Manhattan, as the Big Apple... and the pretzel buns served
                              the same purpose.
                    The waiter and waitress were very nice and personable.  We made sure
                              to give them a decent tip.
         ran into Kevin and Yoshi as we were coming out of the Delta -
                      unexpected and welcome since I hadn't seen either in a while.
         By the time I got home, around 8:45pm or so, the water was (thankfully) back on,
                    (originally, the water-outage was scheduled for 8am-4am the next day)
                    however, I had to run all the taps to get the air bubbles out, and when I
                    did so for the shower faucet I ended up with a layer of grit all over the tub
                    that I had to scrub out the next day.  Sucked.
    Wed May 14th:  Dinner with Linda at Insadong to catch up
          before she and Simon leave for their 3mo. trip to China:
    Thurs May 15th:  Finishing off my 25 stamp requirements today with Anna
               Drove down to SW to meet at 2pm,
               Skytrained to Canada Place for the Canada Place Info Centre attractions stamp,
               walked over to the Vancouver Tourism Info Centre for that attractions stamp,
               skytrained back to SW to just miss the 3:15pm False Creek Ferry and hung out in SW for
                       half an hour until we caught the 3:45pm False Creek Ferry
                       (I got the Ferry stamp) over to Vanier Park... trip took a whole 45mins with long waits
                       and frequent stops plus a transfer, we were considering getting Jessica and Elissa
                       after stamps to do gelato at Granville Island after, but after the long trip we no longer
                       had time - we called them and reverted to the plan of going to Amato Gelato by SW,
              quickly rushed to do the Maritime Museum stamp in about 10 mins,
              ran over to the Planetarium by 4:41 and did the Space Museum stamp in 5 minutes,
              and *just* made it in time to finish off the Vancouver Museum stamp before they closed
                      (a lady traded us the answer for the 50's Jukebox music question for our answer for
                      the hanging birdbath question... Vancouver Museum was nice, we agreed to go back
                      and walk through in more detail when we had time... took lots photos of the
                     Movers and Shakers design exhibition there) to finish off my 25 (Anna's got 22)
              then took the ferry back to Science World by 6pm to have gelato at Amato Gelato on 2nd street
                     with Jessica and Elissa, who were just getting off work...
                     saw Daniel working the event at SW,
                     and Elissa realised that her cousin - who happens to be Ann - works at SW.