Shanghai, Serenade, Silk

China! A country I would return to solely to see the Great Wall of China. Being in Shanghai for two days was an experience and it was interesting to see the culture, meet people and enjoy some amazing dimsum (so good!). I love the Chinese architecture when it is used, hated the smog that seemed to always be hovering, loved the bright reds of the maples and the watertown we went to.

The contrast of colours in trees was fantastic. So pretty!

We were told by a few different people that this man was a philosopher, or a doctor, or a teacher... not really sure who he was in the end, but I snapped a photo of him nonetheless.


In the pharmacy, you could see the different bottles resting.. Some had snakes in them and others had things that I'm not sure about.


The women were absolutely amazing at preparing the local food. The way the wrapped them with three different pieces of twine was incredible. I think I would have finished making one in the time she made twenty.

Lanterns!!

We went to a watertown that I could not pronounce or recall for the life of me. But it started with a zed.

Woman washing her clothes in the water.

I don't know why I thought this sign was funny. Perhaps because I would not want to play in that water under any circumstance.

Took a little boat ride through the canals. Very cool to see how they live. Felt a bit like I was in Venice. Except my boat steerer/driver kept hoarking. That's kind of like serenading, right?


This is their main bridge in town and I love it. There's something about it that just captures your attention.




Stopped at a silkworm factory on the way back to the ship. Fascinating! So crazy how those little worms make silk that turns into amazing blankets.


I did get myself some sheets. I figure I will have a new sized bed in Quebec and should probably have some sheets to go with it.

The lights at night in Shanghai were also quite impressive.

In Shanghai, we celebrated Mark's birthday at Pub Trivia. Mark and Cathy were two of the people on my Pub Trivia team. I suck at trivia, but love getting to know people while playing trivia!




Part of me just wanted to stay on the boat deck and watch the lights all night long. And then they turned them off at 10pm so I couldn't.


The next day my mom and I sought out one of the best known dim sum places in Shanghai (according to a woman we met who spoke English). It took us an incredibly long time to find, but the food and the experience were both magnificent! So tasty! And they did in fact bring us English instruction sheets. Guess we looked confused. haha


Forget the name of this street, but it had crazy shopping everywhere. We went in a department store where they had the most massive floor of shoes you've ever seen. Shoes everywhere. My favorite was when an irate Chinese man started yelling as loud as he could and throwing shoes everywhere. No idea what he was yelling, but everyone was standing around him just watching, so I figured it was okay.



And thus concludes Shanghai. Next stop: Nagasaki, Japan

Ideal, Ikea, Indian

Last week Calgary Flames came to Vancouver to play the Canucks, so I phoned Lindie up and told her she should fly out so we could go to the game together. So I picked her up at the airport and we headed to Vancouver.

Before the game, we went for Japanese to my favourite Vancouver restaurant. And suddenly Lindie was half out of her seat, about to chase two men (dressed in suits and looking quite dapper if I may say so myself) out of the restaurant. Turns out they were Flames players (Hagman and Conroy). Sadly, Lindie didn't make it in time to get some photos, but we enjoyed that we had dinner with them.. Actually this is the same restaurant where the Canucks sometimes go. So perhaps we will have to frequent it even more often.


The game was ideal (for me) and Canucks won. For Lindie's sake, I was glad that Flames scored with 10 second remaining. Because then I was happy and so was she.


The next day we did a bunch of different things and on the way to Vancouver stopped at Ikea for some wandering around and random photo taking. I love it when Lindie comes to visit. The things we do are always incredibly random, but so fun, including a lot of laughs and good chats as well. Brings you back to simply appreciating the people in your life and loving spending time with them.


That evening we went to Vij's in Vancouver, which has perhaps some of the best service and best Indian food ever. And while you sit there, they bring around appies and chai. So tasty! Here we were joined by more friends and it was just a lovely evening all together.

Dropped Lindie off at the airport on Friday morning, and then I spent the day meeting different people and such, before being dropped off at the airport myself, for my cross Canada adventure. I decided I would go to Calgary for the weekend for my friend Jenn's birthday, and figured, why not keep going? Presently I am in Saskatchewan. And it's beautiful. Yay for snow. And for wonderful friends. I am blessed.

More intermittent updates to come soon!

Fiddler, Forty-Second, Footlong

I'm back from my trip to Seattle with Megan! The words we would use to describe it would be: epic, random and FUN! What a crazy couple days were had. Actually it feels like we were gone for weeks because it seems like we did so much! haha {And I warn you that this post is quite lengthy, but lots of pictures!!}

We headed down to Seattle on Wednesday and enjoyed the drive, except when we were stuck in the traffic pictured below and Megan almost peed in the vehicle..
Then we went to see Fiddler on the Roof. It was FANTASTIC...except for the main guy's singing voice. haha. Well it was good, but annoying the way he was singing. He made up for it in his incredibly acting though. He's a pretty big deal and has been in a lot of tv shows, movies and musicals. Anyway, he is an incredible actor, but part of his singing voice grated on my nerves. But the whole show was very well put on and I do love Fiddler on the Roof! So many great songs and very thought-provoking as well.
Afterwards we went to the Cheesecake Factory where we enjoyed having the strangest waitress ever. She was a bit over the top, but it was great! :)
My favorite was when I asked her for a side of plum sauce, and she repeated it with a questioning voice and walked away and returned with this container of... peanut sauce. Hahaha.. She noticed we didn't use it but never said anything about it.
After a great sleep at our hotel, went for a nice swim in the morning. Was good to swim laps again, haven't done so in a while. And I love my underwater camera! :)

I love the view of Seattle from the pool

And yes I do look slightly crazed

Megan took pictures of herself falling out of the hotel window.


And some other nice self-portraits. I love coming back to my camera and having surprise photos!

We decided that we wanted to go find the troll we have seen in movies and friends' pics. After driving around asking people where the troll was, we found out it was in Freemont, so we headed there to find the troll! And we found so much more...

Here's us beginning our quest, not knowing that we would come across a very cool little area of Seattle that we both fell in love with!


They even had a lift-up bridge.


Here's the troll! Under the bridge on Troll Ave. Perfect! We had some time alone with the troll before other people came. I found it funny that tour buses stop there so people can take photos. But really, who can blame them in the face of such greatness?

The bridge's architecture was very cool as well!

Freemont is also full of other random pieces of art from over the years. We enjoyed posing with them.


And dancing with them...

This is a group of people waiting for transit. Cement statues, placed there so different people will come and decorate them and take pictures with them. Perfect. Next time we go down, we will come fully prepared!



I thought this looked cool with all the staples!

We walked by a Thai restaurant and saw people sitting on the floor and decided we would like to do the same.
And the food turned out to be quite amazing. Makes me want to go back just for the Thai place-it was definitely a winner!



It is rare that you will find photos of Megan or I that are "normal". So here we took a nice smiling one.. Rare but I shall treasure it dearly!


Mini spring rolls!

Freemont has a lot of really great architecture too!


And a rocket! With the motto for freemont, "The Freedom to be Peculiar". Maybe I should move there?

We weren't sure where to go considering all of our options...
So we bought a gnome named Cedric and took him back to the troll so he could see it.
We are pretty excited about Cedric. He has already proved to be a worthy traveling companion.
He's always ready to go and already has his suitcase packed and ready to go!
Some future trips for him include: Hawaii, Portland, Australia, South Africa, Zambia, Asia... the options are endless. If you're going somewhere fun and want to bring Cedric along for some great photo ops, let me know!

Our little traveling buddy. And his size is perfect.


He liked the woman at the Starbucks drive-thru.
After our adventures in Freemont, we drove to Issaquah. Earlier that day, we had seen an ad on a bus {apparently i'm quite swayed by those} for 42nd street, a musical being performed at the Village Theatre. So we decided to get tickets {the only ones they had left, were first row, center-incredible!} and head to Issaquah for some more adventures.

Upon arriving, we found Boehm's Chocolates where we got to take a tour and try some amazing chocolate. The founder seems like a pretty great guy as well! He was in the Olympics. And climbed Mt. Rainier at age 80. Crazy.


Cedric likes chocolate.


PIG BBQ!! How great is that?!? If I didn't already have a relatively new BBQ, I might have thought about purchasing it!

Megan made another new friend

MAILBOXES!

We also found a really cool diner, called XXX Root Beer. As we drove by, we saw many glittery, shiny things inside, so we decided that we must go!

The decor was amazing!

And their famous root beer was pretty excellent! This was regular size.. imagine what large would have been?

Lechaim! To Life!!




Cedric enjoyed the diner as well...
And the root beer.

Megan found a boyfriend

And I ate a foot long hot dog covered in yummy things. Challenge of the day: picking up and eating a foot long hot dog. Very difficult. But so very tasty.



One of the guys who worked there was pretty excited about the gnome. So he was more than happy to take a picture with it!

Then we went to 42nd street, a tap dancing spectacular. I saw it years ago in Vancouver when I was younger, but it was so well put on! So fantastic! I love tap dancing. Reminds me of the days when I used to tap dance. Makes me want to take lessons again.
Then we headed back home. All in all an amazingly wonderful two days of adventure, fellowship and fun!