Monday, September 19, 2005
the weekend
hey guys. this weekend was damn hectic for me. i'm really exhausted now.
had to wake up on sat morning to go for this 'grouse mountain hike' with some of the s'pore exchange students. the trip there took over 1 and a half hours. bus to the ferry terminal to take the seabus, then change another bus up to grouse mountain.
okay. so below is a pic of me and one of the s'poreans - weiquan, on the seabus. there were quite a few of us on this trip.
and tt's me and the girls diana (from law), charlin and anne at the foot of grouse mountain before we started climbing.
(we took more very unglam pictures during the climb, but tt was in eileen's camera, so i can't post anything until she sends the photos to me. not tt i really want to post myself looking like i'm about to die.)
anyway i later found out tt the grouse mountain hiking trail is known as 'the grouse grind'. after climbing up the damn trail, i realised why.
it doesn't just grind at you, it fucking grinds you.
i think the height of the mountain was between 1000 and 2000 feet. and boy. it was just stairs. stairs and stairs and stairs. uneven stairs and stairs and stairs of wood and trail and soil and rock tt you had to tread carefully on coz if you fell off the trail, you fell off the mountain. and some of the steps were so widely-spaced me and my really short legs had to clamber up them with great difficulty.
and no, there was no scenery. all you saw were trees tt were so tall they extended into the sky and blocked all light from reaching the undergrowth. and you couldn't really look anywhere else other than where you were climbing coz you didn't want to step on a loose rock, slip and fall 500 feet to your death or something.
anyway the climb took me 1 hour and 45 minutes. 1 hour and 45 minutes of pure zi4 zhuo4 nie4. i tell you, i would rather run an ahm than do this fucking trail ever again. first and last time i tell you. at least ahm is flatter ground, and there's more to see.
argh.
anyway when we reached the top (finally. i can breathe and i can afford to stop moving my poor numbed aching cramped up legs), we immediately replaced all our burnt out calories with yummy beavertails (photos in eileen's camera also), this delicious fried flat canadian pastry spread with garlic butter and a generous helping of parmesean cheese (for me). and for the others, other flavours include chocolate and hazelnut, cinnamon sugar or cinnamon apple, maple syrup with chocolate, and pizza. they were so so so so good!!!
and after tt it was on to see the bears...
...and the wolves again!
i tried to take a scenery shot of vancouver from the mountain, but unfortunately it was really foggy, so you can't see what i could.
oh well.
after tt we caught the lumberjack show...
...see this crazy guy balance himself on top of this tree trunk!
...and using axes as darts for target practice!
...yup. and after tt it was back down the mountain - this time by cable car. by the time we got down it was 6pm. wanted to go chinatown to buy mooncakes and lanterns with one group of the s'poreans, but realised i needed to rush back to the src to settle my transportation for today's even by 8-something pm.
so damn hungry, i bought this huge slice of pepperoni pizza for $1.25 and joined the other group on the 1 and a half hour journey back. by tt time i was hungry again, so we had dinner at this chinese restaurant at the village, where the fried rice is enough to feed 3 people. and ooh. dan dan mian tt wasn't spicy. food was edible, but well... i'm missing arts canteen dan dan mian! and the chilli!
and one of the guys, an international exchange student here, owns his own mercedes benz suv. and he's only 18.
after tt, crept back to hall hoping for an early night and to rest my aching legs.
tt was not meant to be. jackie heard me. argh. so she knocked on my door, and i ended up going down to 5th salish with her and a mickey of smirvoff vodka cranberry (i mixed it myself! wahaha. 1/3 vodka; 2/3 cranberry. tastes damn good. heh). was red and laughing in hald an hour. there had been another hockey game last night, so the guys and some of the girls were sloshed already.
stayed with them, watched them blast their music, talk cock, ka-cheowed other houses (and we dragged one really drunk adam with us, who proceeded to tap all the fire alarms to hear them right, head the ceiling lights for the fun of it (to which jackie wouldn't stop laughing even after everyone else had stopped), and get himself a penalty point by admitting to the guy in the commonsblock tt he'd stolen a 'stop' sign, and he gave his name and room number. and we came back we passed a group of smokers and he said something like "smoking is fucking uncool".
besides tt, as usual damien was pissing out the window, connor pulled damien's pants - and underpants - down, much to the detriment of everyone's visual health, i got picked up (again) like a log, and i think damien's trying to match me with a friend of his whom i only see once a week at the drunken parties coz he doesn't stay on campus. sheesh.
by the time i got back to my room, it was 2.40am.
and my dad miscalculated and called me at 3. am.
sheesh.
had to wake up by 5.45am today too.
i needed to catch the 7am shuttle to thompson-okanagan today.
coz today i was going white water rafting on the thompson river.
the journey was a 3 and a half hour drive from ubc. it's fucking far. it's in one of the towns in the north east, outside of vancouver. but we stopped over at tim horton's for breakfast, and i *love love love love love* tim horton's donuts and hot chocolate. i had 2 donuts and hot chocolate for breakfast. yum.
we reached the lytton campsite at thompson-okanagan around 10.30am. after grabbing our wetsuits, gear and all the briefings, we got onto the thompson river around 12pm.
and then it was 3 hours of rafting down 35km of the thompson river.
20 rapids. we were paddling and resting. it was pretty relaxing actually. except tt it was fucking cold.
today is the absolute last day the summer tours will run white-water rafting coz the weather is getting too cold. and no surprise. the water in the thompson river is icy! even when we got splashed during the rapids, it was so cold tt i couldn't stop shivering after tt. and the wind was continually blowing very strong and it just made things worse. even with the wetsuit all my uncovered parts were frozen. and i had bought cheap aqua shoes to wear into the raft, and they were so soaked in cold water tt i couldn't feel my feet. it was horrible when the sun disappeared for over 40 minutes.
tt was terrible.
but even so, white-water rafting is damn fun!
plus we had incredibly nice and friendly guides!
and we had lunch provided for - bbqed burgers with beef, or chicken, or giant sausages, or teriyaki salmon. oh man, i was so hungry. as usual the burgers were *huge*, but i managed to wolf down 2, and still eat another sausage and another piece of salmon. but the food was good.
after tt it was another 3 and a half hours drive back to ubc.
by the time i came back it was 9pm. i'm so exhausted now. i need to reply emails and call my parents. and worst of all, I NEED TO DO MY READINGS!!! i am so dead. i haven't done any work. at all.
now playing: hotel costes - cafe de flor
had to wake up on sat morning to go for this 'grouse mountain hike' with some of the s'pore exchange students. the trip there took over 1 and a half hours. bus to the ferry terminal to take the seabus, then change another bus up to grouse mountain.
okay. so below is a pic of me and one of the s'poreans - weiquan, on the seabus. there were quite a few of us on this trip.
and tt's me and the girls diana (from law), charlin and anne at the foot of grouse mountain before we started climbing.
(we took more very unglam pictures during the climb, but tt was in eileen's camera, so i can't post anything until she sends the photos to me. not tt i really want to post myself looking like i'm about to die.)
anyway i later found out tt the grouse mountain hiking trail is known as 'the grouse grind'. after climbing up the damn trail, i realised why.
it doesn't just grind at you, it fucking grinds you.
i think the height of the mountain was between 1000 and 2000 feet. and boy. it was just stairs. stairs and stairs and stairs. uneven stairs and stairs and stairs of wood and trail and soil and rock tt you had to tread carefully on coz if you fell off the trail, you fell off the mountain. and some of the steps were so widely-spaced me and my really short legs had to clamber up them with great difficulty.
and no, there was no scenery. all you saw were trees tt were so tall they extended into the sky and blocked all light from reaching the undergrowth. and you couldn't really look anywhere else other than where you were climbing coz you didn't want to step on a loose rock, slip and fall 500 feet to your death or something.
anyway the climb took me 1 hour and 45 minutes. 1 hour and 45 minutes of pure zi4 zhuo4 nie4. i tell you, i would rather run an ahm than do this fucking trail ever again. first and last time i tell you. at least ahm is flatter ground, and there's more to see.
argh.
anyway when we reached the top (finally. i can breathe and i can afford to stop moving my poor numbed aching cramped up legs), we immediately replaced all our burnt out calories with yummy beavertails (photos in eileen's camera also), this delicious fried flat canadian pastry spread with garlic butter and a generous helping of parmesean cheese (for me). and for the others, other flavours include chocolate and hazelnut, cinnamon sugar or cinnamon apple, maple syrup with chocolate, and pizza. they were so so so so good!!!
and after tt it was on to see the bears...
...and the wolves again!
i tried to take a scenery shot of vancouver from the mountain, but unfortunately it was really foggy, so you can't see what i could.
oh well.
after tt we caught the lumberjack show...
...see this crazy guy balance himself on top of this tree trunk!
...and using axes as darts for target practice!
...yup. and after tt it was back down the mountain - this time by cable car. by the time we got down it was 6pm. wanted to go chinatown to buy mooncakes and lanterns with one group of the s'poreans, but realised i needed to rush back to the src to settle my transportation for today's even by 8-something pm.
so damn hungry, i bought this huge slice of pepperoni pizza for $1.25 and joined the other group on the 1 and a half hour journey back. by tt time i was hungry again, so we had dinner at this chinese restaurant at the village, where the fried rice is enough to feed 3 people. and ooh. dan dan mian tt wasn't spicy. food was edible, but well... i'm missing arts canteen dan dan mian! and the chilli!
and one of the guys, an international exchange student here, owns his own mercedes benz suv. and he's only 18.
after tt, crept back to hall hoping for an early night and to rest my aching legs.
tt was not meant to be. jackie heard me. argh. so she knocked on my door, and i ended up going down to 5th salish with her and a mickey of smirvoff vodka cranberry (i mixed it myself! wahaha. 1/3 vodka; 2/3 cranberry. tastes damn good. heh). was red and laughing in hald an hour. there had been another hockey game last night, so the guys and some of the girls were sloshed already.
stayed with them, watched them blast their music, talk cock, ka-cheowed other houses (and we dragged one really drunk adam with us, who proceeded to tap all the fire alarms to hear them right, head the ceiling lights for the fun of it (to which jackie wouldn't stop laughing even after everyone else had stopped), and get himself a penalty point by admitting to the guy in the commonsblock tt he'd stolen a 'stop' sign, and he gave his name and room number. and we came back we passed a group of smokers and he said something like "smoking is fucking uncool".
besides tt, as usual damien was pissing out the window, connor pulled damien's pants - and underpants - down, much to the detriment of everyone's visual health, i got picked up (again) like a log, and i think damien's trying to match me with a friend of his whom i only see once a week at the drunken parties coz he doesn't stay on campus. sheesh.
by the time i got back to my room, it was 2.40am.
and my dad miscalculated and called me at 3. am.
sheesh.
had to wake up by 5.45am today too.
i needed to catch the 7am shuttle to thompson-okanagan today.
coz today i was going white water rafting on the thompson river.
the journey was a 3 and a half hour drive from ubc. it's fucking far. it's in one of the towns in the north east, outside of vancouver. but we stopped over at tim horton's for breakfast, and i *love love love love love* tim horton's donuts and hot chocolate. i had 2 donuts and hot chocolate for breakfast. yum.
we reached the lytton campsite at thompson-okanagan around 10.30am. after grabbing our wetsuits, gear and all the briefings, we got onto the thompson river around 12pm.
and then it was 3 hours of rafting down 35km of the thompson river.
20 rapids. we were paddling and resting. it was pretty relaxing actually. except tt it was fucking cold.
today is the absolute last day the summer tours will run white-water rafting coz the weather is getting too cold. and no surprise. the water in the thompson river is icy! even when we got splashed during the rapids, it was so cold tt i couldn't stop shivering after tt. and the wind was continually blowing very strong and it just made things worse. even with the wetsuit all my uncovered parts were frozen. and i had bought cheap aqua shoes to wear into the raft, and they were so soaked in cold water tt i couldn't feel my feet. it was horrible when the sun disappeared for over 40 minutes.
tt was terrible.
but even so, white-water rafting is damn fun!
plus we had incredibly nice and friendly guides!
and we had lunch provided for - bbqed burgers with beef, or chicken, or giant sausages, or teriyaki salmon. oh man, i was so hungry. as usual the burgers were *huge*, but i managed to wolf down 2, and still eat another sausage and another piece of salmon. but the food was good.
after tt it was another 3 and a half hours drive back to ubc.
by the time i came back it was 9pm. i'm so exhausted now. i need to reply emails and call my parents. and worst of all, I NEED TO DO MY READINGS!!! i am so dead. i haven't done any work. at all.
# posted by Kitana @ 9/19/2005 01:08:00 PM 
