absolutum dominium

Well. Not by a long-shot, but still. By my standards considering how CRAZY things were... Around Greater Vancouver in the span of 8 hours is pretty much tt for me.



This is the route tt we mapped yesterday. To start from the absolute beginning, the original plan was for 3 of us - Ben, Zineng and I - to go to Cypress mountain to snowboard. Well. The first thing tt happened was tt Ben called me at 5.55am to tell me tt he was *still* at the casino from the night before, and he'd asked me where to meet, so I told him Burrard and West 4th. At 6.45am he was ALREADY there (and telling me to come ASAP), but Zineng hadn't come to meet me yet.

The second thing was tt the wind was FUCKING STRONG. According to Ben, there were windspeeds of up to 70km/h. I was already battling the wind to walk forward from Totem to the bus loop, and never had I experienced such strong winds in my life before. Anyway I didn't know how to contact Zineng, so the bus tt I'd boarded left without him (he *just* missed it actually). So there were 2 of us only. But because of the strong winds, the shuttle bus driver told us tt most of the runs and the chair lifts on Cypress were CLOSED, as was the Lion's Gate Bridge, which is the main bridge linking downtown Vancity to North Van. Talk about scary news. And it didn't help tt the birds were flying... backwards. Or sideways to the left or right. Well. Just not in the direction they wanted to travel in.

So we decided to abandon our snowboarding plans and just hang around downtown and probably find other things to occupy Saturday. So that's where we - or I - start out. From UBC we (okay, I. Ben came from Broadway and Willow) take a bus to Burrard and 4th (it's on Kitsliano but I didn't bother putting tt on the map), and then another bus to downtown Vancouver. Where to kill time, we start our day with breakfast at Denny's (and find out tt "french" is not an option when being asked what toast you want. Heh heh heh). Yum. I love the buttermilk pancakes at Denny's. Ben cannot believe tt when I put pepper on my food, I unscrew the top off the shaker and liberally POUR the pepper out. Wahaha.

Then we decide to watch a movie on Burrard, but because the stupid cinema doesn't open till *12.15pm* (!!!), we take a detour to go get tt bag tt Ben had "worked" so hard for the night before. Heh heh heh. It's a very big bag anyway. When he sits down and puts it on the seat next to him, it's almost as tall as he is.



See? Ben & Bag. Okay, this was taken at Denny's on our last stop (long story. You'll get there when I do), so he looks a lot more tired than he did before. But yesh. Similar height. Okay he doesn't look v amused.

Anyway after much attempts to waste time without going shopping (he doesn't like shopping and I cannot shop when I have nothing to buy because I don't want to waste time and money), we decide to take the seabus up to Lonsdale Quay on the North Shore.



View from the seabus! Ben says tt it would be more efficient for Sentosa to introduce a ferry service like the seabus to shuttle people from the mainland to the island. I think the bridge is pretty much the most efficient solution. Not the prettiest or the most novel, but pretty good as it is, I guess.

And there at the Lonsdale Quay market, we get to see the usual yummy foods...



The seafood stall with all tt yummy fresh lobster, Dungeness crab, fish and shellfish... Yum yum yum.



Paintings on display (courtesy of Ben, before the stall owners raised protest about the photo-taking).



The fruit stall.



Cheeses.



Beautiful fresh-baked breads.



And me with said beautiful fresh-baked breads.



Now, Candy. *bursts out into "I Waaaaaant Candy!"



And chocolate. Who can resist chocolate? Mmm.

We also visited a sex shop on the second floor. Heh heh heh.



Photos of dildos before we were told by the shop-owners tt we couldn't take photographs. Oh well. According to Ben dildos are illegal in Singapore.

And then we went out to take photos of the scenery. Even though the weather was still cold and grey and gloomy.



Vancouver city as seen from North Van.

After tt we decided to just explore the outside of Lonsdale Quay. It was raining by this time. Not heavily, but enough to be irritating. Ben got a shot of a little bit of the architecture outside the public market...



This is Ben's first masterpiece - panoramic photography with kickass camera (compared to mine lah) and Photostitch.

And then we settled at Starbucks so tt he could settle his Grande Mocha craving.

After tt we walked around outside where we found a theatre (it also opened only at 12.15pm, but by tt time it WAS 12.15pm already. Heh), and decided we would watch a movie. It was between Syriana and The Matador, but I managed to convince him to go with The Matador instead. Probably coz the movie poster reminded me of Sideways, and it stars Pierce Brosnan. Heh heh heh.

We also started this trend of running across traffic crossings, I notice. It continued throughout the rest of the day.

Between the time of buying the tickets and the movie actually starting, we did a little more walking around of North Van, at least just for the photo-taking opportunities.



This is one of the residential apartments in North Van. I love the pond.



And I love the clock in the middle of the driveway here.



Ben loves the street lamp. Where form takes precedence (or equal importance) over functionality per se.



But nothing compares to the whole shot of everything (Ben's photo, again).



A North Van street. Love how you can see into the sea from here, and across to the other side.



And another better shot of the street.



And me in front of this bread shop. It's so pretty and quaint. I was attracted by the heart-shaped breads on display. I like stuff like this. One thing I enjoy most when it comes to visiting new places is exploring the neighbourhoods there. Not the residential neighbourhoods, but not the downtowns. I don't know what you call the in-betweens, but these in-betweens with their quaint little rows and rows of pretty shops and a slightly slower pace of life (although in North Van life is so slow even the *birds* seem to fly slower. Haha) just appeal to me. I like to look at quaint, pretty and quirky stuff. I like places like Soho in NY and Bloor St in Toronto and Old Montreal because of the charm and the quirkiness. To me, one big city is not really different from another. The only real pockets of uniqueness come from the little neighbourhoods running beneath the tall tall buildings. :)

Ooh. After tt it was back to the theatre for The Matador.



Photo from within the theatre. Cool car advert, man. ;) Love the contrast.

The Matador *was* a really nice movie. I don't regret the money spent. It falls into the same kind of category as Sideways; quirky, a little weird, a little silly, but at the same time heart-warming, funny and maybe a little tragic at the same time... But very enjoyable. I didn't know tt the movie had lasted 2 hours and 44 min! It didn't feel tt long. Pierce Brosnan wasn't his usual James Bond debonair secret agent, but even though the character he played here was a little sleazy and stuff, there was so much charm tt you still couldn't help but feel compelled and enticed by it anyway. Really cool movie. Worth watching. :)

We burst back into the cold close to 3pm, and had lunch at the Thai food restaurant opposite. Ben was too lazy to think, so we just ordered the combination dinner for 2, which consisted of 2 spring rolls, 2 sticks of satay (not the Singaporean kind tho. DAMN. :( ), a rich and delicious (but heavy) chicken coconut curry served in the coconut shell with strips of cocnonut flesh cooked with the chicken (tt was pretty good), tiger prawns cooked in a sweet and sour tomato-based sauce with peppers, french beans and celery, and rice. Rice was actually something worth looking forward to. You never realise just how GOOD Thai fragrant jasmine rice cooked to perfection is until after a long absence, you finally get a taste of it again.

After lunch, we decided to go back to downtown. And from there probably make our way back to UBC.

HMM.

After getting off the Seabus, for the hell of it I pointed Ben to the West Coast Express, which introduced him to the existence of Port Moody and Coquitlam, cities outside Vancouver tt he'd never known existed before. We were deciding between going back to UBC to catch the Malaysian-Singapore Night dinner, or maybe just taking the Skytrain out to explore for the hell of it.



Life at the Skytrain station. Life on the move. :)

We decided on taking the Skytrain to New Westminster, which apparently has a nice view of the Fraser River.

Halfway while on the train, we noted tt we could take the 97 B-Line from Lougheed Town Centre (a stop on the Skytrain) out to Coquitlam. And *tt* was what really started us on our 8 hour adventure around Greater Vancouver.

We got off the train at Lougheed and DID take the 97 all the way out to Coquitlam. I don't know how long exactly it took, coz Ben was still trying to get over the fact tt I had a deprived childhood and I was weird. And I was the only person he knew who voluntarily stuck a pencil lead into my head. Maybe about half an hour.

But anyway Coquitlam was...



Erm. A lot of space, road and a couple of buildings entailing department stores Sears, Coast Mountain Sports, Zeller and Chapters (the stores tt you find EVERYWHERE all over Canada). Yar. Welcome to Coquitlam.

So yesh, now I can say I've been there. Although we spent more time in Chapters than anywhere else, coz we were looking through the Lonely Planet guide to BC to see if there was anything worth exploring in Coquitlam. Erm. It wasn't even mentioned in the book. But Fort Langley was.

So we decided to go to quaint, historic, population 2600 Fort Langley from Coquitlam.

We asked the staff at Chapters how to get there. Once they got over their "these people are *mad*" looks, they helped us check it out online, and we found out tt there was a #701 bus to this place called Maple Ridge, where we could take another shuttle bus to the Albion Ferry Terminal to get the ferry across the Fraser River to Fort Langley on the other side.

The #701 took a damn long time to come. While smoking and waiting for the bus, this younger girl with piercings and heavy masara (Goth look, not hooker look) asked Ben for a cigarette, so after giving one to her he also asked her if she was of legal age (because she did look kinda young). She thought he was asking her for a joint. I guess the consensus is pretty much tt he *does* look like a pai kia, whether in Singapore or Vancouver.

The journey on the #701 itself took almost an hour. And the bus was filthy. There were candy wrappers and smarties on the floor, and I felt pretty disgusted, so I refused to put my bag on the floor even. Anyway Ben started calling me mad coz I was such a cleanliness freak tt I raised violent objections to him wiping the fog off the bus window with his hands. But the bus really did make me uncomfortable. And the ride was long and I was worried tt we might have missed our stop.

Anyway it's no wonder tt the ride was long. Look at where Maple Ridge is on the map! We were travelling further and further from Vancouver!!!

When we finally reached Haney Place at Maple Ridge, we were greeted by another not-so-pleasant surprise - the shuttle bus to the ferry had stopped running since 7.00pm, and it was 7.30pm. We were considering staying in Maple Ridge, but in the end we decided to cab down to the Albion Ferry Terminal instead and take our chances.

The Ferry Experience was cool. You had cars tt would just drive onto the ferried to get carried across the river.



Erm... Me.



Me on Ferry.



And me and Ben on Ferry.

But the journey from the ferry terminal at the other side of the river to Fort Langley itself wasn't as fun. For one, we didn't know how much the distance between ferry terminal and the town itself was, and for another, there was no public transport system into town, and last but not least, NO ONE wanted to give us a ride into town.

Bah. My faith in the human condition was dealt a serious blow at tt moment. And it doesn't help tt I hate getting turned down or rejected. :(

So we did the only thing tt we could do - we walked.

Fortunately the weather was at this point in time, great. It wasn't raining for once, though the ground was still wet, it wasn't crazy windy, and it was not tt cold, so we weren't freezing our asses off.

And there were still pretty views, even by night.



This is a photo we took while walking from the ferry terminal to the town. Unfortunately it's really dark and in black and white coz Ben's camera exposure couldn't get accustomed to the darkness quickly enough to take a good shot, but it'll look amazing by day. :)

And Fort Langley does live up to its name as a quaint historic site. It's incredibly small and most of the shops are closed, but it's really pretty.


This is Fort Langley by night...



This is the Community Hall. Grand isn't it? :)



And this is a picture of 3 VERY cute puppies tt we saw in an antique store window. SHO CUTE!!! *sigh* I love dogs. Really reminds me of the time when Brownie and Rascal (my dogs) were still around and still puppies. Small and brown and furry and cute with big blue eyes (really blue) and little pink tongues tt they'd push out to lick you with. *nostalgic smile*

Fort Langley was quite an experience. Except tt by this time it was 8.20pm and I wanted to know most importantly, how to return to Vancouver (we were the furthest tt we could get from Vancouver). We asked this girl at Wendel's (see below photo) about bus services to Surrey so tt we could take the Skytrain back to Vancity from there, and she told us about this bus stop tt had the bus 590 on it.



Well. We followed the instructions to a "T", but the only bus service at this pole tt we saw was a C62. That was pretty dubious, and the road upwards was dark, so believing tt there had to be another bus stop further up ahead, we proceeded upwards, till we hit the fire station and gave up. I was all for knocking on the door and asking for directions, but unlike in Singapore the fire department here closes at 5pm on weekends. I was by this time, kinda panicked and practically ready to call the police and ask them to get us to Surrey or something.

Fortunately, Ben was very relac, so good lah. Managed to get proper directions from this girl at a pizzeria, who told us to catch the C62 shuttle from tt bus stop to Walnut Grove, and from there take the #501 to Surrey Centre. Great.

Except tt the C62 comes every HOUR. As it was 8.50pm, we'd already missed the 8.23pm bus, so the next bus was at 9.23pm right up to 11.23pm (last shuttle). We decided to kill some time indoors at this Japanese resturant called "Iron Chef" (I kid you not) 2 min away...



We were drinking literally, coffee and tea. But because conversation got too interesting, we left the restaurant too late and we missed the 9.23pm bus (although we didn't realise this until 10.00pm). So we had to wait 1 hour in the cold for the next bus (no point going back in... spend $$ and risk missing tt bus too only).

The C62 did come pretty much on time tho, at 10.20 pm (give or take a couple of minutes). And it was a long ride from Fort Langley to Walnut Grove, which might not have been otherwise accomplished without the shuttle bus. We reached Walnut Grove around 10.50pm, only to realise tt the earliest #501 came at 11.18pm. We were prepared to wait half an hour more in the cold for tt bus, but we were VERY fortunate.

And thus my faith in the human condition has been redeemed, all within the space of 3 hours. This guy called Roger who was a referee for the hockey matches at the Walnut Grove stadium, was travelling from his match home to Burnaby, and Surrey was in the general direction tt he was headed. And when he found out tt we were lost and trying to find our way back to Vancouver, he told us tt he could drop us off at Braid station in New Westminster, which would be even nearer for us than Surrey. That was SWEET. :) We cleared a lot of miles in his car. I am eternally grateful man.

So it was up to Braid station, and another series of hilarious events unfolded. Started with both of us not being sure which platform to take the train from, so I led Ben up the station to the left on instinct, only to wonder if this was the right side to take the train from. Ben saw something on the electronic annoucement board tt told him tt the train was headed away from Broadway station where we were supposed to go, so we had to go down and take the escalator up the platform on the right. And then we noticed tt both announcement boards said the same thing. So I asked someone on the platform if we were headed towards Broadway.

Nope.

So back down the escalator and up the platform on the other side. Again. I bet the cleaner who was watching these 2 crazy idiots dash back and forth between both platforms highly entertaining.

Ooh. But if you think tt tt was the last in our Series of Unfortunate Events, you are so wrong. The icing on the cake came when the train we boarded was moving between Sapperton and Columbia station. Apparently the tracks leading to Columbia was impassable. So without announcement, the train STOPPED in between the stations... and then started moving. In the *REVERSE* direction!!!

When do trains EVER start moving backwards? In a first world country?!

Well. Only in Canada. Only in Canada.

It was HIGHLY AMUSING MAN. Everyone on the train looked absolutely SHOCKED. And 2 guys on the train were asking each other if they had boarded the wrong train. Wahaha.

It wasn't too bad for us. We could just take the train all the way to Commercial Drive, which was connected to Broadway. And from there coz we'd missed the last 99 B-Line back to UBC, we took a connecting train to Granville so tt we could have dinner/supper at the restaurant where we had started our day (complete with walking the exact same route as we had 18 hours ago - Denny's. Talk about deja vu).

Ooh this time I ordered hot chocolate (3 rounds of free refills) and a plate of scrambled eggs, rosti, 2 sausage links and 2 pieces of bacon, and 3 butter milk pancakes. Damn heavy, but I just cannot resist Denny's butter milk pancakes.



This is my dinner... After I'd unscrewed the pepper shaker and poured pepper all over it. Ben was once again, highly amused. He says tt the pepper look more like meatballs. Sigh.

Speaking of which, he was literally falling asleep at the table. He was wondering how he was looking also, having gone without sleep for so long. Haha. Apparently it was not because he cared about his looks, but because he suspected tt he looked like some kind of deviant or druggie. Since it wasn't just the girl who'd thought tt he wanted a joint, but also when we one the Skytrain there was this guy sitting opposite us who was comparing handphones (one of which was probably stolen), and he offered Ben a phone (!!!). I'm so amused.

After tt, we caught the 1.39am bus back to UBC. It was packed full of young UBC kids who spoke mainly about getting drunk and erm... titties. God they made me feel SO old. And erm... Ben no need to say lah. Seemed like everyone in the bus knew everyone. But yeah. We got back to UBC in one piece.

Reached Totem closer to 3am. Was too full to sleep, so I watched one episode of Grey's Anatomy and crashed around 5am.

Until 3pm today.

And tt, my friends, was the 8 hour escapade around Greater Vancouver, starting from around 4.00pm Sat afternoon to 12.00am Sunday morning. I have no fucking idea how much distance we covered though, but I suspect it comes up to a 3-digit number in km.