Thanksskiing - Day 3 around Vancouver, BC

Saturday, November 25 2006

We had a hard time deciding whether to go ski Whistler again the next day, but considering that it was not cheap and we should tour vancouver since we are here.. we decided to well, tour vancouver instead.

Despite being found out that we were crashing lots of pple into a room, we heck cared and went down for breakfast. haha. The ski/snowboard-siow pple had gone to whistler already, leaving the few of us lazy bums. As we walked by the receptionist guy, he went 'one, two, three, four, five, six.. and more to come i believe'. He is such an asshole. So bitchy right?

Later on when we checked out, we were charged 120 instead of 80+ for each room. We have no idea why and the worst part is that we couldn't ask, cos we were in the wrong. And we refused to see that irritating face again. So we just swallowed our pride and drove off. GRR!

Let me try putting my captions above the photos from now on.. something tells me that it's more readable that way. So, as we were driving off from the hotel towards Stanley Park, we saw an amusement park with roller coasters. Ok, not bad we thought. Suddenly someone shouted, 'LOOK AT THAT!' And guess what we saw...

MADNESS! How can such pretty mountains exist so near the city? We're still driving in the city, and all we have to do is to turn our head right and we see such a magnificent sight. Snow capped mountains leh, the only one i know of is Mount Fuji and here are some right before our eyes.

Why is vancouver so chio????

I noticed a couple of shops selling specialty items along the way.. I've never seen anything like this before!! My. 'Medication Marijuana'. Don't you find it fascinating that they outrightly sell such Medication on the streets in a place where you can't buy BEER from 7-11??!

We drove nearer to the mountains..

That was really amazing wasn't it? Haha.. to think that it wasn't even in our itinerary, can see such prettiness in the middle of no where. After that we popped by a visitor's centre, to pick up some info, and bought our Capilano Suspension Bridge tickets at student rate thanks to erm, us being students of UPenn! Is great being a student, man.

We intended to do stanleypark, capilano suspension bridge and Grousemountain in a day, so i was pretty edgy and hoping we could siam soon, tho the nice lady at the counter kept going on about all the things to see and do.. haha.

Stanley Park

So, we finally went down to Stanley Park. The Totem Poles are the most visited part of Stanley Park and as we circled the island anti clockwise, this was the area we reached first. Parking was at $1 per place or $3 for the whole day, and us being cheapos we just ignored it happily, hoping nothing would happen.

Well, that was that. Pretty much the same as what you see in photos. I'd expected it to be larger, with more totem poles. I mean that's pretty much like sentosa isn't it? Just that sentosa one is probably not the traditional type. Haha. In fact, the whole of Stanley park was much smaller than I had imagined, and we finished up faster than I thought we would. It helped that we could drive around, heh heh.

Next we went to the Hollow Tree. It's well, a dead tree which could fit all of us inside. I'm still awaiting photos from Mark which I suspect will never appear since the UPenn pple can probably share them easily.. sob.

After taking a couple of photos at the Tree.. We drove down to Prospect Point. We spent quite some time here, the scenery was cool, it's pretty much an all-in-one kinda place cos there was a Lions' Gate Bridge + Body of Water + Mountains + city skyline. So very wuhua!

Next we went down to Lost Lagoon, which was our last stop in Stanley Park. The visitor's centre lady had said that we could see beavers, racoons, swans that aren't afraid of u and come right up to you..

What we saw:

Well, at least there were swans, but they were far away being fed by other people. Well, glad to finish up Stanley Park so fast, cos it meant it was time for LUNCH at CHINATOWN!! We'd already sourced out a dimsum-wontonmee place which had rating $-$$ which means $10-20. Really nice of the guide book to show you the price range. I'm really wary of guidebooks cos they usually only show those pricey restaurants who pay a lot to advertise in them.

Off we went to Hon's Lunch! [and we later found out that HON stands for House Of Noodle.. and also the founder's name lah.. 'Han4'.] I ordered 'BBQ pork noodle', stupidly thinking that BBq pork was Roast pork. haiya it's easier with chinese names! Being greedy i also added wan tan. Heehee. I was pretty disappointed that it turned out to be char siew.. haha.. but the servings were crazily large.

We also had guo tie [pot stickers, heehee] and siew mai [which i din eat cos only got 4]. It was a pretty fantastic meal, really enjoyed it.

After stuffing ourselves, we went back to our quite illegally parked car and found that we'd landed ourselves a ticket. 26 bucks. Boo!! That meant our lunch became more expensive! And the stupidest thing was, we only realised some time after, that the ticket was from Prospect POint, Stanley Park and not from the hOn's lunch place! Haha! So in order to save $3 of parking we ended up paying 26. haha.. Mark was pretty annoyed about it.

I love this cute little shop which says 'Open Sundaes'. NO idea what it sells, but it totally reminded me of bubbles.

Capilano Suspension Bridge

Upon entering the premises, we were given a map in which we could collect stamps at different areas in there. We were promised some certificate of some sort if we could collect all the stamps.. haha. cheap thrill. In the end we only managed to collect 3 even though we visited all the attractions.. I think they probably removed the stamps.. Ah, cheat our feelings.

Anyway, i'm kinda pissed off that i look like im wearing the same clothes all the time, in every vacation i go to. haha.. same jacket, scarf, beanie, gloves. I do change my clothes!! Bleah.

Quite beautiful, but it was as usual, smaller than expected. Next we went for the tree top adventure walk.. i dunno wat wj is trying to do..

It is freaking difficult to take photos of the bridge, esp at night cos it is shaking shaking shaking all the time!! ARgh! Notice the pretty snow flakes dropping down.. =)

Pretty lights around made the dark place a lot more interesting. Check out the cute lil beaver i bought. Ha!

Grouse Mountain

Our next stop was Grouse Mountain. It's interesting cos there's night skiing there, and supposedly you can admire the city lights as you ski down [if your face isn't in the snow all the time]. We went to the bottom and saw evryone in snowboards and skis, all excited about going up. I think weijie was pretty interested in going up, and though I think it's a great chance.. I wasn't exactly looking forward to tumbling down the snow at night when it was freezing. And paying much money for it. So we decided to just take photos with the signs.. haha. It's really convenient cos behind this sign, it says 'Welcome to Grouse Mountain'. We didn't even have to move much to take the 2 photos to prove that we've been here.. haha.

We kinda harboured plans of going to the factory outlets [btn vancouver and seattle, and liling still really needs to get that coachbag] but we cldn't cos we had to wait for philip to join us.. so We drove down to Robson Street next to walk around instead. It was rainingly snowing the whole time.. I guess snow really is better than rain. You know, before coming over i had such a vague idea of snow. I thought it was like in a totally different category as rain..

And we were talking about how it's gonna rain a lot in vancouver/seattle, i was talking to liling and commenting, 'what if it rains on the mountains? how to ski?'
and liling said, 'if it's snowing it shouldn't be raining'.

Haha i know that's totally common sense but it took a while for me to realise that snow is just frozen rain, and that's why if it snows, it shouldn't rain. argh.. my science/common sense is really bad. haha.

Robson Street

So we went into this shop called 'Salmon Village' where the guy was really friendly and I don't know why i ended up buying $20+ worth of chocolates that i'm too shy to give my mentor now. Anyway the guy recommended us dinner at White Spot, where the burgers are, i quote, 'Fucking Awesome'.

er.. no, they were no where near 'Awesome'. I only ate half of it.

We waited around for Philip, and popped into Starbucks for a while for some warmth, pretending to look at the mugs. Luckily he came before we were chased out. That's me, pretending not to be miserable in some snow/sleet/rain thing.

That started our drive back down to Seattle, where we stayed at Days Inn Seattle Aurora with no trouble at all, since the carpark led straight to the 2nd level where our rooms were. Haha next time book hotel room need to see floor plan first!!

Thanksskiing - Day 2 on Whistler, BC

Friday, November 24, 2006

We had a really good rest.. It was hard to get out of bed, but it helped that there were tonnes of fresh powdery snow waiting for us outside the door. We piled on layers of clothes before going over to the other room where the guys had made coffee and toasted bread already. Hee.

I originally wanted to wear 1 thermal underwear, 1 thin long sleeved teeshirt, 1 wool sweater and the rockwell jacket which had a layer of fleece and an outer layer. Neisha took one look at my thin teeshirt and decided it was not enough. So I wore one more layer of cashmere thermals. That's 2+1+1+2 = 6 layers of clothes right? I ended up perspiring the whole day. Except when we stopped for lunch. Damn stupid. Neisha also felt way too hot.. haha.

See what I meant by the mountains being right next to the resorts?

Beanie, cashmere thermals and pink wool sweater courtesy of lok sum.. [6th aunt] thanks a lot! they kept me real warm! =)

Whistler. Freaking awesome. This is where the olympics are held ok!

Loads of people everywhere. The people working there were from all over the world, australia, Uk, etc. The cashier staff were extremely slow, but I found that the shoe rental people were really helpful, and even help you to wear your boots, after which they patiently ask if they are comfortable and fit properly. So nice lah.

We had to kinda cut the queue for the ski rentals cos our class was starting. Luckily this guy that we approached agreed to help us prepare and get all the ski equipment we needed. Next we were outside gathered with our instructor.

Piled on weight overnight. Btw those stupid huge gloves from marcs were a horrible buy. Even though they were only 1.99. Way too huge and clumsy. And my crunched up pants look like cellulite or something. Totally not seh at all. My nametag says 'EN'! The instructor pronounced it as 'Anne' which is pretty nice.

1 for beginners!






Admiring the beautiful slopes of El Nath Whistler in the ski lift.



I'm ready! fang ma guo lai!

awesome. and this was only the beginners' area.

We got into a circle and learnt how to wear and move around in the skis.. Then we learnt a bit of braking, and then turning. That's all we learnt for the entire day. Because there were so many of us, the lessons were damn slow, as we had to queue up in a line, and each of us went down one by one. It sounds fast but it takes so long for us to climb up a bit of slope, only to wait for the other 10 people ahead of u to go down..

It was our instructor's first day on the job, and he kinda treated us like little kids.. I guess it's cos he feared for our safety. But I believe the only way to learn is to just whack. He refused to let us go even to a slightly higher ground to try. It wasn't even steep there, and the higher ground meant we had more space to try it out. In fact in the lower area where we were, there was this place which was cordoned off with rope, and it was a cliff beyond it. Which means that not only we had a very small area to try skiing in, it was pretty dangerous since we didn't exactly know how to brake!

Anyway, thanks to my rollerblading experience I managed to feel quite comfortable with basic skiing on gentle grounds. He even allowed me to practise on my own, without having to queue up. Later on he also allowed me and weijie to go up to the slightly higher ground to practise turning. Which was pretty irritating I felt cos come on lah not like the rest couldn't make it, in fact they would learn a lot better if they went to the higher ground in the first place. Oh, and I realise that when I ski I totally ignore what he teaches about braking and shifting your weights.. haha I totally use the rollerblading way to ski. Even on flat ground I try to do rollerblading motions, I must have looked kinda dumb.

Well luckily it didn't really cost any different to ski without an instructor, if not I would have felt really wasted.. All that time and we didn't get to enjoy much of the mountain.

Making our way down for lunch.

Chili dog and a $3.25 gatorade from Zogs. bobian i was so so thirsty and gatorade was so inviting. They had free fried onions which smelled so damn good but I only realised after I had gobbled down my hotdog.

After playing around on the slightly higher slope for a while, it was almost 3, and the instructor ended the lesson. He was going off to his 2nd job, which is a chef for some expensive restaurant. Pretty interesting guy. He even has a little pony tail which he's not allowed to keep as a teacher so he keeps his helmet on.

Weijie and me eyed the ski lifts.. and i don't know, we just decided to give it a try. haha. these go up to the olympic station which we later found out weren't that high at all. In fact it was the lowest slope and totally for beginners.

On the way up.. We actually saw li ling and shouted out to her. Haha, she took the level 3 lessons cos she has skied b4. The slopes look real gentle from the ski lifts right?

After a long ride to the top, we saw this sign a little distance above where we were dropped off and we made our way up to take photos with it. I can tell you that, it is freaking difficult to move around when the snow is up to your knees, and those skis, are daaaamn heavy lah! I had such a hard time walking up that weijie had to help me. And when I finally reached the sign, I had to hug it for dear life. I couldn't even climb any higher to help weijie take the photo with the sign, and that explains the angle of his photo hahaha.

Weijie sure loves the snow. Anyway i'm kinda pissed off that my photos all turned out so dark. according to puji it's cos there's so much white that the camera is duped into thinking that it's too bright and adjusts the lcd screen accordingly or something. Haiya i feel so stupid, i went to decrease the exposure summore.. really can't tell by looking at the screen.

No i wasn't lying when I said knee deep in snow.

It wasn't easy, even though the slopes looked gentle on the way up, on the way down, you can't even see beyond the flatter surfaces. I don't know why. Maybe I bent too low or something, haha. And since I totally didn't know how to control my speed, I went way too fast, screaming 'how do i stop?' to smirking pro people along the way. haha.

I did try to slow down/stop in the beginning, but always ended up tripping and falling out of my skis and face flat into the snow. Well at least it didn't hurt. But the getting up is really really exhausting. When you get up the first thing you'll notice is that when you turn around, your 2 skis and 2 poles are flung far behind you. So you gotta wade over, and somehow balance yourself on the skis which are at your knee level, and get your feet in them.

I got so fedup of that process that I decided not to even try stopping anymore. That worked for me, it's the same concept as ice skating. Haha don't try to stop, just avoid everyone! I did that all the way down without anymore accidents. Haha. Damn shiok.

from left to right: paw, weijie, li ling, philip, gabriel, mark, neisha, danny, elvin, and vincent at the bottom.

This tree was like my watercooler. Snow tastes really good! Should have brought syrup to make ice kacang.. hehe.

haha and li ling kena duped into jumping into snow for a video that weijie didn't take. =p i suppose that's his revenge for slamming him in front of everyone.. got ang moh lady cheer for her summore.

After taking lots of videos of li ling and wj shoving each other around.. haha we finally went down whistler. Via different methods though. Most of us took the lift down, but the more adventurous decided to SKI down. The slopes between where we were and the bottom of the mountain weren't open for skiing and weren't maintained. We also had no idea how steep or what the conditions were. And these jokers decided to just whack.. haha.

Make us worry for them only. After returning our skis, we waited around for a while before they turned up.. Unharmed, but Im sure it was a pretty crappy journey.. haha fell into ditches and all. like danny and vincent learnt the next day [when they attempted the PEAK of whistler on their first time on SNOWBOARDS while there was a blizzard and avalanche warning level 3 out of 5], there's a thin line between garangness and stupidity.

on a side note, i noticed that people on snowboards all looked pretty miserable. especially when they fall! snowboarding looks damn cool, but eew, am not looking forward to trying that.

So after counting the sheep, we decided to head towards vancouver chinatown for a dimsum dinner. turned out that the restaurants in our lists were all high crass expensive restaurants. Like this Pink Pearl restaurant. [actually looks like those in m'sia doesn't it] There was a freaking wedding dinner in there i think. haha! they din haf much dim sum and it was expensive so despite the good service we decided not to eat there..

While we were in a neighbourhood thinking of what to eat, the ever resourceful guys whipped out a laptop and started googling for places. MY! there actually was internet reception there haha. signal was kinda weak so we drove a little to get a stronger signal. damn nonsense lah! notice elvin's expression and pose.

spot anything familiar?

Elvin sure doesn't have very creative poses. anyway he's not supposed to steal the limelight from the glorious food. We settled for some cafe that we drove by that was still open. there was a sign that said 3.50 for a charsiewrice lunch so we thought it would be cheap.

The prices on the menu weren't too cheap but it was a fantastic meal for $9+ CAD. seafood + tofu, guluyok, lemon chicken, fuyongegg, kailan that didn't look like kailan, cod and tofu. with puer tea. yumm!! i wolfed down 2 bowls of rice. hehe.

Next comes the most kok part of our trip. Because we were made to pay extra the previous day for extra guests, we decided to hide in the car while only a few pple checked in with most of our luggage. And only join them later on, preferably by some ulu staircase or fire exit.

While we were waiting around in the carpark and getting more and more bored, we decided to take photos.. and here we are, a secretive photo.

As we were about to go up to join them, we received news that weijie was coming back to get us, I didn't know what for, but as he approached us we could tell from his face that something was not quite right.

Turned out that there was a security camera in the carpark and its recorded contents were displayed at the reception! And when weijie came back out, the receptionist SMIRKED at him.

It didn't help that the only fire exit threatened to sound off an alarm if we used it. So we had to walk through the front door past the receptionist to the lift. I totally didn't dare to look him in the eye. When we went up to the room, i turned back and realised that he followed us up. but he didn't approach us..

Really freaky lah, that totally spoiled our day. even though it was pretty funny that we even took stupid photos in that carpark in front of the camera. haha. to think that weijie even made small talk with him, and said that we were from singapore *wince*. weijie was really affected haha and refused to join us to go to granville street after that.

Granville street is probably the mohammed sultan of vancouver. Quite happening as you can see, the clubs had a long line of people outside. Neisha was pretty fascinated by how the girls could wear so little in the cold. haha. i totally wasn't in the mood for clubbing, and we didn't find any pubs suitable for chilling out, so we just kinda walked up and down the street, before heading home.

Oh, we were happily walking along when i heard some commotion, and then mark turned back and said 'Did you see that?' Apparently some nude lady had just stepped out of a limo, said 'Hey guys!' and popped right back into the limo which sped off! I cant believe I missed that.. still feeling pretty sore bout it.

We did pop into 7-11 for some beer, but we learnt that their convenience stores don't have alcohol. No wonder they have to queue up to get into the clubs!