Thanksskiing - Day 4 in Seattle

Sunday, November 26, 2006

In the morning, we all went down for breakfast. At first we tried to ignore each other, so that it er, wouldn't be so suspicious that we were all in the same room. After a while we couldn't take it and started discussing our plans. Poor gabriel was sitting alone at a table. And we didn't talk to him from the beginning to the end, cos it was like how weird to just suddenly talk to him after ignoring him for so long. Haha.. Damn nonsensical. Well Danny was quite smart and gave the guy a $10 tip for tolerating our nonsense and keeping quiet about it.

Pike's Place Market

Next we were off to Pike's Place Market. In the hopes that it was open and that there were actually people around. Luckily there were! We were worried that u know it was so cold that no fishermen would be out at sea and all. When we reached, the market was just opening, and you could see it slowly come to life. People were just opening their booths, and it was interesting to see the market unfold before you.

Check these out.. they are the CHEEKs of a fish. huge hor? the lobsters looked damn good.. and in the top left corner of the pic [this feels like english oral exam in sec sch haha] are SCALLOPS. humongous lah!

This guy played very good music.. from a cute piano!

The following are 'Cooked Dungeness Crabs'. The guy was happily opening them and allowing us to sample.. tasted really good! Liling and me promptly brought one at $15 to share w everyone.. Yummilicious. This was from the store right at the main entrance of the market, and the people shout and sing whenever you buy something. So when we buy a crab they go 'One Crab!' and they throw the crab around.

When pb told me about this I actually imagined it to be a lot grander, a lot of fishermen throwing fish around as they work and singing.. Haiya, so it's only the fishmonger who sings, ONLY when you buy stuff from them. Bleah. kinda cheated!

Oh, they say that the crab was put there for 3 days le =p but it still tasted superb, so .. whatever!

Next I saw this cute nut store.. selling all sorts of diff flavoured peanuts. I bought $5 worth of Caramel Cashews and Jubee Macadamia. Total rip off. And I also found the guy kinda rude. The nuts were way too sweet.. I didn't finish them and fed them to the rest of the guys.

The following store sold dried fruits.. I had to stop myself from buying all these nonsense. Haha. I took the above self portrait in front of this store, and I bet the lady was laughing at me.. Hehe. Gabriel took a sample from the lady and I saw him chewing on it.. Suddenly he put a piece of dried fruit on my hand to exchange for my nuts. haha it looked like he chew chew chew then suddenly give me. so nonsense.

I was walking around randomly when I noticed these cute little things. Then I realised that the guy in front of me was Vincent! Haha. The lady picked one up at started playing a melody with it. Freaking cute!! They are called ocarinas.. Very expensive, but I was a gone case right after she played a few melodies.

I know it was expensive but it was about the way she sold it, how she looked so happy playing it and how she seemed proud of the craft. She says that it's made by a couple of her friends a couple of hours away from seattle.

Mark was saying that ebay sure got. And liling says she saw tonnes of these in China. hhaha.. but since i'm not going to china soon.. heehee. I thought it would be a cute ornament, and summore u can pick it up and play. I love it. So did vincent so we tried bargaining a bit, and each bought one. Mine's a medium size and his is a small, so mine plays a more mellow sound compared to his.

Later found some on the internet that were way cheaper.. but luckily don't have my shape. Haha. I've been irritating my room mate by playing squidward-ly tunes hahha. There are lots of constraints since only one octave can be played haha but it's still really really cute. loves it.

We walked around a little.. That's some dried fruit thing courtesy of Elvin. I was in a toy shop.. And they sold really cute things like a ball which changed colour when you threw it up and down [haha an old lady saw me playing with it and she decided to buy 3 for her grandsons or something!] I was extremely tempted to buy this calendar whose pages you could fold into origami daily.. and even , kirigami [even prettier.. can cut out into pretty shapes and all] but i had to stop myself from spending money on nonsense.

First Starbucks

Next we went to the First STARBUCKS ever!!! at 1912 Pike Place. There were loads of people there and we went in to get our nice hot drinks. Meanwhile weijie was in the car making sure we didn't get any tickets... haha so wei da.

I had seen the logo before in some art in the market.. and I thought it was a parody of starbucks.. little did i know that it WAS the starbucks logo! so ugly lah!

With my very sexy rockwell jacket. haha. dunno why vincent do C.. machiam C-block like that.

my favourite starbucks drink.. caramel macchiato!

We then went down to mac donalds near the space needle for lunch. i think this is my first filet o fish in america.

Chittenden Locks

Locks are basically elevators for boats. When a boat needs to travel up stream, they go into this contraption which locks the water out, and then water from the higher region is let in, thus the boat will move up until the level of the higher region. Kinda interesting to look at.

Weijie [or was it mark] was asking why do they have to build it in the first place. The water should become level anyway if it wasn't there. It's not like it's a dam or something. Wah. so cheem. I have no idea either.

There was this 'fish ladder' thing to help the salmon swim upstream! They even had a viewing gallery where you could observe it. Damn cool.. a little murky though. Too bad it wasn't salmon season.. there were only a couple of chinooks that were too old and weak to make their way up.

Oh, it was quite funny that there were erm, salmon cook books at the tourist shop. wth?

On the way there, we saw this bridge opening up.. I've seen this in chicago so i didn't find it entirely exciting, but stupid weijie was making a lot of noise about how cool it is.. haha and he made it seem a lot more fun and happening than it really was. bth!

We braved the crazy rainy weather just to check it out.


Entrance to the fish ladder viewing place



The lazy chinook. Damn big lah.


Fish Ladder


The locks which control the water level

picked up a pretty leaf which i gave neisha later on, but was left to die in the van in the end ha.

We then rushed down to the airport to send Gabriel off.. aiyoh i think gabe is damn hardworking.. must rush back so that he doesn't miss lessons! Then it was time to go for the Experience Music Project near the space needle where the rest had already spent the whole afternoon at.

But, before going there, we decided that the pike place crabs were too delicious to let go of.. and when I said 'We should have crabs and beer for supper tonight' it became an unanimous decision immediately. Heehee.. So we drove back to pikeplace market and bought 3 crabs for only 30+.. It was a correct choice to not buy from that first stall at the entrance who made a lot of noise. It also saves you time cos they don't take so much time to sing and throw the crab and all.

Experience Music Project

By the time we reached the EMP thing, it was very late already.. and we still had to wait for the rest to come down with the coupons which gave us $3 off. It seemed hard to tear them away from the exhibit! So in the end we only had 1.5 hours to tour the place.

We skipped all the exhibits and headed straight for the hands on labs. Damn nonsense, paying $16 to go into the jam studios to make lots of noise. Heh. It was really fun, they even let u record your own music and u can buy the cd after that. We basically went into the jam studio and made lots of noise by plonking on the guitars, keyboard, drums.. and of course, weijie our lead singer. When we left that studio, there was a line outside, and the lady in front of the queue like, smiled at us. Later on we realised that the studio wasn't sound proof so.. our beautiful *cough* music was heard by all. Man.

There was also a small studio which let u 'record your own concert, complete with fans'. Haha.. it's like a little stage.. and you don't have to know any music, just go out there and pretend. too bad we couldn't afford to buy the video/photo. Pretty cool, we looked quite professional lah. Vincent on guitar, liling on keyboard, mark on drums, weijie lead singer and me on the tambourine.. hahaha.. I also had to sing lah so embarrassing. i looked damn stupid in the video.

Our band was called.. Majulah Singapura. Cool huh. at the end of it they print 'concert tickets' for you, and then they lead u to the computer to watch ur own concert. damn boliao, but we enjoyed it. hahaha.

After which, we went looking for those jam rooms again, Neisha joined us and we sang our hearts out.. haha.. it was like a major karaoke session. quite nonsense to spend our time and money on that but it was really really fun. in fact we had so much fun we stayed til the very end when the security came to chase us out. Then we ran into a room on a lower level just to play for a few more minutes before the security came to chase us out again. haha. machiam never see instrument before.

Our concert ticket!!

Some of us wanted to watch Happy Feet in the omnimax theatre.. I did originally but changed my feeble mind after li ling said she didn't want to watch it. haha. So we rushed off to eat.. went to a mexican restaurant spotted by neisha from some tourist guide. the pple watching happy feet didn't have the time to eat so they had to tapao the food.

appetizers

Wet colorado. burrito with sirloin.. something something. hardly ate half of it, shld have shared with liling!

Pike Pub

We went down to where they brew 'the best beer in the world'.. hmm sounds familiar? Well it's something like brewerks I guess. We let the bar tender [danny] choose the Pike Tandem Double Ale, and Pike Kilt Lifter, one of which is sweeter than the other, but i have no idea lah. all tastes the same to me. The beer cups were so cute i was tempted to buy one haha.

The happy feet people joined us after their show. We bought these back: "Naughty Nellie: light, with lots of sex appeal". That's the description of the beer.. like, i can totally tell what it tastes like by reading that.. =_="

We ended the day at Econo Lodge, enjoying Naughty Nellie's and not forgetting the 3 crabs which were waiting for us. No pictures of crab eating cos of dirty hands. But it was superb, squatting in front of the toilet and sink eating crabs on newspapers, kinda like eating durians, with mark the tissue paper dispenser. dispenses every 5 minutes. heehee.

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!!