Vancouver

Spent less than 24 hours in vancouver, spent almost $400 on transportation to do it, but it was worthwhile.

Got there nice and early in the morning, and after getting screwed over by the car rental company (from past experience, this appears to be standard practice) headed out. Didn't really know where I wanted to go, so I went to UBC for old-times sake. It's really beautiful around there, especially the trail down to wreck beach. Wandered around UBC a bit, some of the old places, and missed last year's Explore program so much, I probably shouldn't have gone there. But one justification is that I couldn't find the wedding location on a map, and knew Google maps could, so I needed somewhere with internet. And what a coincidence, I was able to get into one of the computer labs in Buchannan that I used to use last year, and look it up there!

After UBC, I headed through downtown, and parked on Davie, cause I remembered a place when Janet and I were walking around one night that served soft-serve ice cream mixed with slurpee, called a 'screamer'. Found that place pretty easily, and enjoyed one. Next off to drive around stanley park, stopping once ina while but not straying far from the car since it was pay parking. After the park, I had planned on getting some good and hopefully weird Japanese food, but i wasn't sure if there was time (I know how long it can sometimes take to get across Vancouver!) and was fairly full from the screamer, so I headed directly to the wedding. Had over an hour to kill, so I wandered a bit, then got changed into my suit. It's neat, and maybe pathetic, but it's the same suit that I got for high school grad, almost a decade ago. The ticket for high school grad has even lived in the pocket that whole time. "Dreams for a new tomorrow". At the wedding, the only people I knew (besides the bride and groom) were a couple people from high school, Justin and Anil, who I hadn't been in contact with for several years. It was neat being around them again. I met a guy named Anthony who also hardly knew anyone, and hung out with him for the rest of the day. The wedding was pretty long, some parts in english, some in cantonese. After the ceremony, they had people wait around to be in group photos, which I thought was fairly uncommon. But it looked like they had done the wedding photos of themselves sometime before, since there was a big book of wedding photos. They were extremely good, I was really impressed. With so many people in so many categories, it took a long time to get through the group photos. Then there was the cake cutting, while still at the church. And some snacks. But Anthony and I were pretty hungry so we went out for food. Crazy traffic prevented access towards downtown and some japanese restaurants unfortunately. After eating and driving around richmond (which must be the least scenic part of vancouver... though it hosts some of my favorite scenery if you know what I mean) we rested at anthony's hotel for a bit then went to the restaurant.

If you've been to chinese weddings, you'll know what this is like... many course meal spread out over the entire evening. I was sitting with Anthony and one of the guys from high school, but I liked meeting the other people at our table, who were also from Calgary. Many of the speeches and such were in cantonese, and those that weren't generally had someone translating. There were a few games too, like the bride and groom holding up the bride's or groom's shoe to answer the questions, seeing if they picked the same answer. And trying to make them do some other embarrassing stuff. No dance. Overall I really enjoyed it. Not to sound bad, but it was really nice to be surrounded by hong-kong (and some other SE asian) people again, I don't seem to get that as much these days. It's just kindof different. At the end of the day, as with all such times, I didn't really want it to be over, so I was among the later people to leave. Said goodbye to people, and headed out with Anthony, since i had a vehicle, and he had a hotel room with two queen sized beds (he got a great deal, US$50 using priceline.com (another person at the same place payed over $100), gotta try that sometime) but i wanted to just cruise the town for a while, and he didn't mind, so we headed down through downtown, it was so alive, then around stanley park, it was so peaceful, got out a couple times. Visited kits beach, but by then it was pretty late so we headed home. It was a good 23 hour day for me. Showered and slept for a couple hours before heading back to the airport to conclude my vancouver trip.