Project 289 - Day 241 (Friday 13 November 2009) : The Long March to Takeaway

Project 289 - Day 240 (Thursday 12 November 2009) : And There He Waz

The last time we caught up we were up in San Francisco for two glorious days....

Tonight it was the Arthouse Hotel for wine and then Wagamama's for dinner and juice....

Loved the catching up, the ease at which we relate, and the enjoyment of seeing a very special friend once again....

Project 289 - Day 239 (Wednesday 11 November 2009) : Long Hours and Pasta

Project 289 - Day 238 : Its a Lovely Day Today and Whatever You're.... Ah the Heck With That! I Am Back @ Work!

Back to work today. Back to my normal life today - commuting, washing clothes, making lunches (OK today I bought sushi but I had to walk all the way across campus to buy it. Brutal, I tell you, brutal!), getting ready for the management meeting, re-acquainting myself with my nemesis, Outlook......

So I figured that today's image had to be a shot of the City that I see from my balcony every morning, usually framed by the first light of the morning.

Project 289 : Day 237 (Monday 9 November 2009) : Day of Calm Before the Storm of Work

Project 289 - Day 236 (Sunday 8 November 2009): I'm BAAAACKKKK!!

Project 289 - Day 235 : Lost Somewhere Over the Pacific... The Day, Not Me!

No pictures and apart from trying to sleep and succeeding less than spectacularly (I managed 4-5 hours of broken sleep which did reduce the jetlag exhaustion somewhat), and enjoying the company of my two seat companions on row 42 of flight NZ83 from Vancouver, I did very little....

That's to be expected right...Saturday didn't really, apart from an hour or so somewhere vaguely near Hawai'i.....

Project 289 - Day 234 : Time to Fly Home? What? NO! (Thankfully My Beautiful Guy Awaits- YAY!)

I hate holidays finishing!

All the fun, relaxation and sense of being Outlook-free fast vanishing as you get ready for another flight sealed inside a metal tube. Of course, the good thing this time, for the first time ever, is that I have someone waiting for me (well not now clearly but eventually!) at the other end....not just anyone either! My beautiful guy will be waiting for me and I plan to hold tight and not let go. Well, may let go so he can drive but that's it! I warn you now!

The morning has been spent packing - it all just fitted yay! - watching "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" (where she unveiled her cover of O Magazine) and spending time with Ken and Graham. Shortly we will be leaving for another visit to Toys R Us ( to exchange the Tonka truck we bought yesterday) going to Pharmasave so Ken can post something (where I found all the Tim Tams above) and then via the kids' school and Sandra's office, we're off to the airport and another fabulous journey into Airport Land, the Beigest Land of them all!

The whole family came to the airport with me, which was lovely, and waited in line with me (with Graham helping me carrying a bag.... a very light one!) before doing some last minute shopping, including at the official Vancouver 2010 store and a store that had a giant moose outside it (of course it does!). I even got a shot of Sandra and Ken with the Smurf aka my beautiful guy's proxy before heading through the security gates, a bit of last minute shopping and a longer than expected wait before boarding my aircraft....

Project 289 - Day 233 (Thursday 5 November 2009) : Holiday Sloth Thy Name is Andrew

A very quiet day.

I spent most of the morning getting my Farmtown fix on Facebook - yes I am a full blown level 18 addict thanks to Sandra and Ken (when I arrived here just last week I was level 1 with a few weedy plots!) - before Ken and I ran errands to Toys R Us (birthday gift for a 5 year old's birthday party this Saturday - Tonka trucks rule!!), Cactus Club Cafe for lunch (lighting so dark I felt like it was late at night but the food was fab - the Bandarra Salad with cajun chicken, dates,crunchy noddles, red capsicum, corn, spinach leaves, lettuce....yes I am trying to remember the recipe!! LOL.... was delicious and healthy too!), Chapters (my favourite mega bookstore for flight home mags and some slightly naughty Christmas Post It notes) and Best Buy, where to the amazement of all that know me, I bought nothing! Not a thing.... REALLY.

Then back home for a relaxed night of more Farmtown (hmm is there a 12 Step group for this because I may just need one!), picking up the kids from school and Sandra from the train, before a delicious meal of chicken in mushroom and spaghetti squash (I love it!!) and a viewing of "Monsters vs Aliens" which I gave Graham for Christmas (he and Katie opened their pressies early so I could see their reactions) and which was pretty good (says the man who's seen LOTS of kids TV and movies in the last 10 days!! Think I am still sane)...

I finished the night, while everyone else slept, packing one of my suitcases so packing the next day would be reasonably stress-free...and lo, so it was....

Project 289 - Day 232 : Criss Crossing Vancouver Like a Hummingbird on Speed

What a madcap but totally fun day!

I long ago gave up what I lovingly refer to as Frenetic Tourism, where you dash back and forth in an ever maddening frenzy trying to get to absolutely everything that's listed in the guidebook. But today, in an attempt to re-visit some of my favourite old haunts in Vancouver (I have visited at least 8 times so the tourist sites were done and done repeatedly a long time ago), Ken and I hit the road early in the morning, dropped the kids off to daycare, Sandra off to work in Burnaby and then raced downtown to the first stop - GRANVILLE ISLAND.

This is a very funky precinct with views of the City and the Granville Island and Burrard Bridges - got some cool photos with them behind me - and everything from a public food market (where I got the most delicious butter pecan tart @ Staurt's Cakes ...YUM!) where we first encountered what seemed to become an ever growing throng of Japanese school girls, artists enclaves (including the work of the fabulous Peter Kess) and fantastically unique and one of a kind stores. The day was cold but sunny, and it was wonderfully relaxing moseying from building to building browsing, grabbing all sorts of cool stuff like moose-themed fridge magnets, a Canadian toque (pronounced 'tuke', which is like a beanie) and fun kitchen utensils and soaking in a totally unique tourist precinct.

We screamed out of the parking garage - actually we drove out carefully but 'screaming' sounds far more dramatic! - and headed down the street all of 5-10 minutes (with the help of Ken's GPS street directory which has, of all things, an Aussie accent called Karen) to the funky neighbourhood of KITSILANO. It's very Newtown-esque with many one of a kind stores and a number of fun chain stores including Mantique where I got a smokin' pair of jeans and trendy cardigan/jacket hybrid. But before the shopping began, and that involved walking up and down 5 blocks each way so again with the exercise, we lunched at Sophie's Cosmic Cafe, which reminds me so much of my favourite cafes in Newtown and Erskineville. I ate the most divinely delicious vegetable and nut burger with a coconut and banana burger and in a world of ordinary cookie cutter food, the food was one of a kind and an event in itself. While we ate, we took in the million and one retro toys and sundry other items attached to the walls. The whole neighbourhood is so much fun!

Final stop, and one of my favourite places on Earth, is STANLEY PARK, a heavily forested area that occupies an entire head of a peninsula on the edge of Vancouver's downtown. It also has Vancouver's aquarium in it which I visited on my first trip in 1994, and a seawall path that goes right around the park. It's a long walk, something like 10km, and baby, we walked it all! Ken thought it would take about an hour to do but 1.5 hours we were still walking, and mad eit back to the car a full hour after our parking had expired! (Sadly yes Ken got fined.) The views around every bend were just gorgeous and I snapped something like 105 photos on that leg of the day alone (see some below....well eventually when I post them!).

Just to remind me that we were in a large city we got stuck in a traffic jam for 1 hour trying to pick Sandra and the kids up, and eventually, wedged firmly in gridlock, Sandra had to catch the train home, and the kids were picked up by friends. But we finally found PoCo again and had a lovely relaxed night, which was a good thing since my legs were absolutely toast after a 10km bike ride yesterday, and a 10km seawall walk today. Ah the bliss of not moving!

BIRTHDAY DINNER

After a day spent racing hither and fro across Vancouver,

Project 289 - Day 231 (Tuesday 3 November 2009) : I Biked, I Ate, I Meatballed

Ah what a glorious day!

I spent the morning blogging - amazing that I could fall behind while on holidays but I managed it!! - watching "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" live (no repeat episodes from a year ago thank you Channel 9!!), having an hour's nap (these holidays are rough man, rough!)....very slovenly, holiday-ish and self-indulgent.....just the way life should be on holidays right? (Just agree with me. I am right anyway and agreeing will make it all go much faster!)

After letting myself go completely over the course of 3-4 hours - by the end I was lounging on the couch, contemplating a martini and another bagel (OK maybe not the bagel bit!) - Ken returned from running and exercising and we set off for lunch at Milestones, one of my favourite Canadian destinations for food. The ambience is usually dark-ish and sophisticated, the food is yummy (always a good thing when you're eating), and on this occasion, the waitperson was a totally cute spunky young English guy who apparently competed on "Canadian Idol". I haven't yet checked out his songs but his sound is Dave Gray-ish in style which is great because I like that style of music.

I had a Bellini or two (alcohol at lunchtime is becoming an increasingly large part of my holiday experience... I am such a lush!), ate their spinach, cheese and artichoke dip (mmmmm-yum!) with Ken for my Appy (appetizer or entree) and then had the most sensationally delicious meal - pan-seared scallops in a yellow Indian style curry on jasmine rice. OMG! De-freakin'-lish! I could have died and gone to heaven then but decided that I had to eat all the Halloween candy still at home so I put that event off for another 40-50 years or so...

After fond goodbyes to Paul, our soon-to-be famous waitperson - I should have got a photo with him in case he does become famous!! Dang! - we headed home and hit the road on bicycles (not sure that was a good idea after all those Bellinis but still!) bound for the PoCo Trail which runs besides the Pitt River in Port Coquitlam, on a series of dykes (I could make a silly joke here but I have too much respect for my lesbian friends to do that. It is tempting even so which is clear evidence that my 10 days with Sandra and Ken's kids have regressed me somewhat.). The scenery was stunning - lots of mountains and trees right on the edge of suburbia - and there were heaps of people out and about walking dogs, pushing kids in prams etc.... I have one question for them... why are you out and about enjoying nature when you could locked in an airless cubicle Outlooking your life away? Seriously what were they thinking?! It was absolutely invigorating cycling 10 or so km even if by the end of it all my butt hurt and my legs were like jelly as I rushed upstairs to get changed for our mad dash to see a movie at a cinema 45 minutes away!

So we dashed - well as much as heading into peak hour traffic would allow - over to Metrotown in Burnaby to see "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs", an hilarious kids' movie about a geeky guy who invents a machine tha can turn rain into food. At first all is well and the town rejoices but then people get greedy, all goes awry and the geeky guy (and the girl he lands....yep right!) must save the day. The visuals were fabulous - at one point the entire town is transformed into a giant ice cream sundae -, the dialogue snappy and funny, both for adults and kids, and they even touched on some modern isues such as the shallowness of the media etc. All in all, a bundle of fun that all of us loved...

Unfortunately Sandra got caught in meetings so couldn't join us, but we managed to find her in Metrotown, and headed back to Po Co for dinner at Whitespot, which the kids loved courtesy of their meals arriving on cardboard pirate ships. Sadly my burger came on a plate, but was yummy even so....

Wow a full day of fun and holiday frivolity and I was mighty glad to go to sleep that night.... dreaming of giant food falling from the sky .....thankfully no although it was funny that the regular sized popcorn and soft drink that came with the adult tickets to the movie were HUGE and mirrored the events of the movie eerily.....