How are you? I hope you're well.
So, we had our first snow here in Burnaby on Nov 17th. It was what I'd call a 'UK snowfall' - a light dusting of not much significance but cool all the same. It lasted about a day, ultimately only making the sidewalks slippery as hell. The mountains have had a lot more of the stuff. The SameSun facebook pages have been regularly notifying me of snow in Banff and Kelowna, and the mountains around Vancouver now have that picturesque white top to them. It looks awesome on the horizon.
Last weekend saw the Grey Cup festival take place in Vancouver. BC Place, the big downtown stadium that recently re-opened after having its roof renovated, was hosting the Canadian Football League (American football) playoff finals this year, and it just so happened that the hometown BC Lions had made the final after a storming end to the season. The festival ran 24-27th November and there was certainly a football buzz around town. Not only BC Lions fans but fans of all the CFL teams seemed to have decended on the city for the activities, parade and game.
The big parade happened on Saturday morning. It was raining in typical Vancouver fashion but that didn't deter the crowds. I was working as usual but luckily the parade was running right down Burrard St, in front of the store, so I didn't miss any of the cheerleaders. The store was completely dead for the first 2.5 hours of the day as all eyes were on the street, meaning I got to watch the whole thing! There were tons of floats, marching bands, cheerleaders and flag-wavers entertaining the masses. I even got the chance to do my best wide receiver impression after I spotted promo balls being thrown into the crowd by a few makeshift quarterbacks. I dashed out of the store and claimed a ball for my own (despite, admittedly, a pretty poor fumble).
By no means the most exciting pictures you'll ever see but proof it happened:
And here's a quick snap of my souveneir:
The final itself was played between the BC Lions and Winnipeg. It was a great game and BC came out on top 34-23! Champions!!! Hopefully it'll inspire the Canucks to go one better in the ice hockey playoffs this year! Here's a photo of our MVP quarterback hero, Travis Lulay, with the Grey Cup:
| From: http://www.theprovince.com/sports/5775895.bin?size=620x400s |
I also got my first taster of a Japanese noodle bar, thanks to my colleague Boney (Bonnie) taking me for lunch a couple of days ago. We went to a place called Benkei just a block away from the store which she had recommended to me a couple of days earlier. She's originally from Hong Kong and has been in the city for a long time now, so I've been trying to get as many oriental restaurant recommendations out of her as possible. I can't remember the exact name of the dish but it was a spicy pork number and I had some pork dumpings on the side. Deeeeelicious! No problems wielding the chopsticks again either.
Other than that it's just been the usual work, gym, watching ice hockey lark. I had a day off sick and one day the SkyTrain wasn't working at all, so had to take 3 different buses to downtown and ended up being 1h30 late. There hasn't really been much other excitement apart from Dan's birthday last weekend. We went for a few drinks at his bar, The Corner, then on to the Yaletown Brewing Company which was a good laugh. Mark and I bought him a Canucks t-shirt which he seemed chuffed with. Happy days.
Finally, Mark is flying off to the Far East on Monday, so all the best to him on his travels. See you in another life, brother.
Ciao for now,
Si x
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