First thing’s first – Home Sweet Home! I have been back for a bit over a week and there has not been a single drop of precipitation coming down at all. Either it has been cloudy or overall sunny. Way to go, Raincouver! A bit of catch up before I head into the actual blog. After arriving back in Vancouver last Monday at around 9pm (which was still sunny, by the way), Tuesday afternoon was my cousin’s convocation, followed by mine Wednesday afternoon!
Officially I’m a Bachelor of Arts in Geography (major) with Urban Studies certificate and History (minor)! Simon Fraser University Alumni ‘09! On the other hand, I’m unemployed, which means I’m grouped into the ‘looking for a job’ group. This will be interesting and hopefully I won’t relegate to a minimum-paid job because I get sick of staying at home.
Grouse Grind
A few days back Vancouver has been named as the most desirable (or “easiest”) place to live for 2009 which coincide with my experience of Vancouver on Sunday. (Of course I’m ignoring half my paper on why these rankings are bad for all the other cities and does not represent the actual city.) My friend invited to me to tackle the Grouse Grind in the morning. I have previously been told that the hike was pretty hefty and mentally I was prepared for it. The day even compiled with my plan as once we reached North Vancouver, it was cloudy with barely any sun peeking in.
Once I got there and 10 minutes in, unlucky for me, my ears began to hurt like mad. For no particular reason – unless it’s some elevation thing but then I can fly on planes. So 10 minutes in, my friends are already way ahead of me and I am just taking my time walking up. Considering my out-of-shape-ness, my final time wasn’t that bad, especially with my ear ache! But compared to the fastest male and female times, I’m way, way off. It is only a 2.9 km hike but 2,830 steps total!
I would like to thank my friends who all waited for me to finish before taking the gondola back down. At the same time, I’d like to say a “boo-hiss” to the same friends who all thought I had given up and turned around before calling me. At least they all called me to see where I was! Thanks guys, total overall thumbs up. As we waited for the gondola down, the mountain top was cold enough to see the breaths in front of us. And there was still snow (or ice by now) on the ground!
Cloudy with... snow?
After the awesome/awful Grouse Grind experience, we were going to grab some McDonald’s via driving back over the Iron Gates Memorial, but alas, we took the wrong route and realized we were actually driving over Lions Gate. By the time we got off the bridge, Vancouver was sunny again and as we passed by a sign for Stanley Park, we totally yelled “BEACH”! After de-de-deja vu-ing by turning to the same street twice (after driving into Stanley Park and leaving immediately, oh wrong road), we finally reached Stanley Park, not after driving for awhile to figure out where the beaches are.
We stopped at the first beach we saw, or called Third Beach, and found a map that told us the beach was pretty big. After walking away when we found a parking spot, I again realized we forgot to pay for parking! (Previously in downtown, again)
Third Beach
What a gorgeous day it turned out to be as the sky cleared up and all was left was the beautiful blue. This was the extreme opposite of the cold, gloomy and what-the-ice in North Vancouver and on Grouse Mountain. The Chinese in me is screaming “what am I doing here?” I put on sunscreen and the next day woke up to even darker skin. So… WHY?
Hello, Chinese people want paler skin (thank you, Hong Kong television for bombarding these commercials every second you can). Even though the sun is warm and the day is beautiful, the water is still cold. Or “cold” in my standard. We had our blankets and were already in shorts while holding onto our McD paper bags. What a Sunday in Vancouver. Snow in the mountains and sun at the beaches – the perfect Vancouver scenario. You can put that to those marketing brochures and testimonies! We have a real example at hand already.
To complete the deja-vu, we ended up getting on another wrong bridge (this time – Granville) but luckily found West Broadway and then we knew the right way home.
It's not that cold...
