The Dying Wish Tour - Pretty Overload, You May Malfunction

A blog entry is long overdue, but alas, I have a relatively good explanation this time!  Since April I've had to take an unexpected, unwelcome, temporary hiatus from living abroad (explanation in another entry to follow) and since this is a travelling/living abroad blog, I haven't had much to write about...until now!

In July, I had the pleasure of travelling around my own country (CANADA!) for two weeks...this seems like a long time but considering the size of the country I managed to see maybe .01% of the actual land mass.  This is pretty exciting for me because although I have lived in 7 different countries on 4 continents, the most I've seen of Canada has been the inside of airports and the wheat fields of my own province, and I must say it was spec-fucking-tacular (pardon the French).  Seriously though, Canada is pretty amazingly jaw droppingly beautiful....even though I do say that about every country I've been.  I think Japan, being so different, has really made me appreciate Canada more than anywhere else I've lived.  Japan is beautiful of course...there's nothing quite like seeing the bamboo covered mountains swaying in the wind, the delicate cherry blossoms falling to the ground at the end of their short existence, a big, fat, greedy koi begging for food from a clear temple pond, your first Shinkansen ride, the crazy neon-ness of Akihabara, the sky reflected in a freshly planted rice paddy, or that first time you see a maiko-san shuffling through the ancient streets of Kyoto....the list goes on and on. Every time I've come back from somewhere, I couldn't wait to move on.  But this time, the wide open spaces, the uncrowded cities, the people and how REAL they are (anyone who's lived in Japan knows what I'm talking about), and just the independence of knowing what's going on and being able to do anything and everything myself was a giant relief and, even though the circumstances haven't been ideal, I've been happy to be back.

Anyways...Rockies...I started by taking a 10 hour bus to meet my friend in Edmonton.  Public transportation in Canada is HORRIBLE....this drive should have taken 5 hours at the absolute most...but hey when you're unemployed, disabled, and a temporary citizen, there's no point in buying a vehicle.  The bus arrived more than an hour late as well.  After that my friend picked me up and we drove another 2 hours to his brothers to pick up his camper and stay for the night.

Day 2 we drove from Plamondon, AB. to Jasper, AB. (total of about six hours driving) and stayed at the Wapiti campground for two nights.  There we met with my good friend Nik and his girlfriend Pat who were visiting from Switzerland...awesome timing!  Nik and I met ten years ago in Australia, travelled together a bit there, I've been to see him in Switzerland at least 4 times I remember (there's usually a lot of snuff and booze involved so it could have been more), met in Munich for Oktoberfest once, met in London for a night of drunkeness once and he also lived in Canada awhile so we've met up here at least 3 times I remember.  Nik's a lot like me in that he gets antsy being anywhere and cannot make a travel plan so we've been incredibly lucky we've managed to see each other as much as we could over the years; this time was probably the longest stretch we've gone not seeing each other...almost 4 years!  While in Jasper, we wandered around the town, went to the top of Whistlers Mountain, saw some wildlife, went for a little walk, made smores, drank, and did a lot of snuff.

After a few days in Jasper, we parted ways and moved on to Kamloops for a night...not much to say here, stayed at Knutsford Campground (actually an RV park). I had no idea Canada had such a desert-y looking landscape.  It was mega hot and I loved it, but Kamloops itself did not leave much of an impression on me.  After a night there we took Highway 99 to Squamish and it was absolutely gorgeous, although not the greatest road for pulling a camper on - narrow and windy - some places even had one lane wooden bridges.

Once we arrived in Squamish, we found a campsite at Klahanie
Campground and spent at least a good hour pulling into the site, but it was worth it because we were there five nights....and by there I mean our belongings were, but we weren't a whole lot....the campsite was nice, we had a view of a waterfall and some of the others had an ocean view.  We used this as our base for the next few days as it was only about 45 minutes to either Vancouver or Whistler from there.  Spent an evening in Whistler having some yummy sushi and drinks.  Our first day we went into the city and met a friend of mine who took us to Granville Island, which on its own I was fairly unimpressed with but the salmon burger I had there was pretty good!  Next on to China Town which was closed - but I did manage to find some Japanese food in the supermarket I've been missing!  We spent a day in North Vancouver on the Capilano Suspension Bridge and treetop walk and hit up the Brittania Mining Museum.

We also spent a day in Richmond and went on a whale watching tour.  It lasted pretty late (we went on the afternoon one) because we had to head into Washington waters in order to find the whales.  Pretty cool but again disappointing as I thought we would get a little closer to them.  Stayed in Vancouver that night and the next day hit up Stanley Park before heading back to the campground to finally relax a bit.

The next day we started making our way slowly back to the prairies and moved on to Kelowna for two nights at the Apple Orchard RV Park.  Timing was again perfect as a good friend from  Japan was visiting her family in Kelowna for a few weeks so we were able to meet up for lunch.  Afterwards we went for a tour of the Mission Hill Winery, one of the most famous in the Okanagan Valley.

Next we moved on and spent a night in Golden, B.C.  Although we didn't spend much time here or see anything, it seemed like a really nice little town and the Whispering Spruce campground we stayed at had a pretty awesome view!  We spent another night in Jasper on the way back, this time at Whistlers Campground (more than 800 sites - crazy!), stopping at the Columbia Icefields and a few other places on the way.  After leaving Jasper I spent a few more nights in Edmonton before heading back to Saskatchewan - this time the bus was only eight hours!

So all in all I was pretty happy with my first tour around Canada, but by the end of it I wished I had a penny for everytime I said something was beautiful. It was definitely a different way of travelling than I normally do, but it scratched my itchy feet for the time being.

Hockey Morning in Japan

Having grown up in Canada, I developed a love for hockey.  This is very stereotypical of me, I know!  Many Canadians don't love hockey, as everyone thinks we do.  However, when certain games come around, such as the Olympic gold medal game, or the NHL Stanley Cup finals, everyone tends to gather around the TV with family and friends.  A big part of culture is defined by sport, such as many countries around the world and their love for cricket or football.  As Canadians, we have very long, cold winters where communities often gather by frozen ponds or skating rinks.  Growing up on a farm beside a lake, I was lucky enough to have my own outdoor skating rink for my friends to come over and skate on.  My dad would clear the lake off with the tractor once the ice was thick enough.  We even went skating at school for P.E. every week, rather than learning to swim (my town was too small for a pool till I was in high school).  I was a half decent skater as a kid even though I never played hockey or ringette, but when I went home a few winters ago and went skating I was horrible!  Every town, no matter how small has a skating rink.  I know of villages with a population of 50 with no post office but they have a skating rink!  There's nothing better than spending a crisp winter afternoon outside skating and coming in to a cup of steaming hot chocolate.

Now, to those outside of North America, this may seem like a weird topic to write about at the start of summer, but the professional hockey season actually runs from September to June - providing hockey for enthusiasts for almost the whole calendar year!  This past Tuesday morning was the final game of the season (Monday night in Canadian time), so I spent my morning watching the game on my computer, thanks to the help of my nifty little illegal program that changes my IP address to a Canadian one so I can stream Canadian channels on my computer.  Now, I'm not a super obsessed fan; I know a few players and some rules but I would by no means claim to be an expert.  I simply just love cheering with a beer in my hand and enjoying Don Cherry's obscure outfits.  When I was back in Canada in March, I went to my first NHL game in Edmonton and I've never felt more proud to be Canadian as when I stood in the cold rink, Molson in hand, hearing the national anthem on the speakers.  My team (the Edmonton Oilers) is not a very good team so they are not in the finals and I normally wouldn't be watching.  What made these finals exciting enough for me to watch is that one of the players for the L.A. Kings, Dwight King, #74, is a kid I rode the big yellow school bus with everyday!  To see a family's dreams come true after all the years of travelling and all the money spent is amazing.  It's such an inspiration to see someone you knew as a kid, who worked so hard and grew up in such a small place with big dreams, to have them come true. The town we're from is small - maybe 5,000 people at most - and over the years, there's been 6 professional players come out of it, including my second cousin. This is a lesson for all of us, you can do anything you put your mind to if you want it bad enough!  It's pretty cool to think the Stanley Cup will be making it to lil old Meadow Lake this summer, and even better yet, to Bear Creek.  It's one of those rare times I would have liked to have been back in Canada.