Day 85

So I'm guessing by now its pretty obvious that my updates lost a little bit of steam while I was traveling. My last update took place in the south of Cambodia with just over a month left in my trip. I was holed up in Sihanoukville after having just been sick, but was recovered and on my way to Thailand!

I wasn't too sure what to expect from Thailand. It has a reputation that precedes it so I had high hopes. The adventure started immediately, we got dropped off at the border and had to switch from bus to van. Well, since there were 10 of us in a 11 person van headed to Bangkok we decided to wait 3 hours for the next bus to come through so that we could load in all the extra people and head to Bangkok. The unfortunate effect of this was that instead of getting to Bangkok at 8pm which I could hope to catch the last train to Chaing Mai, I only arrived at 11PM and had to stay the extra day in Bangkok. Although Bangkok has Kow San Road and a few other exciting parts, I just really wasn't in the mood for the big city. I spent the next day going to the Myanmar embassy, trying to get my visa (it was closed for a holiday but the guard couldn't explain this to me) and then just walked through China town before heading north.

Not a truck you want to get a delivery from, seen in Bangkok

Chaing Mai was a great change from Bangkok. Its a big small town. Everything is activity based. Either you go on hikes, check out temples, take a cooking class or massage. I decided my first day to renting a motorbike and cruising the mountains north of the city. It was AMAZING! If I had more time I easily would have spent a few more days cruising on a motorbike (or better yet my bicycle). These roads were incredible, hilly, and always winding.

Sweet Road leading to small hill villages

At the top of the mountain there was a temple. Big and gold, nothing extraordinary, however, there was a funny statue, Not sure what it was for, but it reminded me of you mom!

Just for you mom!

Day 2 in Chaing Mai: COOKING COURSE!

This was a highlight of Chaing Mai, I took a Thai cooking course where you could learn to make 7 different meals. There were groups of us so 21 different meals were made in total so if you were friendly to your neighbour you got to try a whole assortment of foods! I was apparently the only person who wasn't full by the end of the day. My favourites were Cashew Chicken and Pad Thai. Pad Thai has become a staple at my household now in Vancouver. Want to try it? Come on over for dinner!

My hilarious cooking instructor. He felt particularly sympathetic towards me because I was the only one not part of a couple taking the course. Either that or he just liked me

I realize neither of these photos are of Pad Thai or Cashew Chicken, but the spring rolls are the only photos I have of myself cooking

Day Three in Chaing Mai was spent taking a Massage class. Sure there were a lot of fun hikes I could take, but really, I figured this was a life skill someone from home would greatly appreciate. I can't remember the name of the course, it was Mrs. Tina's or something like that. I called from the hotel, spoke to a girl on the phone booked my class. There was supposed to be a full class in the afternoon, but the morning class still had space. I wasn't too sure what to expect (going alone without a partner). Well turns out the afternoon class being full meant there was already 1 person in it. These were 1:1 classes. Also, it was Mrs Tina giving the class. It was her brother. Nothing like a 4 hour massage course with a tiny Thai Dude. But in all honesty this was probably much less awkward than if it had been a 1:1 course with Mrs Tina due to the nature of the course, being topless was somewhat of a requisite and not sure how that would have fared otherwise.

Massage course finished I had one more day left in Chaing Mai before catching the afternoon train back to Bangkok. I spent a lot of time in Chaing Mai relaxing in my room in the evenings. We had cable TV and it just so happened to be the end of the most epic Tour De France in modern history! So between relaxing and doing pushups (because I stepped on a scale for the first time in month and realized I had lost 10 pounds) I just sat up and enjoyed the race and reflected on my trip so far.

Last day in the North was spent seeing TIGERS! Seeing the tigers wasn't actually all that exceptional, however some of the photos that came from it were easily worth the 25$ for the entrance.

Damn! Sweet Beard!

I got to see and snuggle up to an 18 month old (above) and a 2 month old tiger. Their fur is much more coarse than I would have ever imagined.

I got picked up from Tiger Kingdom and brought to a shopping centre to buy snacks, it was like Walmart, but the entire staff moved around on rollerblades.

I covertly snapped this shot!

Then it was on the train where I hoped I may meet Harry Potter on my way back to Bangkok while transferring to another train south to Krabi to meet up with Erich and Corinne!

Looking for Harry, must be on the wrong train

Long trip South

Boys Weekend

As promised, I bring you photo documentation and the story of my trip to Victoria last week! The mission of the weekend. Celebrate Pat's bachelor party and catch some fish. I was picked up Friday afternoon and we headed for the ferry hoping to make the 5pm. Unfortunately traffic had other plans, arriving us at the ferry at 4:50, too late to get on. Oh well, we had an hour to entertain ourselves. This made for a good introduction to everyone who was going. Myself, Erich and Pat I already knew. Dan and Nate were new to me and we got to know each other over a bottle of Fireball. What I learnt over this weekend. Fireball isn't very good.

Dan and Nate with fireball!

Getting on the 6pm wasn't such a big deal and it was actually one of the fastest trips over to the island I've ever done. The girl behind Pat and I thought we were really entertaining.

Pat and I on the ferry

We decided that this was going to be a classy weekend, and as such, Erich decided that the entire time he was away, he was going to be wearing a suit (unless fishing). Taking the ferry as the start of the weekend he suited up.

He needed a little help with his tie

Arriving at the other side Derek picked us up and brought us all to the hotel as we prepared to go out to dinner. Oh, and one rule of the weekend. To participate you needed to have a mustache and join Pat's Movember team. Sure I didn't have one in the photo above, but I made short work of that once I was at the hotel.

Friday night was more or less uneventful after the ferry and dinner because we were waking up REALLY early to get out to Sooke to go fishing. We had to be on the boats by 7:30 so were up by 6.

For Erich, Pat and I this wasn't too hard. However, Dan and Nate who were a little more liberal with their servings of fireball and cocktails at the restaurant found the morning a little harder.

Waking up to go fishing, we had no idea what the weather was going to be, forecast all week were terrible and kept changing. So it came as a great surprise when we woke up and looked out and saw this!

7:30 AM

And with a little photo manipulation and posing, you saw this!

7:30 AM on the Pacific!

And this!

Few morning beverages to kickstart the day

We started fishing and the first 40 minutes were pretty slow and cold. We were a little tired and grumpy, I wasn't too sure what to expect. however, shortly after that we had our first success. We were using down riggers and trolling so we rotated who got to reel in when a fish was caught on one of the 3 lines. I got pretty lucky and managed to snag some awesome ones.

My first catch of the day: Before 9AM

Notice Mustache out in full

We had two boats out, My boat had all the non hung over guys. As a result we caught all the fish. The other boat. Didn't have so much luck.

Vince, Roger, Pat, Erich

(believe it or not, they all had mustaches... WEAK!)

And I'm not even going to explain this next photo, all I will say, is I decided to fight the fish as close to nature as I was willing to be, and was rewarded with my biggest fish of the day.

This guy is so dirty

As part of BC fishing law, we had to purchase a 1 day license and were only allowed 2 salmon each. By the end of the 5 hour fishing trip we were throwing fish back hoping that our 10th would be the biggest. In all between the 5 of us on the boat we caught probably close to 15 fish and threw a bunch of the smaller ones back.

We had a pretty successful haul. The other boat. Not so much, they only caught 3 fish...

Pat showing off his catch

Since we caught more than was allowed, and the other boat didn't catch enough it worked out well because we could share. Here is my boats catch. My big catches were the 4th and 5th down coming in around 9-10 pounds!

Hey Dad, Jealous?

I thought I was being so clever by holding the fish closer to the camera to make them look bigger. I think it worked

The dirty work.

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on what perspective you take, my camera ran out of batteries and I was able to take no more photos than this. Thankfully there wasn't too much else photo worthy.

We followed fishing with a fantastic lunch. I'll have to get the name of the restaurant and spread the word. And then back for an afternoon of recuperation. Dan is studying to become a chef and cooked up one of the fish exceptionally well along with some vegetables and risotto. It really was fantastic. Then we hit up a night on the town.

All in all a great weekend and hopefully we do another like it in the years to come.

Fantastic Weekend!

Teaser Post

This past weekend I was in Victoria for a friends Bachelors party. It was a blast, dinners, fishing, a few beverages, late night adventures!

Pictures to follow.

Oh, and I have a new favorite song.

Sean and Heather's Wedding!

As I mentioned in my last post, I was just in Calgary/Canmore for my cousin Sean's wedding. As the day approached everyone was a little nervous about the potential for the weather. Forecast for the day was for snow!

Sure enough when Saturday rolled around and I looked out my window at 9AM there were big fluffy snowflakes coming down outside. But to be honest, snow is much better than rain in my opinion.

We arrived at the wedding and they had a nice heated gazebo set up on the first tee box of Silvertip Golf Course. Now it was amazing, everything was covered in a few inches of snow because the golf course was 200-300 meters higher in elevation than Canmore center where no snow was sticking. It was hard to believe that there was a large group of people who went golfing just the day before.

The entire wedding was a great success and the snow only added to the atmosphere making their wedding photos pretty spectacular.

I've stolen these next two photos off the photographer's blog who from the looks of it did a great job!

Can you believe these photos were taken the same day? The second photo is of the golf course!

Just wanted to say thanks for having me and congratulations Sean and Heather, and hope your having a great time in Hawaii!

Altitude Training In Alberta

This past weekend I was in Calgary and Canmore for my cousin Sean's wedding, I'll detail all that in a future post dedicated completely to the wedding. For now I'll describe the days leading up.

The weather in Calgary was pretty good for my arrival Wednesday morning. Clear skies and I was welcomed to the airport by my parents, brother, cousins, Aunt and Uncle and even some family friends who all showed up on different flights within 15 minutes of one another. Wow, its almost like we planned it that way.

Wednesday was pretty low key. I spent most of the day complaining about how my nose was dry from the dry air and then we went for a tour of Calgary given to us by my parents friends daughter. It was a very good tour. We saw the ski jumping venue for the 88 olympics.

If you had really good eyes you would see people preparing to jump

Next we saw the Saddledome where the Flames play. It was pretty cool, you could see where the stampede is held as well, but I didn't include that photo.

Calgary Flames walking to their car outside the Saddledome

After staying in Calgary for a day, Thursday morning we went to Canmore to check in to our hotel where we stayed until Sunday.

Leaving desolate Calgary and approaching the mountains, not a bad view.

After checking in to the hotel, we decided to drive further into the Rockies and check out Banff and Lake Louise.

Arriving at the gates to Banff National Park

Heading towards Lake Louise

We got pretty lucky with the weather. It wasn't the best conditions for photos because there were still some clouds in the sky, however, I won't complain. A lot of people went up to Lake Louise on the Friday and Saturday and couldn't see anything.

Just outside the Chateau Lake Louise. (Left to Right) Myself, Amanda (Luke's girlfriend) and Luke

We then walked the north side of the lake, and here you get a nice appreciation for just how blue/green the water really is. And believe me, these photos don't give it justice.

Mom and Dad

Incredible blue water

After all the excitement of Thursday, Friday rolled around and I decided that with the half marathon just over a week away that I should go for a run. Lesley (my cousin), Amanda and I went for a good 80 minute run around Canmore. There are a lot of nice little trails that kept the run nice and easy. I've never run with a camera, but decided this time I would.

Lesley and I

And since I had my camera, I couldn't resist taking an action shot of myself. That stupid grin on my face is because I couldn't keep a straight face when posing for photos.

Pretty nice setting for a run

Today only 4 days out of the half marathon I'm still pretty sick. Between the wedding and work I just never got ahead of this cold. Hopefully I can get myself back into health before Sunday but there is no doubt in my mind that my fitness has taken a beating. I no longer really have any expectations for this half marathon. A PB is all I ask. But you never know. 3 days of altitude training, that should help right? With that I will probably sign up for the Fall Classic in November. That way finishing off my season well.

What A Weekend! UBCTC Cottage Weekend Recap

This past weekend marked the first of what I hope is many UBCTC cottage weekends. Claire Askew graciously offered up her cottage on Saturna Island so we all piled up and made our way to the ferry on Friday afternoon. On Friday 8 of us were heading over, Matt Andrew and Lauren came over on Saturday morning because exams held them up.

Friday was a spectacular day, weather was amazing and we rode out quite casually to the shuttle across the George Massey Tunnel and then to the ferry. Once on the ferry we had some time to relax and plan out the events for the weekend.

View From the Ferry Looking Back At Vancouver

Group chilling out on the first ferry.

Arriving at the transfer stop (Mayne Island), we were supposed to hop right onto the second smaller ferry to head to Saturna, however, there was a suspicious "Marine Rescue" which delayed the ferry nearly 2.5 hours. Obviously we didn't know there was going to be such a delay, I guess the details of the rescue were Need to Know basis so we had to just patiently wait.  

Waiting for the ferry to Saturna. Look at how optimistic we still are!

We decided to go check out the water, it was beautiful watching the sunset!

Unfortunately after the sunset, it got really cold. Most everyone was still in their bike spandex so this wasn't exactly ideal. 

Finally at around 10:30PM the ferry came and we boarded on and made it to Saturna Island. Here a the group had the fun of riding 50 feet in front of the car (for light) along a twisty non lit island road. Little did they know they would have to climb an epic hill to get there.  Upon our return Sunday, I checked and the hill had a sign saying that the incline was 15%. YIKES!

Saturday morning we woke up bright and early to another great day. It was a little overcast at first but by noon it had cleared right up. This was perfect because we had planned on running in the morning and then enjoying the outdoors after that.

The day started off with a large breakfast where we put Nutella on pretty much everything we could think of. It was awesome. And to digest a few of us went for a walk around the bay. 

Claire gazing into the deep blue of the water

Vince thinking intently of a workout for our team run.

The run workout we decided on a was an awesome 1k trail loop. Lots of ups and downs and always winding. There were also two bridges, Exhibit A:

Bridge we had to run over

Running on the trails was tough, I was running at roughly the same effort as last week (3:30/km) but my times were coming in around 3:50-4:00. Lots of fun though. When we got back from the run, the last trio of UBCTC members had arrived. We finished off the run with a nice dip in the ocean for a nice little ice bath. Jared went first...

After seeing Jareds face, people weren't too motivated to go in.

But then he gave us the thumbs up so we knew it was good to go!

I jumped into the ocean (rough temp 8*C) but didn't stay in for nearly as long as Jared, I was straight in and out. 

Following a huge lunch 10 of us, (legaly) piled in to Claires Volkswagen and headed out for a hike on Brown Ridge. It wasn't far, only a few km. 

You can't see me but I'm actually on all their lap

At the beginning of the hike Nathaniel Matt and I were complaining (As we usually do), that the hike was lame and not hard enough. Like come on, we were just walking up a dirt road. Then we started complaining that everyone was walking too fast and we got left behind. But first we captured these sweet action shots. 

You can see people already pulling away in the lead

The rest of the group eventually pulled away from Matt, Nathaniel and I when we decided we need to start breaking logs to create walking sticks. As a result we just had to pull up the rear.

Found a walking stick suitable for my needs

With some teamwork, Matt helped me jump on it

SUCCESS!

Blazing sunshine as we reached the top

We are pretty gangster

Beautiful view from the top

The hill was really cool, very steep, probably 50* and there were very few trees. 

Although we were messing around, if someone fell, they would probably roll all the way to the bottom

There were feral goats all over the mountain so we were walking along their path.

Then we spotted some sweet goats so we stopped for a bit.

There were honestly hundreds of them

Then I got artistic with the camera, despite the fact you can't see his face, Nathaniel has never looked so good.

After the hike we relaxed at the cottage, I attempted to play guitar (badly) and then before dinner we went out beer in hand to watch the end of the sunset.

Claires cottage would be just behind that tree across the bay.

People were nagging me about dragging them out, however I think it was well worth it. 

After the sunset and another feast (we had many of these), we settled down for a riveting game of Cranium. The game itself wasn't necessarily noteworthy (other than the fact my team won), but this one creative cat question sure did stand out. Winston incredibly whipped up this garden gnome in seconds. 

Impressive

The next morning we went for a LONG run. Some went for 24km others (me) went for 15.5. It was so nice out and really enjoyable. 

Unfortunately really small but this gives you an idea of what we were running along

Reaching the East Point of the island and goofing around

While we were running a few people decided to go for a kayak instead, and they lucked out and saw a whole bunch of sea lions frolicking around. I'm pretty jealous. 

Pre or Post sea lion adventure.

While we were running, a third group prepared lunch, which was probably the largest feast of all! We had so much food left that we just kept eating. We were going to need this since we were riding home and weren't going to get any food on the ferry. 

Finally after two awesome days at the cottage we got dressed up in our biking duds and hit the road once more. 

Andrew, Lauren, and Winston who is sporting his California Casual bike jersey.

Group piled in the shuttle

All in all an awesome weekend! Thanks a lot Claire!