My First Taste of India - Kolkata

It's hard not to come up with a cliche line to describe my first impressions of India.  Nothing can prepare you for it.  The place is a sensory overload that to date writing this post has not ceased.  Arriving in Kolkata airport at 12:30am wasn't the greatest plan, but unavoidable.  i didnt know the area, I didnt know anyone in the city, didn't have any rupees on me, and there was no ATM in the international terminal.

I'll just note here that I am finishing adding to this post over two weeks after arriving so some of the cultural insights written come from slightly more than 5 days experience :)

A Night at Kolkata Airport

My friend Lakshman (Liam) was in Delhi and was flying into Kolkata the following morning. He had booked a room at Hotel Airways, aparently right by the airport.  But as i walked out of the terminal, I was confronted with at least a few hundred taxi drivers who's eyes all lit up with hope as they saw this somewhat lost foreigner loaded with bags looking around for some clue as to where gate 2 was. very shortly i found myself back inside the terminal (you're only allowed in with a valid ticket) and spoke to the guy with the biggest gun.  He told me the nearest atm was only 300 meters away at the domestic terminal but also that my hotel was about a 10-15 minute walk away.  He then added that if he were me, he'd stay here in the terminal for at least a few hours 'to be safe'.. hmm ok i think i'll take that advice mr giant gun. After sitting down for about 30 seconds, a lone white girl with an expression on her face i assumed similar to that found on myself a few minutes earlier came by and asked if she could sit with me for a few minutes as she'd just had the same experience. Her name was Sabrina, she had arranged for a hotel to pick her up from the airport but they didnt show, after letting her know what mr gun told me, we agreed to wait it out together.

Not long after we migrated to where a french girl Sarah was sleeping, the only comfortable looking piece of real estate in the airport.  Turns out she was sleeping there until 11am waiting for a flight out.  By that time I'd decided that considering Liam was flying in at 8am and these girls were there on their own why not wait it out til morning.

Morning arrived and Sabrina and I said goodbye to Sarah and met with Liam before taking a prepaid taxi to Sudder St, the traditional cheap backpacker area of Kolkata.

First Day In Kolkata

Wow.  Driving in Kokata (and anywhere else in india it seems) is an amazing experience. The method, as i hear is common in many asian countries, seems to be roughly to use your horn not to alert danger, but instead to let others know where you are while doing whatever you feel you need to do to get to your destination.  In practice this means the horn is blarlng pretty much constantly.  Strangely enough, I felt completely at east the entire ride and have every time i've been on the road since arriving.  There is a flow and awareness that just works.  I think it may be tougher to be at ease on bigger roads with faster traffic but in the rickshaws and taxi's i've been in so far it's not a problem.

Liam is a devout Vaishnava (hare krsna), and wanted to visit his spiritual master in Kolkata, I joined him at another devotee's house where we were able to eat some delicious, homecooked indian food prepared by the devotee's sister. Amazing.

Eventually we retired to our cheap hotel and I was able to sleep after being awake for over 36 hours and being punched in the face by india for an entire day. Loved it.

Impressions Of Culture

The next 5 days saw me adjusting to the culture that is India, or more specifically - Kolkata.  The people interact and behave so differently compared to our Western counterparts, for the unaware there could be some serious freaking out happening.  India is a tough tough place to live.  Everyone can assume this much but experiencing it is simply phenomenal. Kolkata is one of the few places left that actually has human powered rickshaws. These guys are seriously hardcore. So skinny they have ribs showing, no shoes they pull people around the city for pittance.  This is a country where (most) people are very aware of what it means to do a hard days work, with many people I spoke to working more than 16 hour days.

As a result of the tough life, generaly speaking have a pretty touch exterior. A hardened outer shell which is simply necessary to get by in everyday life.  But there is so much heart underneath.  I would imagine many visitors to India never looking beyond this barrier.  As a foriegner in the country, you are confronted with outright staring and stern face that initially seems to say 'What the hell are you doing in my country'  you give a smile in our familiar western fashion and get absolutely no response, just the same piercing stare that seems to penetrate through to your core.  But with a few handy pieces of cultural knowledge it isn't hard to get people to show their hearts, and often huge smiles alongside.  Reading Shataram in the month prior to arrival was imensely helpful, as was watching Liam deal with locals after visiting India so many times.  The most prominent tip I gained from reading that book was most definitely the explaination of the infamous head-wobble.  For those who havent read it, Shantaram goes on to explain this phenemomon. It is primarly used no so much as 'yes' but more as 'I agree with you', but in terms of dealings with strangers, as an initial interaction it somewhat states 'I am a peaceful man'.  I tried it immediately and tho it's a hard physical action to master, I'd put it at about 95% of the time returned with a subtle wiggling response and usually a beaming smile to go with it.

It seems everyone is an entropeneure.  Business exists on every level imaginable.  From the foodstands serving up delicious and extremely cheap food, freshly cooked, to the guy on the side of the street who's invested his money soley in a small amount of mothballs to sell, presumably in hopes of making a little more money to purchase something a little easier to sell. Slowly this seems to be how people make something of themselves on the street.  With the amount of people swarming the city, it is very easy to imagine anyone selling anything here could do well..

I spent 5 days in Kolkata, but more than see the sights of the town, as indicated above I was more focused on absorbing the culture.  Liam and I visited a couple of temples one Kali temple which was pretty crazy, jam packed with people pushing and shoving to give their offerings, and another Gaudia Math temple that was astonishingly humble in contrast, we also looked at an incredibly old cemetary and a few other sights.

We then booked a train and headed north to the ISKCON (Hare Krsna) spiritual centre - Mayapur.

A Few Photos (see facebook...)

Seoul, Korea

Decent flight but terribly hungover, I followed Scott's quite detailed directions to his flat in Sinchon, Seoul. This included an hour long bus ride that luckily dropped me virtually at the door.  The previously described week in London left my immune system decimated and I pretty much got sick on arrival in Seoul.  This wasnt great, but as I had Scott's place to stay at and no flight out (hence timeline to squeeze into) I could relax and get better, which is precisely what I did to start with.  Unfortunately Seoul was experiencing it's first week of snap cold.. it was below zero.. this I wasnt expecting, cold sure, but not this cold! It hampered me getting better a little but still enjoyed it nonetheless. I'm just glad I hung onto the winter jacket and thermals i'd been dragging around. 

I went out several times with a few of Scott's friends, had a few nights on the drink and generally just enjoyed korean life as Scott does, which was great. I didnt have any big plans there.. I spent nearly 12 nights in Seoul and became very fond of the place.  The city is big and wide roads carry heavy traffic for most of the time. There are over 20 million people in the greater Seoul area so it's quite a busy place. There's a pretty good nightlife, wth absolutely no shortage of bars and clubs to attend and everyone is very peaceful.  Though I'm sure it exists, i can't really imagine much violence there at all.

Seoul is not a great place for vegetarians.  There was one restaurant i frequented that was 100% vegan with many options right by Scott's place in Sinchon.  I must have dined there at least 10 times. I'm sure there's more options around, but they aren't obvious.

There isnt really any need for a detailed acount of my visit. but here are some highlights of the visit include:
- Going down to one of the US army base's and watching Scott teach baseball to 10 year olds.

- Bungee Jumping off a 45m platform over a big lake

- Dining at a traditional Korean restaurant (shoes off eating on the floor, kimchee pancakes etc)
- Spending time with Scott, and meeting some of his unbelievably generous friends.  Guests, it seems do not pay for things in Korea.. (Thanks Sooyon and Jeesoo!)

- Hiking up a mountain in the heart of Seoul with Sooyon, a friend
of Scott's who offered to take me, and having a 360 degree view of the
city.

- Visiting the Korean War History Museum. This place was amazing! I spent about 4 hours learning what the country went through during that time which is really quite recent.

..and they had some giant missiles

- Checked out some crazy 15th century palaces

- and spending some great times catching up with Scotty! Thanks again bud!

United Kingdom

Two Very Different Tales

After a very nice flight over sitting next to a dude from Germany who roasted coffee for a living and taught me quite a bit about coffee I touched down at Franfurt's international Airport in Germany.  Going through TWO seperate security searches including one that swabbed my guitar with something and analysed it in an explosives detection machine I made it to my connecting flight to continue on and land at Heathrow Airport.  Petrified by reports of  hardcore border patrol in the UK and knowledge of two friends who have been deported for making simple mistakes answering questions i nervously spoke to the customs lady who asked a couple of simple expected questions about where i'm going and where i've been and sent me on my way. *sigh*  I get so stressed at these security points, it's so irrational but something i just cant let go of even without a shred of actual reason.

My visit to the UK, as it turned out, was divided into two distinctly different experiences that could not be further apart in description.  After collecting baggage I boarded a bus to Bath. 


Bath
A quaint and well preserved Roman town that hosts the UK's only natural hot springs refered to cryptically as The Roman Baths.  This town was incredibly beautiful, all the buildings were made of stone and there exists local government policies to prevent any buildings of a modern nature from ruining the towns heritage.

My cousin Belinda and her husband James live in an amazing and huge house that they've recently renovated with their 3 gorgeous children all under 6 years old Joshua, Thomas and Alexandra. They generously allowed me to stay as long as I liked in their 3rd floor guestroom which will easily be the height of luxury that I experience for my entire trip.  After the last month in Vancouver and especially the last weekend, relaxing and taking things down a notch was precisely what I needed to prepare for the journey ahead. Children are so humbling and grounding.  I became good friends with her youngest Alex who is the cutest little girl you'd see, at 2.5 years she's at that age old enough to be very vocal and opinionated about everything, and young enough to not have developed any sense of inhibition or insecurity, so pretty much every thought is converted to speach. It's a hilarously beautiful age.

Whilst in Bath I was treated to lunch at old traditional pubs and nice restaurants almost daily, strolled the town a few times visiting hundreds of years old buildings like Bath Abbey and the Roman Baths, played tennis with James at the country club, helped make party packs for Thomas's Birthday, played Wii with the boys, watched Eastenders nightly, finished my the brilliant book i was reading Shantaram, it was an extremely relaxing week and I am very grateful to have had the chance to visit my cousin and her beautiful family.  

I was also lucky enough to be there for Guy Fawkes night.  My generation of Australian's aren't really too familiar this celebration as far as I know as it was effectively abolished in the late 70's when the sale of fireworks was banned..  Goes something like this:  Some time in the 1600's a guy called Guy Fawkes was caught trying to blow up the house of parliament killing everyone sitting within it, but was caught before executing the plan.  He and co-conspirators had managed to stash 800kg of gunpowder under the building but didn't get to light it...  I've yet to work out whether the people are celebrating the attempt or the foiling of the plot, but in any case it's an entertaining event that is celebrated by the lighting of fireworks all over the place, seemingly over the course of a week, but culminating on both the 5th Novermber and the nearest Saturday night with a big show of fireworks, and (in the two cases I saw) a ridiculously granduouse bonfire. The Saturday night party was put on by the owner of an incredibly lavish mansion on a massive property with all the trimmngs.. All in all a luxurious and relaxing trip.

Bath Abbey

insanely huge organ inside the abbey


Royal Circus


Ridiculously Huge Bonfire

London, Brighton and the Astor Kensington Hostel
In as I said complete contrast I arrived by train to London on the 11th November by train, took the tube to Gloucester Road station and walked the few hundred metres down to the hostel I'd randomly picked known as the Astor Kensington.  This place wasn't the most aesthetically pleasing of places i've stayed, but in a very short amount of time I was without doubt that I'd made a great choice.  Run by extended-staying travellers who all seemed to be staying in the hostel, I went out on the first evening in a hostel organised trip to a local pub running a quiz night.  Here I met a great crew of people which lay the foundations of a week of partying.  I also met Jessica, who as it turned out was doing almost the exact opposite trip to me, starting with a journey around sth east asia, staying for a week in London then moving on for an extended working holiday in Canada.  Naturally we had a lot to talk about, I gained a bunch of advice for the next leg of my trip and a buddy to do some sightseeing with.
 
The next day (wed) we ventured to Brighton down by the sea and witnessed some epic scenes of the old Brighton Pier which burnt down but the steel skeletal remains in the water, the nearby newly built Brighton Pier 2.0 containing a number of tacky casino type setups and a carnival.  After that we cruised the town and visited Brick Lane, a famous area of Brighton where narrow lanes full of (mostly jewlery) shops intertwine, ate (Fish and) chips on the beach and strolled some of the town before catching the train back to

The old burnt down Brighton Pier


The new Brighton Pier down the beach

Jess walking down The Lanes (doesnt really do it justice..)

Thursday I caught up with a friend Lauren and checked out Camden Town and markets, great tasting cuisine and botique shopping there, we also looked at Oxford and Regent streets, the heart of materialism in london. Left very quickly.  Then walked the length of Hyde park before heading to Portabello St. and back to the hostel, where I met Paula another frined from Melbourne and we joined in on the weekly hostel 'cocktail night' (5 bottles of rum poured into a trough off ice and topped up with pine, orange and tropical

juices, all you can drink for 5 pounds) - a pretty entertaining evening.

Lauren at the markets in Camden Town

Friday I met up with Jessica again and we ventured to shoreditch in an amazingly disapointing attempt to view some of Banksy's street art in east london.  Had a curry and generally just wandered the area. I said goodbye to Jess as she was leaving the following day and Jumped on a train out to Canary Island to catch up with a friend from highschool Cheryl and her boyfriend Ben at their flat.  We drank some wine and ended up down at the local pub (who all turned in shock as we entered the door) and played pool with them and continued drinking throughout the evening.

The following day was pretty miserable and raining, hungover I woke up in Cheryl's spare bed and forced myself to do something touristsy. Not realising it was Saturday, The Tower of London turned out to not be the best choice. It wasn't just raining either - it was hammering down and occasionally sideways.. so windy my umbrella proved practically useless. I did find it interesting, and with a lot less crowd i may have spent more time but i have to admit i was out of there pretty quickly.

I packed all my bags ready on saturday afternoon as i had a suspicion the evening would be messy and i needed to get up and leave somewhat early.  One of the hostel staff Stacey was leaving and a big party had been organised with a view to hit a bar in Camden Town afterwards. As this was my last night it did seem appropriate to celebrate with my new friends.  It started off with a reenectment of thursday night's cocktail event and after that 'unlimited' source had vanished we did indeed continue onto a bar in Camden and I tell you, I havent hit it that hard in a long while. The bar closed at about 4 and after a dirty falafel from a street vendor waiting for what turned out to be a bus full of other drunkards trying to get home i think i eventually hit the pillow around 6am. 

Bye London
Needless to say my 15 hour travel journey to Seoul the following day wasnt the greatest experience.  Completely erasing the week of relaxation in Bath, London had ruined me. I'm sure now you understand these two sides the UK had to offer :)

Astor Fun

Paula, Christian, Myself and Jessica


The Crew at the Astor Kensington Hostel

Goodbye Vancouver! :(

The last 3 months of Vancouver

So as could probably have been easily predicted, I've neglected the blog for a large amount of time.. But anyway here's an update. Its amazing how little i can remember of all the details since the last update. When you kind of live your life day to day and dont really plan too much it ends up being a bit of a blur...  I had some amazing adventures in Vancouver, and lots of really good stories to tell. But beyond that there is a much richer enjoyment that simply cannot be described.  It's the experience of living out of your home town, of forming tight knitted almost family like loving bonds with other people who are going through their own adventure, intertwined with yours, it's sharing these little experiences in the moment that makes living abroad what it is.  The details may be forgotten but it's the feelings associated with them are unforgetable and will be cherished forever.

So a few more trips hiking, mountain biking, more camping, tennis, beach and fun saw the days of summer begin to get shorter and the heat of the sun lose it's intensity in favor of crisper, cooler temperatures that is forever associated with the start of autumm, or fall as they cal it in North America.  The colours the the Maple and other trees display during this magical time is nothing short of amazing. The sludge and slippery leaves that coat the pavement everywhere you go gets slightly annoying but sheer beauty outshines any of that - at least for me :)  My sister Alana also returned from her 5 month long adventure around Europe to join us in Van for another month before ultimately ending up back in Melbourne.    My birthday was a pretty fun event.. A complete waster evening I dont remember a lot, too many bday tequila shots. however i hear my drunkeness was more entertaining than it was tragic. One can only hope. After drinking at a bar around the corner from our place we ended the evening on the beach with a big crew. Great night. Not so great following day.

Crew at the peak of a hike somewhere near Squamish



Ang, Sacha, Kathy & Lani



End of Summer Sunset Looking over Jericho



Cloud covers Grouse Mountain on a sunny Fall day at Kits. 
Stanley Park on the left and English Bay downtown's West End on the right

A few jobs here and there with the temp agency helped to maintain the funding, while some seriously boring jobs took up a little extra of my time.  EA finished up, the novelty had worn off, and the reality of the $11/hr i was getting paid to bust my ass lifting heavy crap became increasingly unattractive, so i accepted offers for some different work. I worked for BHP Billiton in their surprisingly tiny office in downtown vancouver. What a joke that was.  I filled in for a guy who was taking a week holiday.  The main bulk of tasks assigned was to keep the fridge stocked with cool drinks and ensure the fruit platter is full.  Easy work but very boring.   Another job consisted of working for a small business, doing a little data entry.  The person i worked for printed off a textfile of data to enter into her outlook address book, to which i carefully tried to explain that if the data is in a text file i doesnt need to be typed, that you can import the data.  Impatiently flustered and confused at this suggestion she angrily told me to please just type it in 'like everyone else does it'.  So agreeing, i found the file on the computer, imported the data in 5 minutes and browsed the web for a week. Easy money, but very boring.

I was originally due to leave Vancouver on October 8th, however my gut feelings didnt really agree with that.  The date was purely arbitrarily picked when i orinally booked my round-the-world ticket but for some reason i didnt really consider the fact that i could just change that (for free!) until about 2 weeks before.  Good friends Ben and Adrien were looking for an appartment to move into on the first of October.  When they found a place that had an extra bedroom they'd need to fill came up, it seemed absolutely perfect that i should take the room for the month of October.  This also meant that I would be staying around for Thanksgiving AND Halloween.  So I opted to stay, and not work, and enjoy my last month of Vancouver having fun and playing music.

The House

The house was a rundown old place built in the 30s. I loved it. I loved it so much. It had been previously occupied by a producer and the basement had been converted into a recording studio complete with a sound deadened room.  I turned the studio into my bedroom and borrowing some equipment from the lovely Sacha and some other friends, set up the sound room for recording!  A few jam sessions were had and recorded as well as recording Sacha do a few tracks and some covers on my own it was a great learning experience for a few weeks and something i'd love to have access to again sometime.  Sacha was also looking for a new place to live, and as she has aspirations to record a solo album while she's there, it was an obvious decision for her to take over my room when I left, that she did with the lovely Angela joining her, and they may just see out the lease with the other boys.  Furnishing the empty house was easier than expected.. Cragislist has a section called free stuff where people just list stuff they dont want anymore to be taken away and with the help of a hired van we pretty much furnished the entire house for free. 3 couches, a coffee table, 2 tvs, lamps, chairs, an audio video reciever and more.. amazing!

Some Panoramas of parts of the House

 
As the house was run down and quite dingy, it seemed a natural step to combine our housewarming with a halloween party, and since i was leaving on the 2nd of Nov, it was also my farewell.  What a party. We just let word of mouth and facebook spread the message and come the evening, our gloriously decorated house adorned with cobwebs (fake and real), carved pumpkins and fairy lights we hosted a massive influx of party-goers, many of whom we didnt know.  Pretty much every party i've been to in Vancouver has either had the music shut by the cops or by the hosts in fear of the cops by 11pm.. however as fate would have it, no one seemed to mind that we had slamming music pumped virtually until dawn.  As with many things in my van experience, it was just meant to be.



Goodbye

I had a very hard time saying goodbye to Vancouver. I made some very very good friends there, and connected with many people on all kinds of levels.  I dont know what the future holds, but i know with 100% certainty that the only reason i left when i did is because the round-the-world tickets i have expire in February and the rough plan of travel through UK, Korea, India, and Sth East Asia is too good an opporunity not to jump on right now.  However, my family in Vancouver will be very very much missed. Money and debt are the only thing that make me assume i can't get back there, but my working visa is valid until Feb 2011 so who knows..

On Tuesday the 2nd Nov, Sacha and Amin accompanied me to the airport and on I took off to the UK.

Summer, Hiking, Folk Festival, Fun!!

Again.. a lot has happened since last post... in fact soooo much that this post will most definitely be the longest to date and with lots of video...

Sport
I discovered a new way to spend an afternoon on a weekend - Footbag Net.. I know I mentioned the best thing about hackysack was it's non-competitive aspect.. but screw that. Basically it's playing hackysack over a 5ft badminton net and playing with the rules of volleyball. Very much a fringe sport but good fun nonetheless check it out here.

Amin, Ben (a good kiwi mate who lives a block away) and I (and lots of friends really) have been doing a lot of active stuff, tennis, swimming, etc. I have a monthly Vancouver Parks Board pass, which basically gives me free access to any rec center in Vancouver, including the pools right near my house, the aquatic center with high diving boards and a gym and a bunch of other gyms around Van. We got a bit excited about the diving boards and went several times in a week, which led to my legs and arms feeling like they'd been pummeled my a heavyweight boxer for a good week after... literally turned black and blue in some areas! However we did push each other a lot and ended up pulling off some sweet dives. Proudest achievements to date: backflip off the 7.5 meter and 540 backflip off the 1 meter.

EA Sports - It's in the Game
I've had a bit of work come through the temp agency in recent times. They've been sending me to work for Electronic Arts, the videogame company responsible for many well known games, FIFA, NHL, Need For Speed, The Sims, and many many more. Being a software developer, this is somewhat of an amazing opportunity, not that I'm in any remotely technical position, working with the building facilities people, however it gives me a great chance to have access to the entire complex and witness games in all stages of their development.

The building itself is a work of art, and has won architectual awards, it's very hard to describe what it's like.. two buildings with adjoining walkways, a 4 story carpark with a soccer-pitch, beach volleyball court, basketball/inline hockey rink on the roof, several subsidised cafes, video arcade games, foosball tables, pool tables, pinball games on free play all over the place, a completely library of games/systems/dvds available to staff, a retail store with all EA games for any platform for $20 each, EAU - an internal school where staff are encouraged to take courses in whatever they're interested in. Walking around the studio, the feeling really is that of a university, there is no real dresscode, staff are encouraged to be themselves, and there are ALL types.. Dogs are allowed and it's very common to see them lying around peoples desks. the amount of perks is pretty impressive.. What a novel idea eh, treating employees like individuals who have different tastes and allowing them to express themselves and be comfortable and at their creative peak. Brilliant.

The work I've done there is quite varied, from shifting old stuff around to setting up big launch parties on the soccer field, it's mostly labourious but always has it's perks. Last Friday night I finished the shift during which I set up 5 parties around the complex, and ended up attending two of them! hahaha beer and pizza and mingling!

Looking down a sweet helix staircase at EA (photo stolen)

Garabaldi
A crew of 10 of us decided to go hiking and camping to Garibaldi Lake, an amazing alpine lake with glaciers and all kinds of awesome. We packed backbacks with tents, food and everything needed and started our hike about 40kms north of Squamish (where The Chief hike was). The hike itself was pretty easy, 9 kilometres long and rising about 900 meters. The addition of a backpack was a new experience for the hike, i really wish i had better shoes too.. after a few stops for breaks, snacks, water, lookout points, we came to the serene beautiful lake that was our destination.. As it is a glacial fed lake, this gives it it's turquoise blue colour, an amazing sight. It also gives it it's fucking cold temperatures, as was discovered very shortly upon arrival.. but nearly all of us dived in a paddled around to seriously cool down after our hike.

Turned out there were no offical camp spots left so we made our own, which caught the attention of the ultra anal geeky ranger who happened to be in a ranger hut 20 meters from us... After scolding us twice she let us stay on the provision that we left at 8:30am, which was fine as Lilith from our crew needed to get back for work so we were leaving early anyway.. (she returned at 8:31am with an eviction notice. Lovely girl.) We ate like kings and enjoyed the sunset at the dock, grabbed our sleeping bags and spent most of the night stargazing and spotting shooting stars, before heading off early next morning. One point to mention, mosquitos.... OMG I've never been in an area so infested in my life!! There was never a point where there weren't 4 or 5 around you.. hell.. somehow I missed being bitten though, i'm going to prematurely and boldly conclude they don't like vegetarian blood ;)

Sitting of the dock of the lake

First person view from the dock of the lake

Garabaldi Overnight Hike - Panoramas

Folk Festival
Last weekend (17th-19th July) was the annual Vancouver Folk Festival. On the recommendation of some friends, I signed up to volunteer for the weekend, giving me a free pass for the duration of the festival. (about 10 of my friends all volunteer every year and are vetrans of the festival) This meant commiting to 12 hours work over the weekend. There are a number of committees of volunteers running all aspects of the festival, I just signed up for the Labour Pool which is basically floating people who get sent wherever they're needed. I was sent to the merchandise tent, and upon arrival was asked if i mind co-ordinating that area, which was odd because i didnt even know how to use the cash register at that point... I didnt care about much, they gave me a radio and showed me the ropes and other than chat to my friend Shireen who was working there and operate the til, I didnt really need to do much co-ordiniating.. so really all it meant was i couldnt run off.. 6 hrs on sat and another 3 on sunday (they told me i wasnt needed for half) and i was done! As a volunteer, there is a big kitchen that serves us lunch and dinner, and $2 breakfasts, and free drinks all day. There were also volunteer parties both sat and sun nights to 3am serving cheap drinks and having some of the greatest festival musicians entertain us.

The music was fantastic, I saw Iron and Wine (highly recommend) Arrested Development, Los De Abajos, Mavis Staples (Brilliant!) among many others... There were 7 stages running during the day hosting "workshops" where a number of similar genre'd artists simply get grouped together and have jam sessions on stage - very much my style of festival. There was some great blues, some great latin funky dance stuff and a lot in between.

I have to say, I haven't been to many BC festivals, but this was pretty special.. It's all ages and all types, but as a whole, people are there to appreciate the music. There was absolutely no douchebaggery I could see. most people sit to watch the shows with beach chairs being a favourite. This particular festival has no corporate sponsorship (hence the big volunteer thing) so it's very humble and grounded, I really had a nice warm loving feeling about the whole thing. A great weekend!



Folk Festival Surprise Continuance
Some of my friends got to talking with a few artists from the festival whilst sharing tables in the volunteer area. They have a big sail boat and invited the artists to go sailing for the day after the weekend and generally show them a little personal aspect of Vancouver to which was readily accepted.

The artists:
The Ebony Hillbillies
Missionarios del Norte
Umalali

I received a phone call from Shireen inviting me to a BBQ dinner and drinks and jam session with them all the following day - hell yes! It is very hard to convey what the vibe of this evening was, but video and audio will help.. I recorded a bit of Los Misionarios and Umalali doing their thing and will make it available as soon as I do a little editing. Here are some videos I took and uploaded:

Los Misioneros del Norte

Gloria sings the blues with The Ebony Hillbillies

Umalali sing, Sofia's voice is amazing!

Fireworks, Electrical Storm and Sunset
The Celebration of Light Festival has been going on this past week, and Saturday night was the 2nd display and it was preceded by one of the most amazing displays of nature I've seen, an electrical storm closed in around sunset and the whole sky turned a bright orange colour with forked lighting all over the place. I had decided to bail on the fireworks as it was raining pretty steadily and opted to just pop down the beach and take a photo of the sky. The scene was so surreal I couldn't bring myself to leave, after bumping into friends Simon and Alyssa, we ended up watching the electric sky and following firework for 90 minutes before heading home drenched. Check out the following video I took.. it's a bit long but there are some good lighting strikes in there, one happens right at the start, there's another good one at 2:22

Lightning and a brilliant sunset over Kits Beach, Vancouver, Canada

Video Uploading
I finally got around to uploading a few videos of different happenings here's some:

Kayaking up Indian Arm, see this post

Motoring around vancouver on Perusha, my friends' 56ft yacht

Nature, The Outdoors & Active Adventures In Beautiful BC...

So the past week took a turn towards a slightly more active lifestyle.. here's the details:


Grouse Grind

I've been out of the exercise game for a while and have been restricting what activities I do because of an annoying problem I have with my knee (this).  Bit having decided that I should simply forget about this problem and not let it stop me.  (Interestinly I've never let it stop me snowboarding...)  The Grouse Grind seemed like the perfect first challenge.  The Grind is very well known in Vancouver.  I've been aware of it for some time as my brother and sister both did it when they were here and spoke of it's toll and I've been looking forward to this Shaw family rite of passage..   So last Monday 8th, Amin, Sacha and I took off for Grouse Mountain in North Vancouver.  A bus, a sea bus, another bus, and we were there.

Grouse Stats:

Length: 2.9 kilometres
Elevation Gain: 853 metres
Base: 274 metres above sea level
Summit: 1,127 metres
Total Stairs: 2,830

The hike started off quite steep, then got steeper straight up with no relief, we walked until I was worried I wasn't going to be able to continue due to my knee, then we came across the 1/4 way mark. Oh crap.  Thankfully pride and stubborness lent their favour and I continued on.  Amin took to the task of keeping our pace at bay, and Sacha kept the ethusiasm up.  Breaks at 1/2 and 3/4 points (and some in between) we finally reach the top.. an enourmously satisfying relief.  After a celebratory couple of beers and a wander around the peak, we rode the gondola back down. 

Surprisingly I didn't feel that wiped the next day. My legs were actually not really sore at all which I found odd. He have plans to make the Grind a regular activity, and maybe start timing ourselves :)

Sacha leading the pack

Amin setting the pace


A silhouette of Amin, Sacha and I eating cherries at the top

Lynn Canyon

Two days later I found myself on the sea-bus to North Van with Sacha and Amin again, this time Sacha's work-friend Jo (another Aussie) joined us in our day trip to Lynn Canyon.  One of the hit attractions in Vancouver for tourists is the Capilano Suspension bridge. However an impressive a suspension bridge can be, I don't see how they can justify charging twentynine bucks for it!  Luckily Capilano suspension bridge's humbler little brother in Lynn Canyon provides a solution at no cost.  The bridge was pretty impressive, moved around a lot when walking across.  The views were typical of BCs insanely beautiful surroundings, the bridge itself crossing a rapid flowing creek at the bottom of a steep canyon with vibrant rich green and brown trees all around us

The Lynn Valley Suspension Bridge

God I love my bendy tripod going away gift from work



Crazy Natural Stairs

Another day we plan to go and hike from Lynn Canyon to Deep Cove (like this but not as direct...12kms) however this particular day we left it a little late and weren't really prepared for a proper hike (Sacha was wearing thongs/sandals/jandals/flipflops/pluggers whatever you want to call them) so we detoured, via Amin's superior navigational skills*, to a nearby road and after about 8 or 9 infuriating promises from Amin that it was only 500m further, arrived at the bus which took us to Deep Cove for lunch, beer and picturesque views.

click for a closer view

*Quote of the day from Amin:

"It's not that I don't trust my ninja senses. I just wanna double check." *pulls out iPhone with GPS*

Free Yoga, Pilates, Boot Camp

The following day, I recevie a text message from a friend Ben (Ben is part of a larger group of friends I met through Alana, he's a Kiwi and lives a block away) saying that he and Putu and Michelle are going to a free yoga session at Kits beach (200m from my house) so I head along with Amin to check it out.  On the grass under blue sky, overlooking the beach, the pool and a mountain backdrop, 70 people roll out their mats and commence an hour long yoga session with a great instructor all courtesy of yoga inspired clothing brand Lu Lu Lemon, this brand is an institution in Vancouver, it seems everyone wears it.. I think it's pretty overpriced stuff to be honest, but I'm happy to take their free classes :)  Turns out on top of the weekly yoga classes, there are free Pilates on Sunday mornings and BootCamps on monday evenings, and this is just the Kitsilano store.. with a little working of the system, one could have a full week of classes for free.  At this stage I think i'll stick to the yoga.


Kayaking Adventure

After the yoga class Amin and I joined Ben, Putu, Michelle, Ewan and Lilith for an impromptu dinner at Ben's.  During which, the topic of a weekend camping trip was brought up.  A camping trip that involved the hiring of kayaks and kayking to one of many marine only access camping grounds along the Indian Arm.  I haven't worked for a little while and although I'm on the verge of landing a sweet contract *touches wood* I was a little concerned about spending too much of my limited money on this, but then thought about the degree of probability of awesomeness that this plan contained and slapped myself back into sense.  After talking to the others it seemed the kayak hire company they had contacted only had 3 doubles left and we needed 4...  So I did some googling and discovered another company I wont name with a decent website, and being assured on the phone that their kayaks were "much better than the other guys" and a seemingly arbitrary quote of "yeah ok um hows $360 for 4 doubles" it seemed like a convincing alternative and we went with it.

Arriving at the address on the website we find ourselves outside a residential house and after hearing one lady ask "Should I get the forms?" and the response "Nah it's alright", we hand over the money, not giving our names (even verbally), nor a deposit, nor signing any form of documentation in the slightest, were instructed to follow the truck parked out front with 4 kayaks loaded. We followed to what seemed like, and turned out was in fact, a private launch spot with no one around.  The guys got out and went into some house for 5 minutes, only to return with the news that it was "too busy", still not sure what happened there.  But we continue onto another spot that seemed much more appropriate and unloaded.  After a 120 second lesson on how to escape from the kayak in case of capsizing the two guys vanished and we were left to our own devices.  There was a fair amount of experience in our group so nothing to worry about, but not that they really inquired about that!  As unprofessional as I'm making these guys out to be, really it was refreshing to have this form of relaxed attitude from such a company.  They know there's not a lot to worry about, they're covered by insurance - why bother stressing about it?  Seems to be a common vibe in Vancouver. 

Kayaks can store an amazing amount of stuff! I brough two bags, a sleeping mat, a tent, a sleeping bag, a bunch of alcohol etc, as did most people and we still had room left over! We packed them, decided on teams of able paddlers and set off down the Indian Arm with no particular destination in mind.  With a fantastic tailwind we cruised down rather fast stopping to rest a few times and then for lunch at a rocky beach.  A few of us wanted to stay at this first stop as it was isolated and had a big firepit, but it was early and we decided to continue on. All up I'd say we paddled for about 3.5 hrs plus breaks.  Reaching the end of the arm, we came to Granite Falls, an impressive waterfall and campsite, with toilets and apparently fires were allowed tolerated.  Score! We set up camp for the night and enjoyed dinner and drinks around the fire with music by the waterside. Bliss.

The next morning we were packed up and headed off by 10:30am as Lilith had to return for work at 4pm.  In hindsight this was a pretty serious underestimation of just how much the wind affects your kayaking speed.  Stronger than the day before, it took us twice as long to reach our first break spot. With about an hour of well deserved and required breaks we returned to our departure point at 5:30pm, all feeling severely battered and damaged from the journey, but at the same time extremely satisfied with the effort. Here is the entire route we took which gives a very accurate length of 14.2 kms at the bottom.  On the way there I'd estimate the wind made the length equivalent of about 9 kms and on the way back more like 21 kms...

the crew before deptarture


one of many waterfalls

ben and me


my view with all the kayaks in sight (click)


behold my whiteness


misty mountains


late evening view from our camp spot

Finally getting home and slamming down a huge meal, I passed out almost immediately, sleeping through til morning.  As I write this the following day I can say that although I feel very tight in my neck and forearms, the overwhelming feeling is enjoyable.  I dont remember strenuous physical activity being this rewarding in the past. I'm not sure whether the difference is the location or my attitude towards it.  In anycase, outdoor activity certainly seems to be laying itself down on the path in front of me, and I'm looking forward to what else is in store!


Outdoor Activities are really fun :)

To check out a bunch more panoramic shots I've taken click here:

More BC Panoramas