It's 18 degrees outside. Everyone has been complaining about the HEAT in Vancouver and I have a space-heater running next to my desk.
I haven't experienced temperatures this COLD in over 5 weeks, LOL.
5:00
Laundry. This is when I notice how high that bloody high-rise has risen during the last 6 weeks.
There are two of those GIANT secret-service type cop cars with flashing lights at the gas station across the street. The gas station got robbed again? Who knows, could be anything. After I mentioned Vietnam, the Indian taxi driver yesterday already talked about how life in India is still the Simple Life, with people not NEEDING all the Western crap but owning their small houses and having time to talk to their neighbours over tea. How strange, I know EXACTLY what he is talking about....
6:00
A mass-shooting in Fredericton, New Brunswick is in the breaking news. I've been here for not even 12 hours and I'm already getting homesick.
7:00
I'm getting the bike out. But WTF is THAT ?
I run into someone I know at the grocery store. He's behaving odd (in my book) and I remember why I was suspicious of his character when I met him for the first time about 5 years ago LOL.
Aug. 12, SUN
Time to get some breakfast at Denny's. I didn't even see Regina and I get shit for that but still get a hug. And another one from Eda.
Here is a story about a friend of mine: To get her Canadian Permanent Resident Status, she needs to pass an English exam. She has to pay several 100s of dollars as a fee every time she takes that exam. The government agency responsible for that failed her 2 or 3 times already. Here is the other side of the story. That friend is a Supervisor in a restaurant of a MAJOR chain of restaurants across Canada & the US. She communicates her wishes effectively to her subordinates and takes orders efficiently from her superiors. She's the acting manager at a Denny's Restaurant for God's sake. You would think that pulling that off would automatically render her English skills as sufficient......
NOT so in the eyes of that Canadian testing agency. SHAME on them! My friend speaks MUCH BETTER English than when I arrived in Canada with my Permanent Resident Status in my pocket. Could it be that some underlying racism disfavours citizens of Turkey? I would not be the least surprised!
I'm trying to use Google Images to find the picture of the Canadian Loonie coin with the drowning duck that I used before. I get pictures of ducks and I get pictures of loonies, but not the picture I'm looking for. Google changed their algorithm again to please the iPhone-wielding bimbo masses?
How are the pictures of Crepes and the Gift Card related?I'm sending an e-mail to the manager of a Crepe restaurant who offered to send me a free gift card after I left a negative TripAdvisor review.
I get an e-mail back within an hour. He's sending me a $50 gift card.
Now THAT ain't bad. Let's hope the restaurant recovered to its former greatness!
Visiting Grandma is combined with foraging on berries along the way. I'm sad to see her laying in bed most of the day every time I visit, but then she will be ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD tomorrow. Who would have thought, LOL.
Whenever I come back from abroad, I find that I have a lot of initiative to get things done back here in Vancouver. By now I know that this city will drain that energy from me within one week, but right now I still have it. There are more Viet restaurants in town that I have not tried yet.
The closest one is Pho Garden.
It's 6:30 pm on a Sunday when I arrive and the place is BUSY ! There is no wine on the menu but I have spied a bottle of Red behind the counter, and YES, they also have White. I get a glass and it is OK.
Resisting Bon Bo Hue for now (I already had pork sausage for breakfast) I go for Com Ka Ri Ga instead.
YES, Ka Ri stands for Curry. Yes, Vietnamese take words from other languages if they don't have word for a thing already, but they WRITE it the way it's SPOKEN, which I LOVE. Turkish does the same. Feribot for ferry and Otopark for parking garage are prime examples. And from where else but French could Vietnamese have picked up Met for meter and Vang for wine. But my personal favourite is O To. (remember: NO two-syllable words in Vietnamese).
I fall asleep to the sounds of the Supertramp Paris 1979 concert playing on YouTube. I wake up at 23:00 to pee and when I want to restart the music I am informed that some ASSHOLE company registered a copyright claim and that the video is no longer available.
MON, Aug. 13
It's Fidel Castro's birthday today! And that means it's Grandma's birthday! She was born 100 years ago.....
It's fucking 14 degrees at 6 am. That is COLD !
Lisa & Tina will NOT take over the hotel at Bai Bien Cua Toi after all. This also eliminates my home for a more relaxed and customer-oriented future at my beach. So much for the beach cocktail bar and for being treated like a guest instead of like a customer.
Time to reconsider MY plans for the next few months.
This time I have the PERFECT plan to avoid rental car return delay (RCRD), something that seems to happen to me frequently, just because I'm too lazy or distracted to bring the car back. I left my bicycle at the car rental place ;-)
A 100th birthday lunch should involve more than 2 people. But that's all we have in our family. I'm glad that the two people who saved Grandma last year after she fell down on two occasions agreed to come too.
Unfortunately Grandma is not too happy with the food or the wine
I try to buy my CAD$ 295 ticket from Singapore to Athens but the booking site fucks up. Now I have to wait to try again until the charge vanishes from the credit card's pending transactions list. WHY are these things still not working properly?????
When I step out of my room at 8 am to ride to the grocery store, it is COLD outside ! YES, 16 degrees is COLD for August ! I don't want to live anywhere where I feel cold all the time! The grocery store, Something or Other FARM Market, is tiny and HORRIBLY overpriced. Should have known. Anything with the name 'farm' in it is a scam in this town.
As if that wasn't bad enough, I have to witness how yet another one of my favourite Mom&Pop mini-stores in East Vancouver has vanished. THAT is the Vancouver I LOVED. And it's vanishing.Aug. 15, Wednesday.
DAILY Air Quality warnings. Stay inside with A/C on to filter the air. AVOID exercise. This is the second year in the row where it rained for 6 months SOLID in the winter and the summer sky is full of smoke. And Vancouver is lucky because it sits at the edge to moderate air quality. Calgary (newly elected as the 4th most livable city on the planet (imagine hysterical laughing) has an air quality warning of EXTREME. And everyone still happily drives their car. The dominant species on this planet is unbelievably IGNANT. This planet is DOOMED.
A nice nap is interrupted by a ringing telephone. I get up and look at my cell. NO calls. Oh. It must have been the room phone. No messages though.... OH!
I walk over to reception and act on a strong hunch by stating "I have mail".
And I do ! The Cafe Crepe Manager sent me a $50 gift card to compensate me for a less-than-perfect dining experience that I described on TripAdvisor.
Chapeau!
Thu. Aug. 16
Time to pack and move rooms again.♦
The new room is better but I notice how the city wears me out again.
Sat. Aug. 18.
I'm trying to book that Singapore - Athens flight from the Scoot website. And I LOVE how they deal with FAT people, LOL
If you are a Guest of Size who requires 2 seats, please make your booking via our Call Centre at least 3 days before departure. Failure to do so may result in you being denied transportation. Fares and fees for 2 guests apply.
Now the next step should be a discounted fare for SKINNY people ;-)
Today is the day. I have to BUY cigarettes in Canada ! That's going to HURT.
SUN Aug. 19
I visit Grandma but she is particularly cranky today.....
8 hours after visiting Grandma I start getting sick in my hotel room. NO, I can't blame it on her venom directly but the thought is appealing.
 |
| that takes care of all of Monday .... |
Apart from that: It was the best of times ....
Is it any wonder I REALLY do not want to be here .....
A trip to the store. 2 packs of cigarettes, 1 chocolate bar, 1 noodle soup. $39. GET ME OUT OF HERE!
I get ANNOYED at the hotel's WiFi again. For God's sake, Dial-up in the 90s was faster and more reliable than this 3rd world SHIT.
I am in a catatonic state for almost a week. I've come to the point where I have fully realized again that this place is ENTIRELY without beauty and joy. Welcome to Vancouver, my private HELL ON EARTH!
August 26, a Sunday.
Today is different. In a Good way.
Actually, last night was different too. But NOT in a good way!
People were partying in the next room all night. Loud banging, shouting, door slamming. 11 pm. 1 am. 3 am. 4:30 am. Unbearable really, but I remember that I was young once, so I didn't have the receptionist call the cops. But when I see the hung-over crowd get into their cars this morning, I wish I had involved the cops. Those kids are getting into Maseratis and Porsches. This town is SO FUCKED UP !
But today is different in a Good way. Peter & Marion booked their flight to Vietnam for next March and we will be hooking up in SaiGon for food and hopefully a water-puppet show ;-). Thinking about SaiGon also made me realize that I'm only going to be content if I'm NOT HERE, so I checked my itinerary with the plan of calling the travel site to move my flight forward. WOW. One can do this ONLINE. For an extra CAD $124 (<US$ 100), I move my flight 3 weeks closer in time, which saves me about $2000 in hotel, cigarette, booze & food expenses.
Sayonara SUCKERS !
Thi Lan's Dad died today. I hope she feels better soon ;-)
Relating to mourning for the departed, I REALLY notice a quote in a movie, Wind River. Brilliant movie, brilliant quote:
I'd like to tell you it gets easier, but it doesn't. If there's a comfort, you get used to the pain if you let yourself, I went to a grief seminar in Casper. Don't know why, just, It hurt so much, I was searching for anything that could make it go away That's what I wanted this seminar to do, make it go away. The instructor come up to me after the seminar was over, sat beside me and said, "I got good news and bad news. Bad news is you'll never be the same. You'll never be whole. Ever. What was taken from you can't be replaced. You're daughter's gone. Now the good news, as soon as you accept that, as soon as you let yourself suffer, allow yourself to grieve, You'll be able to visit her in your mind, and remember all the joy she gave you. All the love she knew. Right now, you don't even have that, do you?" He said, "that's what not accepting this will rob from you". If you shy from the pain of it, then you rob yourself of every memory of her, my friend. Every one. From her first step to her last smile. You'll kill 'em all. Take the pain, Take the pain, Martin. It's the only way to keep her with you.
Cafe Crepe with Eda. I'm a 15 minute bike ride away from the restaurant and I'm on time. Eda lives just around the corner but is FIFTEEN minutes LATE. HOW does that work?????? LOL
August 28, MON
CRACK goes the hinge on my laptop when I try to close it. Another laptop hinge bites the dust and I need to buy another laptop today. Idiots at BestBuy, slightly nicer idiots at London Drugs.
August 29, TUE
 |
| The deed is done. The new laptop. |
The next day.
I'm spilling a FULL cup of TEA over the KEYBOARD of my brand-new laptop. Good thing I'm sitting right next to the drawer with clean boxer shorts. Tilt, drain, wipe.
One hour later, the touchpad no longer works but the keyboard works fine. I buy a wireless USB mouse at London Drugs and everything is fine.
 |
| The news from Germany is NOT good |
I could really use more sleep, but I hop on the bike at 10:20 and cycle towards Horseshoe Bay. It's COLD in this country; I'm glad I have my hoodie on.
The air is barely breathable, never mind utterly unhealthy when the ferries unload their hundreds of cars and they won't allow SMOKING? THAT is what is INSANE about this country. Always tackling the WRONG problem. Much easier because it leaves the majority thinking that they have a clear conscience and consequently they don't have to actually DO anything.
The fact that I had to take that picture with my cell phone instead of with my Panasonic Lumix is another issue. That's the THIRD Lumix that is dying of some stupid focus error. I have to find the receipt and bring that piece of shit back before I leave !
Vancouver has completely destroyed my Mojo again. I don't even go outside on the 40 minute ferry ride. WiFi is of course too slow and unreliable to do anything useful. It cuts out whenever the ferry is out of range from some mysterious transfer stations on shore. WHY BC Ferries is getting its internet from shore stations and not from satellite is still a mystery to me.
Running into things that don't work properly or just stop working on an hourly basis is too much for me.
Time to get off the ferry. WOW. Things changed around here.... The top of that hill over there has been CLEARED and filled with those pretentious Mansion Houses.
It's GREAT to see Denise again. It's been too long!
Monday, September 3.
I slept 10 hours and I'm still coughing and sneezing.
The hotel WiFi is out of commission again, so I have to use my cell data again.... which doesn't work either. So AGAIN I'm sitting in a hotel in Vancouver with close-to-ZERO WiFi access ;-( And 95% of the citizens of this city still believe that the Third World is somewhere else, LOL
A tiny breakfast at Denny's and a chat with Eda start the day right. But at the hotel reception I get the BAD NEWS. I've stayed at this hotel for over 6 years now. When I come back in November, my hotel won't exist anymore! I will be HOMELESS AGAIN !
September 4.
It's COLD outside, people actually find the fact that I wear shorts worth mentioning. 7 sleeps until I get out of here.
I have noticed that I haven't taken a single photograph in days if not weeks. This city is KILLING who I am !
September 6
They can't find the key for the booze fridge at Denny's. Not the first time but this time they don't even know who took the key. No hearty sausage either. HOW incompetent can one restaurant get?
An e-mail. My old laptop is repaired. And they did it WELL; they even cleaned the screen and the keyboard as much as was possible. YES, my laptops are usually as dirty as my cars ;-)
I'm at Denny's for breakfast at 4 pm. Two middle aged Canadian couples sit at the table next to me. The waitress asks them "Would you like anything to drink?". The answer, "Water, no ice!" makes me grin internally. It will be SO nice to leave this country, where being CHEAP AND PURITAN AND RUDE is still en vogue.
Saturday, September 8
It's Sheila's Birthday party ..... Brigitte, who I haven't seen in almost 10 years, is there too. I have to laugh when she starts complaining about Vancouver. She is the echo in the room because she notices the exact same issues that constantly annoy me. Her husband commutes by car every day from Delta to North Vancouver. That alone is ~4 hours in a car EVERY DAY! It might appear that I'm joking when I tell them that they need some Viet therapy but I'm dead serious.
Sunday, September 9.
Breakfast at Pho Japolo at 6 pm. It's raining, dark, and cold outside. UGLY !
I try to order my second glass of wine in a plastic smoothie cup, so I can take the rest home, but the waitress says "Oh, NO, we can't ...". Thank you, Canada and your RETARDED laws ! After all, it's OK for the state to STEAL children from their parents and put them into Residential Schools to get the Savage out of them but we all know the Pandemonium that would result if I walked back to my hotel with some wine in a smoothie cup.
50 more hours!
I'm watching a Thai movie, How to win at checkers. Watching it brings laughter and tears. And here is a quote.
In that darkness I am eleven years old again.
An age before I knew the colour of money,
before I learned to lie and cheat,
and before I learned how to win.
At the same time I get an e-mail from Huyen:
We was once a child, but we grow up and forget how to really live as we try to catch up with "life". I really think that we should put the weights down, fight for our rights and start to see the world through a child's eyes. I hardly find an unhappy child including myself as a kid. Their life conditions can be difficult, but it won't be hard for us to spot a smile on their face 🙂. Let us learn from young children 👻
Coincidence? Maybe. But what is certain is that unlike here, 'over there' my soul has a chance to heal and my spirit has a chance to flourish.
Too many errands to run on the last few days again. Including buying this:
NO, it's NOT the new Enterprise shuttle, but it's a new style of e-cigarette. Nice and compact and ready to be used on the plane.... (OK, I can hear some timid objections in the ether. But if you're a smoker and you don't use an e-cigarette on a 12 hour flight, then you are in desperate need of some reality-check and courage pills ;-)
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