America!

We got let into the USA, and have spent a day in San Fran with Hourann. Today we fly to Vegas!

Snow

For the first time - that I remember - I got to play in the Snow today!

Cara and I got up this morning and trekked through Vancouver to the north-side to catch the Sea-bus across the water. We then took a bus up the mountain, and a suspended gondola up to the peak.

There was a lot of snow! It was super deep in places, and as I walked in it, I would sink down to my knees.

We went snowshoeing, which is basically hiking through snow with tennis racquets attached to your feet. It was pretty tough going, way harder than walking on sand. After about an hour, we were knackered. So we headed back to the Chalet, but not before I dove headfirst into the snow. It was cold, but I have no regrets.

We had nachos in the warmth of the Chalet, and I had a giant beer. It was probably about 1.5 pints worth, and it was Granville Island Honey Lager. Or Canadian BeezNeez.

We then headed back out into the cold and went for a sleigh-ride. There was also ice-skating on a frozen pond, but it looked pretty poxy. The pond was about the size of a 50 cent bit. So we resolved to not do it, but say we did.

Back in the awesome warmth there was an audio-visual presentation on Bears and Eagles. The combination of warmth, and the beer kicking in made me sleepy. I nearly fell asleep.

Then we made our way back down the mountain and checked out the Gastown district. It seemed pretty cool, but a little run down. Kinda like Freo.

We got some food from an IGA and went back to our hotel room to cook it. Now we are packing our stuff and getting ready to get up tomorrow later tonight at 2:15AM to get on a plane to San Francisco. Get ready to see us Hourann! We coming!

From Cam.

Propping Up The Economy

Hello again, from Canada.

I have a little more time now, so its time to give you another update.

While we were in Singapore airport, me and Cara had Burger King, I believe I told you about it last time. Well here we are eating and playing up:


We then got on the plane to fly to Vancouver, via South Korea. The plane left at around 3:30PM. We were far more tired than we thought we would be. There was an annoying little girl behind us who was sneezing, couging and snorting the whole time. We hoped she wouldn't be on the next flight - cause neither of us wants a cold before our big trip. I watched parts of Madagasgar 2 - Escape to Africa and Burn After Reading. But then I was really tired. I was thinking that I would maybe fall asleep. Then as I was talking to Cara we noticed a big lit up piece of ground outside the plane. It turned out to be a little town. We realised that we must be over land, was it Hong Kong? Maybe mainland China? Then we went over a giant city. There were so many lights, and it was truly awe-inspiring. The first great sight of our trip. We had a look at the little plane graphic on our screens, and saw that we were over Taiwan. We flew the length of Taiwan, and it was basically all cities. We stared out the window from Hsinchu up to Taipei.

We got to South Korea, and they took us off the plane, gave us tokens, and got us to queue up to go through security and board the plane again. I think they were just giving us something to do while they refuled. We got back on board. The annoying little sneezy girl with the cold was still seated behind us! Dammit! I watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, and it was a pretty sweet movie. It got me a bt more excited about going to NYC. I fell asleep a few times on this leg of the trip, and I started to get stabbing neck pain and headaches. Yay for plane trips!

(But I did get some awesome bread rolls!)

We finally made it to Canada, and in the airport there seemed to be wood carvings of platypi everywhere. I said to Cara "Is that a platypus?", she agreed and noted it was weird to see in Canada. Just then a little kid behind us yelled "Beeeeee vurrrrrr", and we realised our mistake.

We caught a taxi to the hotel, and fell asleep. (In fact Cara has just fallen asleep as I type this, I think she is gonna take a little longer to adjust.)

Then this morning we got up, had our complimentary continental breakfast (Croissants!!!) and headed out (after about 15 minutes spent trying to figure out how to work the shower.)

We then did our best to battle the global financial crisis. We walked the - freezing - streets of Vancouver, and found a Roots store. I bought a jumper (which was so much warmer than my Australian one), and Cara bought two.

We then proceeded to look at a bunch of Hockey gear, some souvenirs, get Starbucks, get KFC for lunch (which was also labelled PFK - cause everything here is in English and French), look at more Hockey gear, buy me some new basketball shoes and get some t-shirts. We took the skytrain and looked at some more of the city. Then we returned home and watched Curling on TV! Also we have a little kitchen here, so I cooked up a pasta with boiled potatoes and pepper steak. So tasty, and it didn't cost too much: $9.64 Canadian for all the ingredients. Some stuff seems way cheaper (like pre-made pasta), and some stuff is way more expensive (like Juice).

Also today we saw it Snow. I think. Or maybe we saw it sleet. It looked like snow when it was in the air, but it turned to water the instant it touched the ground, or your hand. I think it was just snowing, but it was a little "warm".

Tomorrow we go to Grouse mountain, to snow-shoe, see the sights, toboggan, do a sleigh-ride and ice skate. Pretty exciting. If we have time we might go shop for more hockey gear in the afternoon, and go to GasTown at night to get our groove on!

Cam Out!

O Canada

We made it!

Right now Cara and I are sitting in our hotel room in Vancouver watching Ice Hockey on TV. And we are very tired. Everything went pretty smoothly, but I did not manage to stay awake for the whole trip as I had planned. We are just going to head out and maybe grab a snack before collapsing in our beds.

I will update you with more details tomorrow, but luckily for you I typed up some details of our Perth-Singapore leg while waiting in Changi airport. Here it is:

*****

Cara and I are sitting at gate A17 at Changi Airport in Singapore. We have just flown from Perth, and finished our lunch. Now we wait for our next plane, which will take us through to Vancouver via Incheon at Seoul, South Korea.

Let's start at the beginning, shall we?

----------------------------------------

I went to bed at half past midnight last night, after working late , eating late and then packing late. For the past two weeks I don't think I have slept for more than 5 hours in one night. We got up at 4:15AM, re-checked everything and headed to the airport.

Mum, Dad, Auntie Moira, Nicola and Adam were all there to see us off. It was good of them to give us a wee sendoff at the Airport. Mum held it together surprisingly well, but got a little teary when Cara and I went through to be processed.

I had an aisle seat, with Cara next to me, and a lady called Maggie had the Window seat. We asked her where she was going, and she said (in a very hippy voice), that she was going to spend 2 weeks at a commune (Cara thought it was a wellness retreat) in India. She didn't seem like she wanted to talk to us overly much, so we tried to ignore her. This was hard as she pushed past us to get to the toilet about 5 times during the flight. I think that if you have a weak bladder like that, then maybe you should check-in early and make sure you get an aisle seat!

We landed at Singapore after 5 hours in the air, which was positive, because it was supposed to take 5.5 hours. However, because I had packed so many awesome distractions in my hand luggage, I was a little bummed that the flight came to an end so soon. I guess I will have a chance to read my novel/magazine/comic books on the next flight.

Cara and I explored a couple of Terminals of Changi airport, and it is truly a cool building. It feels like some kind of spaceport. It is so surreal to think that at this time yesterday I was having a coffee at work, and now I am on the other side of the equator in a shiny expansive building. The fact that I don't have to work for 8 weeks has started to hit me, and I am excited about it.

We were both feeling a little bit hungry, and so we went and had a look at the local food stores. At Burger King they had a burger with Turkey Bacon, and a rendang sauce burger. We decided that some Singapore-centric mutations of our regular fast food was worth it, so we went for it. The sauce on my Turkey Bacon burger was incredible, and by all accounts the diminuitive redhead enoyed her Rendang burger too.

Damn, I think our next flight might be boarding. I will update you guys soon. See you on the flipside of the Pacific.

Excitement

I am getting pretty damned excited about my impending world trip. I am starting to get some little butterflies in my stomach, and I am sure by Saturday morning they will be gigantic pteranodons.

In order to share my excitement with you, and to let you follow my amazing exploits, I have started this blog to chronicle my journey.

The first dilemma was simple: What do I call my new blog? I considered calling it The Hodliday, after an early invention of mine which me and my sister designed years ago. We basically drew the shape of a van from the side on view, and then drew a floor plan inside. It was a giant mobile home, albeit one with some gravitational problems. We called it the Hodliday. However I figured that this title would only be fitting if I was driving around in a Winnebago.

The next choice was to take the easy way out and choose some lyrics. I decided to go with the first sentence of the song Holiday by Weezer; "Let's Go Away For A While", but someone had already grabbed letsgoawayforawhile.blogspot.com. I tried letsgoaway and awayforawhile but they were taken too. Goawayforawhile was not taken, but seemed kinda rude.

So I had to resort to tired old gags. You know the oft-repeated comedy bit where the comedian says something along the lines of: "I just flew in from New Jersey last night", pauses for effect and then delivers, "Gee! My arms are tired!". It seemed just Fozzy Bear enough.

So my new blog is titled "Let's Go Away For A While", and can be found at the url: http://GeeMyArmsAreTired.blogspot.com

And I am so excited about my trip that I just wasted about half an hour thinking of a name for this blog. Now to start preliminary packing.