August 12 2008
Cat Hotel In preparation for our trip, we dropped the cats off at a cat hotel. It's basically a basement area with four enclosed rooms. Slightly larger than goshiwon rooms, but these ones fit four cats each. Millie and Buster had two roommates, as well as plenty of things to hide in/under/behind and climb. |
August 13 2008
Airport Our plane was delayed a couple hours so we had plenty of spare time at the aiport. Jung's mom spent it duty-free shopping and I spent it looking around to see what there was to play in. |
August 13 2008
Vancouver We arrived in Vancouver in the early afternoon. The directions to the hostel weren't clear, and we ended up walking over 2 kilometers through a junkie district with heavy luggage, rather than taking the skytrain which would've gotten us there in less than five minutes, as I suggested. |
August 14 2008
Downtown Vancouver Downtown Vancouver has a lot of interesting buildings. There are still several old-style structures, and many more of them are currently undergoing renovation. And there are large, almost Korea-sized high-rise projects underway. I guess they're getting ready for the Olympics in 2010. |
August 14 2008
Stanley Park On our first full day in Canada, we went to Stanley Park and rented bikes. It took us about an hour and a half to go all the way around the entire park, with a few stops on the way. |
August 15 2008
Grouse Mountain We took the seabus across to North Vancouver and went up to Grouse Mountain. It's a tourist area with lots of activities ranging from paragliding to riding chairlifts, and there was lots of wildlife to see, including two young grizzly bears. |
August 15 2008
Laura Laura has had some pretty notorious parties in her place, and we stopped by not sure what we were going to be seeing. It was a pretty laid back party as they were saving their energy for the next night. Jung met some of Laura's ESL students and we made friends with a guy who's an expert at bondage and rope-tying. Pretty good times until Jung threw up. |
August 16 2008
Downtown We had an afternoon to kill downtown, and after plans fell through to meet up with Dorian, we ended up wandering around downtown, limited in our mobility by our suitcases. We saw some mediocre bands play in a park and passed by a Scientology protest. |
August 17 2008
Mickey It's been over three years since I saw Mickey last, and he's been aging pretty quickly. He's 16 now, and his hearing and vision are slipping away. There were a few times when he seemed like young Mickey again, but not many. |
August 17 2008
Walkies We took Mickey out on a walk. He's not as active as he used to be so we couldn't go far. He did a lot of sniffing around, so at least his nose is still strong. |
August 17 2008
Annan's Kitty Annan brought her cat over, and I took a lot of motion-blurred pictures of the cat being fidgety. Eventually I managed to get a few good ones, but this kitty could learn a lesson from Millie, who stays very still whenever I point my camera at her. |
August 17 2008
River Valley We went on a long walk down to the River Valley, and then up through a ravine, stopping on the way for Slurpees of course. Edmonton weather was cool to us, but after a bit of walking around we were starting to sweat, even Jung. Still, remembering how awful I felt on my walk through Gwangmyung, I appreciate that it's a lot easier to go hiking in Edmonton than it is in Korea. |
August 17 2008
Backyard When we got home from our walk, we cooled off in the backyard. Some of us used alcohol to cool off, and some jumped through the sprinkler a few times. |
August 17 2008
Thunderstorm For a couple nights, there were huge thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are a lot different here, with lots more forked lightning and less sheet lightning. Maybe that's because visibility is much greater, due to lack of buildings/mountains. Apparently this night one house was struck by lightning and burned down. |
August 18 2008
Downtown After lunch, we got dropped off downtown so we could catch the streetcar over the river to Whyte Ave and the Fringe. The streetcar is only operational for the summer months, so it's more of a tourist thing than proper public transportation. The main way you can tell is that none of us got decapitated on the ride. |
August 18 2008
Mickey vs Kitty Mickey and Annan's kitty had a fun evening together mixed with angry stares and some barking. |
August 19 2008
Legislature We spent one afternoon at the Alberta Provincial Legislature. We went into the lobby and dipped our feet in one of the pools outside. Government buildings are very different in Canada compared to Korea. I don't think I've ever seen a Korean government building where people are encouraged to play around outside. |
August 19 2008
Fed We looked around inside this unused government building which is being renovated for reopening in 2011. |
August 19 2008
River Valley From my sister's apartment we got a good view of downtown Edmonton. I used to live in the same building but on the other side. I guess that's a problem that Korean apartments don't have to worry about, since they extend all the way through the building so you get at least two walls with windows. |
August 19 2008
Open Stage My dad took us to an open stage night, but not before we stopped off at Greg's home for him to try Guitar Hero or whatever this game is called. |
August 20 2008
West Edmonton Mall Going to the mall was not on my list of things to do, but it was the kind of thing Jung couldn't miss out on. I only went inside for a few minutes to take a couple pictures, and that was enough for me. |
August 21 2008
Ikea We went on a trip through the city, eventually arriving at Ikea in the box store section of town. It really is a blight on urban planning, and I hope the whole city doesn't end up like this someday. Sure, it's great that everything is in the same location, but it sucks that you need a car if you want to drive to the store next door. |
August 21 2008
Rub a Dub Reggae Night My sister planned a DJ night to revive the old Rub-a-Dub nights we had on Thursdays at New City before. This time we took it to Wunderbar, a new bar, and kept it going til about 1am. Earlier than we're used to in Korea, but they have a little thing called liquor laws here. |
August 22 2008
Morning In the morning after the reggae night, we woke up at Annan's and took the bus back to my parents' home. |
August 22 2008
In-laws Jung's parents arrived on August 21, and her brother arrived from the US on August 22. My mom prepared some Ukrainian food for them, which they seemed to enjoy a lot. We were all surprised when Mickey ended up getting along with Jung's brother and father. |
August 23 2008
Mickey Just a couple pictures of Mickey being lazy in the sunlight. |
August 23 2008
Party We ended up having a little less than 50 people over at my parents' place for a party. Most of us spent the time out in the backyard. I saw a few friends I hadn't seen in quite a while, and my parents had a lot of their friends over as well. |
August 24 2008
Morning After the party, Jung went out with my sister and her friends to go dancing. It ended up not working out, and they couldn't find a decent club. I got a ride with Rene and we met up with them at the Black Dog, a trendy Whyte Avenue bar with somewhat of a nightclub feel (large crowds, unfriendly security). We spent the night at Annan's apartment again, and woke up early so we took a walk around the university and Whyte Ave. |
August 24 2008
Fringe We met up with my parents and walked around the Fringe a little more. |
August 24 2008
CSI: Edmonton On the way home from the Fringe, we stopped by a colossal yard sale. Unfortunately if there ever was anything good, it was all gone now. I also found the tackiest book possible: "The Making of Batman and Robin: The Movie." Why anyone would want this is beyond me. |
August 24 2008
Home At home, we were always thinking about our cats, and wondering how they were doing. The updates on the cat hotel website weren't frequent enough, so all we had were our Ikea clone cats and Annan's kitty. |
August 25 2008
Fort Edmonton Park We went to Fort Edmonton Park with all the parents. It seemed like a good place to bring them, and they ended up having a lot of fun. |
August 25 2008
The Fort It was hard pulling me and Jung out of the fort itself, which was filled with all sorts of little passages and hidden stairways. |
August 25 2008
Outside the fort After we left the fort, we had a snack. Unfortunately we couldn't go down to the river, which is right across from where we went on our walk a few days previous. We went on a wagon ride and our moms shared a moment. |
August 25 2008
1885 Street On the first street, there are slightly more modern buildings, depicting when Edmonton started being a real town rather than just a fort. |
August 25 2008
1905 Street/1920 Street We travelled a bit forward into the early 20th century, where there are a few old houses and restored buildings. |
August 25 2008
1920 Midway & Exhibition On our way out, we stopped in the new part of the park where there is a recreation of a fair. The only adult-sized ride operational at the time was the merry-go-round, so Jung went on it with my parents while the rest of us watched. |
August 25 2008
University Jung's dad really wanted to see the university so we took him for a quick walk around. |
August 25 2008
River Valley My mom took us down to the river where we crossed a pedestrian bridge and found a Chinese garden. |
CONTACT
Jon underscore Dunbar at Hotmail
010-3212-2812
Please remember that these photos are all copyrighted to me. If you want to use them in any way, there's a 90 per cent chance I'll give you my permission, and be able to give you a copy with a higher DPI.Copyright Jon Dunbar 2004