Aza aza! Fighting!

I have returned from my mini-vacation in the amazing and beautiful British Columbia and I'm going to tell you all about it. [Note: Be prepared for a very long post.]

Wednesday, August 23, 2006 - Departure
Despite having our household in utter chaos, my family managed to finalize our ongoings, and hit the highway mid-afternoon. Not much was to be expected of the ride there; after all, it's twelve hours of sitting, watching the world whiz by at over one hundred kilometers per hour. Jasper National Park always presents some pretty scenes, though, and this time around we were lucky to catch the most intense rainbow I have ever witnessed in my life. This picture barely does it any justice.

Since we left so late, it would have been difficult and pointless to carry on driving through the night, so we stopped at a motel in Clearwater, ate burgers and fries, and watched How William Shatner Changed the World.

Thursday, August 24, 2006 - Arrival
We continued our journey west the following morning at a leisurely pace. We arrived at my aunt's house in Surrey (about thirty kilometers east of Vancouver) in the late afternoon, and tucked in for a good meal. Since our day was consumed mostly by travel, there was no point in going into Vancouver, so we elected to relax. My uncle suggested we watch Full House, which he had on DVD, and we were definitely tantalized by a trip down memory lane with the Tanners. However, this was not a San Fransiscan family and their hijinks; it was a Korean romantic comedy. Reluctantly we agreed to watch it and the sting of disappointment was soon dissolved. This is one of those so-bad-it's-good kind of shows, only it's not actually that bad. It just has an extremely far-fetched story, and unnecessarily long intervals without action.

Feel free to ignore the following ramble. It's a synopsis of the TV show, which is convuluted, but endearing.

It starts out with an orphaned, aspiring young writer, Han Ji-eun, who lives alone in the amazing house her father designed and built. Her two "best friends," Dong-wook and Jin-hee, get pregnant together, but are deeply in debt and desperate for cash. So, they buy Ji-eun a trip to Shanghai, and while she is away, they sell all of her belongings and her house. Meanwhile, on her trip to Shanghai, Ji-eun sits beside and greatly annoys one of Korea's biggest movie stars, Lee Young-jae. It turns out they are also staying in the same hotel. While at the hotel, Ji-eun also meets one of Young-jae's greatest friends, Yu Min-hyuk, who instantly takes a liking to her. After a couple of days in Shanghai, Ji-eun discovers her friends have also taken all of her savings, so she has no money to pay for her hotel nor for a ticket back to Korea. So, she creates this elaborate story to tell Young-jae in order to convince him to lend her some cash. Somehow, he agrees. Of course, Ji-eun returns home only to discover her life has been sold, and wouldn't you know it, the person that bought her house was none other than the movie star that hates her and to which she is indebted, Young-jae. He immediately throws her out, but she stands her ground, and they agree that she can stay the the house, but she is basically his slave, cooking and cleaning for him. Meanwhile, Young-jae is caught up in a love triangle, involving himself, Min-hyuk, and their childhood friend, Hye-won. Young-jae loves Hye-won, but Hye-won loves Min-hyuk; Min-hyuk thinks of Hye-won as a little sister. This love triangle soon becomes a love quadrilateral as Ji-eun enters the picture. Min-hyuk, of course, likes Ji-eun, while Young-jae hates her. Ji-eun is somewhat indifferent to both Min-hyuk and Young-jae, but that soon changes. So, Young-jae is about to propose to Hye-won, but she loves Min-hyuk so much that it breaks Young-jae's heart and he somehow marries Ji-eun out of spite. It's a botched marriage because Young-jae hates Ji-eun and she is his slave. They are constantly fighting. Hye-won still goes after Min-hyuk but he tells her that it would never work out and she goes crazy. Young-jae also continues to show great affection towards Hye-won, and (ooooooh) Ji-eun starts to get jealous. We skipped a few epsiodes to watch all of it in time, but in the end it turns out that Ji-eun and Young-jae get a divorce, no one ends up loving Hye-won, and Min-hyuk proposes to Ji-eun. BUT, Young-jae also falls in love with Ji-eun despite hating her before, and he proposes (again) to her, too. Who does she choose???

Like I said, it's convoluted and corny and not really that great, but I really like it.


Friday, August 25, 2006 - Science World
Fresh off a good-night's sleep, my sisters and I hopped on the Skytrain, and went to Science World. I, of course, love science, so it was difficult not to have fun. We started off with a look at their preview for the soon-opening Body Worlds 3 exhibit. It would have been nice to see this considering my love for anatomy and physiology, but it opens on September 15. We then looked at their Our World exhibit that explored about all the major elemental cycles, energy sources, and waste management. Then it was time for our show in the Omnimax Theatre, which is housed in the geodesic dome of Science World. It's hard to describe just how cool this theatre is, with it's dome-screen and everything. It's sorta like the one at Edmonton's Telus World of Science, but better. We saw "Greece: Secrets of the Past," which has prompted be to aspire to one day visit Greece, particularly the island of Santorini.

After the film, we continued to explore the remaining exhibits, including a look at ancient Egypt presented in LEGO. It was pretty neat and probably took hours and hours to make each of the pieces. Also, is it true that people make careers out of just making LEGO masterpieces? Because if it is, I don't know why I am going to freakin' university.

We also had some fun in the permanent exhibits (The Mitchell Odyssey Foundation: Eureka!and The Sara Stern Gallery: Search).

After Science World, we met up with my cousin and she took us to this super sweet Japanese/Korean restaurant, Shabusen Yakiniku House. After that we went to an even sweeter ice creamery. Well, it wasn't really ice cream, but gelato, and there were (get this) 218 flavours to choose from!!!! 218!!!! Although some of them I wouldn't even consider trying (Kimchi, pear gargonzola blue cheese, chocolate chili), others were quite tempting. I settled on a pomegranate sorbetto.

Saturday, August 26 , 2006 - Relax
Instead of rushing back into Vancouver, we decided to join my aunt at a reunion picnic at the Peace Arch Provincial Park. We didn't do much beyond enjoying the sun, eating lots of great food, and playing with the cutest children ever. We met up with my cousin in Vancouver and she took us to get delicious donairs. We then strolled around the Bayshore area, which is across the inlet from Stanley Park (we were going to rent bikes but we were too late). It's a pretty "hoity-toity" area with their yacht clubs and swank bars. We stopped at a Bojangles cafe for some chocolate cake and chai lattes and then visited the Inukshuk in English Bay. After that we went to the Richmond night market - this huge and predominantly oriental flea market selling pretty much anything. We were set on buying a copy of Full House on DVD to take home, but we were unlucky, seeing the last copy go from the lone vendor that had it. To console ourselves, we bought some bubble tea and then made the journey back to my aunt's house for a well-needed sleep.

Sunday, August 27, 2006 - The Aquarium
Our day got off to a very slow start, so we didn't make it to the aquarium until 4:00. Additionally, the aquarium had a power issue and was scheduled to close early that day, at 6:00 rather than 7:00. So we only had two hours to tour it, which turned out to be ample enough. We were looking most forward to this excursion, and, accordingly, I took A LOT of pictures, perhaps too many, and since the lighting was generally quite low, many of them turned out rather blurry. But I still got a few keepers.

Perhaps the most disappointing animals on display were the sharks. Maybe we didn't stay to look at them long enough, but they seemed small and basically uninteresting. The best were the belugas. They are simultaneously the cutest and most disgusting creatures. Their pure whiteness connotates purity and innocence, and their pudginess only adds to it. But when you learn just how much of them is fat, and take a closer look, you feel slightly sick. They have this oblong figures with pockets of fat sticking out in random places, and when they swim, you can see their fat ripple in the water. But then you look at those adorable little faces and you're back to loving them again. The sea otters were almost as cute, but they had this foul odor about them.

After the aquarium, we went to dinner at Fresgo's, this diner-type restaurant in Davie Village. I had perhaps one of my favourite sandwiches, a Reuben. After dinner, we couldn't help but make a return visit to my new favoutire ice creamery. This time I decided on mango colada, which was not as great as I hoped it would be.

Monday, August 28, 2006 - Bust
Originally we had planned on heading to the Capilano Suspension Bridge, but since our expenses were starting to run a little high and admission to the bridge was so steep, we decided we'd visit the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge, which we had visited at least once before in our childhoods. But even that plan fell through, and we ended up doing nothing. That night, though, my aunt hosted a dinner, which featured good food and karaoke. We reunited with my parents, and went to bed early in preparation for the long journey home.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006 - Mondo Bust
We slept in. We left late. The shocks on our truck went. We were stuck in Abbotsford for an extra four hours. The weather was less than optimal (foggy). The truck was cramped. We tried to stop for a few hours' rest, but that was a gong show. I didn't sleep a wink, and we didn't get home until 8:00 Wednesday morning, greeted by CRAPPY weather, of course.

As a consolation, though, I got to hang out with my best buds, and took in a most excellent movie - Little Miss Sunshine. I haven't laughed that hard at a movie in a long time. It was clever and rather tragic, actually, but still very, very funny. It also had a good soundtrack. Make sure you see it.

If you've made it this far, congratulations, and thank you for a dedicated spat of reading. I appreciate it. I think I'll be posting some more pictures on Flickr.