Vancouver, British Columbia!!

Last weekend I decided to plan out a nice little trip to Vancouver, British Columbia. Amy's friend is coming out this coming weekend, and we still have a bunch of events that we want to plan on our weekend trips, so I decided this was as good a weekend as any. Vancouver is going to host the 2010 winter olympics, so the city was a bustle, with construction and renovations of buildings and the construction of the first underground subway. We packed on Friday and woke up early on Saturday and drove 3 hours north towards Vancouver. We bypassed downtown at first and drove straight to the Capilano Suspension Bridge just north of the city. The Capilano Suspension Bridge, Vancouver's oldest tourist attraction, originally built in 1889, stretches 450 feet (137m) across and 230 feet (70m) above Capilano River. At first sight it looks awesome hanging and swinging over the canyon, shaking with every step someone takes. It shakes and sways as you hang 230 feet over the river below. We also did the Treetops Adventure which consists of seven suspension bridges through the evergreens taking you up to 100 feet (30m) above the forest floor. High up in the trees, you get great views of the park and the trees from an even higher altitude! It was a fun little pit stop. Afterwards, we drove down to the Cleveland dam that feeds the capilano river. At first site you look down and see thousands of gallons of water crash below in a heavy mist, feeling the power of the falling water and the mist that rises up. Then, we took the advice of one of my coworkers and tried to do a little hike up Grouse Mountain. My
friend had drastically talked down the difficulty and intensity of the hike, as he said he did it in an hour. An hour hike, I thought? Should be no problem! We changed into sneakers, brought up a single bottle of water and Amy's camera and started up the mountain. It didn't seem that difficult as we started, as I compared the hike to the Kilalau Trail in Kauii. However, 1 hour into it, and many breaks later, we had not even hit the halfway mark. The mountain is an intense hike, straight up, comparable to doing steep stairs on rough terrain for hours. After we hit the halfway mark 1.3 hours into the hike, we were already sweaty, exhausted, and thirsty as we had limited water reserves. My legs were already feeling like jelly, and I had only gone halfway! Amy was lagging behind a bit, so as we went up the mountain I had to periodically stop and wait up for her, as she didn't appreciate me pushing her from behind. The last leg of the mountain wasn't far, but steep, and we managed to get to the top of the mountain in about 2 hours. Exhausted, thirsty, and hungry we triumphed at our success of treking the 1.6 mile hike straight up the mountain. Pictured is Amy, ecstatic, and exhausted at the top of the mountain. We sat atop the mountain and took some beautiful pictures of downtown Vancouver below, taking in the scenery and enjoying the fact that we didn't have to walk up any more. We quickly went to the lodge to buy some water and food, where we found that the cruel engineers also put 3 flights of stairs to get to the top of the building!! We quickly scarfed down some lunch and enjoyed a well earned cold beer. The Grouse Grind is a 2.9-kilometre trail up the face of Grouse Mountain, commonly referred to by Vancouverites as “Mother Nature’s Stairmaster.” There is however, a skyride that brings you to the top of the mountain for $35, but that's for lazy people.  Amy and I survived the Grind...and we have shirts to prove it. At the top, besides breathtaking views of other mountain ranges, they have a lumberjack show, a bear habitat, a nature hike, and a sky ride lift using the skiing lifts that they use in the winter time. The bear habitat was fun, and the bears were cute. They played with each other, and one of them walked to the fence turned around to the crowd, popped a squat and pooped. Then, we caught the lumberjack show, which was entertaining. We watched the lumberjacks compete against each other in log chopping, tree scaling, log rolling, and sawing. We also had fun on the sky ride which took us around the mountain on the ski lift. We even saw a guy fall off the chair lift with his tibia sticking out of his skin!! After the days end, we stood in the long line to take the big sky ride back (which honestly was scarier than walking down). the main street for shopping, in downtown Vancouver. We showered and went to dinner at a nice japanese restaurant, then met up with my coworker Li                                                                                                                                                               eon and his girlfriend Yandi who are from Vancouver. They took us to a night time asian outdoor market, much like the ones they have in Hong Kong. They had great little bites of authentic chinese cuisine and a bunch of booths where you could buy anything from batteries to ladies underwear. Then we went back to the hotel for some much needed rest after a loooong day. The next morning we slept in and woke up to rain. We decided to do the hop on hop off bus tour that they have in all major cities. We had dim sum for brunch and then got on the bus tour. We saw the major sites around the city, we got off in Chinatown and saw Dr. Sun's Chinese Garden which was a beautiful asian inspired garden in the middle of the city with a huge coi pond and bamboo forest. I Also saw a guy shooting up in the back corner of the garden too...Chinatown wasn't in a very safe part of the neighborhood so we quickly took our pictures and got back on the bus.  Here is a picture of the arches of Chinatown in Vancouver. We then went to Gas town which was the major import export part of Vancouver in its initial growing phase. Gas town has a lot of little shops and we walked around for a bit and window shopped. Then we went to Granville Island, which is kind of like a tourist trap. It's a small part of the island with more restaurants, the Granville Island brewery, bakeries, art galleries, and fisherman docks. We walked around for quite a bit, visiting the Lobster Man shop, which is a big fresh seafood store with all kinds of different shellfish. Here is a picture from the shoreline at Granville Island, and a picture from Stanley Park of downtown Vancouver. Granville Island was very family oriented, and nice with a large indoor market with fresh fruit and vegetables. We did some beer tasting at the local brewery, and then took the bus back to the hotel. I took a quick nap and then awoke to a very hungry Amy, so we walked down Robson to a Ramen restaurant which was highly recommended. The restaurant Kintaro hand makes Ramen noodles and cooks them to order in a miso based soup with BBQ beef. Cheap, and very delicious. Much like a lot of the things we ate in Vancouver. The next morning, we grabbed a quick bagel at the nearby cafe' and walked down to Stanley Park, which is comprable to any big city park. It lies on the water with a seawall all around the western part of the island and is absolutely beautiful. It has a nice rose garden and many different trails for running, walking and biking. From the park, we also got to see a crew filming a TV chase scene. From there, we were advised to try 2 other food stands. 1. Fritz Fries whose artery clogging fries are covered with gravy (and mayo if requested). We did miss that however, as they were closed. 2. Japa dogs, a hot dog stand with a japanese twist as seen on the Food Network's show, Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. Basically, hot dogs with seaweed, onion, and miso mayo. It was very good! Probably one of the top hot dogs I have ever eaten.....minus the mayo. We walked back down Robson and checked out some shops, bought some souvenirs, and then started the drive back to the US. After a 1.5 hour wait at the US border,(where we found the guy below selling ice cream to all the people in line! Crafty Canadians...) and a 4 hour drive in the rain, we made it back home safetly. Another great trip in the books. Amy's friend is coming in this Thursday, and we will be checking out Tacoma and Bumbershoot, a huge outdoor music festival!! Until next time....






Here are pictures of the views from the ski lift.  If you look close enough to the sky ride picture, it looks like the people inside are trapped and are trying to get out.

We drove back to the hotel and stayed in a nice place called the Pacific Palisades right on Robson Street,

Weekend of 8/16

Alright, trying to get back on track after our travels and everything. After we got back from Chicago, we took the next weekend to relax and run errands. Because of the weather, we did some museums in Seattle, specifically EMP (Experience Music Project) and the science fiction museum, both located in the same building and both financed by Paul Allen. The science fiction museum was relatively entertaining...I am not a huge science fiction buff by any means, and did not recognize a lot of the Star Wars/Star Trek figures that were exhibited throughout the museum, but it was interesting to see. Highlight for me was seeing a real life size animatronic Donatello Ninja turtle. Sorry, no pictures on the inside as they do not allow photographs in the museum exhibits. Next we walked across the hall to EMP.  The huge metallic colored building whose architecture is incredibly different. They say the shape of the EMP museum is so, that if you view it from above, it looks like a broken guitar. We've seen the EMP museum from above, and it does not resemble a

broken guitar. Then again, I guess you could build anything ugly and bulbous and say that it looks like a broken something.  Anyway, as you walk in, you are greeted by an enormous collage of guitars that spiral up to the top floor. They even have some of the guitars hooked up to electronic pics run by computers, and the different guitars collectively play a song.

They also have the largest Jimmy Hendrix collection of guitars/memorabilia than anywhere in the world. It is a true music experience in that museum, as they go through all the different genres of music both in and out of the Seattle area. To the Seattle grunge era, to even modern day music, to the first models of electric guitars, they had some great exhibits. What I did find funny though, is that Paul Allen, one of the founders of Microsoft, was using Apple Macintosh computers and software for a lot of the interactive music exhibits! They also had a room where you can experience playing drums, guitar, keyboard, mixing, and singing. Here is me on the Mixing board.

You can call me DJ Lum.  It is very more accurately named an experience than a music museum. Afterwards we ventured into Seattle center to partake in BrazilFest, where again, vendors lined up the corridors with authentic brazilian cuisine and trinkets for sale. We watched some entertainers demonstrate Capoeira martial arts, and enjoyed the music on the stage. Then, we went to see Batman on the big IMAX screen, something I have been looking forward to for a while after all the rave reviews and huge ticket sales. It didn't disappoint at all, I really enjoyed the movie and experience at the IMAX.

Ithaca Pals, Jersey Boys, and the Boston Sox!

Brandon is letting me write this one which may explain to some of you why it’s late being posted. Or maybe only my mom noticed that we didn’t blog last week. Anyway, the weekend of the 2^nd was a short one for us. Growing accustomed to the 3 day weekend we were sad to return to work on Monday making up for time off later in the week. We were however able to enjoy Seafair before the weekend ended.

Seafair has been a month long celebration of Seattle’s maritime heritage culminating in a 3 day fest featuring hydroplane racing and an air show. Quite frankly I wasn’t that interested in

attending, but Brandon loves the air shows. Consistent with what seems to be the new trend, we woke early on Saturday. We made our way to Lake Washington to secure our choice seating along the wall. We watched the hydroplanes race which was much more exhilarating than I expected. Some of the boats get up to 190 mph and you can feel it as they zoom past throwing up a huge rooster tail of wake as they go. I also enjoyed the airshow featuring the famous Blue Angels. It’s amazing how close and synchronized they can stay through all the turns, dives and upside down maneuvers. It ended up being a good time and I was glad we went.

On Thursday the 7^th we took an early flight to Chicago to meet up with some of my Ithaca College friends for our annual reunion. When we first graduated we were getting together about twice a year for weddings, but as they tapered off we decided to set aside one weekend a year for all of us to get together. The original group numbered 10, but now with significant others and children we have nearly tripled in size. Each year someone offers to host the reunion in their hometown. This year’s hosts were the Yohnka’s in Kankakee, IL. Kankakee is about an hour’s drive south of Chicago, has a number of Frank Lloyd Wright homes and receives an honorable mention in Arlo Guthrie’s song City of New Orleans.

One of the Yohnka’s neighbors was gracious (or crazy) enough to give us use of their ginormous home while they were out of town. We spent the weekend catching up, playing in the parks, enjoying the farmer’s market and train depot museum and watching the kids (and Jon) play on the Splash Pad. We missed the DeSombres, Chris and Wyatt and Joe this year, but were thoroughly entertained by Darcy, Sam, Abby, Aaron, Rachel and Lance (ages 1 to 3).

On Saturday night we were also entertained by singer, song writer and guitarist, Lupe Caroll. I felt privileged to be attending the intimate living room performance. Lupe’s soft, sweet voice reminded me of Ben Harper’s, and I enjoyed his original songs as much as his own versions of some of my favorite John Mayer, Beatles and Van Morrison tunes. Great way to end the day!

Check him out on myspace.com!

Sunday morning after breakfast and the annual group picture, Brandon and I missed the canoe trip in order to get back to Chicago for a matinee performance of the musical Jersey Boys at the Bank of America Theatre. Jersey Boys tells the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons from their beginnings on a street corner in Newark, NJ to their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The story was fast paced and the music, of course, “rocked.” Brandon puts this one in his top three favorite musicals along with Phantom and Avenue Q. I would definitely recommend it.

After the show we walked around “our city.” We spent 4 months in Chicago last summer exploring and taking in most if not all of the tourist attractions. It was nice to stroll around reminiscing and seeing what’s new. The Art Institute is getting a new wing for modern art and a new walk way is being constructed in Millennium Park to the museum. We revisited “the Bean,” Buckingham Fountain and Lake Michigan. We then had a fabulous dinner at the Custom House owned by Chef Shawn McClain who also owns my favorite restaurant, Spring. We were not disappointed!

Monday morning we met up with Chrissie and Abby as Ben had a meeting for work in the city.

We walked Michigan Ave and spent some time at Navy Pier so Abby could ride the “horsies” of the carousel before Ben picked them up to go to the airport.

Brandon and I had an early dinner in Greektown. We’ve tried a few restaurants there and the Greek Islands is still my favorite. We then headed to the US Cellular Field to see the Red Sox play the White Sox. We were early enough to catch batting practice and bare witness to Papelbon’s pre game elimination. As he walked out of the bathroom in the back of the bull pen we heard him say “don’t go in there for another 10 minutes.” Thankfully that was not the highlight of the game. We also got to see Billy Dee Williams of Star Wars (Lando Calrissian) and Colt 45 fame throw out the first pitch, the US Navy Leapfrogs parachute into the stadium and the cast of Jersey Boys sing the National Anthem. The game was a little slow until the last few innings when Boston started to get some hits and won 5 to 1. Brandon now feels more secure that Boston’s previous losses while he was in the stadium were unrelated to his presence and we can safely attend more Red Sox games in the future.

Tuesday we walked around the city some more visiting the Merchandise Mart since it was one of the few sites we missed last summer. The Mart is large enough to have its own zip code and houses a number of showrooms, shops, eateries and offices. The busts of many famous Chicago retailers line the Chicago River outside the Mart on its Hall of Fame. We grabbed some deep dish at Gino’s East before heading to the airport. Gino’s has the best deep dish pizza that I’ve tried although as much as I love Chicago, I’ll take New York style pizza any day!