Vancouver: Week 1

This past week has been insane! It's as if classes have formed a minor inconvenience around our endless sightseeing and the like. So here goes the recap:

On Sunday a group of us headed to Stanley Park to cycle around and take in a bit more of downtown. Everything still seems so far away from campus, and it's taken a while to get my bearings, but slowly I'm sure it will all come together.

Stanley Park is the world's 2nd largest urban park and it's brilliant! Apparently there's an aquarium and all sorts of mini-parks inside, but today we just cycled along the boardwalk around it (it's on the peninsula) and into the water park area. The weather was perfect for it too!

On Sunday night we went to the Pit again with the international students. Looks like we've discovered our 'local'. And it's only 2 mins walk from my place. Yay!

Monday was a public holiday (Labor Day) and so a small group of us (Anna, Ella, Ali, Emily, Hanako, Chelsea and I) went to Granville Island to see the markets and have lunch (at Bridges). The markets were awesome - so much fresh food and so cheap - which is great considering they are fairly close to UBC. Also has some of the best street entertainment and buskers I've seen in a long time. We also continued downtown to Sears where I got a new satchel bag (from Roots - the quintessential Canadian brand).

Monday night I went with a completely different group (Natasha, Bailee, Jacki, Will, Sebastian and I) to Wreck Beach for a party. It was fairly cold (by my beachgoing standards) and more than a little interesting! We arrived after sunset, found a place near one of the big fires, and cracked open the alcohol. All was going well until we were approached by a drunk nudist (it's a clothing-optional beach) and threatened to be fed to the sea lions. He was fairly specific with his methods, so we took the opportunity to run off into a whole bunch of Canadians. Things couldn't have turned out better, as we met a group of first-years - one of whom knew the Cat Empire - awesome, eh?

Tuesday-Friday was mostly spent organising University ('school') life, and I had my first classes for all my subjects. They all look SO interesting, so I'm really happy. I even managed to meet friends in all of them, which makes a huge difference. Will from Sydney is in one of them, and Natasha (from Nottingham) is in another. The only crap subject is Modern Caribbean History, which I have changed to Anthropology of First Nations. That's not going very well either, so we'll see and I may change it again!

On Tues night I went out to dinner with two Singaporeans (Grace & Elizabeth) from my Asian International Relations class for Pho - Vietnamese noodle soup. Best cheap meal in a long time! Great company too!

Wednesday night was the first Pit night, and it was PACKED. Crazy crazy busy so we just gave up and headed to the Gallery with its couches and better music. Nice and chilled with excellent company.

On Friday night we headed to the Richmond Night Markets. We had thought this would be similar to those we'd all experienced in SE Asia, but alas this was not to be. Instead it was all overpriced food and tacky souvenirs. Ah well, you live and learn! It didn't help that it took 90mins to get there!

On Saturday we made the big trek to Metrotown (Canada's 2nd largest shopping mall) for the quintessential North American experience - drinking Starbucks in the mall. This place is massive, but hella fun. They even have a shop named Tristan. It's an upmarket ladies fashion shop!

Saturday night we headed to Hanako's Marine Drive Party. MD is another residence on campus, and it's amazing. Seriously like a hotel, it's light-years ahead of Gage and it's concrete ugliness. The Absinthe was finished, the music was good and the company was excellent. We ended up at Mahoney's - the Irish pub - for more beer and shenanigans.

Sunday was therefore spent recovering and Bailee, Jacki, Gretchen, Natasha and I stayed in to watch Shrek II on DVD, eating chocolate and crisps. Mmmm.... junk food!