Day

After a full day of Piss down rain, we weren’t expecting much from Tuesday. It so happens that the Vancouver weather doesn’t exactly follow the forecasts, so we ended up having a sunny bright day of wonders. There is nothing like a miserable day to make you appreciate the joys of a great sunny day, that’s for sure.

We headed to the waterfront with the skytrain to sneak some pictures of the harbor. Since Vancouver is going to be the olympic city fairly soon, also the harbor was showing its very best side. The old area next to the harbor is called ‘Gas Town’, because it was the first to get gas on the area, to be lightened up by series of lightpoles. There is also the famous gastown clock, which is breathing smoke… It’s a great old piece, but hardly keeping the time now a days. Gastown is where you can find Vancouver’s most efficient (and cheap) tat shops.

We did our fair share of shopping and staring at art pieces out of our price range. The aboriginal art of this area seems to us perhaps even more appealing than the Asian art, and that’s saying a lot. So if we weren’t in debt yet, we sure are now… Canadian stuff is really cool. That’s the truth.

After wandering around the shops we stopped for an indian for lunch and then doodled towards the Chinatown. It too, had loads of shops. And if I hadn’t yet been to China and around three other Chinatowns, I would have probably been tempted by their cheap gowns and jackets. (None of which were as classy as the one I got from San Francisco Chinatown though…) We also observed that Chinatown is just around that area which has the least appeal in Vancouver. Lots of homeless people with their shopping trolleys.

We found a full on Chinese Garden on its Autumn blossom, accompanied by a lesbian wedding. We sneaked some pictures and I visited the 10dollars-visitor section, while my J and KG waited outside. No point in wasting money on what we already saw on the other side of the fence. The museum was of course closed – it was Monday.

On our walk back to the city central, we run into a road of white trucks. This means something was being filmed right there. The TV/Film fan of me decided to find out if I can telephoto some pictures and find out what the series was. Luckily my husband has the best memory in the world so he recognised it as the TV-series ‘Fringe’… We didn’t really last long after the pilot on that, so I had no clue who the Blond lead was. Vancouver being the major film city though, this is very normal.

We treated ourselves to a Chinese meal at the end of a good day of picture hunting and shopping. Sun makes all the difference when you are judging whether you like a city or not… Vancouver is looking pretty good to me.

We were early in Civic Centre, wouldn’t want to miss our appointment with our Asia specialist at ten. So I suggested we’ll have some coffee, which lead us into stumbling to him by the corner of the museum. The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco is opening a new exhibit today: The art of Siam and Burma. It all came from a private collection of Doris Day who had spent her honeymoon in that area, collecting artifacts that would have now been eaten by the climate had they been there… Instead she brought them to US and had an indoors tennis court filled with these wonderful and mystic things.

We went through the whole museum though, with our better than excellent guide. It starts off with India, Cambodia, and such and moves through China, eventually reaching Japan. Beautiful things, some of which I hadn’t seen anywhere else. For example the jug made of human skull was particularly appealing to me.

We then managed to somehow keep the interest of David, who took us for dim sum in Chinatown. This is where he crew up in, on the times when the Chinese wouldn’t be allowed to leave the area. San Francisco Chinatown is on a great place in the middle of downtown, placed on the up and down hills as can be expected. They had wanted their doors not to open to the big streets so there is a lot of alleyways, which no one cleans apparently. It was much more clean than I had ever seen in China though…

We visited a couple of temples and popped into a fortune cookie factory, in which I optimistically bought a bag of fortune cookies. The idea for those was invented in San Francisco, I bet you didn’t know that… Finally, the last item that David showed us was the god of Democracy.

China town is also filled with great shopping opportunities. My husband bought himself some t-shirts while I put my eye on a Chinese jacket, which they had in my size – this is America! I then had to drag my husband along lovely tat flee markets where I would have happily spent hours browsing all the weird and cheap stuff. The historic California line took us to Embarcadero, from where we then walked throughout the harbor area and its 50 piers.

Alcatraz cruises start from Pier 32, which is where we booked tickets for tomorrow. You can’t get them for the same day, not that I would have had any energy to go today anyways. Asian Art, Chinatown and shopping completely weared us both out and we decided to take sushi back to the flat for dinner. Sometimes it’s good to have a night in…

Day 42/63

Aloha once more. This was our last day in the warmth. Now it’s North America and then home. We slept in late because we were in no hurry to see anything particular. Trip to the post office and some laundry was the range of the main missions for today. I posted off two packets of jerkey, one Kangaroo, one Crocodile. Also in the same pack is a tea plant seeds, which makes it highly unlikely to ever get through Finnish customs. But who knows, I live wildly and took the chance. The other packages contained a various of souvenirs and gifts for family as well as some of my summer clothes which sadly I feel I won’t really be needing in the October San Francisco.

We had Subway for lunch. I know what you are thinking: I am abroad, why should I have something like McDonald’s for lunch? However, having Subway in America constitutes as a local, cultural experience. It’s pretty much like back home, except you have more bread choices, you can choose a different cheese option and you have something called the ‘FEAST’ which has about EVEYTHING in it…

We then took a taxi to the Chinatown of Honolulu, which turned out to be a wide spread arrangement of shops and restaurants – pretty much what we can expect normally. Japanese playing cards and chess in the shades, a temple hanging around. We stumbled on a beauty barlor in which they gave Jonathan a hair cut. I had a pedicure while waiting. You know: Because I could! How many times are you in Hawaii anyways. I thought 14 euros for it was hardly a tough deal. And my toe nails have possibly never looked better.

We then tried our best to see the Maritime museum, but unfortunately it was closed for repair. At least we got to see the harbor with its luxury cruisers and the elderly passengers wondering around in dehydration, perhaps not seeing very much of Honolulu… Made me feel very good about taking this trip at the age of 28 and not 68. I must be one of the lucky ones.

For the last part of our day, we spent on the beach, me chasing the waves in the Waikiki shores and my husband reading a book, trying to escape from mad tourists stumbling on top of him while trying to take pictures of each other in the sunset. At least I can say that I’ve swam in the Pacific Ocean. I can see that the waves can be quite treacherous if you get in far… Fortunately, I am not a stupid Finn, I was out of the water before the sunset and ready to take some quality Granny Weapers (“Make your granny cry” is how my photography teacher describes a picture of the sunset).

Aloha Hawaii, welcome San Francisco. Now, if you’re going to San Francisco, I shall be sure to wear some flowers in my head.

This entry was written under the influence of one Maitai and one Long Island Ice Tea. No complaints considered.

Day 28/63

It was the day I bought socks. For the first time since leaving Finland about a month ago, I really felt like needing socks. The wonderfully sunny and warm Sydney turned into a cold and rainy place over night. Our mission was to see some of the downtown and head for the Chinatown. Our doodle took us first to the post office where we sea mailed 5 packages to Finland. Three months it takes apparently. I shall have many birthday presents in January then.

Sydney is built like London, the streets are similarly named, St.Mary’s cathedral looks like a copy of Westminister Abbey and the park along is called the Hyde park. There is a large fountain in the middle of it, a gift from the French for all the aid in WWII. So, like Hyde park, but green and fountainy. We walked past the park to the museum of Sydney.

The bottom layer of the museum is focusing on the aboriginals and the way the imperialists tortured them over the years. It’s a very guilt driven show with stories of the Dreaming and how they were forced into saying that it means the same as the Christian religion. The aboriginal children were also taken from their families to stop them from knowing anything about their religion and origins. The white people just assumed there was nothing spiritual going on *just because they couldn’t see any althars*… There is a mother with his son in the museum, trying to explain to him why the black men are in chains around their necks in the picture… He says to her: “Because they were bad!”, and she says: “No, no. They hadn’t done anything. We did that to them without a reason”. She me very proud to be white in the white world at that moment.

After the aboriginal Dreaming, we go back in time to the attic, where they have not only constructed massive skeletons of Dinosaurs, but also some fluffy predators of the Megafauna, great big extinct animals of Australia. The megafauna were the biggest and slowest animals in the environment. These kinds of animals were very vulnerable to hunting, but not to climate change… However, the extinction of megafauna was most extreme in places where humans arrived as already skilled hunters. Breathtaking monsters really… I am much more impressed with them than the dinosaurs. The latter ones you always wonder – did they actually make that skeleton out of the found bones or did they just put together some pieces of plastic.

We head for lunch in China town, or what we thought was the Chinatown. This is one of the best 20dollar lunches we’ve had. Later on we find the gates to the real Chinatown and stumble onto Paddy’s market, just down the Chinatown street. This market is pretty much like the tat shows in China, but without the constant hassle of ‘Looky-look’ and such yelling at us. This is why we are happy to spend perhaps two hours browsing the market. I bought myself some work clothes, an aboriginal top and painting, road signs as well as a dress to the opera. My husband bought four shirts. I call this good days work of shopping.

We popped into Kinokuniya, the big bookshop, only to discover that our friend who we were meeting for dinner, was there. It’s a small world even on the other side of the planet.