Chronicles of a Sleepy Rabite

It’s a little-known fact that I hate crowds, which is why I question my sanity when we decided to do what we did today.

We started the day a little late, leaving the hotel at 9:30-ish. We decided to go to Granville Island, and we figured we’d stop at a Ricky’s along the way. That Ricky’s, we discovered, was DOWNTOWN, and we paid an arm and a leg for parking. That Ricky’s actually sucked ass. Ugh.

Now, what we didn’t know is that the Vancouver branch of Sky’s workplace was right next to that Ricky’s. We took a picture. Sky was cheesed off. ^^;;;

While having a really bad breakfast (note to self: order room service in the morning), Alissa texted us saying she was planning on going to the art gallery for the anime/manga/game/comic exhibit. We decided to join her later.

So after getting massively LOST, we got to the Granville Island market. It was a lot different than what we expected, and there was no way I could be prepared for how incredibly CROWDED it was. It was actually stifling and I was going insane trying to deal with it. We did find a place that sold a lot of fantasy-related stuff, and I spent a fair amount of coin there, and we found the Granville branch of Rogers’ Chocolates, so… well… yeah.

We went back to the hotel after that, and about 5 minutes after we got there, Alissa called me saying she was ready to do the gallery thing. We got caught in rush-hour traffic, and then we got to deal with Scramble Crossing Robson Street (holy cats, so many people).

The exhibit was… interesting. Unfortunately, a lot of it was lost on me because I didn’t recognize most of the material. I could definitely appreciate the game portion, but there was so little of it! We got a shirt and a stuffed Wind Waker Link as a souvenir. ^^;

Then Alissa and Ben took us to a ramen place. It was awesome. If you don’t want to read about me squeeing about TWEWY, stop reading here.

See, they essentially had four things on the menu:

- Shoyu Ramen
- Shio Ramen
- Miso Ramen
- “Ramen with pork rib” (Tonkotsu Ramen?)

Y HELO THAR RAMEN-DON

Hunter says:
You ordered the shio ramen, didn’t you? >D

Cas says:
… damn straight I did. ^^;;;;;;;;;;;;

Yes, I giggled like a little girl until I got my food. And yes, I actually said, “Mmm… I’m in paradise.” I really did mean it, though, because that was AWESOME (but salty).

Not sure what we’re doing tomorrow. I was to poke at the exercise room, and we actually need to do laundry (which we’ll have to improvise because they only offer Tide in the laundry room, which I’m allergic to). But with Canada Day, places are bound to be PACKED.

We’ll play it by ear. ^^

P.S. If you’re on Facebook, feel free to add me (if you don’t know my real name by now, comment). I’m planning to post pictures there. ^^

We thought the drive from Kamloops to Vancouver would be easy, so much that Sky offered to drive the whole way himself. Little did I know that 200 kms of the trip would consist of driving up a part of a mountain, our poor Alberta-raised Echo’s engine straining under the tremendous effort of navigating a road that wasn’t flat, then careening down the other side of said mountain at a speed limit that I deem insane (but that people were breaking anyways).

Lather, rinse, repeat for a couple of hours.

Needless to say, I was feeling rather green by the end of the ordeal. The worst of it is that apparently went through all this when we went to Harrison Hot Springs, but I must’ve pushed it out of my mind, because my memory’s one great big blank between Kamloops and the avalanche shelters on the Coquihalla.

We took a short break in Chilliwack, where we found civilization in the form of a London Drugs and a Cobs Bread in a mall. We got sunscreen for Sky and a snack at Cobs Bread (huge mistake — I had a chocolate croissant, which I will regret 7 hours after eating it), and we got to Vancouver at about 1:30 pm. After getting lost a couple of times, we found Alissa’s place, which is AWESOME, and met baby Sophie. I’ve never had a kid tell me a story until now.

We then got to the hotel at 3:30, and we discovered a couple of things:

1. I screwed up the reservations. I had the bright idea at the time to have us leave the Thursday instead of the Friday so we could have a weekend before going back to work, but I later convinced myself that we were leaving the Friday. I was able to secure the room for a fifth night, but it cost an arm and a leg. (At least changing the Kamloops reservation didn’t cost anything.)

2. Despite check-in being for 3:00 pm, the room wasn’t ready when we got there, and it would be another 45 minutes before it’d be ready. I raised hell and got a room in 10 minutes. It’s okay, but the hotel in Kamloops was nicer (for 2/3rds of the price). The in-suite soap/shampoo suck, but a quick trip to Safeway to procure items that would not strip my hair dye and dry out my skin resolved that issue pretty quickly.

On top of that, Mr. Chocolate Croissant made me sick, and I spent an hour in the bathroom being reminded that yes, I’m quite lactose intolerant. I may have to make a trip to the drugstore for some Lactaid since it seems like I’m pretty sensitive lately.

So, plans for tomorrow include going to Granville Island and see what’s going on over there. There’s apparently a tea company there, so that’ll rock. I want to go to the beach, but given the long weekend, it’ll be PACKED until Wednesday…

Alissa and Ben got us passes for the Vancouver Aquarium, too, so we’re totally going there. Thanks, you two! <3

I think I’m going to collapse now. Now that we’re not driving 1250 km, I can relax for a few days…

So we got to Kamloops safe and sound about an hour ago, but we almost didn’t make it.

Last night, Sky got sick almost immediately after having supper, which consisted of some leftover hotdogs that really weren’t that old (three, four days?). He was better this morning, but once we got on the road (I started), he started getting sick.

We had breakfast near Edson (homemade scones, hardboiled eggs) and it was disastrous for him. I ended up driving further, and we ended up having to stop at an outhouse so he could get sick again. He was in excruciating pain until we got to Hinton, where I saw a sign for a Timmy’s and was looking around for it in the hopes of finding him a bathroom. Instead, I found a drug store, and after buying and administering some Immodium (which, according to Sky, tastes like “vanilla mint ass” — I’d love to find out where he tasted that), he was much better.

Had a near miss near Edson when I suddenly had to brake to avoid rear-ending the cars in front of me because a deer was crossing the road, and I turned off a little too soon from the first rest stop (on Sky’s recommendation) and nearly made the car in the right lane rear-end me. Bleh. I’m a new driver and it shows. Lots of construction in Jasper, too — I guess they’re widening the road? At least we didn’t get the torrential rains like we had gotten two years ago driving to Harrison Hot Springs, but damn, is it ever hot out there…

We’re figuring on checking out tomorrow at 9:00 ish after partaking of the Free Breakfast — let’s hope it’s not horrible. It’s a 3.5-hour drive to Vancouver from here, and hotel check-in is 3:00 pm, so we’re going to need to figure out how to kill time…

By this time tomorrow, I should be on the road to Vancouver. I didn’t blog much about my vacation because frankly, I haven’t had the time or the energy to do so…

Part of me wants to stay home. We live very sedentary lives, and I just want to sleep at home for the whole week. But somehow, I have a feeling we won’t relax unless we’re absolutely out of the house, so we’re forcing ourselves to leave. Right now, I’m stressed because we still need to pack, prep stuff for the animals (my parents are watching them), prep snacks for the trip, burn music, put a few emulator games on the laptop (must finish Earthbound), hem a new pair of jeans I bought, make sure I have everything for my sucky camera… so much to do!

We’re stopping in Kamloops tomorrow night (nine-hour drive) and then the next day, it’s a three-hour drive to Vancouver. I’m likely going to update my status on Facebook pretty often, but I’ll see if I can set up blogging from my phone as well. ^^;

I’m actually a little scared. I’m not touristy. What do we do? ^^;;;;;;

Current Mood: Scared