Hoist the tops'l! Man the yard-arm! Hard a l'arboard! Swab the poop-deck! Etc, etc...

Ahoy there, land lubbers!
This week Mikala, Ninna and I got to sample a slice of Hornblower-style nautical action as we took the ferry from Tsawaassen to Vancouver Island. At Canada's southern-most tip there's only a small stretch of water to separate us from the dreaded Yanks in Washington. If I catch any it'll be the plank for the lot of 'em...

Anyway, we are now enjoying the local delights of a town called Sooke. It's proper wilderness out here - our flat doesn't even have Internet access!

We've explored the picturesque town of Victoria, home of "Mile Zero": the first stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway which spans the entire country. Victoria also has some very good Chinese restaurants, Mikala highly recommends the Char Sui Bau.

The day before that we explored Whiffen Spit (not Whiff 'n' Spit as I originally thought) which is... well... a spit. But a very nice one all the same. It's also home to the Sooke Harbour House, one of David "Agent Fox Mulder from the X-Files" Duchovny's favourite restaurants. Naturally we had to go there and sample the fine food for ourselves and so, as a belated birthday gift, Ninna took us all there for dinner. All the food is prepared from local produce and it's out of this world. The local wine was very drinkable too. I ended the meal with a selection of baby cheeses. Which I thought was appropriate given the festive season.

Alas, I must dash. The librarian is standing over my shoulder tapping her watch...

Until next week, ya scurvy dogs!

x
Dan.

Trees are good

So, firstly apologies for not writing sooner. We've been in Sooke (near Victoria) on the southwestern most point of Vancouver Island since the 20th and we can't get any Net connection. So photos and more updates will have to wait until our return, pre-New Ears. But we've found a library that has some pooters and so I'm hacking away in the silence.

So - to the matter of falling down. Trees, that is.

In fact, it appears we have brought with our immigration to Canada some incredibly insane weather - a week ago or so we wrote about the power outage in the city, and the weird, brewing storms. Well, a few days after that, Vancouver was hit with another howling typhoon-like windstorm, the likes of which the media reported had not been seen for over 50 years. 250,000 houses without power, trees of every shape and size cracked at their bases, pulled up from their roots. We're talking Forest Ents the size of buildings toppled over in the streets - miraculously, though, nobody was seriously injured. But the city has been in chaos, and traffic lights are out, and never mind Stanley Park....

Stanley Park is the largest urban 'park' in North America, which sits on the sea wall, just at the foot of downtown Vancouver - it's a massive, sprawling forest filled with hundred-year old redwoods like giants. And as a result of the storms, it's been massacred. And clean up is estimated to take about a year. The park's ranger had to go up in a helicopter to see the full impact of the storms. It's so, so sad for the city. And breaks your heart to see these gorgeous trees (and in Vancouver there are dozens of species) just lying there, broken.

So good thing we were headed to Sooke, right?

Wrong. Well, wrong-ish.

Sooke and surrounding area (and impossibly beautiful little logging area that sits on the funnily named Juan de Fuca Strait - near QUIMper Park and FANNY Bay...) was among the worst hit, and some people were out of power for nearly a week...

Driving along the logging roads, you can see powerlines hanging over the road, and poor BC Hydro workers tirelessly trying to sort the mess. Just taking massive chain saws to anything lying over the road and hacking it up. *sniff*

Still, we've managed to escape most of it except a second wind storm hit the night we arrived! Bad luck us? Maybe we ARE the windstorm? But today the sun shines, and we've been out and aboot - Dan's post will follow.

But as we're out of the Net (we'll check back here after Xmas and we're back in Van on the evening of the 28th), we'll have to upload photos at a later date. Still, it is quite lovely here. And we've bought a little Xmas tree of Albertan Spruce - we've named him Bruce, natch - and decorated him. So it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

...have a happy one everyone and stay well.

xM

Everything but the Ewoks

A couple of day's ago Mikala and I went for a walk in the nearby park. Now to us London gentry a "park" is a small, flat area of grass with enough room for two football pitches and, if you're lucky, space left over to chuck about your Aerobie. It certainly doesn't look like this:

You see, in Canada, when they say "park" what they actually mean is "a dirty great forest". Apparently we have all the comforts of Sherwood, a mere 500m from our humble abode. As you can see by the picture, Mikala was very excited - she promptly ran off into the trees whooping for joy every time she spotted a different type of mushroom...


I can only assume that my wife was some kind of squirrel in a former life as she seemed unusually at home with her new-found woodland friends.

The forest was massive, filled with all kinds of flora and fauna. Narrow little tracks wend their way between towering trees that blot out the sun with their verdant canopies. For some reason we kept expecting to run into Legolas. Or Arwen if we were lucky. Alas we didn't encounter any elves on our travels (or even any hobbitses for that matter) but we did come across a few joggers and dog-walkers, all of whom stopped to say hello... and if you were in a London park you'd have more chance of spotting an elf than a friendly jogger.

After two hours of awesomely fresh air and invigorating exploration through the forest, Mikala and I returned home for some soda piquant au gingembre. The only thing that would have made our trip any better would have been being able to do it in one of these:

Still, you can't complain.
Anyway, must dash... Chief Chirpa* is coming over for dinner.
x
Dan.

*King of the Ewoks, for those of you yet to make his acquaintance.

It was a dark and stormy night....

...when Dan did returne from ye not very exciting meet-and-greet with a small video games company and lo, did he walk up 4th Ave with his laptop to meet the Minkye...who dost shoppeth for Christmas stuffers of stockings, and who weaved in and out of ye olde yoga/chai latte/doggy daycare/mountain equipment shoppes...

And for sooth, for the two lovers did meet on the lit side of the street, for the other side of yonder street was completely blacked out because the electrical fire had stopped burning across most of the land.


So the lovers looked on at the towne in half-darkness...and wondered. The winds whipped and howled like Fenrir, Loki's wolf. The black of rain and cloude of storm did gather over the city. But the lovers pressed on and returnede to their homestead to find it too was pitched in infernal blackness - so they found a tea light, then found a flasheylight, then found some candles buried in the pit of the house and then made some candlestick holders out of beer bottles, then booted up the laptop and Dan played Baldur's Gate 2 and Minky played Animal Crossing (and made a snowman!) and they lived happily ever after. The end.

xM

Ty one on

Right, so we ventured out into the Van night. We've got this great little book that highlights all the 'cool' places in the city, in a 'how to be an instant local' sorta way. Our plan is to visit every eatery and bar in there. :-D

Went to SuBeez for dinner on a recommendation from my only friend here, Chris. It's a cavernous space covered with art, a cool bar, huge gothic dripping candles and nice banquette seats and tables. Plus, it's got what will be a great outdoor patio in the summer. My food was alright (wild salmon with soy and maple syrup sauce on shiitake rice) and Dan snaffled a steak which he enjoyed. I started with a martini and a half bottle of wine. Hmmm, perhaps not a great 'stomach liner' before a night of cocktails.

Then we wandered around the corner to a place called Lucy Mae Brown (named for a Madame who opened a brothel there in the early 1900s). We'd tried to book there for dinner but they were booked, so ventured down into the awesome bar.

It had the vibe of LAB in London and Ciao Edie in Toronto. But without any pretentious nonsense and sexy and ULTRA friendly bar staff. In fact, we made our home at the bar - and proceeded to get to know the bartender, Ty. Turns out he lives only five blocks from us. Must make it a regular place, he was cool. And we're so desperate for friends, ha ha!

We started with one of their menu'd cocktails but very quickly drank off-piste. When sat next to the bartender, one must always defer to their expertise, natch. I managed to put away a further 5 concoctions, my instructions to him something like "I want something tart/crazy and fruity/appley" etc. Then Ty handed us a free shot, oh, and then the cute waitress handed us another shot... oh, it was all good. We'll take y'all there when you come visit.

We also met a little camp Glaswegian hairdresser, Stephen, who's lived in Van for 13 years and extolled the virtues of the place to it. People's enthusiasm for the city is actually really infectious. He invited us to his salon for a hair cut....*scratches barnet* hmmm, might have to take him up on that.

But by 11pm we were quite piste....and it was home time. A fab night, followed by a scratchy hangover today. Huzzah, we have arrived!

xM

Free porn with every crate of beer purchased!

Hot damn, this town just keeps on getting better...

After our weekly shop at the ridiculously well-stocked local supermarket, Mikala and I went to the offy to get some booze. One of the bad things about Canada is that you can't buy your liquor at any old store - it needs to be a government approved specialty shop. Rubbish...

Anyway, it turns out that this is not so bad. The nearest purveyor of ale and fine wine has a great selection and, wait for it... a fridge the size of large garden shed, full of fine lager.

And if you buy a 12 pack they give you free porn. Well, a calendar of ropy local girls in swimwear. Which is close enough in my book.

My wings are like a shield of steel!

Yes, finally I have sorted out the most important thing in my new life. I've found not one, but two totally awesome comic shops. The first is in town near this totally sweet diner... actually, now that I mention it, the diner is more interesting that the comic shop. It's called The Templeton and it just like something out of Back to The Future. Only from the 70s. OK, so maybe not like Back to The Future. Let's just say it's pretty retro, OK.

The kitchen at The Templeton does breakfasts as big as a house. Still no proper bacon though, but I'll let them off due to there particularly tasty cheese burgers. Also you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the bog - this would be illegal in England.

So, what was I on about? Oh yes: comic shops.

The one in town has a good selection of action figures but is distinctly lacking in Transformers. The one closer to our new home cranks the nerd factor up to eleven by having a special Dungeons & Dragons er... dungeon in the basement. It also has a genuine Comic Book Guy running it. Best... comic shop... ever. I had an interesting conversation with him about his rare copy of Tintin in The Congo. You can't get this in England because it was banned due to Tintin being racist. In between hitting black people, Tintin also gets a rhinoceros out of the way of his train by drilling a hole in it, inserting a stick of dynamite and blowing it to little gooey rhino chunks. Disturbing stuff.

So, illegal toilets and banned Belgian comic books. Sweet.
Gotta dash. Wizard needs food. Badly.

x

Dan

Where we is

A few pics of our new digs - though the snow's all melted now, hooray! We pretty much have the whole three rooms upstairs, a massive kitchen, dining room and living room downstairs. Plus a bonus shot of Dan at 'our crossroads' by our street. Oh and a view from Granville Island market. Awwww.

"I'm all lost in the supermarket"

Bonus points to anyone who gets that lyrical reference.

Hmmm, there's somewhat of a food theme going on on this blog so far.

Well, no surprise there then.

Dan neglected to mention our first visit to our 'local' supermarket, Stongs. Firstly, it sucks having no money when THERE'S SO MUCH CHOICE. We wandered down the aisles like absolute retards - as if we'd never seen food that wasn't grown inside styrofoam and plastic.

It took absolutely everything in our power not to load up the cart with all manner of carcinogenic, tenuous-brand-line-extension products and hey, there's low-fat Ben and Jerry's! And 42 types of mandarins! And 18 store aisles of soya sauce! And Ahi tuna where normal shit tuna would have been! And meat that was moo-ing a minute ago! And don't even get me started on the $23 Mennonite Chicken we bought for Sunday Roast. This Big Bird fed five AND gave up enough slurp for soup. Worth every rich cent.

Thing is, Dan's not got the hang of looking at prices yet. Which is a bit of a dangerous issue when you're skint and without jobs and sorta feel like you're on holiday and the paycheques should begin rolling in soon...but aren't. So what does he do? He (reasonably) picks up store-brand orange juice but doesn't realise it's a litre or 2 of fresh-squeezed... How much? $10.

For everything else there's Mastercard. :-)

Then we nearly wept when we got to the five shelves of maple and other syrups. And the entire AISLE of BBQ sauce. Oh, we of simple pleasures.

We're doing good, though, at working with a fairly empty larder. Judy (our land lady) has nicely left all cooking utensils and spices for us, so we've got our own well-stocked kitchen even before our own kitchen crap arrives. Niiice. Wasn't sure how much we'd have to share the kitchen but Judy doesn't cook AND has her own in her suite downstairs so this massive cooking space is pretty much ALL OURS. Muahahahahahahaha.

Now, where's that job to pay for all this? Ummm, not now, the mountains are calling. Well, they're nice to look at anyway. And Dan's got me hooked on some ridiculous brain-numbing crack-like Tetris-type game called Lumines now... but without cable and only really old VHS movies available to us at the moment, cooking and erm, vegetating are the plans du jour.

(Not strictly true - we spent all morning working and hocking ourselves around. I'm actually getting up before 10am, which is weird.)

Did you know that Kettle Chips does the most amazing flavour here? BEER AND CHEDDAR. Oh, lord, it's good...

xM

Makes Borough Market look like a shitty Tesco Metro

Good morning, all!
Yesterday Mikala took me to the Granville Island Market, which is Vancouver's foody hang out. My God - it was amazing! Every kind of food procduct available: mangoes, shitake mushrooms, chorizo, galangal, membrillo, wasabi (the vegetable, not the powder), even tomatillos, whatever the hell they're supposed to be... One shop had an entire shelf devoted solely to hot sauce. Mmmmmmm, hot sauce. Naturally I purchased a bottle of their most radioactive stuff. Well, OK their second most radioactive - the hottest sauce was contained in not one, but two jars and had a special pipette so you couldn't O.D.

Mikala's favourite find of the day was "Goatgonzola" - a blue goat's cheese. According to the slightly glassy-eyed lady who ran the goat cheese stall not many people get the subtle joke in the title. To my mild annoyance the only thing that I have as yet been unable to unearth is proper English back bacon: the breakfast meat here is invariably streaky or smoked to buggery. Oh well, Mikala tells me I will grow to love it...

Vancouver 1 : London 0

Welcome, eh!

Howdy, one and all.
This is just a test to see how this blogging malarkey works.
It's not very interesting.
You'll have to wait for the good stuff.
Oh, and if you are wondering about the "Eh" apparently the folks in Canadia say it at the end of every sentence. Eh.