The Boys

Lunch

The artist off to work (outside the Vancouver Art Gallery)

Oi!

Mmmmm Hot chocolate

More of the Boys by Joe

Not many of our pics I’ve made that you can open up in a larger pic, but these are so cool, click on the pic and the higher res bigger image will open up.

The Boys by Joe

All images by Joe Sales, our Canadian buddie who spent the last 6 months in Dunedin NZ. We spent the morning down at Spanish Banks and Vanier Park in Vancouver. The temp was about 5°C and as you can see there was plenty of frost about and the sky was a stunning blue.

© All pics the property of Joe, but go and visit his flickr pics @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/joesales/

Whistler

Hey all.

Making the most of an offer of a car for the weekend from some friends, we headed off up to Whistler for the day.

Not the most stylish of people on the hill today, still cool.

Granville Island

You guys may have noticed that Granville Island gets a lot of mention on this travelblog.

There are several very simple reasons for that…

Canadian trees are whimps.

So the weather forecasters on the TV were all in a tizz over the storm that was heading our way for today Monday.

UpDate: The papers and tv weather people can’t stop talking about the storm that hit us Monday??? What storm, there were winds in town here around 70-90km, sure inland and up the coast they had sort of decent winds of 120km but still. Trees were down and 2 days later 30,000 people are still without power just south of here?

Backing the buss up a little, the weather is presented here in a very different way as to what we are used to in NZ. Indeed the average Kiwi at least has some idea what a weather map. It contains fronts, isobars, Highs and Lows and arrows denoting wind direction. We are also relatively well educated on what this all means. Take for instance Tuesday’s map for midnight NZ.

This map is relatively simple to decode. There is a font crossing over the North Island, with a trough hitting the bottom of the South Island. The isobars are more or less vertical, so there will be cold air drawn up from the south, Invercargill is not the place to be tonight, nor for that fact the Catlins or even WGTN. The weather should be quite unsettled too.

Now take a look at this baby. Same isobar map, same day, location entire Canada.

I don’t know about you (and I have a degree in this stuff), where the heck is Canada, and what is going on?

Becks appeal – Warning Nudity!!!

I was among one of the 48,000 people that made their way to BC Place Stadium last night to see Beckham play against the Vancouver Whitecaps.

(thanks http://www.flickr.com/photos/rightantler/1913586125/)

On the whole the game was as expected a little disappointing, except that the Vancouver Whitecaps dominated nearly every aspect of the game and blew two golden opportunities to win the game outright (that I didn’t see coming). Becks managed to attract at least 43,000 with the other 5,000 the normal Whitecaps crowd. The Whitecaps have a proud and strong history of football in North America, with the greatest ever player to play for the Whitecaps was the one and only Everton and England legend Alan Ball (who passed away this year). Ball was one of the main players in the 1966 England squad that won the only World Cup for old blighty.

Diary of a preschooler

Hi everyone, Jamie here. These are my preschool photos. Mum said I should tell you a bit about preschool. So here goes. My school is called Lluvia, which sounds like ‘u-vee-a’ when you say it out loud. It means ‘rain’ in Spanish. I asked mum why they would call my preschool ‘rain’, and she said I should ask Dora the Explorer.

My teachers’ names are Krista and Ward. I like them both a lot and they don’t seem to mind when I tell them really really long stories and then can’t remember how the story ends. They say I have a cute accent. I say they sound like crazy Canadians. My best friend at preschool is Eric who is standing next to me in the photo. He is really tall. He is going to ask his mum if I can have a ninja turtle dressup like Eric’s. He is really cool. I also like to play with Dogan (but I call her Durgan) who comes from Iceland. She doesn’t speak any English yet, but she can run really fast. She is sitting in the front and has blond hair like Charlie’s. 

On Mondays we do crafts. We made faces out of clay. I didn’t like that so much.

On Tuesday we can do dressups. Krista says I make a beautiful princess.

On Wednesdays we sometimes go on a woods walk. We stop and listen to the birds and look at the trees. Then we roll right down a big hill. It gets us really wet. It’s called the rolie polie hill.

On Thursday we have music. The teacher is called Chris. I always have lots of things to say to her when she asks questions to the class, but she doesn’t always understand what I am saying. I have no idea why. I can understand her just fine.

Everyday we spend time outside playing, even when it is really wet. Mum and Dad got me new boots and a jacket, but I just like to get wet. We are building canals and rivers in the sand out in the playground. We dig holes to make sure the water goes everywhere we want. You should see it. We use the hose to fill it up and watch where the water goes. It is really cool. My favourite thing about playschool is playing big boys’ games like fighting and shooting. I like running and sploshing and stomping in the puddles. I like to tell jokes and make everyone laugh. I just wish we could go fishing too. Lots of love, Jamie (and thanks to mum for writing all this down for me and helping me with the tricky parts.) 

Jamie to the rescue!!

We had two power cuts in the apartment block today. The first, this afternoon, was just a bit of fun. The second, this evening, about five minutes before Jamie was supposed to go to bed, was rather more dramatic. Turns out that the emergency lighting in the halls is non-existent; we had one of the only lights outside our door which lasted for about the first hour of the blackout. Thankfully, our eternal search for the perfect nightlight for the kids’ room meant that we have several battery-powered lights and a little ghost lamp to take the edge off the darkness. We also met a few neighbours who appeared from nowhere (well, dark apartments actually) in search of matches etc. Most dramatic of all was the poor man stuck in the lift – Paul rang the fire department and they arrived in fairly good time to free him. A neighbour stood outside the lift translating proceedings into Japanese to reassure him.

The best part of the whole drama was Jamie’s reaction. Boy scouts watch out! As he and Paul set off to assess the situation, I could hear Jamie saying ‘okay, I am the person who rescues everyone. If you see anyone who needs help Dad, you tell me and I will rescue them okay? Right, what do we need. Torch? Check. Tools? Check…‘The firemen (who had both been to NZ!) were very obliging and paused in their busy evening to let us take this photo. The power is back on and the crisis averted (just in time to watch Boston Legal!) But we have left a bag at the door with coats, snacks and passports. The thought of all those candles burning throughout the building has left us a little nervous… (and I wonder where Jamie gets it from?!)

Photo Art?

Finally getting the chance to play around with some of the cool apps that are on my laptop, and am having a ball of a time with Adobe Lightbox.