My Flog for August 13 + Ria and Tamar do Vancouver

Well, I'm actually too pooped to do this flog justice, but I will try not to forget most of the trouble we got in. Or I got us in.

Ria was waiting on the corner for me as I hobbled to the bus stop, and we both watched as the bus whizzed by, but that was okay as we knew there was another on the way. This guy came over and asked, "Was that our bus?" and I answered, "Obviously not, or we would have been on it. Our bus is the next one." We only had to wait a few minutes, though, so everything was fine. A short ride to the Canada Line station, and then a few minutes wait for the train - and there we were, ready to start our Vancouver adventure.

Seem like nothing much was on the go at nine-thirty in the morning, but Granville Street was closed to traffic, albeit not very festive in any manner. We decided to walk to Canada Place, since this is ingrained now in every one of my cells, and I had to check out the Cruise Ships to report back to Howard. Then we walked around the new (well, it's not as new as it was last year) Convention Centre, and found people setting up for a festival of sorts that was due to start in the early afternoon, so we planned the rest of the day around that.

First we went looking for Chinatown, and the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Park. However, we sort of had to just walk in what I thought was the general direction, as my map and game plan page was sitting on my desk back home, and after turning a few corners too many and going up a few streets too many, we finally found the Golden Gates and the beautiful peaceful sanctuary in the middle of downtown Vancouver. Weeping willows, koi ponds, and we think Lychee trees, water lilies...nice.
http://www.venturevancouver.com/dr-sun-yat-sen-park-chinatown-vancouver

After visiting a Terra Cotta Soldier gift shop where the staff kept trying to sell us stuff at 50% off, we finished our tour of Chinatown by walking up and down the smelly sidewalks in front of fish, dried yucky things, and strange looking fungi stuff shops. Don't know how Chinese food can be so yummy when all the ingredients in a Chinese market are so bloody stinky. My apologies to my Chinese readers, but I have to tell it like I see (or smell) it.

Ria and Me - in front of a mirror at a very famous building in Chinatown - underneath our feet were public baths many years ago. How exciting is that?

By the time we headed back to Howe Street in search of food vendors, our tummies were rumbling and the need for delicious street food was great. Howe Street, according to Vancouver's Eat Street web page, had several food trucks, including East Indian and BBQ Brisket, so we figured we'd walk along until we found one or the other. So we walked. And walked. And walked. We were lucky enough to find a Tourist Info place, and when I inquired about food trucks, one of the guys there said they didn't often work on weekends. Nice to know. But there may be one on Robson, the next street up, so we continued our search.

Well, there was one on Robson, but it was a hot dog one, which I have on my NeverEatAgain list, after suffering severe stomach upset after the hot dog I bought from a vendor last summer. So we cut across to the next street and walked down to the Vancouver Art Gallery, where Hallelujah - we found the BBQ one we were searching for. However, there were two groups of about 20 people each waiting to be served, and it was getting so hot, and we were so hungry, we just decided to find a regular place to dine - Scoozi's, a nice little Mediterranean restaurant with a nice little patio table just for us - even though it was on a sloped part of the sidewalk and we ate on a downward slant, we had an excellent meal.
http://dinehere.ca/vancouver/scoozis

Next we headed back to the Festival, which was getting in full swing. It turned out to be the 9th annual Vancouver Sawan Mela festival, sponsored by SAFA - South Asian Family Association - which turned out be, I think Indian, but not East Indian, I'm not really sure. Maybe East Indian. What do I know. Would south of Asia be the same as east of India? We listened to a really great singer, Will Blunderfield, who is also a yoga teacher, and his co-teacher did a yoga style dance to his music. The background view couldn't have been more wonderful, those beautiful mountains and blue sky. It was great. Check out the link - he sang Hallelujah, and it was excellent.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOBa2Iwcg0c&feature=related

Then a group of guy dancers came on dressed in pink and fuschia and bright blue and bright green with tons of rhinestones and to tell the truth I wouldn't care if I never saw them again, even though they were supposed to be really really good and came in second at some contest in Texas. Mmmm. I guess I'm used to manly men, and found it hard to picture my sons or husband dressed in bright pink or pale pink wriggling their hips and kicking their legs in unison. I figured maybe this style of dress/dance must have come about when the belly dancers went on strike. Just not sure about it.

We walked around the rest of the festival grounds and visited the market where people were selling their wares, beautiful skirts and caftans and jewelry, all Indian themed, and then we decided to call it a day. We must have walked probably about a hundred miles in all, and some of our joints were starting to ache.

Now for some reason, I feel really really tired and am ready to hit the sack. At least tomorrow I'll be back to work and will be able to rest up a bit.

• Breakfast - Toast and Coffee
• Lunch - Egg/Spinach/Tomato Deep Dish thingie - it was really really delicious
• Dinner - 1 piece of Church's Chicken and a few fries
• Snacks - Coffee, Diet Pepsi, Iced Mocha from Tim Horton's

..and that's all she wrote.