The Grouse Grind

Well first of all it is called "the grind" for a reason. I kind of knew what to expect but Jeremy and Karen weren't quite sure I don't think. Anyway, it was an hour and a half hike straight up Grouse Mountain. And when I say straight up that is exactly what it is!! It has been referred to as a stair master by some of my co-workers. It took us 1.5 hours of climbing to make it to the top! Pretty good timing I thought. They say average is 1.5-2 hours. Now the Grouse Grind is the number one activity to do when visiting Vancouver as stated in many guide books and reviews. It is a very popular activity attempted by all ages and most tourists. It's a grueling hike but extremely beautiful and enjoyable especially once you reach the top. Jeremy seemed to cruise up this mountain without much effort while Karen and I dragged behind him (he carried the back pack full of water bottles and clothes too). It was a gorgeous day and we had a great time.

 The starting point

 about half way up

 Karen taking a break

notice the switchback of stairs

Once we reached the top we watched a Lumber Jack show, ate lunch, saw a birds in motion show where birds such as a turkey vulture, hawk, owl, bald headed eagle and one more I can' remember flew over us so low that a few people were hit by their wings! Did you know that a turkey vulture can projectile vomit 10 meters and it smells 10x worse than skunk!! Gross I know! That is what the bird expert told us. We also briefly saw the bear that lives on the mountain. After this we took a chair lift even higher up and got a few more pictures. 

 Vancouver from the top

 the view at lunch (we had an awesome view from our table)

After taking the gondola back down the mountain we returned home to shower! We were sweaty and smelly. We had a great day though. It was so much fun. Karen and Jeremy really enjoyed themselves too. 

Asian Market here we come!

On Friday we started the day off with Karen and Jeremy's engagement shoot at Coal Harbour. They seemed to be excited after it so I think it went really well. We are all excited to see the photo's the photographer took.
Here are a few pictures of them that I took. Don't they look cute?!

 Coal Harbour

Olympic Cauldron

From here we drove to Stanley Park and took a small walk along the seawall to enjoy the fantastic view.

 View of West Vancouver and Lions Gate Bridge

View of North Vancouver and Brockton Point

In the evening we went to one of Edwards favorite places to sail called Jericho Beach. We had supper on the patio and enjoyed a great view again while we ate and had drinks. 

Great views of Downtown Vancouver

When we were done eating at Jericho we headed out to the Asian Richmond Market. Edward and I really like this market and I particularly like it because cases for anything i.e.) iPhone, iPad, any cell phone, or computer are super cheap and there is tonnes of selection. We try to make it out at least once or twice a year. Here Jeremy enjoyed his first Bubble Tea and a taste of a few other things he didn't like as much....but he tried them all! Karen wasn't as impressed with some of the food either but neither was I. Edward he could eat and eat and eat. There was no stopping him! Karen and I also had a little fun with some of the items for sale at the booths. Haha

 scallop balls??

 shrimp dumplings and pork siu mai

 This is what I mean about cases! This is just 1 of ~20 vendors!!

After this we called it a day and went home to sleep and prepare for the next days adventures. We were thinking about doing the Grouse Grind......

Karen and Jeremy come to Vancouver!

Karen and Jeremy came to Vancouver to visit us for a few days this past weekend. Well mostly they visited me because Edward had to work almost the entire time. We had a lot of fun! First we started with a walk along the seawall down to Granville Island and the Market. Once we got there we did some beer tasting. We sampled 6 different beer flavors from the Granville Island brewery. Our favorite was the Maple Cream Ale. Jeremy liked all of them. Karen and I are a little pickier with our beers I guess as we only liked 2 or 3 of them. After this we took a ride on the aquabus around the inner harbour for about half an hour.

We also sampled some salmon jerky, salmon candy and some pepperoni sticks from the market which were very good too.

That evening we drove Edward to work at the Hospital downtown and we went to a great little sushi place for supper called Kadoya. Jeremy got a lesson in how to use chopsticks and tried a Japanese beer. He did great with the chopsticks I might add. The sushi as usual was really good and even Jeremy liked it. Very fancy rolls.One of my favorite sushi places.

After eating we walked down Robson street to English Bay where we sat on the beach and enjoyed the view for a while before picking up some cupcakes to take home to eat. After all this eating and walking we were wiped! Home we went to relax and unwind. We still had 3 more days of sight seeing ahead of us!

Chilling at Barcelo

We got up early to make a reservation on a catamaran, but since breakfast, it was threatening rain and did not look good.

We had the breakfast buffet with Dan and Janet. Kenny and Denise showed up later also, and sat at separate tables. And I mean Kenny sat outside while Denise sat to a table behind us. At first, we didn't notice but then we did and boy was it funny. Kenny saw us and then he saw Denise sitting behind us half finished her plate. We had a good laugh. Thought they maybe wanted some "alone" time but I guess not.

We took our time after breakfast moseying down to the adult only pool where it started to pour. I guess we can't really complain because we've had such nice weather already, especially for the wedding. Actually, the forecast doesn't look really good for the rest of our time here with 95% chance of rain each day. We were hoping it'd be just brief showers, but if it was like today, then we're not going to get much more sun.  Phooey.

So we relaxed and napped in the cabana. Eventually, Dan and Janet showed up. We napped some more and then Kenny and Denise showed up. They just had their massage at the spa.

Kenny just got comfortable in a cabana when we all of a sudden decided that it was lunch time! Ed was looking forward to this lunch for a couple of days now for the meat grill. He didn't disappoint and had a rib eye and prime rib.

Unfortunately, the weather continued to be adverse, and we realized that we wouldn't be able to go out sailing. The winds were about 10-15 knots, with some waves close to the shore, so actually would have been pretty fast sailing, but the activity center had beached all their boats and taken down the sails.

Since we were at beach anyway, we went and splashed around in the water facing off against waves. It turned out to be a great afternoon, and nice that the sun wasn't blasting on our sun poisoned shoulders.

We ate at the Santa Fe grill which was fine. It was kind of lie the Japanese restaurant. Since we get great sushi and steaks in Canada, the dishes weren't quite up to par. The desserts on the other hand were great.

We ended off our day with a Michael Jackson show. An impersonator called Lev Jackson (pronounced "Yak-son") did a mean moon walk. Shannon said, "I thought it was awesome." "It was fantastic." "He looked and danced exactly like Michael Jackson did on the videos. He had some smooth moves. Those dancing chicks, they were like good dancers too. I wish I could dance like that."

Xel-Ha and Tulum

Today was an excursion day with Dan, Janet, Kenny and Denise. Doing an excursion didn't actually cross my mind until Dan emailed me a week earlier about it. In Cuba, Shannon and I did several excursions and didn't actually get to relax all that much so we would have been happy just hanging out at Barcelo. That would have been fine because the resort is actually quite huge. For example, I still haven't had the dinner buffet yet! No, I mean I'm sure there are still activities that I don't know about at this place.

But the Tulum and Xel-Ha tour had really good reviews so I was quite interested.

We got up just in time to scarf down some breakfast and get to the bus.

First stop was Tulum, an ancient Mayan city, and like most such cities, is currently in ruins. It was plus 100 degrees outside with the sun shining directly on Shannon's face. There was no escape. It was friggen hot with very sparse relief, where you'd have to fight with iguanas for a spot in the shade.

Our guide wasn't fluent enough in English to understand much, and the focus of the tour quickly became, why was he standing and talking out in directly sunlight and when would we be able explore on our own. Shannon was thinking when we could get to the water park. That's all Shannon could think of.

We managed to snap off a few photos before returning to the air conditioned bus to Xel- Ha. If we were to do it again, then Tulum, or probably any ruins now, could be skipped. Just to hot and really not that interesting. Especially since we've seen many already.

Xel-Ha is like a big fun water themed amusement park. We had lunch at the Mexican buffet followed by the rest of the day in the water. There was an inner tube mangrove forest that we started in, which was a lot of fun. From here we floated down to the main river. Along the way we went cliff jumping. Shannon was enjoying herself relaxing on the tube and living the life that she deserves. We snorkeled down to the bridge where we came across a lot of marine life like conch. At the bridge we were impressed by huge fish including a big ass barricuda! I think surprisingly, Xel-Ha had some of the biggest fish that we've seen snorkeling yet. There were sting rays, tuna looking like fish and really colorful tropical fish. Underwater photography yielded surprisingly bright photos. We were very impressed. It was a lot of fun. Shannon was a little bit scared of the bigger fish as she swam away very quickly. I guess she didn't want the barracuda to bite her in the face.

We returned to the Hotel and had Japanese themed dinner. The teppanyaki was good, but coming from Vancouver the sashimi wasn't quite the same.

We met up with Kenny and Denise at the lobby bar, talked about the wedding reservations and Wussy wiping his butt on the carpet leaving streak marks.

Wedding wind off

More of a chill day today. We got up for breakfast buffet before heading over to the water sports area and fortuitously took the last half hour booking for a catamaran from someone else at the wedding who I guess was bored after their first half hour.

It was pretty fun. The catamaran was an indestructible version with pontoons made of kayak grade plastic, boom-less and only one sail control: the main sheet. Unfortunately I forgot to put an SD card in the GoPro and condensed water was apparent in the lens of our waterproof camera, but it was great sailing around with Dan and Janet. We went out kayaking and swimming after.

It was surprisingly busy actually because all the catamarans were booked up for the whole day and we weren't able to sign up for any snorkeling equipment because they were all out.

Oh the life. Just worrying about ourselves on the beach and wondering whether or not we'd make it in on time to make the end of the buffet.

We did actually. Dan and I got two delicious steaks in from the grill amongst other things.

Barcelo Palace definitely has a great buffet and I haven't even been to the dinner buffet yet. Some highlights are the grill where they actually have good cuts of meat like T-bone and ribeye, plenty of fish and tender chicken escabeche. No lobster or crab however, although that might be for dinner.

We walked over to the "mall" at the resort which is part of the Barcelo Colonial section, so the stores were arranged like a little Colonial outpost around a square. Expensive! Like Kyle warned us, sunscreen was like $30 a bottle, although there was a mini mart at the mall which was slightly cheaper.

On the way, we were randomly accosted by a hotel staff person forcing us to make chef hats and take a tour of the hotel kitchens. Because it was kind of random, we weren't entirety sure what we had agreed to do, and Shannon had less of a tolerance for sketch than I did. But it turned out to be really interesting and we got a glimpse of some of the backend workings of the resort. If anyone asks, the kitchen washes 71500 dishes a day just for the Colonial part of the resort.

Amazingly, it was time to eat again, as we had reservations at the French themed restaurant La Brasserie. Another delicious restaurant with tasty lobster cappuccino, escargots, shrimp salad and surf n turf. The company was great too as we ate with Dan and Janet again, and Jason Scott, one of Kenny's groomsmen.

Pretty tired after dinner, we just relaxed at the pool before going to bed.

Relax time

I slept for a full five hours before getting up for lunch at 1pm. It was painful initially, but then the headache wore off with a steak from the buffet.

Kenny, Dan, Janet, Bryan, Connie and Celeste were all at lunch.

I was pretty exciting for the food here and it certainly didn't disappoint. The quality is definitely better than Cuba, and really I couldn't have asked for more. And this was only one of the several buffets to choose from! I really had to pace myself though and didn't over do it with my first buffet here.

The afternoon was spent snoozing at the adult pool cabana, which was great. Because nobody had a watch, we didn't really know exactly how much time we spent doing anything, but we had a swim, some pina coladas, enjoyed some topless sunbathers, and all of a sudden it was time to eat again!

With Dan and Janet's company, and in the back of my mind hoping that I wasn't missing something like lobster night at the buffet, we went to a nice a la carte seafood restaurant called Caribe and didn't over eat.

The evening was rounded off with a stage performance of singing and dancing before bed.

Airport to the Hotel and Beyond

Off the plane - not what I was expecting: a nice shiny airport with Johnny Rocket, Bubba Gump, Starbucks. I guess I was thinking more austere, something like Cuba, but this place is probably pretty full service.

We were initially disoriented wandering around the airport until we finally found the exit pretty much right where Westjet dropped us off. I think because we were thinking "all-inclusive" that we didn't have to plan anything. Well, comparatively, that's true, but we did scramble to find the right airport transfer. I made an error already when the driver asked me if I wanted to pay $80 USD, or 800 pesos. I checked the exchange rate later and it was at 1:12.

A couple of American guys, one auto worker and another VLT distributor from Detroit gave us some tips for a good vacation in Mexico: 1. suck on some limes before eating the food to avoid the runs and 2. make sure you use lots of sunscreen to prevent sun sickness. They were staying at Barcelo Beach, the "shanty" resort. Turns out we were at the Palace, the snobby upper class part of the resort.

Made it just in time to randomly run into Dan at the lobby, and have half an hour to clean up for the wedding. Then we got all sweaty again sitting out in the sun during the wedding. Luckily, we didn't have to wear full on suit and ties like the groomsmen! The wedding was great, the highlight being the vows, I think.

Kyle gave us a brief tour of the hotel. Like Cuba, I found again this hotel to look really huge at first, but then become manageable after a brief orientation. The place was beautiful, and we yearned to take a dip in the pool but dinner was right away so we just lounged by the pool. Of course, we see Dan and Janet swim by.

After the reception on the beach, we made a brief stop at Bryan's room for a drink. Ironically, he's the most responsible one of us having to look after Celeste. After we hung out by the pool reminiscing about high school and other such issues such as politics, the USA, poverty and what's going to happen next for all of us. It was a great time to catch up with everyone and really surprising how close we still related with each other despite time apart. It was great that all of us high school guys were there.

Dan and Janet made a valiant effort, but Kyle and I ended up out until 7 in the morning when he had to leave back to Wichita. I kind of felt badly not having had more time to catch up at our wedding, but grateful that Kyle and I overlapped at least a day in Mexico this time. I was impressed that I wasn't totally dead from the lack of sleep but I guess those are the aptitudes one acquires in medical residency.

Going to Mexico!!

The start of out trip out to Mexico for Kenny and Denise's wedding was a little hectic, followed by a long flight, long layover, and another long flight. Gave me time to play with my Android though, and Shannon to catch up with some reality TV.

We have a blog! I'm a blogger...

Hi everyone! Welcome to our blog! We will keep you updated and informed on our upcoming travels through this site. Write us your comments whenever you want. Can't wait to start posting!

Picture test

OK, so I'm in bed at The Red Deer Lodge, towards the end of my locum here, and testing out the *picture* feature. I just took a photo from my phone. How will it look uploaded?

Hello world?

This is the first blog post just to test out Google's blogger. This was posted from my awesome Samsung Galaxy S2 using Bloggeroid.