July 4, 2004
Hey, what do you know? It's the 4th of July while I write this =) Well yesterday I didn't write what happened because I was too tired at the end of the day. Yesterday I woke up late, at around 11:00AM so I didn't have time to do anything except the last minute pack and panic (check to make sure I have absolutely everything). I think I got everything except for my daily medicine box. I still have my 10 day backup which is good and I can use that as my daily box until I get back to Canada.
It was my first time at the newly renovated Terminal One at Pearson International Airport. It's a lot like the new airport in HK that I was at 2 years ago. Although, the number of shops is smaller (which is a good thing). Since my parents got most of us (dad is the exception) first class tickets for all our flights. Vancouver to HK is still 3 first class and 1 economy class, but if my first class standby ticket is demoted to economy I'll switch with my mom for tickets.
We watched Laws of Attraction on the plane, and it was an okay movie in that there was some progression of plot in their romance (Not your meet and marry romnace, but it took them a bit of time to like each other). It wasn't very convincing though. Oh also a first class extra was the Executive Lound. It's a really comfortable and neat place. Leather arm chairs, wines, coffee (bleh, Tim Hortons, Second Cup, Starbucks, and Timothy's taste better though), pop, a computer lab, Giant T.V. and a view of the planes taking off. Back to the flight, I had played with my Macross VF1A toy and then started to draw it in its Guardian mode from a perspective view. However, while I was trying to draw 1 side, I accidentally made a squiggle of a line that looked more like long wavy hair. So I erased the mech and tried drawing a girl. Needless to say, i failed, and erased the whole thing. However, I did try a self portrait and it's getting along. I did the hair, ears, face shap, and brows on the plane withouth a mirror. The flight went into descent after that and I put everything away.
Arriving at Vancouver airport, and we collected our stuff. When we left in the rented Buikc Century, we went to our Hotel first, Burnaby Hilton. We set our stuff down, and Dad asked us what we'd like to eat. I replied with "Chinese food" since I seem to favour it more than Western food now. We went to MetroCentre (Vancouver's version of Fairview). The Chinese restaurant there was being used for a wedding banquet that had its guests and attendees probably staying at Hilton like us. Since it was also Saturday, all the stores were closed. We decided to drive out and look for another good chinese restaurant. Pleas not that this year on the Chinese Calendar is "double spring", so every other really nice chinese restaurant also has a few wedding banquets as well. We had to go to 3 restaurants to realize this, which took a lot of driving and frustration. When we found a place, they didn't even serve me a requested cold water until 40 minutes later. That was ridiculous, especially when they weren't busy at all. We left the place, and then went to the standard #9 restaurant(open 24hrs) which is famous for its Wonton noodle. It was still pretty full at 9:00PM, but the table for 4 is what most restaurants cater too, so we got to eat quickly (enter and exit in less than an hour). There was extra food after the meal so we ice put it next to the ice box when we came back (no fridge in our hotel room). By the time we got back, it was around 11:00PM PST or 2:00AM EST. We were all tired from the day's travels, so we just took our showers and went to bed.
Today now, well in the morning I was awaken by my mom turning the lights on =_= Well besides that we packed and panicked again, and then left for 10:00AM brunch. The first restaurant we went to last night had no reservations so we could eat there today =) We walked around the mall, bought a powerbar for HK, and Bionicle the game for my little brother. I wanted to get a headset for my cell, but Dad warned that the extra '0' in the compatible models section means a different cellphone =T We went to the dollar store there afterwards and got a few things that our relatives might like. Also I wanted to look into the electronics at the dollar store, but we didn't have enough time. We checked out and headed to Whistler. The drive itself was dull, except when we had our stop over in Squamish (halfway between Vancouver and Whistler). When we were buying food in preparation for Whistler, Dad only saw the 7/11 and we thought the "Extra Foods" store was a regular grocery store or another convenience store. It turned out that Extra Foods is like No Frills. The bad part is that its size is hidden by the design of the building its in. All the other (and they're all non-food related) shops are in front of it, so the super market itself has no windows besides the doors -_- Then there was lots of stress about food and storage.
Back to driving and we get to our 5-star Pan-Pacific Hotel after driving through Whistler Village twice. We actually came early so we walked around the place. I guess in the summer Whistler is for mountain biking and winter is for skiing. My family isn't in such good physical condition to participate in either of the 2 sports. We walked around, and found the Cows ice cream store =) Haha, I guess they moved from Vancouver Robson St. to Whistler. Well when we went into that store, my first thought about the cows there was some one's claim to fame sentence "Obsession with MOOOO" =P Well I'm thinking about getting her something from there when I have the opportunity. We went back to our hotel to off-load our luggage and relax for the first day of 3 while we're here. I mainly played games (Armored Core: Project Phantasma) and that was pretty much it. Dinner was a mix of lefto overs and so will be tomorrow's lunch. After dinner I tried my drawing again and got the mouth, smile and eyes of myself. This time I had a mirror too. After drawing a bit I started this. Well, that's the past 2 days summed up for this trip.