Tender is the Night

On the way to Stanley Park, the downtown Vancouver skyline in the background

Me explaining the Malaysian way to those who bothered to listen

Waiting for the bus, it was a long wait

On the Thursday night before Thanksgiving, I finally got a chance to eat some (Canadianised) Malaysian food. I can’t exactly remember who’s suggestion it was (maybe mine) to go to a Malaysian restaurant. There were several reasons why we (our group) selected a Malaysian restaurant. The local Canadians wanted to ‘experience’ Malaysian cuisine and I of course, missed eating such food (even though I hate to admit it), but what I really wanted to know was how Canada has affected the tastes of Malaysian food and whether or not the waiters and waitresses could speak Malay. The restaurant in question was The Banana Leaf (as if Malaysia is known for bananas). After a long and boring bus and skytrain ride, we arrived. The decorations were sort of Malaysian- they had factory made waus on the ceiling and plastic banana plants in pots. The place was really crowded so it was a good thing we reserved a table. The food was really expensive though. Back home, satays were dirt cheap, but here, they cost almost 2 dollars a skewer. We spent almost one hour discussing the appropriate meal to share as none of us were bold enough to order an individual dish. Eventually, we decided to order a large platter that had all kinds of stuff on it. On the side, I ordered a plate of char kuay teow for myself. My friends asked me to rate the food’s authenticity. In my opinion, it wasn’t that bad (ignoring the price) but there were a few…oddities. They had pork satay which surprised me because Malaysia is an Islamic nation and I have never come across pork satays in KL. Hmm…maybe they have it elsewhere. Secondly, they had no desserts at all. No ice kacang, or cendol or all the other tooth-decay causing stuff that we Malaysians know and love. For an award winning restaurant (which they are), their lack of desserts was really surprising. Nonetheless, I enjoyed myself that night as it was a change from all the pseudo-Western food that I have been eating. One of the most amusing moments was listening to the way the (local) waiters pronounce words like nasi lemak (naassy lemack), satays (suh-tayz) and roti canai (rohtee chuhnai). Apparently the place was a hoot with locals because as soon as we left, there was another big group waiting to take our place.

The next night was potluck night with the International students. Everyone was supposed to cook, or at least bring at least one dish from their home country. As I am unable to cook anything except fried rice, I decided to go back to The Banana Leaf and order some suh-tayz. I did not realize that they had 2 outlets on the same street (courtesy of poor website information). After ordering the suh-tayz, I took the one hour journey to the same restaurant that I ate the other night, only to find out that I had placed the order with the other restaurant. It took another bus ride to find this other restaurant and by the time I got back to the University, I was 45 minutes late. Fortunately for me, the festivities had not yet started. The coordinator gave a short speech wishing everyone a merry thanksgiving and then explained (with help from our mutual friend Wikipedia) the origins of thanksgiving and potluck. Eventually we were allowed to eat. There were of course a lot of freeloaders but that’s always the case with potlucks. The selection of food was rather limited and with the queue being so long, I did not have the chance to try everything, even my own suh-tayz. Most people (me included) just bought their food. I counted about 4 bowls of potato salad. Well, at least that did not run out. Some of the more devoted attendees actually cooked their food. I got a chance to try some homemade pumpkin pie. It was good…if you liked pumpkin pie and I don’t. After stuffing myself with food I chatted with some people about their home country and whether or not they were already sick of SFU and its high expenses (the university that we’re in). Overall, it was a good night and I am glad that my suh-tayz were all eaten- otherwise I would have to bring them back.

On Thanksgiving Day itself, I went out with the International Club to Stanley Park. It was a huge park with lots of trails. I was the contact person this time, so I had to make sure I got there on time. Actually I arrived in time, but fortunately, there were other people who were later then I was. Walking in the park was a refreshing change from the hustle and bustle of the campus, but we didn’t see anything really interesting. It was somewhat like Lynn Valley except it wasn’t so…wild. In the middle of the park was a nice lake. We stopped there for a break and I busied myself watching ducks swimming. I have to admit I have never seen live ducks before in any park in Malaysia. The ducks here were apparently used to being fed because they kept staring at me and quacking. I had nothing to give them so eventually they lost interest in me and went somewhere else to beg, errr I mean look for food. We had dinner in The Old Spaghetti Factory which had really cheap spaghetti. Not exactly high class food, but it was worth the money. Although my thanksgiving was in many ways poorer than most people, at least I enjoyed it. Still, turkey would have been good too.

On the Road

Us three guys, Lyndon the Chinese fellow, and Xavier the blond Frenchman

In the museum, in front of a statue of some native, probably Nootka (if Age of Empires 3 got their facts right)

The reggae buskers performing, a bit blurry though

The Legislature building, kinda makes our own Parliament building look absolutely Soviet-ish

The company on the ferry, en route to Vancouver Island

For the past 2 weekends, I have sacrificed valuable study time (not that I would have used it anyway) to go on more trips with the International Club. This entry would be for the first trip- to Victoria, a historic city that is also the capital of British Columbia. I know not many Malaysians are aware of this, in fact very few are even aware of the capital of Canada. I still remember asking people what they think it was and I got answers ranging from Montreal to Toronto. Anyway, I made quite a last minute decision to go to Victoria, so last minute that I only called to confirm on the very day itself- at 7.45 am (we were supposed to meet at 8.30 am). It seemed fortunate that I called because the contact person for this trip had overslept and only woke up when I called her. As I had not informed anyone else that I was coming and with the contact person still in her bedroom, I decided to take a chance and head for the meeting point, hoping that the rest of the company would not have left yet. Despite arriving almost 45 minutes past the arranged time, I was relieved that they were still waiting. It turned out that the company consisted of only 4 people (myself included). We decided to wait at the SFU downtown campus for the contact person (Kelly) to arrive. Being a girl, we estimated that she would take quite some time to arrive. One of us, Xavier was really displeased with all this waiting, as he had arrived early- he was already at the meeting place at 8 am. By the time Kelly arrived, it was almost 11, so we wasted no time catching the bus to the ferry terminal.
The ferry ride was about 2 hours long. Fortunately for us, the weather report was wrong that day (they predicted stormy weather and it was quite sunny) and we spent quite some time on deck admiring the scenery and taking photographs. By the time we arrived at Victoria, it was already late evening. We spent some time taking photographs of some of the city’s famous attractions like the Legislature building and the Empress Hotel. While Vancouver was the more modern, bustling city, Victoria still had its colonial appeal. It really looked very British- indeed a fitting appearance for the capital of a province named British Columbia. We would have gone on a tour of the Legislature, but as ill luck would have it, it was closed on the very weekend that we were in Victoria. After we exhausted ourselves with pictures, we turned our attention to accommodation. We were supposed to stay at a hostel for the night and our coordinator, Lyndon had assured us that they would have room (that’s what they told him anyway over the phone, so he hadn’t bothered to make reservations). To our dismay, they did not have any rooms available for guys, only for girls. As Kelly was the only girl among us, she was able to secure a room at the hostel, while the three of us guys had to take a room in the nearby Strathcona Hotel. Although it was almost double the price of the hostel, it was fairly cheap (comparatively to other hotels) because the three of us shared a room and split the cost.
The next day, we began our tour of the city. Our first stop, or rather the first of the two stops that we only had time to make, was the Royal British Columbia Museum. Well, it was way better than our own Muzium Negara, but otherwise nothing that impressive. Just the usual natural history stuff and some Native American art displays. They did have a special exhibit of artifacts recovered from the Titanic (that cost us a little extra) but that wasn’t too impressive either. The only memorable part of this trip was when one of the museum people pretended he was a survivor of the Titanic and told us a really engaging story that kept us all mesmerized (now that’s how a museum should be run). After the museum, we explored Victoria’s Chinatown (yes it seems that Chinatowns are as abundant as Wall marts now). It was fairly small, not as fancy as Vancouver’s Chinatown. I did catch some reggae buskers performing, and they were good. After that, it was time to go back to the mainland. Although we were lucky to get a discount for ferry tickets for our journey to the island (for some unexplained reason), we didn’t get any for the return trip. This time, we stayed inside the ferry because it was cold and rainy outside. Although I spent quite a fair bit on this trip, I was glad that I went for it.