A Walk to Remember

Group photo near the suspension bridge (obviously)

A very good poster that I saw in Chinatown

The gorge behind me

Forest behind me

Big white rocks behind me

That's a chipmunk not a squirrel

Now that I have been in Vancouver for almost 3 weeks, I have come to know more people and visit more places. A week ago, I joined the International Club for a trip to Lynn Valley, a scenic park in the North Shore of the city. It’s most famous attraction was a suspension bridge spanning a massive gorge. That was the second time I went to Lynn Valley, the first time was with my residence mates but that trip wasn’t that fun because I didn’t really know anyone back then so it was quite boring for me. I didn’t actually sign up for the club on Club Day so it was by chance that I got their email telling people about the trip. I was supposed to meet them by the waterfront at half past twelve, but I underestimated the time needed to travel. Efficient as it is, Canada’s public transportation system was not on time, so I arrived about 10 minutes after the arranged time. I was really hoping that they would still be there as I had not informed anyone that I was coming and I also foolishly forgot to note down the contact numbers. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one late, so the group was still there when I arrived. It was almost one when we finally left. On my last trip, we went directly to Lynn Valley by bus (rented school bus), but this time, we would take the Seabus to the North Shore then take the regular bus to Lynn Valley. The appropriately named Seabus was actually a ferry. The ride was fairly short, only about 20 minutes long. After that it was a short bus ride to Lynn Valley.

Upon arrival, Lyndon, our group leader suggested we head for the picnic area, so we could sit down and have lunch. The way he said it made me believe that it was merely a short walk, but it actually took almost 2 hours to get there. Along the way, we paused to take photographs and gawk at the plants and trees around us. I was surprised that there were not many birds in the park, considering that it was more of a natural reserve than a park (natural reserve meaning that animals like bears and cougars do live here). Eventually, we arrived at the picnic area where we had lunch. One of us, Lily, was a smoker but she forgot to bring matches for this trip, or that was what she thought at first. Eventually, she found 2 matches in her bag and we all got a chance to read her cigarette box. It was “Peter Jackson” flavor, and we all had fun trying to read the words on it in French. Xavier, another one of our party, was French so he showed us the proper way to pronounce them. We also discussed about the SFU Student Services, which was horrible compared to UBC (for the uninitiated, SFU stands for Simon Fraser University- my university, and UBC is the University of British Columbia- the other major university in Vancouver). We talked about how SFU overcharges students for certain services like orientation, how they try to make money out of anything possible and how their student services really suck when compared with UBC’s. Yup, I learned a lot of things that day. Lyndon used to do volunteer work for UBC, making his comments credible. He was also very displeased with SFU’s International Office because of their lack of activities for international students, which was probably his main drive to start the International Club.

As the day drew to a close, we decided to end our little hiking trip. We stopped by the Suspension Bridge for a group photograph before heading back. Lyndon the drew from his wealth of experience working for the British Columbia Tourism Board. Dinner was typical HongKee food- that means it was just tolerable. It was amusing watching those who were unfamiliar with Chinese food struggle with the chopsticks. Xavier was exceptionally hilarious because he was holding a chopstick in one hand and a fork in the other. After dinner, we parted our ways but promised to meet up again for the next meeting, and the next outing…to Victoria (capital of British Columbia).

Brave New World

At last after what seems like eternity, I finally have the time to sit down and compose about my first 3 weeks here. It seemed like a sad moment as I left Kuala Lumpur but I had my mom for company, at least for the first 2 days that is. The trip to Hong Kong was uneventful apart from the fact that the plane was delayed for about an hour because of a missing passenger (the crew had to move out all of his/her luggage- for security reasons of course as it could be a bomb- who knows?). By the time we arrived in Hong Kong, we only had about 3 minutes to make the connection flight. Thank goodness for those Hongkees. Their attendants showed up just as we exited the plane, all eager to guide us to the appropriate check in desk (we were not issued our boarding passes back in Malaysia), then it was off to the plane for a grueling 14 hour flight to Vancouver. The Cathay Pacific plane wasn’t particularly comfortable but I did my best to endure it. The quality of the in flight television was so bad that it looked worse than the lowest grade of pirated DVDs. Still I did manage to watch 300, for the first time. Eventually it was touchdown in Vancouver. My granduncle was there to meet us so we immediately left for his luxurious apartment by the waterfront. During the trip back, I was struck by the politeness of the Canadian drivers (in contrast to the morons that Malaysian drivers are) and the fact that they turned their lights on during the day. We eventually arrived in my uncle’s house where I would spend the first two nights. The next day we left to go shopping for supplies at this huge mall appropriately called Metropolis. It was way bigger than One Utama but unlike the latter, parking was absolutely free.

Fast forward to move in day. I signed up for their week long orientation so I got to move in early. My room is scarcely bigger than Harry Potter’s cupboard but I got a nice view of the Vancouver skyline and well, it is my room- I don’t have to share it. The only room shared by everyone is the washroom. There are simply too many things to go into detail here, so I’ll just briefly summarize what happened so far. On the first night, there was a sort of carnival with games and prizes and a live band. I wasn’t interested in the band but I managed to win a toy doggy (I love stuffed animals). Other events of interest include a scavenger hunt, where we had to go downtown and take some creative pictures (probably a gimmick to familiarize newbies with the city), a hypnotist who was really amusing, a games night (I played Pictionary) and what else, campus orientation. I was extremely pleased that this year's orientation theme was Highland Scottish. That meant wonderful Scottish music with fiddles and bagpipes (there was even a bagpipe player to open the ceremony). The best part was when they gave this lively tune as the orientation staff ran past the gathered students. Nice! The campus is really huge; it takes at least 15 minutes to get to class. Even with the tour, I still found myself lost on the first day of classes.

The international committee organized events for international students to get together. The first was a complimentary boat cruise. Well, it was only about 2.5 hours long but we got a good view of the city. Apart from water, the only drinks on board were alcoholic drinks, which were not to my liking. Still, the cruise was fun and so was the next event. All the international students were divided into groups led by a veteran mentor. On our first night, we chatted until it was really late, each of us telling the rest a bit of our country and how it compares to theirs/Canada. I of course, shared some Malaysian jokes- the famous racist ones. The sort that involves the Malaysian, the Singaporean, etc. One of the most memorable events was when I visited one of my friend’s rented basement. Not only was it cooler than my own crappy room, but it was more worth it for the cost too. The three of us attempted to cook dinner, but we forgot to turn on the exhaust fan so the smoke alarms went off. We eventually got dinner ready, not exactly a gourmet feast, but (burned) fried eggs and microwave macaroni and cheese was fine with me. After dinner, we decided to borrow a movie from the owner to watch on the huge projector TV in the basement. It was hard to decide what to watch, as each of us had different tastes in films, but eventually my two friends settled for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I just agreed having grown tired of choosing, despite the fact that I’ve watched that movie a gazillion times. So that’s basically what happened in the past three weeks. Too bad I don’t have that many pictures to accompany this post. Will remember to take some soon.