Short Version:
We leave.
Long Version:
Despite having had months to prepare for departure, we were - inevitably - scrambling to get ourselves ready to go when it came to the final few days. The time spent rejigging Bangkok travel arrangements in light of the flooding could have been used otherwise, and a whole bunch of hitherto-undisclosed* tasks requiring completion pre-departure manifested themselves. These included, but were not limited to:
- a late-night beer delivery to an unsuspecting octogenarian
- a likewise late-night and unheralded skateboard delivery to a 5-year-old girl
- posting various odds and ends to various peoples across NZ
- painting a house
- eating food, with people
Eventually, though, we found ourselves at Auckland International Airport, being told by the check-in lady that, contrary to all information the all-knowing interwebs provided, we needed visas galore, and that we needed umpteen passport photos for each of them. After some initial, not-allowed-on-plane noises, she relented and we were away, through passport control and into the clutches of the security guy, who went so far as to tell me "You know I'm going to stop you and search you - you're a suspicious-looking bearded guy."
He found nothing of interest.
Neither did we, once through security, with all shops closed bar the duty-free places, and not much exciting exploring on offer. A wee nap in the ovoid chairs instead saw us, if not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, then at least slightly less scratchy by the time we made our way to the departure gate lounge, where we waited, in the company of a noisy horde of Thai students on the cusp of adolescence, for our plane to board. Which it did, an hour or so after our scheduled departure time. Adding insult to non-injury was the fact that, as borderline unaccompanied minors, the horde were invited to board first, along with the very elderly and the moneyed.
Once aboard this last-ever Royal Brunei Airlines flight ex-Auckland, we were treated to an Islamic blessing upon the plane and passengers, which reinforced the suggestion that an Islamic airline might be a good choice for explosion-free travel. Later, the alcohol-free drinks trolley reinforced the flipside of that benefit.
And then sleep occurred, at 38,000ft. Apparently I slept through a meal, which is unheard of. I was awake in time to watch the sun finally catch us, somewhere over Indonesian islands, and in time to take possession of a delicious airline breakfast, much of which I ended up wearing. Not through catastrophic events mind you, but by a slow, clumsy accretionist process; here a little bit of scrambled egg (huevos revueltos!), there the juicy, pulpy detritus of the fruit bowl. Added to the mandarin, black-pepper sauce, and korma acquired over the course of the previous evening's activities, and it was a classy classy beardy tattooed man who hit tarmac in the Kingdom of Brunei, ready for some... wait, what happens in Brunei?
* = May actually have been disclosed and well-explained to unlistening ears
Monday, October 31, 2011
Saturday, February 26, 2011
The Thundering Paws of the Poodlepocalypse
Short Version:
Birds, beaches, baches. Running, not riding. Work in the north. Carnage in the south.
Long Version:
Tonight I watched a gull preparing its dinner. It flew from the sand to the sky, released its shellfishy beakload, and followed it sandward to inspect the outcome. Repeat until broken. Eventually, the bivalve gave up its fleshy self to the gull’s gullet, and the full-bellied bird was on the wing, just in time to avoid the thundering paws of the impending poodlepocalypse.
Onetangi beach is in a strange state; serious weather across consecutive weekends first deposited an estimated 2 million horse mussel shells on the mile-long stretch of golden sand; then an unprecedented deluge sent to splintered oblivion the iconic red-roofed bach* that had graced the cliff-face at the east end of the beach for longer than most people can remember. Turns out it had long been a haven for women in need of a haven, which puts its destruction – which is pretty entirely comprehensive - another notch higher on the regrettableness scale. Much debate about the culpability of the people who stripped bare the hillside above the bach in order to build themselves a rather unattractive modern behemoth. Not sure where current public sentiment sits – I’m retrofitting this piece quite some time after the fact, and quite some time after last visit to Waiheke, even though it feels like no more than a week or so since we first laid eyes on it upon our return to NZ, on a rainy, humid Tuesday morning in mid-December. We were mildly hungover; the AirNZ cabin crew response to our wedding anniversary disclosure was to ply us with Business Class wines throughout the sixteen-hour flight. We’d had a hard time saying goodbye to Canada, but the moose- and raccoon-head hats helped, and we’ve now been back in Auckland for a couple of months. Ironic, given we were fairly certain we’d farewelled the city pretty well permanently; the plan was Canada indefinitely, with any eventual return to NZ leading us to places other than the big city in the north.
Topping that list was Otautahi, which many people know as Christchurch.
I say “was” because the big city of the south was well and truly flattened this week by a near-surface magnitude 6.3 earthquake. Death toll sits at 146 as I write, with another 200+ missing, presumed dead. It’s been touted by the not-smiling-now Prime Minister as “NZ’s darkest day,” and has serious implications for the city, the region, and the country, although it’s hard to concentrate on the medium- and long-term ramifications when there are still people – or, as now seems near-certain, their remains - trapped under tons of crumbled masonry and steel.
Makes tales of our activities - basically we’ve been running coastal/bush/volcanic wasteland trails and working – seem ever-so-slightly frivolous, and best left for another day.
* = Bach: noun; Pronounced “Batch.”
The name given in New Zealand to small, often very modest holiday homes or beach houses. An iconic part of New Zealand history and culture. Sometimes defined as: "something you built yourself, on land you don't own, out of materials you borrowed or stole." Ma’s house on Waiheke started life as a bach.
Birds, beaches, baches. Running, not riding. Work in the north. Carnage in the south.
Long Version:
Tonight I watched a gull preparing its dinner. It flew from the sand to the sky, released its shellfishy beakload, and followed it sandward to inspect the outcome. Repeat until broken. Eventually, the bivalve gave up its fleshy self to the gull’s gullet, and the full-bellied bird was on the wing, just in time to avoid the thundering paws of the impending poodlepocalypse.
Onetangi beach is in a strange state; serious weather across consecutive weekends first deposited an estimated 2 million horse mussel shells on the mile-long stretch of golden sand; then an unprecedented deluge sent to splintered oblivion the iconic red-roofed bach* that had graced the cliff-face at the east end of the beach for longer than most people can remember. Turns out it had long been a haven for women in need of a haven, which puts its destruction – which is pretty entirely comprehensive - another notch higher on the regrettableness scale. Much debate about the culpability of the people who stripped bare the hillside above the bach in order to build themselves a rather unattractive modern behemoth. Not sure where current public sentiment sits – I’m retrofitting this piece quite some time after the fact, and quite some time after last visit to Waiheke, even though it feels like no more than a week or so since we first laid eyes on it upon our return to NZ, on a rainy, humid Tuesday morning in mid-December. We were mildly hungover; the AirNZ cabin crew response to our wedding anniversary disclosure was to ply us with Business Class wines throughout the sixteen-hour flight. We’d had a hard time saying goodbye to Canada, but the moose- and raccoon-head hats helped, and we’ve now been back in Auckland for a couple of months. Ironic, given we were fairly certain we’d farewelled the city pretty well permanently; the plan was Canada indefinitely, with any eventual return to NZ leading us to places other than the big city in the north.
Topping that list was Otautahi, which many people know as Christchurch.
I say “was” because the big city of the south was well and truly flattened this week by a near-surface magnitude 6.3 earthquake. Death toll sits at 146 as I write, with another 200+ missing, presumed dead. It’s been touted by the not-smiling-now Prime Minister as “NZ’s darkest day,” and has serious implications for the city, the region, and the country, although it’s hard to concentrate on the medium- and long-term ramifications when there are still people – or, as now seems near-certain, their remains - trapped under tons of crumbled masonry and steel.
Makes tales of our activities - basically we’ve been running coastal/bush/volcanic wasteland trails and working – seem ever-so-slightly frivolous, and best left for another day.
* = Bach: noun; Pronounced “Batch.”
The name given in New Zealand to small, often very modest holiday homes or beach houses. An iconic part of New Zealand history and culture. Sometimes defined as: "something you built yourself, on land you don't own, out of materials you borrowed or stole." Ma’s house on Waiheke started life as a bach.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Goodbye, North Amerika!
Short Version:
We leave.
Long Version:
We drove 31,455 kilometers, through two provinces of Canada, two states of Mexico, and nine states of Amerika. We met incredible numbers of incredible people and rode our bikes so far that we lost count of the miles; through rain and snow and hail and wind and sun, in forests and deserts, across mountains and plains, on rock and wood and dirt and mud and sand and snow. We saw canyons and weird rock formations, old mines, new cities, spiky plants. We drank beers tasty and not-so-much (but mainly tasty), and ate some seriously delicious foods.
In short, we've had a blast.
But it's cold now, in the wintery north, and the sun is shining on the beaches of Waiheke Island and Mount Maunganui, so - as Rancho Notorious once sang - we're heading south.
The Reaper is gone, driven away to its new home by the first people to come look at it. They looked, they listened to it and to us, they admired the graceful lines and subtle paintjob, the (freshly scrubbed and de-stained) tan velour upholstery, and they handed Nene a big wad of hundred-dollar bills before setting off into the gloom of yet another rainy winter's day in Vancouver. We didn't go so far as to shed little tears, but it was kind of weird and sad to watch someone else drive away in what had been our home for seven months and through uncounted adventures.
The bikes have been stripped and cleaned (with my sister's toothbrush - Hi Steph!) and bubble-wrapped for their long trans-Pacific journey. We couldn't bubble-wrap ourselves for it, though, and now find ourselves sitting in a flying tube, high above the ocean. Well, hopefully we're high above it; one of the cabin crew asked if we had cycle helmets because we didn't trust their driving (most of them were too bemused at the sight of the raccoon and moose headgear coming down the skybridge towards them to say anything much at all).
They've been feeding us Business Class wine despite our cattle-classness, which is very nice. Not sure if that's because of the raccoon/moose parade, or because we've told every Air NZ staffer who'll listen that it's our wedding anniversary. Either way, yum, and we wouldn't want to hit Auckland at 6am on a Tuesday without a hangover, would we?
We leave.
Long Version:
We drove 31,455 kilometers, through two provinces of Canada, two states of Mexico, and nine states of Amerika. We met incredible numbers of incredible people and rode our bikes so far that we lost count of the miles; through rain and snow and hail and wind and sun, in forests and deserts, across mountains and plains, on rock and wood and dirt and mud and sand and snow. We saw canyons and weird rock formations, old mines, new cities, spiky plants. We drank beers tasty and not-so-much (but mainly tasty), and ate some seriously delicious foods.
In short, we've had a blast.
But it's cold now, in the wintery north, and the sun is shining on the beaches of Waiheke Island and Mount Maunganui, so - as Rancho Notorious once sang - we're heading south.
The Reaper is gone, driven away to its new home by the first people to come look at it. They looked, they listened to it and to us, they admired the graceful lines and subtle paintjob, the (freshly scrubbed and de-stained) tan velour upholstery, and they handed Nene a big wad of hundred-dollar bills before setting off into the gloom of yet another rainy winter's day in Vancouver. We didn't go so far as to shed little tears, but it was kind of weird and sad to watch someone else drive away in what had been our home for seven months and through uncounted adventures.
The bikes have been stripped and cleaned (with my sister's toothbrush - Hi Steph!) and bubble-wrapped for their long trans-Pacific journey. We couldn't bubble-wrap ourselves for it, though, and now find ourselves sitting in a flying tube, high above the ocean. Well, hopefully we're high above it; one of the cabin crew asked if we had cycle helmets because we didn't trust their driving (most of them were too bemused at the sight of the raccoon and moose headgear coming down the skybridge towards them to say anything much at all).
They've been feeding us Business Class wine despite our cattle-classness, which is very nice. Not sure if that's because of the raccoon/moose parade, or because we've told every Air NZ staffer who'll listen that it's our wedding anniversary. Either way, yum, and we wouldn't want to hit Auckland at 6am on a Tuesday without a hangover, would we?
The High Cost of Living
Short Version:
Houses aren't cheap, especially if you have Chinese neighbours
Long Version:
We plan to return to Vancouver pretty soon; it's a really neat city. There's shitty stuff that goes on, for sure - in a metropolitan area where over 4 million people live there are bound to be some ratbags - but it seems to keep itself confined largely to areas we wouldn't want to go anyway (ie Surrey) and/or to those involved in the (apparently very lucrative) drug trade. That's not to say that all of the laws are obeyed all of the time by all of the people, even in the nicer parts of the city - we heard a tale the other day of a street race and a confiscated car and an unimpressed father; apparently Dad was none-too-impressed that his CAD$200,000 Lamborghini had been taken away from his miscreant son. That's permanent confiscation too, none of the pussy thirty-days crap that NZ feebly imposes.
One of the biggest drawbacks Vancouver has, apart from the massive amount of precipitation it gets, is how unaffordable its housing market is; on average, for homeowners in the Greater Vancouver area, 68% of total household income goes towards servicing the mortgage. That's a lot. The cost of housing is so high that first-home buyers are virtually unheard-of anywhere near the city proper, despite the preponderance of one-bedroom and studio apartments; those start around the CAD$300,000 mark. And you probably wouldn't want to live in one from the lower end of that scale. There are, of course, a bunch of factors influencing price, including the recently-researched impact on sale price of the property's street number; this, we're told, can raise or lower the sale price of a property by as much as 2.5%, which is not very much if you're shopping at one of the thrift stores we frequented (and which tended to throw 40-50% reduction sales on a weekly, if not daily basis), but can amount to a significant amount when you're speaking of a CAD$500,000* apartment**. And that's the average amount, so you have to figure that some people out there are paying vast amounts for some particularly auspiciously-numerated house.
The price inflation is higher in neighbourhoods which are heavily populated by ethnic Chinese, and according to wikipedia, Chinese lucky numbers are 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (ie most of them), with 8 the special favorite. On the downside of the ledger, unlucky numbers are 4, 5, 6, and 7 (ie half of the lucky ones, plus four***). Four is the big nasty of the bunch - it's the anti-eight, akin to 13 in Western societies. so, if you're looking to purchase a property for its resale value, and you believe for some reason that the Sinofication of the area is shaping to increase, nab an 8 property (or an 88, or an 888) but steer clear of 4, or 44.
Also beware of 167, 169, and 1679, which are dirty jokes; 250, which means imbecile; 5354, which often refers to something that is half dead or on the verge of death; 7456, which is "pissing me off"; and 9413, which can be interpreted as inferring "nine die to one live meaning 90% chance of being dead and only 10% chance of being alive, or survived from such situations (a narrow escape)."
Apparently these numbers are used by some Sinophile interwebsters as shorthand statements, so the next time someone responds to your brilliance with "Nice call, Mr 250," or simply says "1679" at you, be offended.
* = For the mathematically-challenged, 2.5% of 500,000 is 12,500. That's a lot of beer tokens.
** = It's a condominium (a "condo" if you're young and hip, or trying to be) if the occupant is the owner.
*** = No known numerologically-evil association with the golfing pants known as plus-fours, which are breeches or trousers that extend 4 inches (10 cm) below the knee (and thus are four inches longer than traditional knickerbockers, hence the name); they're awful of their own accord.
Houses aren't cheap, especially if you have Chinese neighbours
Long Version:
We plan to return to Vancouver pretty soon; it's a really neat city. There's shitty stuff that goes on, for sure - in a metropolitan area where over 4 million people live there are bound to be some ratbags - but it seems to keep itself confined largely to areas we wouldn't want to go anyway (ie Surrey) and/or to those involved in the (apparently very lucrative) drug trade. That's not to say that all of the laws are obeyed all of the time by all of the people, even in the nicer parts of the city - we heard a tale the other day of a street race and a confiscated car and an unimpressed father; apparently Dad was none-too-impressed that his CAD$200,000 Lamborghini had been taken away from his miscreant son. That's permanent confiscation too, none of the pussy thirty-days crap that NZ feebly imposes.
One of the biggest drawbacks Vancouver has, apart from the massive amount of precipitation it gets, is how unaffordable its housing market is; on average, for homeowners in the Greater Vancouver area, 68% of total household income goes towards servicing the mortgage. That's a lot. The cost of housing is so high that first-home buyers are virtually unheard-of anywhere near the city proper, despite the preponderance of one-bedroom and studio apartments; those start around the CAD$300,000 mark. And you probably wouldn't want to live in one from the lower end of that scale. There are, of course, a bunch of factors influencing price, including the recently-researched impact on sale price of the property's street number; this, we're told, can raise or lower the sale price of a property by as much as 2.5%, which is not very much if you're shopping at one of the thrift stores we frequented (and which tended to throw 40-50% reduction sales on a weekly, if not daily basis), but can amount to a significant amount when you're speaking of a CAD$500,000* apartment**. And that's the average amount, so you have to figure that some people out there are paying vast amounts for some particularly auspiciously-numerated house.
The price inflation is higher in neighbourhoods which are heavily populated by ethnic Chinese, and according to wikipedia, Chinese lucky numbers are 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 (ie most of them), with 8 the special favorite. On the downside of the ledger, unlucky numbers are 4, 5, 6, and 7 (ie half of the lucky ones, plus four***). Four is the big nasty of the bunch - it's the anti-eight, akin to 13 in Western societies. so, if you're looking to purchase a property for its resale value, and you believe for some reason that the Sinofication of the area is shaping to increase, nab an 8 property (or an 88, or an 888) but steer clear of 4, or 44.
Also beware of 167, 169, and 1679, which are dirty jokes; 250, which means imbecile; 5354, which often refers to something that is half dead or on the verge of death; 7456, which is "pissing me off"; and 9413, which can be interpreted as inferring "nine die to one live meaning 90% chance of being dead and only 10% chance of being alive, or survived from such situations (a narrow escape)."
Apparently these numbers are used by some Sinophile interwebsters as shorthand statements, so the next time someone responds to your brilliance with "Nice call, Mr 250," or simply says "1679" at you, be offended.
* = For the mathematically-challenged, 2.5% of 500,000 is 12,500. That's a lot of beer tokens.
** = It's a condominium (a "condo" if you're young and hip, or trying to be) if the occupant is the owner.
*** = No known numerologically-evil association with the golfing pants known as plus-fours, which are breeches or trousers that extend 4 inches (10 cm) below the knee (and thus are four inches longer than traditional knickerbockers, hence the name); they're awful of their own accord.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Prairie Girls Are Wild!
Short Version:
Home comforts and the Chinese have a physical effect, orange, wearing watermelons
Long Version:
We're getting fat. Or, more accurately, I'm getting fat. Fatter. Whatever. Nene's still lovely, of course.
We arrived back in Vancouver fighting fit but slightly gaunt; seven and a half months living in a van and riding nearly every day will do that to you. Since we've been back, though, the proximity of a refigerator full of food has proved dangerous, and the various charms of a warm house with comfy chairs, giant televisions, and access to the interwebs without having to purchase a shitty coffee have added up to not going out into the cold rain all that often. We have been running - Nene according to her marathon training programme; me randomly and with lots of falling over on snow and ice - but not nearly enough to counter the vast calorific intake. Especially not when eggnog - which is essentially liquid lipid - can be purchased from the supermarket, handily-packaged in a recyclable cardboard carton.
We do have the option to claim victim status though: apparently my rapid expansion is probably a result of climate change: scientists* have discovered the existence of a hitherto-undiagnosed global-warming-derived obesity epidemic**. Apparently the ever-increasing amount of pollution in the atmosphere - largely due, we're told, to coal-fired power stations in China - is to blame for the fattening of rats, mice, and lab primates. And, by logical extension, me.
To the tune of five new kilograms in two weeks.
Nothing to do with the non-stop eating and drinking, of course, and nothing at all to do with peanut butter confectionery, which is really really good. Over here it's BIG business, too; Hershey Corp (which makes top peanut-butter/chocolate line Reese's Pieces) is battling Mars Inc in the courts for trademark infringement because the latter chose to package their competing peanut-butter/chocolate product in Reese's-style orange packaging.
Also bedecked in orange are the Oregon State University Beavers, which makes them the Oregon College team I'm cheering for***. There's an orange-clad team in the Canadian Football League too - the BC Lions - but if you ignore the humour value of Head Coach Wally Buono's name they're kind of crap; much more fun are the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Quite apart from the fact that they're named after a ribbed condom, their fans are famed for carving gameday headgear from watermelons, often adding moose antlers viking-style to the sides or Mohican hair-strips to the top. Fruiterers import vast quantities of the bulbous, tapered seedy-fleshed goodness capsules ahead of each home game, and up the numbers significantly when the game is a big one (like the recent Grey Cup final, which the Roughtriders lost, for the second year in a row, to the dirty pseudo-Frenchies from Montreal).
The only other things we know about Saskatchewan are that "Prairie girls are wild," and that they refer to gin as "Panty-remover." Both these things we learned from my cousin. At our wedding.
* = We heart scientists!
** = Coexisting happily with the fast-food-and-TV-engendered one we already knew about
*** = Crush the filthy OU Ducks!
Home comforts and the Chinese have a physical effect, orange, wearing watermelons
Long Version:
We're getting fat. Or, more accurately, I'm getting fat. Fatter. Whatever. Nene's still lovely, of course.
We arrived back in Vancouver fighting fit but slightly gaunt; seven and a half months living in a van and riding nearly every day will do that to you. Since we've been back, though, the proximity of a refigerator full of food has proved dangerous, and the various charms of a warm house with comfy chairs, giant televisions, and access to the interwebs without having to purchase a shitty coffee have added up to not going out into the cold rain all that often. We have been running - Nene according to her marathon training programme; me randomly and with lots of falling over on snow and ice - but not nearly enough to counter the vast calorific intake. Especially not when eggnog - which is essentially liquid lipid - can be purchased from the supermarket, handily-packaged in a recyclable cardboard carton.
We do have the option to claim victim status though: apparently my rapid expansion is probably a result of climate change: scientists* have discovered the existence of a hitherto-undiagnosed global-warming-derived obesity epidemic**. Apparently the ever-increasing amount of pollution in the atmosphere - largely due, we're told, to coal-fired power stations in China - is to blame for the fattening of rats, mice, and lab primates. And, by logical extension, me.
To the tune of five new kilograms in two weeks.
Nothing to do with the non-stop eating and drinking, of course, and nothing at all to do with peanut butter confectionery, which is really really good. Over here it's BIG business, too; Hershey Corp (which makes top peanut-butter/chocolate line Reese's Pieces) is battling Mars Inc in the courts for trademark infringement because the latter chose to package their competing peanut-butter/chocolate product in Reese's-style orange packaging.
Also bedecked in orange are the Oregon State University Beavers, which makes them the Oregon College team I'm cheering for***. There's an orange-clad team in the Canadian Football League too - the BC Lions - but if you ignore the humour value of Head Coach Wally Buono's name they're kind of crap; much more fun are the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Quite apart from the fact that they're named after a ribbed condom, their fans are famed for carving gameday headgear from watermelons, often adding moose antlers viking-style to the sides or Mohican hair-strips to the top. Fruiterers import vast quantities of the bulbous, tapered seedy-fleshed goodness capsules ahead of each home game, and up the numbers significantly when the game is a big one (like the recent Grey Cup final, which the Roughtriders lost, for the second year in a row, to the dirty pseudo-Frenchies from Montreal).
The only other things we know about Saskatchewan are that "Prairie girls are wild," and that they refer to gin as "Panty-remover." Both these things we learned from my cousin. At our wedding.
* = We heart scientists!
** = Coexisting happily with the fast-food-and-TV-engendered one we already knew about
*** = Crush the filthy OU Ducks!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Dog Mountain
Short Version:
Music, snow, movies, popcorn.
Long Version:
The charity single "2 Minutes of Silence" has cracked Britain's Top20 chart. Given the tripe that constitutes the UK's so-called "music" scene post-1984, it's not really surprising - it's almost certainly far more listenable than anything else out there.
We found some silence of our own, pausing en route from one mountain to another across a snowy hillside. A sunny Saturday was drawing to a close, and we'd driven up Mount Seymour to the Sno-Park, where we'd lucked into a parking space right at the top end of the top parking lot. From there we wandered in past the user-pays lift-enabled trail system to the back-country snowshoe trails, strapped on our borrowed snowshoes (Janine had to help me do mine up) and set off, following the channel which had been pressed into the deep powder by other ambulators.
Walking in snowshoes is an art, and we were kind of at the crayon scribble stage to start with: I fell all the way over a couple of times and even Nene had snow caking the back of her legs where the tails of her snowshoes had flicked it up. The longer we walked the better we got, though, and by the time we'd powered past First Lake and out onto the high spur that is Dog Mountain we were getting pretty good; sliding down chutes in a more-or-less controlled manner and hiking up steep grades without slipping backwards. Much. We even had a crack at running. The snow-covered trees were spectacular in the last, golden sunlight, and we had fantastic views from Dog Mountain: West out over Horseshoe Bay, the Strait, and the Island; East towards seemingly endless chains of snow-covered mountains and towering peaks; and South past Vancouver into Amerika, where glimpses of Cascades volcanoes reminded us of Mounts Hood, and St Helens, and of all of the Black Buttes.
Then we went home and ate delicious foods before hitting the town, to the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, which was playing at North Vancouver's Centennial Theatre. We'd caught the festival on its Auckland stop a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed it; this time around the films were less impressive, and the highlight was - somewhat surprisingly - a half-hour semi-doco about fly-fishing in Russia's remote Kamchatka region. All eight of the films that played had some great bits, but most - and particularly the foreshortened festival edits - lacked flow. Suspicion is that they'd been butchered in the edit suite. Still, watching people climb up then snowboard down sheer snow walls hundreds of metres high was pretty impressive, as were some of the rapids and waterfalls negotiated by the kayakers. Unfortunately, the mountain-biking film suffered more than most at the hands of the brevity-mandated editors, and we were left feeling more like we'd just seen some wonderful cinematography rather than an awesome mountain-biking flick. Parks Canada had an informational stand, though, and they gave us some microwave popcorn which we cooked and ate when we got home, which was kind of neat, and very definitely not something we could have done in the Reaper!
Music, snow, movies, popcorn.
Long Version:
The charity single "2 Minutes of Silence" has cracked Britain's Top20 chart. Given the tripe that constitutes the UK's so-called "music" scene post-1984, it's not really surprising - it's almost certainly far more listenable than anything else out there.
We found some silence of our own, pausing en route from one mountain to another across a snowy hillside. A sunny Saturday was drawing to a close, and we'd driven up Mount Seymour to the Sno-Park, where we'd lucked into a parking space right at the top end of the top parking lot. From there we wandered in past the user-pays lift-enabled trail system to the back-country snowshoe trails, strapped on our borrowed snowshoes (Janine had to help me do mine up) and set off, following the channel which had been pressed into the deep powder by other ambulators.
Walking in snowshoes is an art, and we were kind of at the crayon scribble stage to start with: I fell all the way over a couple of times and even Nene had snow caking the back of her legs where the tails of her snowshoes had flicked it up. The longer we walked the better we got, though, and by the time we'd powered past First Lake and out onto the high spur that is Dog Mountain we were getting pretty good; sliding down chutes in a more-or-less controlled manner and hiking up steep grades without slipping backwards. Much. We even had a crack at running. The snow-covered trees were spectacular in the last, golden sunlight, and we had fantastic views from Dog Mountain: West out over Horseshoe Bay, the Strait, and the Island; East towards seemingly endless chains of snow-covered mountains and towering peaks; and South past Vancouver into Amerika, where glimpses of Cascades volcanoes reminded us of Mounts Hood, and St Helens, and of all of the Black Buttes.
Then we went home and ate delicious foods before hitting the town, to the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour, which was playing at North Vancouver's Centennial Theatre. We'd caught the festival on its Auckland stop a few years back and thoroughly enjoyed it; this time around the films were less impressive, and the highlight was - somewhat surprisingly - a half-hour semi-doco about fly-fishing in Russia's remote Kamchatka region. All eight of the films that played had some great bits, but most - and particularly the foreshortened festival edits - lacked flow. Suspicion is that they'd been butchered in the edit suite. Still, watching people climb up then snowboard down sheer snow walls hundreds of metres high was pretty impressive, as were some of the rapids and waterfalls negotiated by the kayakers. Unfortunately, the mountain-biking film suffered more than most at the hands of the brevity-mandated editors, and we were left feeling more like we'd just seen some wonderful cinematography rather than an awesome mountain-biking flick. Parks Canada had an informational stand, though, and they gave us some microwave popcorn which we cooked and ate when we got home, which was kind of neat, and very definitely not something we could have done in the Reaper!
Wives!
Short Version:
Toes. Wives.
Long Version:
While we've been wandering through ramshackle ex-factories perusing artists' studios, buttering up little old ladies at craft fairs, and spending hour after hour exploring the forested foothills of the North Vancouver mountains with the increasingly disobedient pooches, Canada's been popping up in the NZ news, and for some slightly odd reasons:
- Sour Toe Cocktails.
A glass of whisky, into which a severed human toe is plopped. You pays your money, you drinks your whisky - ensuring that the wrinkled, brownish toe touches your lips - and you is a member of the club. Nice one!
- Polygamy.
Canada, and particularly British Columbia, are investigating whether the ban on polygamous relationships contravenes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is the equivalent of the Amerikan Constitution, only without the hype. In short, they're questioning whether polygamy should be allowed, and the scaremongers are already ranting about the inevitable influx of fringe religious groups should the 120-year-old prohibition be overturned. Having spent a bunch of time in Utah, and drunk a lot of Wasatch Breweries' Polygamy Porter (You can't have just one!"), this one piqued our interest.
The definitions of what constitutes an illicit multiple-partner relationship which have emanated from various lawyers and law-makers since the hearings began have been confused, confusing, and contradictory, and the issue which we initially thought was so laughable has proved to have some depth to it: leaving aside personal prejudice against extremist Mormons and other religious personages, why is polygamy so frowned-upon? In this day and age, where Civil Unions between homo couples is deemed perfectly acceptable, why is it considered reasonable to limit the number of participants in that union to two? Or does the prohibition apply only to hetero couples, and then only when the gender mix is one-to-many man-to-women? Are provisos around underage brides sufficient, or is a brainwashed wife an inappropriate wife regardless of her age?
Far as I'm concerned, if you need more than one wife, you married the wrong woman.
Toes. Wives.
Long Version:
While we've been wandering through ramshackle ex-factories perusing artists' studios, buttering up little old ladies at craft fairs, and spending hour after hour exploring the forested foothills of the North Vancouver mountains with the increasingly disobedient pooches, Canada's been popping up in the NZ news, and for some slightly odd reasons:
- Sour Toe Cocktails.
A glass of whisky, into which a severed human toe is plopped. You pays your money, you drinks your whisky - ensuring that the wrinkled, brownish toe touches your lips - and you is a member of the club. Nice one!
- Polygamy.
Canada, and particularly British Columbia, are investigating whether the ban on polygamous relationships contravenes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is the equivalent of the Amerikan Constitution, only without the hype. In short, they're questioning whether polygamy should be allowed, and the scaremongers are already ranting about the inevitable influx of fringe religious groups should the 120-year-old prohibition be overturned. Having spent a bunch of time in Utah, and drunk a lot of Wasatch Breweries' Polygamy Porter (You can't have just one!"), this one piqued our interest.
The definitions of what constitutes an illicit multiple-partner relationship which have emanated from various lawyers and law-makers since the hearings began have been confused, confusing, and contradictory, and the issue which we initially thought was so laughable has proved to have some depth to it: leaving aside personal prejudice against extremist Mormons and other religious personages, why is polygamy so frowned-upon? In this day and age, where Civil Unions between homo couples is deemed perfectly acceptable, why is it considered reasonable to limit the number of participants in that union to two? Or does the prohibition apply only to hetero couples, and then only when the gender mix is one-to-many man-to-women? Are provisos around underage brides sufficient, or is a brainwashed wife an inappropriate wife regardless of her age?
Far as I'm concerned, if you need more than one wife, you married the wrong woman.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Enviropig, SuperSalmon, Bionic Woman
Short Version:
Genetically-modified pork products are headed your way! Backhanders for healthcare professionals. A bad pun.
Long Version:
Neither the AquaBounty AquAdvantage salmon, which grows twice as fast as its unmodified counterparts, nor the Guelph Enviropig, which thanks to the E. Coli bacteria (famous for living in swimming pools) has a vastly more efficient digestive system (ie poops and farts less) than its ancestors have been approved for commercial release in Canadian markets - no genetically modified animal has, yet. But there are indications that it's probably not far off, and the race is on to see which of these transgenic critters will be the first to gain approval from Amerika's Food and Drug Administration, which is not only the key to the blockbusting US market, but also to the lesser but more red-taped Canadian environment; the markets are so tightly-integrated that an approval from the (multitudinous) Canadian authorities would essentially mean the Amerikans following suit, turning a blind eye, or banning Canadian piggy/salmonish products entirely. The first two aren't going to happen, and the third would be disastrous for Canada's economy, so that's out too, which leaves Amerika going first.
Apparently the Amerikan FDA approvals processes for both species are halfway complete, which is stark contrast - maybe - to how things stand north of the border, where the Canadian government decided to go around the difficulties involved with regulating the burgeoning new industry by shoe-horning transgenic animals into the existing regulatory systems as a new type of veterinary medicine. Both critters have received conditional approval from one of the three Canadian regulatory bodies involved in the certification process, but neither of their backers have heard anything from the other two.
Still, it sounds very much like both these critters are likely to be signed off as fit for Amerikan (and subsequently, no doubt, for Canadian, and therefore probably NZ - did I mention that Canada's where NZ gets most of its imported pork products?) consumption in the relatively near future, which should enrage some people so much that they join a facebook group in protest.
Speaking of protests, when we were in Amerika much was being made of the near-universal antipathy towards ObamaCare, the much maligned universal medical insurance scheme introduced by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning 44th President of Amerika. (Theoretically, his Peace Prize was awarded on the strength of "...his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Arse; bunch thereof.) Giving credit where it's due, though; in tackling Amerika's healthcare industry he certainly wasn't shying away from the big jobs - it's a bloody mess.
In contrast, Canadians have long held dear the belief that their public health system is a wonderful thing; that it provides an umbrella of care for all Canadians, no matter how full their pocketbooks. Recently, evidence has come to light to suggest that this may not necessarily be true, at least not all of the time in all parts of this sprawling country. Admittedly, most of the stories of medico-fiscal malfeasance which have been trumpeted about the place of late involve Quebec, which is that crappy bit in the middle of Canada where they wish they were French, and which has long been renowned as a hotbed of corruption at all levels of the public sector, so it may well be that the one (very) bad apple province is tainting the reputations of all the others. Still, any time you have people stating outright and on the record that the going rate to have your doctor bother to turn up for the birth of your child is somewhere between two- and ten-thousand dollars, you know your medical system has a problem. Similarly, the tales of envelopes stuffed with large-denomination bills being stuffed under pillows for the anaesthetist to find are mildly horrific. Especially when your step-mother's just had a knee replaced, and has spent several days post-op throwing up near-constantly after receiving some bizarre anaesthetic concoction that contra-indicates her prominently-displayed allergy status.
Fat envelope under the pillow? No.
Several days of narcotized misery? Yes.
Coincidence? Probably.
Still, the new knee seems to be at least as good as the old one, and that's even before the surgical slice and dice has had a chance to heal up. Friends are already planning a knees-up to celebrate.
Genetically-modified pork products are headed your way! Backhanders for healthcare professionals. A bad pun.
Long Version:
Neither the AquaBounty AquAdvantage salmon, which grows twice as fast as its unmodified counterparts, nor the Guelph Enviropig, which thanks to the E. Coli bacteria (famous for living in swimming pools) has a vastly more efficient digestive system (ie poops and farts less) than its ancestors have been approved for commercial release in Canadian markets - no genetically modified animal has, yet. But there are indications that it's probably not far off, and the race is on to see which of these transgenic critters will be the first to gain approval from Amerika's Food and Drug Administration, which is not only the key to the blockbusting US market, but also to the lesser but more red-taped Canadian environment; the markets are so tightly-integrated that an approval from the (multitudinous) Canadian authorities would essentially mean the Amerikans following suit, turning a blind eye, or banning Canadian piggy/salmonish products entirely. The first two aren't going to happen, and the third would be disastrous for Canada's economy, so that's out too, which leaves Amerika going first.
Apparently the Amerikan FDA approvals processes for both species are halfway complete, which is stark contrast - maybe - to how things stand north of the border, where the Canadian government decided to go around the difficulties involved with regulating the burgeoning new industry by shoe-horning transgenic animals into the existing regulatory systems as a new type of veterinary medicine. Both critters have received conditional approval from one of the three Canadian regulatory bodies involved in the certification process, but neither of their backers have heard anything from the other two.
Still, it sounds very much like both these critters are likely to be signed off as fit for Amerikan (and subsequently, no doubt, for Canadian, and therefore probably NZ - did I mention that Canada's where NZ gets most of its imported pork products?) consumption in the relatively near future, which should enrage some people so much that they join a facebook group in protest.
Speaking of protests, when we were in Amerika much was being made of the near-universal antipathy towards ObamaCare, the much maligned universal medical insurance scheme introduced by the Nobel Peace Prize-winning 44th President of Amerika. (Theoretically, his Peace Prize was awarded on the strength of "...his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Arse; bunch thereof.) Giving credit where it's due, though; in tackling Amerika's healthcare industry he certainly wasn't shying away from the big jobs - it's a bloody mess.
In contrast, Canadians have long held dear the belief that their public health system is a wonderful thing; that it provides an umbrella of care for all Canadians, no matter how full their pocketbooks. Recently, evidence has come to light to suggest that this may not necessarily be true, at least not all of the time in all parts of this sprawling country. Admittedly, most of the stories of medico-fiscal malfeasance which have been trumpeted about the place of late involve Quebec, which is that crappy bit in the middle of Canada where they wish they were French, and which has long been renowned as a hotbed of corruption at all levels of the public sector, so it may well be that the one (very) bad apple province is tainting the reputations of all the others. Still, any time you have people stating outright and on the record that the going rate to have your doctor bother to turn up for the birth of your child is somewhere between two- and ten-thousand dollars, you know your medical system has a problem. Similarly, the tales of envelopes stuffed with large-denomination bills being stuffed under pillows for the anaesthetist to find are mildly horrific. Especially when your step-mother's just had a knee replaced, and has spent several days post-op throwing up near-constantly after receiving some bizarre anaesthetic concoction that contra-indicates her prominently-displayed allergy status.
Fat envelope under the pillow? No.
Several days of narcotized misery? Yes.
Coincidence? Probably.
Still, the new knee seems to be at least as good as the old one, and that's even before the surgical slice and dice has had a chance to heal up. Friends are already planning a knees-up to celebrate.
Monday, December 6, 2010
The War of the (Bloody Big, Bloody Scary) Bears
Short Version:
Chores are very tiring.
Long Version:
As the world warms, the sea-ice upon which polar bears live will disappear. The bears will be forced to adapt in two main ways: First, they'll need to migrate to areas where there's more actual land instead of spending the majority of their time wandering about on the frozen seas, because less of the sea will be frozen; Second, they're going to have to adapt their diet, as there are far fewer seals swimming about on land than there are under the sea-ice. This means a probable shift to a plant-heavy omnivorousness, as there are few remaining land mammals available as prey which are large enough to satisfy the nutritional requirements of a predator of that size operating as a carnivore. This, scientists say, means war, against their bigger, browner cousins...
Grizzly v Polar.
At stake: undisputed enormous omnivore supremacy, and, perhaps, survival of the species.
Scientists say they've figured out the result already, based on skull and jaw strength: put your money on the grizzly ones.
Having said that, there is another way: Making Love, Not War. Apparently crossover bears were a favorite selective breeding programme of the Germans a hundred-or-so years ago, and recently there have been numerous sightings of what are thought to be bears born of polar/grizzly lovestorms wandering in the wild. Jury's still out on whether that should be exciting and cause for renewed faith in nature's ability to overcome the human obstacle, or whether we should all just go back to bed and pull the covers over our heads and wait for the world's scariest hybrid to come get us.
I wanted to write: "The bears are all asleep at the moment, of course; slumbering their way towards spring," but that would be untrue: bears don't hibernate. Their winter state, wherein body temperature drops around six degrees and metabolic rate is significantly lower than usual but they remain relatively easily roused, is called winter lethargy. Even so, we haven't seen hide nor hair of any kind of bear since we left Corvallis, where we saw the hairy hide of a small black bear draped over the arm of a couch. This means we've both restarted listening to music while running in the woods - we'd stopped doing so while there were critters bigger and grumpier than us meandering about seeking delicious foods. We've been doing a lot of trail-running, as we a) can't face the prospect of sitting on our bikes at the moment and b) have pulled all the ruined and/or worn-out components - which is pretty much all of them - off the bikes in order to reduce baggage weight on our impending trans-Pacific journey, back to NZ, where sunshine and warm seas await. And, of course, we've both been eating and drinking too much, so inactivity is not an option.
In between running in the woods (an activity which now includes not only cantering in an ungainly manner across icy boardwalks, but also falling face-first onto said icy boardwalks and sliding off their edges into half-frozen swampy mud puddles) we've been busy since we returned to Vancouver:
- Yoga. Thirty dollars gets you two weeks of unlimited classes. Nene's been at least once a day, sometimes more. I was banned for bad behaviour.
- Cooking. We have stove! No-one else has been allowed in the kitchen as Nene rediscovers the joys of cooking on something other than a single-burner propane-powered camping stove
- Movies. Nene's watched many, many films. Documentaries, boy-wizard adventures, historical romances... you name it, she's wallowed in it.
- Cleaning. Thanks to Nene, the Reaper is clean (and for sale). Our clothes are clean. Pots and pans and plates and cups are clean, tent and sleeping stuff is clean, everything that can be cleaned has been.
For those of you who've failed to pick up on the common theme, Nene's the one who's been busy. She's done pretty much all of the chores, apart from driving the Reaper to a carwash and sitting in it, reading, while the nozzles sprayed various liquids against the outside of the van, and the brushes whirled and the jets blasted air. Man, that was tiring! I needed a cup of tea and a lie-down when I got home, but settled for a beer on the couch in front of a sports channel playing on the wall-sized television.
Chores are very tiring.
Long Version:
As the world warms, the sea-ice upon which polar bears live will disappear. The bears will be forced to adapt in two main ways: First, they'll need to migrate to areas where there's more actual land instead of spending the majority of their time wandering about on the frozen seas, because less of the sea will be frozen; Second, they're going to have to adapt their diet, as there are far fewer seals swimming about on land than there are under the sea-ice. This means a probable shift to a plant-heavy omnivorousness, as there are few remaining land mammals available as prey which are large enough to satisfy the nutritional requirements of a predator of that size operating as a carnivore. This, scientists say, means war, against their bigger, browner cousins...
Grizzly v Polar.
At stake: undisputed enormous omnivore supremacy, and, perhaps, survival of the species.
Scientists say they've figured out the result already, based on skull and jaw strength: put your money on the grizzly ones.
Having said that, there is another way: Making Love, Not War. Apparently crossover bears were a favorite selective breeding programme of the Germans a hundred-or-so years ago, and recently there have been numerous sightings of what are thought to be bears born of polar/grizzly lovestorms wandering in the wild. Jury's still out on whether that should be exciting and cause for renewed faith in nature's ability to overcome the human obstacle, or whether we should all just go back to bed and pull the covers over our heads and wait for the world's scariest hybrid to come get us.
I wanted to write: "The bears are all asleep at the moment, of course; slumbering their way towards spring," but that would be untrue: bears don't hibernate. Their winter state, wherein body temperature drops around six degrees and metabolic rate is significantly lower than usual but they remain relatively easily roused, is called winter lethargy. Even so, we haven't seen hide nor hair of any kind of bear since we left Corvallis, where we saw the hairy hide of a small black bear draped over the arm of a couch. This means we've both restarted listening to music while running in the woods - we'd stopped doing so while there were critters bigger and grumpier than us meandering about seeking delicious foods. We've been doing a lot of trail-running, as we a) can't face the prospect of sitting on our bikes at the moment and b) have pulled all the ruined and/or worn-out components - which is pretty much all of them - off the bikes in order to reduce baggage weight on our impending trans-Pacific journey, back to NZ, where sunshine and warm seas await. And, of course, we've both been eating and drinking too much, so inactivity is not an option.
In between running in the woods (an activity which now includes not only cantering in an ungainly manner across icy boardwalks, but also falling face-first onto said icy boardwalks and sliding off their edges into half-frozen swampy mud puddles) we've been busy since we returned to Vancouver:
- Yoga. Thirty dollars gets you two weeks of unlimited classes. Nene's been at least once a day, sometimes more. I was banned for bad behaviour.
- Cooking. We have stove! No-one else has been allowed in the kitchen as Nene rediscovers the joys of cooking on something other than a single-burner propane-powered camping stove
- Movies. Nene's watched many, many films. Documentaries, boy-wizard adventures, historical romances... you name it, she's wallowed in it.
- Cleaning. Thanks to Nene, the Reaper is clean (and for sale). Our clothes are clean. Pots and pans and plates and cups are clean, tent and sleeping stuff is clean, everything that can be cleaned has been.
For those of you who've failed to pick up on the common theme, Nene's the one who's been busy. She's done pretty much all of the chores, apart from driving the Reaper to a carwash and sitting in it, reading, while the nozzles sprayed various liquids against the outside of the van, and the brushes whirled and the jets blasted air. Man, that was tiring! I needed a cup of tea and a lie-down when I got home, but settled for a beer on the couch in front of a sports channel playing on the wall-sized television.
Goodbye Amerika!
Short Version:
We head for the border via the booze/cheese/gasoline store, acquire a little person, and make someone cry.
Long Version:
Our final morning in Amerika dawned... actually, we have no idea how it dawned.
We arose reluctantly and eventually, bleary-eyed and thick-tongued and full-bladdered. Between the beautiful shining espresso machine and Wendy's fresh-baked scones it wasn't long before we were feeling good again, though, and we hit the road north excited to be travelling, and looking forward to seeing the Candians again, but also somewhat sad that we had to go, and determined to return to hang out with Scott and Wendy again, and to take in some of Seattle's trails, on a day with less standing snow and leftover rain.
Wendy had pointed us at a super-cool store in Mount Vernon, halfway to the border, and we stocked up on booze and cheese and gasoline before plowing onwards and upwards. We joined a queue of vehicles at the border, and hadn't been sitting long when a young Border Police officer approached the driver's side window and started asking me questions about where we were from, where we'd been, what our plans were, what did we have in the van... His ginger moustache made it difficult to take him seriously, but we were doing pretty well, right up until the point where his patrol partner, who had sneaked (or possibly walked normally, peering into each of the Reaper's rear windows) around to the van's far side, knocked on the window next to Janine's head. The surprised leap she performed was one of which Yelena Isinbayeva would have been proud, and the next round of questioning saw us somewhat less composed than we had been beforehand. They eventually had us drive on up to the booth, where the bloke asked many of the same questions, using the same sneaky-trick, "Let's see if we can get these potential scoundrels to contradict themselves" style employed by his mobile colleagues.
And then we were free to go, onwards into Canada, where I immediately exceuted a chewing-gum fail, biting my tongue hard enough to draw a significant and unstemmable flow of blood, only a little of which ended up in my beard. It had stopped by the time we reached the ferry terminal at Tsawassen, and cleaned up reasonably well, although I still garnered more than a few strange looks as I stood, shabby and unkempt, in the Arrivals waiting area. Maybe it was the fact that I was staring intently at all the really short people; I was trying to spot which of the heavily-bundled midgets was my smallest sister, but given how disreputable I now look I probably looked like I was sizing children up for bed and/or oven.
Smallest sister acquired, we carried on driving, under a river and up into the hills, to North Vancouver, where we hid the Reaper and arrived at the family doorstep clutching booze galore and gifts aplenty for smallest sister's big sister on her birthday. She cried when she saw us, because of happy surprisedness, and then we all ate delicious foods and drank some drinks and left the dirty washing in the Reaper overnight, because a task that monumental is not one to be attempted late in the day, and especially not when there are illicit imported alcholic beverages to be consumed, and for such a good cause!
We head for the border via the booze/cheese/gasoline store, acquire a little person, and make someone cry.
Long Version:
Our final morning in Amerika dawned... actually, we have no idea how it dawned.
We arose reluctantly and eventually, bleary-eyed and thick-tongued and full-bladdered. Between the beautiful shining espresso machine and Wendy's fresh-baked scones it wasn't long before we were feeling good again, though, and we hit the road north excited to be travelling, and looking forward to seeing the Candians again, but also somewhat sad that we had to go, and determined to return to hang out with Scott and Wendy again, and to take in some of Seattle's trails, on a day with less standing snow and leftover rain.
Wendy had pointed us at a super-cool store in Mount Vernon, halfway to the border, and we stocked up on booze and cheese and gasoline before plowing onwards and upwards. We joined a queue of vehicles at the border, and hadn't been sitting long when a young Border Police officer approached the driver's side window and started asking me questions about where we were from, where we'd been, what our plans were, what did we have in the van... His ginger moustache made it difficult to take him seriously, but we were doing pretty well, right up until the point where his patrol partner, who had sneaked (or possibly walked normally, peering into each of the Reaper's rear windows) around to the van's far side, knocked on the window next to Janine's head. The surprised leap she performed was one of which Yelena Isinbayeva would have been proud, and the next round of questioning saw us somewhat less composed than we had been beforehand. They eventually had us drive on up to the booth, where the bloke asked many of the same questions, using the same sneaky-trick, "Let's see if we can get these potential scoundrels to contradict themselves" style employed by his mobile colleagues.
And then we were free to go, onwards into Canada, where I immediately exceuted a chewing-gum fail, biting my tongue hard enough to draw a significant and unstemmable flow of blood, only a little of which ended up in my beard. It had stopped by the time we reached the ferry terminal at Tsawassen, and cleaned up reasonably well, although I still garnered more than a few strange looks as I stood, shabby and unkempt, in the Arrivals waiting area. Maybe it was the fact that I was staring intently at all the really short people; I was trying to spot which of the heavily-bundled midgets was my smallest sister, but given how disreputable I now look I probably looked like I was sizing children up for bed and/or oven.
Smallest sister acquired, we carried on driving, under a river and up into the hills, to North Vancouver, where we hid the Reaper and arrived at the family doorstep clutching booze galore and gifts aplenty for smallest sister's big sister on her birthday. She cried when she saw us, because of happy surprisedness, and then we all ate delicious foods and drank some drinks and left the dirty washing in the Reaper overnight, because a task that monumental is not one to be attempted late in the day, and especially not when there are illicit imported alcholic beverages to be consumed, and for such a good cause!
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