I sleep like a Pig. I also eat like a Pig.

Geez, the weather in Canada gets screwy sometimes; I had to learn it the hard way by getting up a couple of times to adjust the thermos.

The upside was I could drink some Sunny D, I wish there was some back in Singapore. That and Kool-aid. Oh man, I love fried chicken and kool-aid. I think I’m part African American now.

Me. Bored. Weather Makes me Loopy.

Ok, apparently I was wrong yesterday, we’re supposed to head to this place called Banff before we reach Jasper or anything. Yeah, I know, who comes up with these names right? It sounds more like a onomatepea rather than anything! Ok, so we’re trying to get out of the hotel as quickly as possible cause the Indian management sorta pissed us off too much; who by the way said he was a major in some army 40 years ago. Which means he left the service when he was like 20 or so. Who are you kidding man, even prime minister’s son don’t promote that fast!

We squeeze the hell out of our luggage, which included the pots and pans and whatnot from Walmart and soon we’re on our way east to a place that sounds like Nightcrawler openly passing gas.

3 Valley Gap… Which I… err… forgot to write about…

Admittedly, I was asleep most of the 6 hour journey when I’m supposed to be navigator. But how wrong can you go just following the same highway for 400+ km? And each exit pops up like every 30-50km apart from each other!

The view outside the car

Still, it was nice seeing the transition from a warmer part of Canada to something chilly.

We stopped by an A&W and I realized the one we got on the sunny island years ago is a bastardized version of the ones in North Am. The only plus of the Singapore version was the Coney Dog, and how of got from that to selling Nasi Lemak in an self-proclaimed “All American Restaraunt” probably explains it’s demise at our shores.

REAL All American Food

And for those of you wondering, A&W stands for Allen and Wright, or so it says in the advert poster places in the men’s room. Ya’all can thank me now for that useless nugget of info (Or you could’ve saved the trouble by wiki-ing it youself).

I ordered a Papa burger (as opposed to a Mama burger, and not cause it didn’t have an Indian sandwiched between them buns you racist jerk) and it was kinda filling so I saved the other half to nibble on the journey. It was too beefy for me I guess.

I love the root beer, they don’t add ice to their drink cause it dilutes the drink; instead they pre-chill it in the dispenser. Thumbs up for fast food innovation!

Roger’s Pass

After our meal we proceed further east and needed to stop at a place called to Roger’s Pass, because apparently the Canadian governent needed to usurp even more money from tourists and required us to pay a National Park pass before proceeding. Its either that or they’ll use the money to help and conserve the natural wildlife and environent in the National Parks. Guess which one the nice guy over at the counter; Louis, told us?

Some of the native inhabitants

Another Pitstop in the middle of nowhere

The next few hours were a blur to me (probably cause I was in lalaland) until we reached Barf… I mean Banff. It was clearly a tourist attraction, so many nations were represented trampling Banff’s beautiful sidewalks. It looked more like an European town to me though.

Banff.

We finally settled into a lodge not to far from the town and after much indecision we finally decided to eat at a Japanese restaurant for dinner.

I ordered something lazy; Tonkatsu, (note to self I’ve been eating too much pork recently) which was alright. Miso still tastes pre-mixed though.

Banff at night. Stupid camera phone.

Walked about myself, although most of the shops closed by then. Tried to secure some beer though, but they only sold them in packs of 4 or 6 (like my abs), and I had no beer buddies with me.

Settled in, my mum wanted to save so she got a room that could fit all 5 of us in. Well, there goes the queue to the loo then.

First of all, Happy April Fools.

Had a good sleep last night, even though stayed up to blog about the trip so far. Seems like my body is taking the jet lag well. Really love the motel we stayed, sorta good for its price; cozy and warm pity we had to leave the sleepy town after a night here.

Slightly peeved that I had to wait for the rest to checkout, my mum very loh soh and insisted to boil water for the trip northwards. Took a full 45 mins to get her out of the room to check out.

Before we left the town, we did savor a Canadian breakfast at Darrell’s diner/resturaunt round the corner from the motel. I ordered this gi-normous breakfast platter christened “the loggers breakfast”. It was like the cloverfield of morning meals! It consisted of 3 eggs (your choice of style), 6 pork sausages/ham/bacon, hash browns (which curiously looked more like rossi from marche; sans the sour cream), 2 slices of bread (pick from white, brown or rye bread) and top it off with local brewed coffee or tea. Phew! Thats a mouthful both eating and mentioning it!

We couldn’t finish the whole meal so we doggied the remnants so we could munch on the road. Still, we did leave the diner with alot of food in our hands.

Our next destination of the day was a place mystifyingly call Kamloops, it was a major town and business center unlike Hope, however not in the scale of a city like Vancouver.

We travelled northwards along Highway 5, stopping along the way at the side roads to take a couple of snapshots of the scenery. This is the first time we did come across actual snow up close during the trip, before it was just viewing them sitting on the mountains. The snow was white as snow, I guess, for the lack of a better metaphor.

In fact, highway 5 is one of the few highways you get to see different shades of the climate in Canada. One moment you’re travassing along the winter wonderland of snow, about an hour later you segue into sleepy oaklands sporting muted colors of red and green.

For the first time during the trip, we managed to arrive at our destination before our estimated time; possibly due to the trafficless roads of the highway. Kamloops was a typical Canadian town, with shopping malls (not to the size of the ones in Singapore though) and the like. The houses here look great and potentially a nice place to settle into if you prefer a slower pace of life without being far from society.

We initially got lost due to the confusing roads, but managed to secure rooms at the Dream Lodge near the entrance to the town.

Our accommodation at our present place wasn’t up to par to our expectations though. Many of the facilities promised to us weren’t working or missing. I remember the management mentioning that he was shorthanded; probably the reason why some of the stuff don’t work around here.

After dropping our luggage off into the rooms, we scoured the town as we wanted to save cash on dinner and cook for ourselves in the night.

First stop, Walmart; which contrary to our expectations didn’t carry much fresh foods and vegetables for Chinese cuisine. We did buy a couple of items there, like a set of pots and pans (my mum’s paranoid about the cleaniness of the ones loaned to us by the motel) but we needed proper ingredients to cook up something closer to home.

Kindly, the curiously effeminate male cashier that served us directed us to a place called “Superstore”, which isn’t too far off from where we were. This place was far larger than Walmart, and proudly Canadian, flags and all. I guess these guys like them thick!

We completed our groceries and personally I went to further explore a place nearby called Aberdeen Mall, which housed Sears and other stores. Most of the stores were for teenage fashion, I wanted to buy some for people back home, if not for the prices and the lack of space in our vehicle I would have. Oh well, I could make up for it when we get back in Vancouver then.

After my mini walkabout, I arrived back at the lodge for a good hot shower; a hot one does wonders in this climate, a therapudic effect even I must add.

Dinner was okay, it was neither Singaporean or Canadian, it was more cooked out of necessity than anything else. We found a jar of sambal back at the Superstore and it was quite shiok to excite our tastebuds to an otherwise bland cuisine. The sambal tasted more Thai though…

Thankfully, one of the things that did work in this place was wireless Internet; managed to interface with some of the chaps back home using MSN.

Even managed to con someone that I’m staying here for good (don’t say its not April Fools cause I’m one day behind you!).

That wraps day 2 of the journey, tomorrow we’ll try to stretch it by attempting to reach Jasper National Park within the day. My Google Maps says it like 5 hrs drive from these parts, but who knows what the road will bring?

One of the first things you’d notice when you touch down in Vancouver is the large community of Asians down here, about half the staff at the airport eats rice as a staple diet.

Another thing you’ll notice is how minuscule Vancouver Int’l is compared to great and mighty Changi; from the bottleneck called immigration, to the single arrival corridor that every flight shares.

Hell, even that corridor was under retooling, with scaffoldings and stuff.

We then proceeded to the eatery; otherwise known to us as a food court, to have a light meal and plan out our journey. Word of warning though, don’t come to Canada if you aren’t ready to burn a hole in your pocket for your meals.

Taking an example off the chinese menu at the food court, fried rice with 2 sides (meat or veg) cost CN$6.50, which amounts to around SN$10. Imagine paying the red Yusof Ishak note for a plate of chai perng (2 meat + 1 vege) at aircon kopitiam back in Singapore.

And I haven’t even factored in tax, which is 20%+ on top of your amount you pay for your meal. To coin a phrase from a funny brudder, “Like that is zi tao robert liao.”

As a segway, the Chinese Asians here really have a self depreciating humor here; I mean, you really hit it when your marketing slogan is “Have a RICE day” or “Let’s WOK and roll!”.

To quote a wise man, “racism is wrong, but its sure as hell funny”; especially when you get it to sell plates off your rocker. Or is it… Wokker? Haha.

Anyhoo, we managed to secure a brand new Toyota Highlander for our week long escapades. And another word of advice, if they offer you to rent a GPS system, just bloody take it already! We got lost for abit in Vancouver city, initially using pen and paper maps, delaying our journey for about a good 45 mins.

Our plan was to make our way east, to a town called Hope, which will then make point for our further journeys into mountain territory. If we can’t make it there, we quite “hopeless case” already (pun heavily intended).

We went along Canadian Trans-Am Highway 1, and looking at the map, precariously near the USA border. My initial impression of Canada is almost like it southern brother, only sleepier and more frenchy. The mountains with their white trimmed snow caps were breathtaking, as well as the red-hued oaktrees I could see along the highway as we jettisoned to our first stop.

True enough, about 3 hours after we left the airport, we sortied Highway 1 at exit 170 to arrive at the sleepy town of Hope. We then settled in a motel ironically called “Slumber Lodge”, which is nice, cozy and suprisingly spacious.

Dinner was Chinese at a place called “The Golden Star”, in which they don’t use the word ‘buffet’ but rather ’smorgsabord’.

Sweet and sour pork here tastes more sweet than sour and nothing like the zhi char version back home. The staff at the Golden Star speak in a dialect somewhat an offshoot of Cantonese, I know cause my mum doesn’t have a clue what they say. They could be cursing our Singaporean cheapskateness/value-for-money for all I care.

It was a good meal though, finally eating something closer to home for a change.

Broke a fortune cookie, said “You can be lucky today regarding your creative talents.”

Whatever man. The same paper has random numbers on the back, could come in handy back home. Beats using “Quick-pick” at Singapore pools.

Hot shower and I’m off to bed, thus begins my journey into the Canadian wilderness.

After since that last overseas trip, I had to get my travelling gears started again. I once again lulled into a Singaporean place of nuaness, y’know; the one of routine.

It was a helluva long flight; about 17 hours total, about the same to reach LA on the west coast of the USA. It kept recurring in my head whether it was worth it to fly so far just to smell the mountain air. Anyway, I was in too deep now, no time to get cold feet.

The flight to Vancouver included an hour of transit at Incheon Airport, Seoul. This 6 hour trip to Korea was much much different than the previous flight I had, firstly; there was much less turbulence due to bad weather.

More importantly though, the whole flight was full of Indians and Korean people. Yes, I would dub this the Harold and Kumar flight, and BTW, Kim Chee and Devil’s curry don’t mix (it don’t make curry chup chai if thats what you’re asking!). Being a dark skinned Chinese felt awkward in the flight, you didn’t know if you were closer to seoul or new Delhi in the side of things.

Amictably, I was cheesed off more by the Indians in the flight, I don’t want to sound racist but I’m just telling it as it is, y’know?

Anyway, Sanjeev over here decided to bring along his WHOLE extended family along on the flight, depicting a mass exodus of some sort. That means I was caught smack-dab in every uncle, auntie, nephew, niece and Grandma Lashkmi in economy class.

And I did find them particularly obnoixous and ignorant in their behavior. They were moving up and down the already claustrophobic 777-200 aisles unnecessarily, sometimes even blocking them while they chatted with their distant uncle of some sort. Some even slept length-wise across the seats without shoes. Others constantly harangued the cabin crew for alcohol. I haven’t mentioned the kids, whos’ parents let them play and talk so loudly and uncontrollably during the flight.

Seriously, this behavior belonged more in a tour bus to KL rather than a commercial flight. However, I did managed to complete viewing National Treasure : Book of Secrets amidt the chaos!

I was initially peeved I didnt bring the remaining Won from the previous trip to use at Incheon. My feelings were dumbfounded when there was barely any time to move around Incheon due to the fact we spent the whole hour of transit processing travel documents and the like.

However, thats when my family had a pleasant suprise; our seats were upgraded to business class. Sweet!

Oh yeah, God intervened all right. In hindsight, I thunk it be impossible to get any sleep on the long flight to Canada back in economy with all the chicken tikka up and about. But that isn’t the coolest, I felt we were treated like royalty in business; free flow of champagne, the course meals, and best of all… Recliner seats!

These babies go all the way to almost horizontal position so you could snuggle real good even in turbulent weather. And this is only in business, who knows what lies in first class and the penultimate suites on the A380!

I, for one, was just happy to be rid of Sanjeev & co.