What I did on my winter vacation

Well, my head still feels a bit like a zeppelin, but I feel well enough to join the land of the living again.
And soo...I feel I must babble on a bit about our trip to Vancouver on the weekend. All names have been changed to protect the innocent (well...ok just Magnus).

It was so nice to be away...to be where there are green things everywhere. Trees, grass, hell, there were ferns! I loved it. It was chilly, but nowhere near the arctic temperatures we'd been dealing with before we left. It rained a bit, but not all the time, so we even got out and about a bit in Stanley Park and did OH so many things.

It was a culinary tour I tels ya. Mag-o-nus picked us up at the airport and took us for some of the best szechwan food I've ever had...shrimp with sour red pepper sauce and spinach and so many other yummy things...and enough for later after the concert too. Yum. Even a dish that had deep fried spinach, which I honestly wouldn't have thought was good...and some dumplings with peanut sauce that were so good they made me drool. And then La Casa Gelato on the way home...with no less than 218 types of gelato! Curry flavour, green tea, taro root and pear and marscapone cheese to name just a few flavors...heh..you could sample as many as you wanted. And oh did I...I settled on pinapple poppyseed. I must go there again...and again...

The next day...more food! A terrific Dim Sum (the best peanut dumplings I've ever had!) - J who is leery of seafood and dim sum in general thoroughly enjoyed it...and more hanging out with Magnus. We had a few interesting "beers-of-the-world" to take with us to Stanley Park: cherry lambic, wheat stout and a lemon ginger beer that I didn't like ("No sir I don't like it..."). It was a shame to see Stanley Park as devastated as it was by the storms that hit it. Areas of forest that were lush and thick were pushed to the ground. A lot of it was still closed sdue to danger of falling trees. We saw a bit of it, walked the beach..sipped bear from coffee cups and discussed philosphy, life and the meaning of everything.

Then we had a culinary experience I'll remember for a long long time. We went to a "tasting house" called salt off Blood Alley in Gastown in Vancouver. You could select various meats and cheeses and condiments to go with them and have wines to go with it. I had a plate put together for me of corned beef, Piccadilly relish, spicy capicolla and fruit chutney, apples and aged yummy cheese together with 3 kinds of wine, chosen to accent the flavour of the food. J had 3 different things too (some Bison salami, smoked pork, Guinness relish) as did Magnus (cheese and figs are good together - who knew?)...so we had 9 different flavours to sample together with tasty bread. Magnus had some fine scotch and J had a mix of wines as I did - different ones too. Honey and cheese is divine. It was all delicious...I felt like the feasting Chancellor of the Skeksis making little yummy "mm mm mmmm!" sounds as I tasted and nibbled everything! We went on to the Irish Heather for some fine 15 year old Scotch whiskey. I let Magnus pick as he's the connoisseur of Scotch and Bourbon and I must say I loved it-had a fruity oaky aftertaste without the "yoikes and wiggly jaws" I get from some lesser scotches I've tried. J had the same as Byrun ("Peat Monster")-smelled very peaty.

And then...oh then. It was the Gomez concert. I've seen them live before and the Commodore ballroom is indeed a fantastic place to see a concert. It is like an old jazz hall from the 30's with a dance floor (used to be a horse hair floor) and areas with tables and chairs. Good view from all sides and decent sound for a big hall. The opening guy, who is apparently big in the UK, was rather a bit of crap I thought (a little too country for me), so we sat on a sofa and yakked. Well, OK mostly I twitched like a monkey waiting for the concert to start. Finally Gomez came on and I was oh so very happy - they sang a lot of my favorites and some of the improvised live versions of songs were fantastic. If you ever get a chance to see them live do - they are a great live band. Magnus who hadn't heard them before seemed to enjoy them. And after...we wandered about to find a cab as the busses were done and made our way home to leftover takeaway, some trappist ale and more babbling.

On saturday we went with Magnus to visit another old friend Pete. Pete and his lovely wife of 2 years had twins about 1 year ago and I haven't had the chance to see them until now. I'd made them Star Trek pajamas for their birthday (old series style). Thomas and Elizabeth will be the coolest kids around in them I tells ya..they're already adorable. It was good to visit with them for the afternoon. We stepped out for a bit of shopping -J tracked down some hard to find Orb and William Orbit CDs and I got a freaking fantastic pair of boots from the Fluevog store. I've been saving for many moons for them and although the ones I really wanted were out of stock, the burgundy "operettas" I got are absolutely freaking awesome if'n I do say so myself and have upped my style factor to level 9.2. Later we went back, picked up Pete and went out for supper and more yakking. So much to catch up on -so good to see my old friends...it's been too long. And J has finally had a chance to get to know them and I'm glad to say he thinks they're as spiffy as I do.

The next day we said bye to Magnus (sniff) and hung out with J's cousin Cloe for the day. We spent ages looking for parking and then stopped for lunch at the nearby Irish Heather again(had a half and half...been so long since my 2 favorite beers blended together...mmmm Guinness and Harp. Reading this over there was a lot of tasty beer and food on this holiday. Woot.). Then we wandered to one of my favorite places on this earth - Dr. Sun Yat Sen's gardens on the edge of Chinatown to discover - hey! Chinese New Year! Turns out it was the ceremonial beginning of the year of the Pig-a very auspicious year to stumble upon unawares. The garden was open and full of happy people. There were parades, dragon puppets, tai chi and sword dancing demonstrations and some incredible food at what I think is the one of the best chinese bakeries in Vancouver (mmm...egg tarts and coconut buns). There were fireworks going off all over all day and we got to be happy shiny people enjoying the sights...and all the tiny pigs everywhere. Gir would've loved it.
Couldn't resist a quick stop at the comic store on Granville St. to pick up a Serenity comic for J and a few hard to find Tank Girl compilation comics for me before we headed back to Cloe's place and met her man Ben-good guy. J and I went out that evening down to Granville Island to see the annual improv festival's final competition. The team from Winnipeg won - they deserved it -spontaneous and really hilarious. Realising we hadn't eaten supper we stopped off for nachos after a walk by the ocean (hee hee...ocean - just sitting there like it was no big deal) on the way back to Cloe and Ben's place... then it was on the plane in the wee hours of the morning and back home here in toontown by mid afternoon.

Exhausting and wonderful this holiday was. Go again we must (talk like Yoda I can...). Much visiting and yummy food and good friends and...I miss Magnus and Pete and Cloe already.
Sniff.
J was so very sweet with this whole trip - he let me plan most of it so we could just visit and see Magnus and Pete as much as possible. He had a fab time too. It was so good to get away...my camera batteries kept dying so I only have a few photos...I'll put them up in Flicker when I get the time.

I'd chosen to ignore the growing cold in my head until we got home and so I've been laid out since then...BUT after a few days back at home I'm feeling more human again...if still slightly zeppliney. And sooooo I must float off and get some work done. Bye all.