my last morning in china i didn't do anything. i ran some errands, packed, showered, and went to the airport. i was almost home! ...sorta. hahah. i had an 8 hour layover in vancouver before actually getting home. originally i had a four hour layover but i do like vancouver so much that i decided to schedule a longer one so i could actually leave the airport and see the city.
my flight was without note, except for the lady next to me. she was the most annoying person i've flown next to. incredibly nosy and completely unaware of personal space. she watched movies over my shoulder (tho she had her own working screen), put up our dividing arm rest without asking me first, kept talking to me tho i was giving her every indication that i didn't want to talk to her, bleh. at some point i "forgot" i knew chinese. i did, however, get a free cup o noodles from a flight attendant. :) it made me really happy cause on my flight to beijing i also got a cup o noodles. the whole plane did actually. i think it was their way of making up for the flight delay? whatever. i love cup o noodles!
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| macleod's. obviously. god, i love me a firetrap of a bookstore! |
it rained the whole time i was in vancouver. bah. but at least it wasn't a heavy rain. i went to
macleod's books for a bit and on the way there i found an alley filled with really great street art. macleod's was smaller than i thought i'd be. but i found a couple great books anyway. i wasn't expecting for everything to go so quickly (customs, the metro, the walk, the bookstore) so i had a bit more time that i had expected to have. before i'd left for china i'd had the vague notion of meeting up with some space people since a number of them were getting in early for
alcan. but i'd never gotten in touch with anyone (i've been shutting myself out because i feel guilty about switching teams next year). also, i didn't have fb in china and that's how most of the teammates talk to each other.
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| love this piece! it's so northwest tribal art. fantastic! |
since i was close i went to
canada place and the
convention center to walk around and to see the
olympic cauldron from the 2010 winter games. it was cool cause i'd seen some olympic stuff in beijing too (tho not the cauldron). i hadn't been to either place since their olympics. eventually i went and had an early dinner at
fatburger which makes me laugh cause i've always wanted to eat there but never have and finally do in canada tho it's a chain that started in southern california! i probably should have eaten at
taco time cause i see them all the time in canada, but i can't really bring myself to cause we must have better mexican good down here in socal, no?
anyway, i eventually get back to yvr and get on home. and that was it. trip over. i've come to realize that these china trips are like summer camp. you go somewhere, meet new people, live and eat and go on "field trips" with them and after a week or so it ends.
final thoughts? china is not the place for me. much as i think it's an amazing place to visit, i could not live there. of all the things to dislike about the place: the spitting, the toilets, the unsanitary-ness, traffic, noise, lack of credit cad friendliness; there's so much more to love. but the thing that got to me was the beijing metro. at all hours of the day there are people trying to get somewhere. it's an actual river of people. i kept thinking of it like sperm. sperm swimming and rushing and i hate that god awful crush of people. esp cause there's less racial diversity there so most everyone looks alike with their black hair; it's even worse. a person could get lost there. reminds me of a line from amy tan's
the joy luck club: "and he proceeded to pour a riverful of the salty black stuff on the platter, right before my mother's horrified eyes."
vancouver - still love it. i thought i might hold against it our extended layover from the first half of the trip. but, no, of course not. in some way i love vancouver even more now that i stumbled on the graffiti filled alleyway and found that i could use my credit card anywhere.
anywhere. from the metro to the bookstore to the restaurants, i love it.
last last thoughts? i'm looking forward to next year. whether it be in china, singapore, taiwan, or wherever. i'll be happy to be there. :)
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