So, I'm in Portland, Oregon right now. Pretty fun.
I'll just kick off where I ended last time. Vancouver, July 20th, probably. After taking care of the car, Aarne's family took us to the Vancouver Aquarium, in Stanley Park. The recreated natural environments such as the rainforest are always rad. And the 4D cinema, with the wind, back-poking things and such stuff, of course. Dolphins, colourful frogs, sea cucumbers and belugas were among the creatures living in the aquarium. We had dinner in Gastown later, it's a more historic part of town.
On Thursday it was time to visit Vancouver Island, one of my dad's high school friend named Peter Wiles. The island is pretty big, I don't know how many hours it would take to ride from one end to the other. It's also supposed to be quite dangerous in the nature there, with many cougars and bears. Anyway, Pete lives in a cozy house in a village called Cumberland, near Courtenay, if that means anything to you. It used to be a mining town, and it's pretty run-down now. It even had a Chinatown back in the end of the 19. century. They stopped the mining in the 60's.
We visited a mountain there, which still had snow on it. Didn't sadly visit the top, because it was really cloudy there. We also went to a seaside restaurant/pub on that day, where you could see seals looking out of the water. Pete took us to Cathedral Grove on the next day, with really tall trees. One of the highlights in my opinion was a river with some waterfalls, I don't recall its name.
We returned to Vancouver by ferry on Sunday. A grill with the other Tork family and three games of croquet with Aarne and Anne's daughters Annika and Aliina. On Monday I woke up around 5:10 AM to go walk around in town before leaving for Portland. Aarne's work started at 6, so he took me to the SkyTrain station near the airport where he works. The SkyTrain is kind of like a subway, but the rails are often above the ground. I went to downtown and then to North Vancouver via the Seabus. It's a pleasant area (or city, as it officially is, part of the Greater Vancouver) on the edge of a mountain, so it's on a slope.
Later Anne took us over the border to Bellingham airport in Washington, where we rented a car. In the evening we arrived in Portland, which is said to be one of the most environmentally friendly cities in the world. My dad has a friend there too, Erik Teose, and we stayed at his place. We (+Erik's family) went to a Mongolian restaurant where you basically stuffed your bowls full of food and they cooked it, really good place with an interesting system. Next day (yesterday) we went out of town to see a few waterfalls. It took a while to walk up to them, but the view was great.
Today we left Portland and I am now in Crescent City, California (I started writing this blog post yesterday, didn't have much time, though). We saw a bit of Redwood National Park which has even bigger trees than Cathedral Grove on Vancouver Island. It's also the park where they filmed the Ewok planet for Star Wars. Anyway, I'm done for now.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Back in Canada
I woke up 40-50 minutes ago here in Vancouver hearing that two of my uncle Arne's car wheels had been stolen. Well, that's that.
Anyway, I left Estonia with my family on the 14. July. The flight from Helsinki to Toronto was pretty uncomfortable, as I wasn't sleepy, and there wasn't really a lot to do on the plane. But it was good to be back in Toronto. The day after arrival we went to downtown, kind of obviously, and I showed some places to my brother, now that I felt less like a newcomer. Eaton Center, the side of Lake Ontario, the Toronto University grounds and so on. Later Tiina took us to a free outdoors cinema, where they showed "How To Train Your Dragon". They had loads of technical issues but after an hour or so, they finally got it going.
On the 16. I walked to Danforth Avenue from our base on Burnham Road. There was a South-East Asian Festival somewhere around there and later at Woodbine Park down south I saw the Jazz Festival, same one as last year, there were some good performers. I liked a band called Left Foot Yellow, who played, and I assume composed, some instrumental rock songs.
The 17. was our last full day in Toronto, we're going back soon though. Soon we will start our little road trip in the States, and then we'll shoot off to Florida from Phoenix and then we will return to Toronto. Anyway, on the 17. I decided to walk around and explore (something I've become obsessed with recently) by myself. I went North, to a rich neighborhood. From there I went into a park, the one that's connected to Sunnybrook Park. It felt like it would never end. It was a great park, but in the end I wanted to find a way out and which ever way I went, there were just more plains, baseball fields, horse stables and so on. Eventually I did get out, obviously. It was through a campus of York University. Ten I went to Eglinton, and after an hour or two I was back home. We then went to Chinatown with my family, with many classic products in the smelly supermarkets, such as bean flavored ice lollies.
So, we had a flight to Vancouver two days ago. Staying at my uncle Arne's and his family's place around South Surrey, which I think is about an hour's drive from downtown. I've never been this far west before, until now the most west place was probably Florida, but I visited that in 1995, when I was a 1 year old.
It was a nice flight, loads of space. In the evening we all went to White Rock, a little town near Surrey, and there actually was a white rock there, on the beach.
What I like about Vancouver is that there's a lot of water here:
We went to Granville Island, which is in downtown. Filled with places like a food court, broom shop, some art shops and a brewery. There was also a show where some guy who called himself Dynamike, rode on a 3 metres (maybe) high unicycle while juggling machetes. Later I walked around by myself on the North coast of downtown, Stanley park and some other bits there. Pleasant area.
I'm not exactly sure what's gonna happen today, currently they've been dealing with the car, so I've had time to write here in my blog. Oh, and I'll try get some photos soon.
Anyway, I left Estonia with my family on the 14. July. The flight from Helsinki to Toronto was pretty uncomfortable, as I wasn't sleepy, and there wasn't really a lot to do on the plane. But it was good to be back in Toronto. The day after arrival we went to downtown, kind of obviously, and I showed some places to my brother, now that I felt less like a newcomer. Eaton Center, the side of Lake Ontario, the Toronto University grounds and so on. Later Tiina took us to a free outdoors cinema, where they showed "How To Train Your Dragon". They had loads of technical issues but after an hour or so, they finally got it going.
On the 16. I walked to Danforth Avenue from our base on Burnham Road. There was a South-East Asian Festival somewhere around there and later at Woodbine Park down south I saw the Jazz Festival, same one as last year, there were some good performers. I liked a band called Left Foot Yellow, who played, and I assume composed, some instrumental rock songs.
The 17. was our last full day in Toronto, we're going back soon though. Soon we will start our little road trip in the States, and then we'll shoot off to Florida from Phoenix and then we will return to Toronto. Anyway, on the 17. I decided to walk around and explore (something I've become obsessed with recently) by myself. I went North, to a rich neighborhood. From there I went into a park, the one that's connected to Sunnybrook Park. It felt like it would never end. It was a great park, but in the end I wanted to find a way out and which ever way I went, there were just more plains, baseball fields, horse stables and so on. Eventually I did get out, obviously. It was through a campus of York University. Ten I went to Eglinton, and after an hour or two I was back home. We then went to Chinatown with my family, with many classic products in the smelly supermarkets, such as bean flavored ice lollies.
So, we had a flight to Vancouver two days ago. Staying at my uncle Arne's and his family's place around South Surrey, which I think is about an hour's drive from downtown. I've never been this far west before, until now the most west place was probably Florida, but I visited that in 1995, when I was a 1 year old.
It was a nice flight, loads of space. In the evening we all went to White Rock, a little town near Surrey, and there actually was a white rock there, on the beach.
What I like about Vancouver is that there's a lot of water here:
We went to Granville Island, which is in downtown. Filled with places like a food court, broom shop, some art shops and a brewery. There was also a show where some guy who called himself Dynamike, rode on a 3 metres (maybe) high unicycle while juggling machetes. Later I walked around by myself on the North coast of downtown, Stanley park and some other bits there. Pleasant area.
I'm not exactly sure what's gonna happen today, currently they've been dealing with the car, so I've had time to write here in my blog. Oh, and I'll try get some photos soon.
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