Sunday, December 30, 2007

Lake Louise.

Much has happened since Golden's post but I figure writing about everything in one long and boring blog post would be lame so here is a brief look at Lake Louise instead.

Last Saturday (22/12) Michael and I ditched the drainers who were either working or being lazy and went up to Lake Louise for a full day of skiing. I decided to take my camera up as well, and it turned out to be a good move because the sun was shining, ever so brightly.

The photos don't really do the place justice but here they are nonetheless.

Lake Louise from the front.

Golden and myself in the gondola.

View from the top.

View from the hills. The second shot is especially nice, if I do say so myself!

These next few were taken from the chairlift;

Golden looking out into the sun, I don't know why, because it would've hurt his eyes, but I guess it's okay since he's a big poser anyway.

Who is this handsome looking man I wonder?

and here is one more for the Golden family.
Beautiful.


So that was a little something about Lake Louise, hopefully I can take some good photos throughout the season, of the mountain as well as of the guys.

We are stuck at the crappy YWCA until the 2nd of Jan, so it might be hard to blog again for a few days but it should be all smooth sails from then.

Happy new year to everyone,






Jin.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

A Look At The Crew

Welcome everyone, to Golden's first blog. Sorry it has taken so long. So my original plan was to have my first post about Vancouver, but when I tried to sit down and write about it nothing really interesting came to mind. So instead I'll sum it up in 5 words...it was cold and wet. The end. The most exciting thing for me was watching the seaplanes land in the harbour (and Stanley Park was pretty sweet too). Anyway, hopefully on our way back through at the end of our trip it will not be as rainy.

My idea for this blog came to me when I was pondering the dynamics of our very peculiar group. So below is a brief overview of some of the intricacies of each person.

Alex

Heathy has a profound ability to quickly memorize things. In particular he can remember the location of certain shops/places almost perfectly having only been there once before. He is our own Mr.Reliable. For instance, whenever someone has a question like "where is the nearest bus stop" or "how do we get to the liquor store from here" they will always - almost automatically - ask Heathy before anyone else, because he will almost certainly know the answer. This has lead to us giving him the nickname 'G-Plex', a mixture of GPS (Global Positioning System) and his name.
Alex is also regarded as one of the more handsome members of the group. It appears that he too, agrees with this. One night in Vancouver, Jin - looking into the mirror at himself - says "Hello handsome", to which Alex immediately looks up from his book and responds "Yeah?".

Josh

Apart from being the exceptionally tall member of the group, Josh can be defined in his very 'thrifty' nature. He has close to perfected the art of money-saving. For example, upon locating a pizza shop in Vancouver which sells large pizza's for $7.99, he immediately bought one for himself, and ate half that night for dinner, with the intention of saving the rest overnight to have for breakfast and lunch the next day. I've gotta say it is funny watching a tall dorky bloke wonder around Vancouver carrying a pizza box wherever he goes (see picture). He certainly blended in well with the local 'bums'. Moreover, upon our arrival in Banff, Josh insisted that he not go in on the communal 'food money pot', and instead buy all his own food, because he believed we could not live up to his thrifty standards.
Josh also has an uncanny ability to misplace things. I think his pockets are some kind of black hole. He just shoves all kinds of random shit in there, and it is just pure luck as to whether it will come out again.

Campbell

Oh camby...where should I start? Well I suppose I could start with his exceptional sleeping ability, which has lead to us coining him 'the Koala'. Indeed, I think if Campbell had his way he would sleep 20hrs a day, and spend his 4hrs awake chomping on eucalyptus leaves.
He has also developed a reputation as being a 'Fun Sponge' - a term I think I picked up from someone at college - used to describe people who 'soak up' all the fun in a social situation. For example, when walking down to main street Banff from the hostel, Jin and I often start imitation Liam Gallagher (who has a ridiculous walking style) or just start goofing around in general, to which Camby will always say "I hope you slip on your ass and die". Another time we were standing in a circle kicking around a block of ice, and it gets to Campbell, who immediately kicks it away. I think his fun-sapping ways may even be related to his Koala-ness, since he will often look far too tired and drained to have any kind of fun.
Campbell also loves spreading his knowledge of random pointless information. Here are some examples (they may not be perfectly phrased, but you get the jist)
-"the black squirrel is actually rarer than the common North American brown squirrel, and they are also smaller in size"
-"did you know King Arthur was seduced by his step-sister"

-"two thirds of the world's eggplants are grown in New Jersey"*
*I may have made up this one
Jin

And finally, there is Jin, who for some reason I found the most difficult to write about. Well, apart from being the token Asian guy, he has developed into the group photographer (like the play on words there?). And, as you can see from the previous posts, his work leaves a lot to be desired. He is certainly not close to the standard of his big bro and photographic mentor Mr. Sam. Don't worry Jinna, I'm sure you'll get there eventually (unfortunately by then the trip will be over and all Kodak moments gone with it).
One thing we have also noticed about Jin is the incredible time and care he takes when eating his food. By the time Campbell has finished his meal, Jin will usually be about half way through his first potato gem. In fact, as you read this he is still finishing off his first meal.

For all of you hanging out to see videos, keep your hats on and keep waiting...


Golden

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Banff.

Cool place, well a cold place actually, but a beautiful town surrounded by snowy mountains.

I'm blogging from bed at the moment, on a laptop borrowed from a cool Korean guy by the name of Jae-eun (his English name is Jey). He is our temporary roommate.

Anyway, I haven't taken too many photos since I've arrived in Banff - partly because I'm busy running around applying for jobs, partly because I don't carry around my camera with me in case I slip and fall (the roads are pretty slippery around here), but mainly because it's too cold for me to take my hands out of my pockets most of the time. But I'll definitely start taking more photos once I get used to everything.

Here's what I have so far:
Michael and Josh on our first day in Banff I believe.
View of the surroundings of our hostel.
A deer couple that Josh and I ran into while walking to town. I wanted to battle it but they were a little too timid and ran away.
Banff Town.
Banff Town #2.
Hostel's Storage hut.

We all bought our Big-3 Season passes today and we're finally getting some skiing action tomorrow!

Looking forward to hitting the slopes,

Jin.

p.s Since Golden is having some trouble uploading his videos, and with life in general, I've taken the liberty to take some videos myself, and here's one of Josh blowing some snow.


Friday, December 7, 2007

Cam's 2nd Post... Chaya!

Hey guys!

We're in Banff now, it's nearly 7pm on Friday here and I thought I should do another post, something a little more upbeat than Jimmy's last attempt. Really Golden should have done a post by now, but we all know that he can be a little slow at these things (and in general).

On that day after we got dogged by the weather and the buses, Golden and I took of into Stanley Park in the pouring rain. We got some good exercise and some good photos, unfortunately most of them were on Golden's camera, but here are some I took on Jimmy's...


Here is some big ol' tree that confronted us at the entrance to the park...

Here are some true blue Canadian mounties, all in their wet weather gear. Why the long face?

And we tried getting pictures of these cute, tiny black squirrels. These are a bit rarer than your typical grey squirrel. Later I'd learnt a trick of attracting them to us, and Golden has a kouta video of the lil varmint curiously scratching around at our feet... stay posted for that one!

Jimmy's camera lens fogged up a bit, and on our walk home the sun popped out on the horizon, creating an awesome rainbow. Golden and I had to stop under cover and take some cityscape photos... these are the results. Some of them are more affected by the foggy lens than others, and it makes them look pretty cool, i think.



This one's foggy as all hell, and is therefore the coolest. During this delightful interlude, Josh, Jimmy and Handsome Heathy were getting stressed out trying to find alternative routes to Banff... poor suckers.


Ah, well. All's well that ends well, and this is one of Jimmy's shots of Banff scenery... belissimo!

Now, to find a job and somewhere to live...

Cam.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

Getting the hell out of Vancouver.

is proving to be more difficult than we thought. Last night, we dragged all our luggage down to the bus depot, all excited and fired up for a nice change of scenery, only to be told in the last minute that buses won't be running to Banff due to hazardous road conditions.
but that's not all. After finding out that the buses would go only as far as Revelstoke, a town few hours away from Banff, we made an immense effort to find and book accomodation there. We were hopeful oncemore. Hopeful, only for our dreams to be crushed by the cruelest hand of god yet again. As a few hours short of leaving it was announced that now the road to Revelstoke was also closed off for the night.

Third time lucky I say. I'm going to get out of Vancouver tonight, and I don't care how.

Frustrated (but still positive),


Jin

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Sunshine, snow and rain.

We're hiding from the rain at the moment, at an internet cafe with rather slow internet.
Yesterday was the first time it's snowed in Vancouver this year, and I was pretty happy when I got up, peeked out through the window to see the city slowly become covered in whity goodness, for lack of better word/phrase/shut up golden.

Speaking of jerks apparently Michael won't be posting until we get to Banff, so we might have to wait a little bit more for his videos.

The Vancouver Library. It's huge.


Cam, Josh and Alex posing outside of the library in the snow.

It's Snowing!

Cam having a cold beer.
Yes.
We're heading to Banff tomorrow so it might be a few days til we find internet again.
Jin

Saturday, December 1, 2007

Cam's 1st Blog... YEAH!

Alright, this is my first post, on this, the first day of December. I just wanted to show you all some cool photos Jin has been taking. Some of them look a little dark, but that's hopefully just the screen we're using. Let us know how they look, huh?

Ok, so this is really just a post for me to show all you guys the cool scenery I've been enjoying around Vancouver. Jin was able to get some nice shots of the mountains around sunset. Very Nice!


Golden is obsessed with these seaplanes... man I hate that guy.


More mountains... although I'd like to get a photo of some mountain above a still lake, so you can see the reflections. That'd be awesome.


And this is a nice lil tourist-y shot of Jin and I in front of the 'steam clock' which is apparently run on electricity... I love Heathy walking into the shot. I apologise on Golden's behalf for the blurriness.
So that's all from me for now, the other guys should post soon hopefully, with Golden maybe adding some of his awesome vids.
LOL.. See ya!
Cam.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

We're here!



After 20 painful hours of being stuck in tiny economy-class seats like a bunch of caged hens, we've finally arrived in Vancouver, Canada.

Some interesting stuff has happened already, and we'll post up some photos/stories soon if we can [be bothered].

and I'm now dragging my jet-lagged arse to bed.

Sleepless in Vancouver,

Jin