April’s urban fix

While it had only been about six weeks since we’d stopped over in Vancouver on the way to and from New Zealand, our flight pass allowed us one more flight within western Canada, and an appointment for a tattoo gave us a good reason to return.

Our lack our annual leave and tight budget meant a fleeting visit, but a weekend in the City does wonders for your mental health when living in such an isolated place as Yellowknife.

Gas Town

Gas Town

Gas Town

Gas Town

Spring time April 09

Cheeky Raven

We made the most our urban fix by simply soaking up the warmth and urban feel of one of the world’s most liveable cities. So why did we leave Vancouver? As I often tell people, Vancouver is a fantastic city and we really enjoyed living there. But after living in Auckland, Melbourne, Christchurch and Wellington we found Vancouver to be too similar to these other fantastic cities in the southern hemisphere and decided to seek out something more authentically Canadian.

Cosmopolitian Canadian cities of the south all have their own Canadian-isms but I’m sure that Yellowknife takes the cake in the Real Canada stakes. Cold, vast open spaces and lakes. Lots of lakes.

While Nicole got her hair cut and some good culinary tips from her hairdresser I spent 3 hours talking to a local about life, love and art – while getting a tattoo that for me represents many things but among them is my time in Canada and especially Yellowknife. No I didn’t get a Maple Leaf and a “Yellow” knife tattoo.

Homeward bound

On our last day in New Zealand we enjoyed a classic Kiwi style cafe breakfast and some real coffee – before heading back to the land of filter coffee – at one of Nicole’s old haunts in Grey Lynn.

We spent the day at my sister’s place. They had friends over and Sony and Craig had prepared a gourmet lunch – my contribution: a bottle of Vodka.

We played some cricket and then the boys started doing jumps on their bikes. 

Mum and Dad rolled into town and as our departure time loomed I re-packed my backpack and we then we headed to the Airport.

The flight was uneventful but we did enjoy watching Slumdog Millionaire. 

Vancouver was a cool -3 degrees but the snow the pilot had warned us about hadn’t eventuated. We bamboozled James and Ami with tales of our holiday and then went our for Japanese for dinner.

We awoke on Monday to a snow covered Vancouver. We spent the day in town so Nicole could get her city fix before heading back to the Knife.

Although we only spent four months in Vancouver it almost feels like home – but on Tuesday morning it was back to our new home and back to reality.

Acclimatisation in Vancouver before heading to the tropics

NWT BC border

Whare finishing off some work en route to Vancouver

South of Yellowknife

Northern BC

More northern BC

Even more northern BC

After a few fantastic days in our old stomping ground of Vancouver, we eagerly set off for the airport for our 14 hour flight to tropical Auckland.

It was funny that Nicole and I had both been thinking how strange it was that Beatrice was picking us up for the airport in Auckland when we arrived, but that she was heading to the airport 2 days before we arrived. I mean, NZ is a day ahead of Vancouver, but with the time difference taken into account we couldn’t work it out….. panic set in when we thought that maybe we were supposed to leave Vancouver a day earlier than we thought……

We decided to solve this mystery by checking our tickets. Hmmm, when – not naming names – Nicole booked the tickets last September, for some reason we had it in our minds that we arrived in NZ on Thursday morning. When departing for a 14 hour flight on a Wednesday night that seemed to make sense. So after emailing our “itinerary” back home to facilitate catching up with everyone during our tight schedule, re-emailing a refined itinerary and then another adapted and re-refined itinerary, we were now getting in a whole day later than we’d thought. Bugger.

Nicole was in a mild state of panic thinking Beatrice had driven up to Auckland, stayed the night in a hotel and would be patiently waiting at the airport for our plane that wasn’t getting in for another 24 hours. Common sense mustn’t be genetic. Beatrice checked the ticket Nicole had emailed and was at first confused and the amused at “our” (Nicole!) blunder. Oops. Cancel the family dinner in Te Kuiti!

So it was quite ironic that we ended up getting to the Vancouver Airport about 2 hours early and then arrived in New Zealand a full 24 hours late!

Beatrice meet us at the airport, we had a coffee and then set off in the tropical rain for Hamilton.

From -30 to +6

On Saturday morning we departed Yellowknife for Vancouver. It was -30 when we left, nothing new there, and a ‘balmy’ +6 when we touched down in Vancouver. Nicole enjoyed spotting fellow Yellowknifers while waiting for our checked in baggage – the bearded guy wearing a Canada Goose parka was a dead give away.

We bused into our old hood – Kits – and made our way to James and Ami’s place. They had another friend Tama staying and we very hung over, so we dumped our bags and then headed out for a feed.

As a combination of celebrations – Ami’s recent birthday, Valentines Day and our arrival – we went our for dinner and then a few bars. Oh what a night. The drinks flowed at Whip while the food was a bit of an after thought. We eventually left Whip and tried our luck at a few of our favourite haunts, but we obvioulsy weren’t the only ones with that idea – they were chocka. Ironically enough a local (ie. Canadian girl) in our troupe lead us to the ANZAC bar. 

We were on form by then and after ordering a round a drinks, James and I spotted the dart board and that was it for us – drunken darts. Nicole some how got left out of the darts comp – after an initial dart-off – it was me and Tama against James and Ami. We eventually mixed it up a bit and I did get Nicole to have one throw, but I couldn’t let an “outsider” jeopardise the intense team rivalry.

As the beer flowed Nicole said the other punters in the bar were saying to her during various conversation: “Oh, you’re with the dart players”. Any type of competition fueled by a few beers and I tend to get a tad excitable, and I wasn’t the only one. I asked Nicole to take a few photos of us in action but the photos don’t do the shenanigins justice – but James’s video does. Check it out, it’s pretty funny.

From Tofino back to the mainland

After a few nice days of chillin out on Vancouver Island, the reality of packing up our apartment and moving to Yellowknife was approaching fast.

We managed to return our Dodge Caravan to the Nanaimo rental car depot and make the 12:30pm ferry to Horseshoe Bay just in the nick of time. If we’d missed it we would’ve had to wait about three hours for the next ferry which would have seriously impeded our packing time. We opted to flag the first bus leaving Horseshoe Bay and enjoy some fish n’ chips in the sun before launching into the unenviable task of packing. 

As it was by the time we got home it was about 3:30pm, so we got stuck right in and packed solidly until it was time to head our for dinner in time to meet James, Ami, Ty and Dhalia for yet another final farewell. This time it was just dessert, but it was good to catch up and shoot the breeze for the last time in who knows how long.

Feeling quite weary we headed home to our partially packed up apartment for our last night in Vancouver.

Last real week in Vancouver

After returning from a great weekend in Seattle, I was still without work on Tuesday morning when I got a call from my boss. “Can you be at a site on East 2nd and Main asap?”, “Ah, yeah, I suppose so”.

So I put the stove top expresso maker on the boil, unpacked my work gear, and headed for a day of construction. Thinking I’d be lugging sheets of ply and doing grunt work I was relieved (and a little apprehensive) when the site foreman showed me the site plans and explained the details of a wall I’d be building.

Last day of construction...for now?

Thursday and Friday (my last day) were at another site, and it rained a fair bit on Thurday. But any complaints of the weather were rebutted by reminders from my work mates that this was nothing compared to what lay ahead in Yellowknife.

Our last Friday night was organised by Nicole to include a few of our favourite haunts on Main Street in East Van. So after scrubbing myself up and getting into my party clothes I meet Nicole, James, Ami and two of their Kiwi mates (Ty and Dhalia). We had a fantastic evening at a place called Grub – delicious food and very good service. Nicole and I got off the bus (and left the others to travel home), Nicole instigated a pub crawl home! Needless to say Saturday morning was a slow start.

Farewell Grub

Saturday consisted of last minute chores, and a few beers at the rugby club for me, before yet another farewell at James and Ami’s. Drinking every beer in the house and then moving onto the wine seemed like a good idea at the time. Nicole and I vaguely remember getting the bus home.

Sunday was an even slower start.

We had breakfast and slowly packed for our four nights on Vancouver Island. Getting to the bus was painful, but it was a clear and crisp fall day and good to be out and about. 

 

Fall in Vancouver

After the initial buzz and excitement of finding out that we’re moving to Yellowknife, it’s been rather a quiet week for me. We had a few celebratory drinks last Friday night with Ami and James and on Saturday morning they came over for a renowned Jimmy K brunch.

Cool kids

I didn’t have rugby on Saturday so we embarked on a shopping adventure in preparation for our move into the depths of the northern winter, followed by a cafe stop for coffee, closely followed by beer.

Sunday was another day of selling shoes for the man formerly known as “hard working Jimmy K”.

At work on Friday afternoon we had to wait until some guys had finished what they were doing before we could erect a fence to secure part of the job site before the weekend. The foreman (Peter) then informed me and Joel (workmate) that we were finished at the site. A shame really as it was pretty cruisey a lot of the time, and I enjoyed my time there.

I called my boss to tell him that I was finished at that site and to find out where he wanted me on Monday – I also told him of our imminent move to Yellowknife and gave him my two weeks notice.

So when I called him on Sunday, left him a message, called him again…. and still didn’t hear back I decided that I’d get up bright and early on Monday prepared for a call up for work. Four days and lots of phone calls back and forward with my boss I’m supposed to have some work on Monday – famous last words.

Renaissance man

I’m not sure what the story is, but he said that a few of his jobs have been stalled at the moment. Not the end of the world but the extra few dollars for my last two weeks in Vancouver would have been nice. As a result, we made the executive decision (after some long and hard deliberating) to go to Seattle this weekend with no money – no seriously, I mean no money.

As someone who believes in the logical rule of living within your means, I have a minimal credit card limit – my theory is: if you can’t afford it, don’t do it/buy it.

Unfortunately Nicole sees things a little differently and I can understand her reasoning this time more than other times – she will be earning good money in a few short weeks and we have the impression that we won’t have much to spend it on in Yellowknife in the dead of winter.

So I’ve been loitering around the house this week, doing chores in preparation for our move.

Whistler OK

Whistler

Whistler Town Square aka Whare

Yeah so we finally made it to Whistler a few weeks back. It was a whistle stop visit – excuse the pun.

I may have mentioned it once or twice before….but after working 20 DAYS STRAIGHT, we opted to have a relaxing Saturday, check out some shops on Main Street (kinda like a Melbourne Brunswick Street), where Nicole bought a cool coat, enjoy a few coffees etc. and have a quiet night.

We picked up our hire car at 10am on Sunday and hit the high road to Whistler. We stopped off for a coffee amongst the road works (gearing up for the 2010 winter Olympics), and got to Whistler at about 1pm.

Our hotel was right in the centre of town, so we parked our car, checked out the town square, sat in the sun and had a hot dog for lunch. Whistler felt very Queenstown/Hamner Springs-ish. i.e. A quaint wee town with a mix of hip snow boarder/skater/mountain biker types, with the wealthy “weekend locals” and the usual mix of tourists. And then us.

Being Thanksgiving weekend there were heaps of “Turkey Sales”. Snowboards, skis and paraphernalia all heavily reduced. I know because being a wise old shopper I sussed out all the deals in the snowboard shops in Vancouver on Saturday.

So we checked a few of the sales out but it was a cracker jack day – far nice to be shopping – so we did a walking tour of Whistler.

We decided to save the $60 it would have cost us to go up the gondola – I’ll save that trip for when I can ride my new board down the mountain. So we watched a few mountain bikers riding the end of the trail (and wash their bikes, boring). None of them hit the big jumps at the end of the run: I was waiting to see someone have a huge stack, but no such luck.

We popped into a stylely little bar for a quick drink before dinner. Five pints and four glasses of wine later (Nicole wasn’t drinking – yeah right), we managed to converse with the bar maid and the other punters at the bar for quite some time.

Labourer goes to Whistler

The middle aged guy gave us some risotto tips. After hearing him talk to the bar maid I chipped in that Nicole was a big risotto fan. And then we chatted to the blokes who came in for a shot and pint on a pub crawl. Turns out one of the guys is in my rugby team!

We did finally make it to another establishment for dinner.

We never got around to utilising the hotel facilities on Sunday night so in the morning we had a quick swim. Well I tested the pool and retired straight to the spa. After breakfast/brunch I went and purchased a new snowboard, bindings and pants – there goes 20 days worth of earnings!

So it make not be you’re typical Whistler experience but we were keen to check it out before it’s covered in snow and it was a great escape. Probably a good thing Nicole searched on line for a cheap hotel deal and didn’t succumb to my plans for camping!

Monday (Thanksgiving Day) was drizzly, grey, cold and grim. We loaded up the Chevy (I’m serious, our rental car was a Chevy, but unfortunately not a 1969 Chev Impala, just a 2008 Colt), and headed north to Pemberton.

The drizzle stopped as we approached a bush walk so we parked up and walked to see a cool waterfall. A bit like Huka Falls.

Checked out Pemberton – not much to see but we’ve been there – had a coffee and muffin, and then hit the road for home. Our whistle stop tour of Whistler was over.

Lost in translation

On the job - 33 storeys up

I’ve had a few funny accent situations but a funny one the other day was during the lunch break at my construction job. I was relaying some story about the previous evenings rugby practice to my boss Tui ( a fellow kiwi), and my work mate Jōse (from El Salvador). At this stage I’d been working with Hose for a few days and at the end of telling my story Jōse said to Tui “I don’t understand a f@*ken this guy says”. Apparently Tui’s one year in Canada has made him okay to understand but not this freshy!

When calling out to a workmate called Phil,

Working mans hands

another Canadian workmate said “I love it when you call out to Phil cause it sounds like Fool. Don’t pity the fool” and the A-Team references continued forthwith.

The “construction rain jacket has been working wonders of late but I’ve had the “luxury” of wielding a concrete drill under some cover during parts of the few rainy days at work. The first day of drilling holes in a concrete wall followed by cleaning them out and epoxy-ing resin into the holes following by the re-bar (steel re-inforcing). I was under pressure from my boss to finish the holes that afternoon and only had one glove…. A left one…..for my left hand….

Some epoxy resin from the epoxy resin gun must have epoxy resined itself onto the handle of the gun, the handle of my hammer, the grip on the drill…. And consequently all over my right hand. I’m right handed.

The lack of cleaning facilities at the site meant that after packing up all the tools, the water I splashed on my hand(s) did diddly squat so I spent the bus ride home nervously picked at my solid right hand. The “industrial strength” hand cleaner I bought from the local Home Hardware store also did nothing…. 3 weeks later and it remains on my finger nails in patches!

Tip of the day: don’t get epoxy resin on your skin.

Another classic was when working at Coast Mountain Sports (CMS) last Sunday. I asked a lady if she needed help and she said “Oh my god are you from New Zealand?”, when I responded yes, she said that she was just thinking how I looked like Brett off Flight of the Conchords – she’s a big fan. So I gave her my autograph and sold her some shoes.

So I haven’t been too good at keeping up to date on this blogging malarkey of late- but what can you expect when you work 20 days straight, go to Whistler for 3 days and then back to working on 6 days a week with a day of rugby in there for the mix.

Yes I still selling shoes on Sundays! A catch 22 of wanting to utilise my staff discount but not yet having enough money to do so. Got a labouring pay rise and a strong lead on an office job, so not too long to go.

After rugby and a few beers yesterday I got a phone call from one of my CMS cronies offering to do my Sunday shift – stoked. A day to chill out.

Jimmy K or Brett?

Work, work and more work.

Another day at the office

Kia ora everyone,

Autumn is in the air but we’ve had an uncharacteristically good spell of weather for the past while. I’ve only had to bust out my rain coat on the construction site a few times. After working 20 days straight I enjoyed a relaxing Saturday and a trip to Whistler for Sunday night (Monday was a public holiday – Thanksgiving).

Haven’t had much time to be posting blogs of late. Too busy doing construction.

After working on building another level on a 4 storey carpark (“Parkade” as they call them here) at the Burnaby Casino, I was then sent to a site at UBC to work on the Biodiversity Lab (good thing I did a biodiversity paper at Lincoln!). An impressive building, not least because I built some of the forms for the concrete foundations.

On Thursday my boss rocked up to UBC at about 10am, got me to unload about twenty 25kg bags of cement off his “truck” (a “ute” in NZ, but which would make my Dad’s king cab Rodeo ute look like a Smart car in comparison), then said “get your stuff, you’re going to another site”. So off we toddled to a 25 storey (minus the 4^th, 13^th and 14^th floors – Chinese owners: 4 in Chinese is also the symbol for DEATH – anyone else hear that during the commentary of the Olympics?) residential apartment complex and TV Towers, where I got to strip some temporary structure, de-nail the timber, stack it and then do a number of other various “labouring” jobs. Good fun except we didn’t finished until 6pm on Friday – not happy.

I’ve actually been really enjoying my labouring work. I was totally over selling shoes but just need to stay on the payroll until I have enough money to utilise my kick arse staff discount before I quit.

Had a bit of a potential major incident the other day. While erecting some scaffolding I was securing the clip underneath (over my head) while the guy on top was supposed to be keeping his weight on the 16 foot aluminium I-beam (which was overhanging the base structure by about 8 feet), my spanner slipped, the clip flew off and the bean shot up from my end and cantilevered over the wall to plummet into the garden four floors below. The guy (Jose) up top hadn’t kept his weigh on it and the Mexican guy doing something over the wall on a cherry picker turned white as the beam sailed past him at 9.81m/s multiplied by the weight of the beam (ie. fast).

A few swear words were uttered in both English and Spanish, another guy quietly offered to go and get the beam after we all leaned over to see it resting peacefully in a squashed flower beam ontop of a broken light. Accidents happen: we were lucky it didn’t fall over the casino entrance, onto the footpath, onto the road etc etc.

Last week we went to a Bolivian film at the festival on Sunday evening (it was okay) and saw a cool Iranian film on Monday night.

More about Whistler etc later.