Day 155

i'm grateful, tonight and, again, overall.

tomorrow is thanksgiving. in canada. does anybody in the united states even know about this? i didn't really until just this year. all this time i was missing out on a potential back-to-back-to-back combo of major holidays months.

after an awesome stay at parker's house in washington, it's time to move on. maybe it's natural to imagine, during younger years, about meeting another self. i think that this is closer that i'd ever thought i'd come. obviously, we aren't dead-on twins or exact identical personalities, but overall, many similarities are there and i'm thankful to him and his family for temporarily allowing me into their family. the past month and a half have been incredibly blessed and bettered through it all.


i've booked a ride, now. i'm kind of looking forward to riding in a charter bus again. big windows. tall ride. seattle to vancouver.


here continues the journey. the adventure. the transition.

Day 82

after an amazing sleep-in on real beds, the four of us awoke and decided to make breakfast. pictures to come, this was an epic breakfast. epic. we went to the foodstore at around noon and, as we collected things we thought we needed, we wondered why bacon and eggs and orange juice and fruit are all considered breakfast food in the three collective countries of our origins. later in the kitchen, the beatles played loudly and i had my first experience with a waffle iron. shaun made eggs and paul did bacon while kirk covered the toast and helped to guide us through his kitchen. we also had five dollars worth of blueberries and the waffles really did turn out beautiful and perfect. after two packs of bacon, seven or so massive waffles, a large bowl of blueberries, orange juice, eggs, and toast, we were happy so we left to go into the city.

cell phone talkers and fast paced walkers chased after buses and dodged raindrops throughout downtown vancouver. we ducked in and out of shops and stores and, once again, had an encounter with a bum who, this time, drew a picture of the four of us. we had just come out of a six-floored music store and i was still buzzing from an experience on the second level filled with black sparkling grand pianos. he asked if we were a band, we told him we were, and we were soon presented with a red scribbling that wasn't entirely devoid of artistic ability. still, it is what is. a bum drew a picture of us. later, in the skytrain tunnels, we met another bum who had a pigeon riding on his hat. he told us, and the video camera, that this bird, a 'spotted dove' was his best friend and has been with him for two years. dark still eyes loomed underneath the straw hat and the content pigeon bobbed along as they both stepped onto the train. later, i got bob dylan-like sunglasses at a vintage thrift shop.

there's a minor league baseball team in vancouver and tomorrow we're planning on going to a game. i'm pumped. this break has been awesome so far.

Day 81

i'm off the island. after a busy morning of editing and shooting, lunch came and time off began. already, this day has been awesome.

shaun, paul, and i are hanging out with a guy kirk who lives on the mainland near vancouver. the ferry ride over was splattered with other qwanoes staff, but the three of us each brought a longboard and i had a backpack and camera. after docking, we were free to roam and ready to go.

kirk is a cool guy. his dad's a prof at trinity western and there's a '55 les paul hanging on the wall in the room as we watch a john mayer concert on the flatscreen on the wall. we both brought our canon dslrs tonight on our adventure.

earlier tonight we headed into vancouver for the last night of the week of fireworks. pedestrians flocked the dimming streets and faces glowed as people, numerous as ants, scattered and spread to find their own vantage point. after splitting with shaun and paul, who were at kfc, kirk and i sat on our longboards with our chinese takeout on the sidewalk and ate as people flowed past towards the waterfront. a grey whiskered, bald bum approached us and asked us for money for some kfc. i'm not sure why, but we told him that we had some friends at kfc who could help him buy the rest of a meal. he asked their names and then left saying 'he was going to blow their minds' by approaching them by name. the funny thing is that this guy had been in kfc earlier trying to scrape up a meal and had talked to shaun and paul, telling them he was going to rob the place. so bum man left us and went back to kfc. haha so random and the boy's had a great reaction when we met up with them a little later. we meet many bums on our adventures.

since this was our first time in vancouver, we rode the sidewalks and happened to find a solid looking carpark. guardless and mostly empty, we booked it up the stairs and ripped down. awesome.

after an amazing fireworks show, we glided through the darkness and crowded streets and made it back to the car in a fraction of the time it took earlier. there's a sea-wall sidewalk that borders the water and surrounds most of the city and in the dark, still, cool, salty air, the four of us cruised in silent bliss. shining city lights reflected on black water and people sifted and slid into the darkness to find their ways home.