week recap

I left Golden on thursday, after 4 monotonous days in Golden, as was evident by the weather. I made record time by getting to Kamloops in 4.5hrs in two rides. When I got to Craig's, I called all sorts of martial arts trying to find a class to drop-in on. The only thing class that worked out was White Crane Gung Fu, which is a Tibetan martial art. Even though it was described as a 'hard' martial art (as opposed to 'soft'), I still found it completely different from karate. lots of swinging motions, as opposed to linear (shortest distance A to B). the kicks were fairly similar though. i guess this particular club has produced world champions, but i didn't see any real reason why. they had good (though small) facilities, but facilities aren't everything. they played music during the workout part of the class, i thought that was weird. and the sensei's helpers didn't seem very disciplined. but of course, a single dojo (or however you say it in Tibetan) isn't much indication of a martial arts validity, so I'm not gonna judge the style too much, except that I know it wouldn't work for me, because my shoulders are way too fucekd up for some of those motions.

the next morning I got a ride from a family in an old school motorhome. parents plus 3 kids. the dad was from teh Seychelles, an island off the east coast of africa. they were pretty nice. sounds like they just move around and aren't too tied down. must have money saved up. they'd sailed down to panama from squamish. crazy. well we got to Merritt and it was pretty bad road conditions. traffic was at a standstill and the ambulances couldn't even get thru. the family decided they were gonna wait it out in Merrit, so I walked down the line of cars and found a guy to give me a ride, but then when traffic started moving, he decided his tires couldn't handle it, so he went into Merrit too, so I found some lady ina big dodge to gimme a ride. made it to van from kamloops in about 6 hours, which ain't too bad, considering the chaos on the coquihala.

I made some calls and arranged to drop-in on a karate class. They were preparing for a tournament, so the kids and adult classes were combined, so there was like 50 people in this room. I got to practice with two guys, a brown and a black belt, the brown belt turned out to be the guy that had beaten me by a tenth of a point at provincials to get the gold medal. so it really cool training with them, they were both really into details. the sensei seemed pretty good. 4th degree, i guess his dojo produces a lot of gold medalists. one of the girls that was there was just in the world championships and got 4th place. she was REALLY good. he had a great attention to detail too, especially considering that he was watching 50 people at once. i really enjoyed the class. Ben picked me up after and then I met up with ashley and sharyce. We tried to go dance to drum n bass, but i'd forgotten my ID, so we ended up at sharyce's, where i stayed the night.

by the next day, i was pretty burnt out and ready to go home, but i decided to help ashley move. it was a really nice day too. we drove her dad's truck onto the ferry, then stopped by my place in Qualicum to drop off my stuff, then boogied down to victoria in time to go out dancing to some fun breaks by some DJ from the UK. i got a good 4 hours of sleep, then in the morning we jam-packed the truck full of shit, but coudn't fit this one futon, so we tossed it on the roof of the truck canopy and drove it down to a thrift store. but when i got out to take if off the roof, it wasn't there anymore. that was quite the laugh. it was another nice day and the ferry route from victoria to vancouver, is really nice, going by lots of the gulf islands. unpacking was fairly painless, i made dinner and we (me, ben, sarah, and ashley) just chilled for the night.

today me and sarah scoped out UBC and the beaches and area areound her house. Kitsilano is really a nice part of a the city. I'd actualy consider living there if the opportunity arose. not for too long of course, just like a month or so to get a feel for the city. the sky was obscured by clouds, but you could actually see quite far and the views from the ferry were possibly the best I've seen, with clear views (unlike the previous hazy view) of mt baker and the direction towards squamish, as well as vancouver islands mountains.

anyways i'm back on the island now, glad to finally rest for a bit. my mom, sis, and me are going to Ashcroft on friday for a few days of cookie cooking with some of my mom's friends and their families. should be cool, plus hopefully we'll ge to drive the Sea to Sky Highway again. my grandpa on my dad's side died a few days ago. he was 87. I haven't seen him in about 4 years and I wasn't particularly attached to that side of the family. Feels weird that I'm not feeling much. Maybe it needs to sink in a bit. I've only seen my dad for a few minutes since we heard (he flew down for the funeral today), so maybe when i see him again I'll feel different.

My job starts on monday, pretty exceited about that. And that basically wraps it up. It was a good trip for sure, I got to see lots of people in 5 different towns/cities and the hitchhiking was easier than I'd anticipated, plus I got to check out two new karate dojos. I finished my book on quantum physics, The Dancing Wu Li Masters. It was definitely a challenging read (all the experiments technical talk, even though it was pretty layman). Very rewarding and trppy stuff though. So if anyone thinks they can handle the scientific lingo, I highly recommend it.