Halloween Eve, or something
Wow, what an exciting day.
Vancouver people are some silly folk on Halloween weekend. On the way home tonight I saw all kinds of zombies and ghosts, not to mention a fair share of very special nurses, Catholic and Japanese schoolgirls both, and other kinds of bare-leg-and-thigh-high goings on which I couldn't quite identify, but had no complaint enjoying for whatever they were supposed to be. Oh, and there was also a guy wearing a sombrero, poncho, Mexican flag, and a giant rubber dildo. Um, sure.
All this after having spent several hours at Carlos and Bud's, Vancouver's "authentic" Tex-Mex bar and grill (authentic, not so much — barbecued rib and refried bean special anyone? I'm serious), watching the Texas Tech vs Kansas State game (I nearly fainted when I noticed that's what was on the TV), along with what we at first thought was the BC Lions vs Saskatchewan game, but then realized was a BC Lions vs Saskatchewan game from 1989. At least the Canadians were fooled, too, though there were certainly a lot of "What's with all the mullets?!?" comments.
During which I enjoyed several drinks with my new friends Buddy the bartender, and Jeet, Kimmy, Jane, and especially the lovely Amber, who was dressed as Pippy Longstocking and who gave me chocolate out of her Spiderman lunchbox, and whom I'll be meeting there again next weekend.
Of course, all this excitement and celebration was at least partially justified, because I'd just walked down from 933 Seymour, which is my brand new cooler-than-hell downtown Vancouver apartment. I don't actually move in until the 15th, because my landlord Jürgen (he's Swiss) has decided to repaint and redo the flooring, so I spent a couple of hours hanging out with him and his renovation guys drinking beer and being asked what I wanted it to look like. We settled on replacing the badly scratched wood flooring on the first floor with reddish-toned polished concrete, leaving the hardwood floor on the upstairs bedroom, and repainting the walls like a light gray color. It should be good.
Before meeting Jürgen at the apartment, I spent about a half hour scouting out the neighborhood, and surveying the plethora of goodies located even within a single block of the place. One block. Don't believe me? Here goes, roughly in order of number of steps away from the outside door:
The Screening Room DVD rentals
Nester's Market grocery store
Starbucks
A dry cleaners
Dominoes Pizza
A health clinic
A barber shop
An insurance dealer
Nelson Street Bar and Grill
Staples office supply
Orpheum – Vancouver Symphony center
The Falafel House
A store with the sign "Cold Beer and Wine To Go!"
Hertz car rentals
Vogue Theater (at which PJ Harvey is performing tonight)
Doolin's Irish Pub
A comic book store
Kripps Pharmacy
A bookstore
A movie theater
Another Irish pub
Another Starbucks
Another Falafel House
India Gate restaurant
Blenz Coffee
Taco Time
Burger King
Penthouse Club
Capone's live jazz club
Cellar Nightclub
About three other clubs I don't remember the name of
Decadent Donuts
"El Furniture Warehouse" Mexican Restaurant
A few other pizza places
At least eight other Mediterranean places (well, not quite, but nearly)
Three porn stores
Several clothing stores
You more than get the idea. These, like I said are only the places within one block away. Like 200 feet. Crawling distance. I could do without the Penthouse Club quite so close, maybe, but it seems like a quiet enough place. The porns stores not so much, either, but at least they're on the street behind my place, so not too much in the way — about 80% of the people going in there are female, though, so at least they don't seem to be too spooky.
Anyway, whenever anyone comes to visit, there is definitely plenty to do. Whatever butters your muffin, so to speak.
Before all this exploring, I walked down the waterfront from Chinatown, where I had the best pho of my life, and then slurped on a bubble tea in the Sun Yat Sen memorial park. I also found the dealer of the future giant Chinese calligraphy scrolls which will hang on the 16 foot walls of my living room.
On the walk back to downtown, there was a seal swimming along in False Creek, but when I took out the camera to take a picture, he got shy and dove under the water, and I never saw him again.
Speaking of Chinatown, it's about four times bigger than I thought it was, and there's a Ten Ren tea store there. I bought some special jasmine tea. I also picked up some Mah Jong counter sticks and an umbrella (a replacement for the one I left at the bank) for only a couple of bucks. One of the shops had a life-size stuffed Pucca doll for $250. I would have bought it for Loun-Loun but it would probably smother her.
So, anyway, yeah. I have the coolest apartment ever. I live in a great place. And maybe now I can start up the propaganda engine to get some of my favorite people to get the hell out of Texas and get in the game up here. I can hope, right?
Vancouver people are some silly folk on Halloween weekend. On the way home tonight I saw all kinds of zombies and ghosts, not to mention a fair share of very special nurses, Catholic and Japanese schoolgirls both, and other kinds of bare-leg-and-thigh-high goings on which I couldn't quite identify, but had no complaint enjoying for whatever they were supposed to be. Oh, and there was also a guy wearing a sombrero, poncho, Mexican flag, and a giant rubber dildo. Um, sure.
All this after having spent several hours at Carlos and Bud's, Vancouver's "authentic" Tex-Mex bar and grill (authentic, not so much — barbecued rib and refried bean special anyone? I'm serious), watching the Texas Tech vs Kansas State game (I nearly fainted when I noticed that's what was on the TV), along with what we at first thought was the BC Lions vs Saskatchewan game, but then realized was a BC Lions vs Saskatchewan game from 1989. At least the Canadians were fooled, too, though there were certainly a lot of "What's with all the mullets?!?" comments.
During which I enjoyed several drinks with my new friends Buddy the bartender, and Jeet, Kimmy, Jane, and especially the lovely Amber, who was dressed as Pippy Longstocking and who gave me chocolate out of her Spiderman lunchbox, and whom I'll be meeting there again next weekend.
Of course, all this excitement and celebration was at least partially justified, because I'd just walked down from 933 Seymour, which is my brand new cooler-than-hell downtown Vancouver apartment. I don't actually move in until the 15th, because my landlord Jürgen (he's Swiss) has decided to repaint and redo the flooring, so I spent a couple of hours hanging out with him and his renovation guys drinking beer and being asked what I wanted it to look like. We settled on replacing the badly scratched wood flooring on the first floor with reddish-toned polished concrete, leaving the hardwood floor on the upstairs bedroom, and repainting the walls like a light gray color. It should be good.
Before meeting Jürgen at the apartment, I spent about a half hour scouting out the neighborhood, and surveying the plethora of goodies located even within a single block of the place. One block. Don't believe me? Here goes, roughly in order of number of steps away from the outside door:
The Screening Room DVD rentals
Nester's Market grocery store
Starbucks
A dry cleaners
Dominoes Pizza
A health clinic
A barber shop
An insurance dealer
Nelson Street Bar and Grill
Staples office supply
Orpheum – Vancouver Symphony center
The Falafel House
A store with the sign "Cold Beer and Wine To Go!"
Hertz car rentals
Vogue Theater (at which PJ Harvey is performing tonight)
Doolin's Irish Pub
A comic book store
Kripps Pharmacy
A bookstore
A movie theater
Another Irish pub
Another Starbucks
Another Falafel House
India Gate restaurant
Blenz Coffee
Taco Time
Burger King
Penthouse Club
Capone's live jazz club
Cellar Nightclub
About three other clubs I don't remember the name of
Decadent Donuts
"El Furniture Warehouse" Mexican Restaurant
A few other pizza places
At least eight other Mediterranean places (well, not quite, but nearly)
Three porn stores
Several clothing stores
You more than get the idea. These, like I said are only the places within one block away. Like 200 feet. Crawling distance. I could do without the Penthouse Club quite so close, maybe, but it seems like a quiet enough place. The porns stores not so much, either, but at least they're on the street behind my place, so not too much in the way — about 80% of the people going in there are female, though, so at least they don't seem to be too spooky.
Anyway, whenever anyone comes to visit, there is definitely plenty to do. Whatever butters your muffin, so to speak.
Before all this exploring, I walked down the waterfront from Chinatown, where I had the best pho of my life, and then slurped on a bubble tea in the Sun Yat Sen memorial park. I also found the dealer of the future giant Chinese calligraphy scrolls which will hang on the 16 foot walls of my living room.
On the walk back to downtown, there was a seal swimming along in False Creek, but when I took out the camera to take a picture, he got shy and dove under the water, and I never saw him again.
Speaking of Chinatown, it's about four times bigger than I thought it was, and there's a Ten Ren tea store there. I bought some special jasmine tea. I also picked up some Mah Jong counter sticks and an umbrella (a replacement for the one I left at the bank) for only a couple of bucks. One of the shops had a life-size stuffed Pucca doll for $250. I would have bought it for Loun-Loun but it would probably smother her.
So, anyway, yeah. I have the coolest apartment ever. I live in a great place. And maybe now I can start up the propaganda engine to get some of my favorite people to get the hell out of Texas and get in the game up here. I can hope, right?