Another annual vacation over. It was my shortest trip to Canada but it seemed my longest. There was no sightseeing this year around or outside of Vancouver just my first non skiing week in Whistler and only a 1 day guest pass to the YMCA and some very quick shopping over my final weekend.
refer Facebook for photos
Today I woke up , had a shower, did a final pack of my carry on luggage, had my final complimentary breakfast downstairs then checked out leaving my carry on wheelie bag in storage with my other main suitcase and ski bag before heading off for my final day of shopping outside of the downtown core of Vancouver.
I walk down Davie Street catch the skytrain on the Canada Line to Oakridge first. I arrive just before the stores open at 11 am on Sunday and waited. I was shocked to see that most of the Oakridge Shopping Centre had been boarded up with white due to a major renovation of the decades old shopping centre ( it is one of those old shopping centres that has been around since the 1960's where the back is the front entrance and started off in as an open strip mall later becoming an enclosed mall as the population increased around the area - a lot like St Ives Shoping Village except without the carpet - not a lot of refurbished shopping centres still have carpet these days!) To get to the new food court and to Papyrus in the newer sections of Oakridge Mall you had to walk past the carpark entrance or via narrow tunnels. Once there the new food court looked great. Most of the stores had relocated either temporarily or permanently therefore there was no store directory. I had to ask the information or concierge desk for assistance. Crate & Barrel was still where it was at what I assume is the back of the shopping centre closest to the entrance to Oakridge Skytrain Station.
At Papyrus I purchased some Hannukah cards as they are not readily available in Australia.
Onto to Crate & Barrel via Room In Order. I took heaps of photos for work but no purchases this year.
Back on the Skytrain I stop at Broadway City Hall to stop at MEC to look at a snowshoe bag which turned out to be too small then down a few stores to Jonti's No Frills supermarket - my favourite place to shop for no name products and basic groceries. I purchase a bag of Mango Salted Kettle Chips - snacks for the 15 hour flight home tonight.
Onto my next shopping destination Park Royal North and Park Royal South as well as Park Royal Village in West Vancouver where I will spend the rest of my afternoon and early evening. Park Royal Village is always so pretty lit up at night to walk around. But first to what I came here for. Atmosphere & Sportchek to see if tgey had any short snowboarding bags or XL snowshoeing bags - no so onto my next stops via Winners A Buck or Two, no time to stop at Simons this year through to Shoppers Drugmart to buy some antihistamines and cortesone cream ( a sign in the elevator clearly advising surgical face masks are sold out before you reach the second floor).
Next and final stop - well not really I had to backtrack Michaels to look at their baking cake decorating and party section.
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Back to Park Royal across the main road on (Marine Drive) to London Drugs to top up my Compass Card. I thought Shoppers Drugmart did top ups but they don't.
Look a machine . Done.
I forgot I did stop for the most disgusting fried chicken and choice of side for a quick takeout lunch for CAN$5 plus taxes from Loblaws supermarket. I should have had Tim Hortons! The fried chicken was awful but the onion rings were good ( probably because I have never had a fried onion ring in my life therefore it was probably a crappy serving of fried onion rings that tasted great to me as I had nothing to compare them to - either that or I was just hungry). While I was there I had a look at the baking section - nothing much that was interesting.
I cross the road it was getting dark and around 6 pm. I get back to the hostel which was a longer then usual walk as the bus stop near Burrard was closed due to roadworks.
I have enough time to retrieve my ski bag, main suitcase and carry on wheelie bag from storage to do a final repack as well as recharge my phone in the foyer as it was down to the final 15% of charge left and then call a yellow cab to the airport around 8.15 pm which is more then the full 3 hours recommended check in time before your international flight departs.
The cab is really quick to arrive and I am on my way in the cab to the airport however a little way over the Burratd Bridge I suddenly remember that I had forgotten my phone and that my phone charging was still charging in the foyer of the hostel so I told the cab driver who advises me that we are not too far away and turns back.
I run into the hostel and quickly retrieve my phone and charger. It is still not charged yet but I will continue to recharge it once I reach the departure gate at the airport.
An extra $10 on top of the usual capped $35 taxi fare from downtown Vancouver to Vancouver International airport and 30 minutes later I reach Vancouver International Airport however there is nowhere for the taxi to stop to drop me off and no carts. Finally the taxi manages to find a parking spot and there are a few carts around. I load the cart and make my way to the Air Canada check in kiosks and check in counters. It is quite a walk as the closest parking spot the taxi was able to find was at the Air Canada Domestic Terminal.
I find the Air Canada check in counters and self service kiosks - there is already a long queue of people as there were 2 Air Canada flights departing at the same time that night ie 11.55 pm.
I decided to attempt an automated check in at one of the Air Canada self service kiosks, if it fails I'll just join the long queue. It worked sdo onto the rather confusing queue where people had no idea whether they were queuing up for a bag drop only or manual check in. Air Canada staff gave no clear directions of which queue was for what service ( they probably had no idea themselves).
I go to the bag drop machine at the end as no one else was using it. After self tagging my 2 pieces of check in luggage, I place my main suitcase on the belt of the bag drop machine to be weighed but the light would not go green. I ask for assistance but the Air Canada staff were not realky helpful. My checked in suitcase was 500g over the 23 kg limit hence I could not do an automatic bag drop so I had 2 options repack my 2 checked in suitcase so that my suitcase was under 23 kg limit by moving something to my ski bag which was way under the 23kg limit or join the end of the queue and do a manual overthe counter check in. I chose to rejoin the queue to do a manual over the counter check in which was a very long queue by now. To save time I decided to drop off my ski bag at the oversized bag drop off first befote joining the end of the queue to check in my main suitcase. It was a good move as it did not take long to drop my ski bag off as I already had my bag tag and boatding pass. I join the queue to check in my suitcase and it was after 10 pm before I actually reached the check in counter. I needed all 3 hours prior to my flight departure time just to reach the boarding gate in time! It took me 1.5 hours just to check in, I still had not walked to the security gate or passed security yet. When I went to check my bag in, my suitcase was actually under the 23kg limit - what the? Off it went onto the belt in just a few minutes as soon as I reached the check in desk after lining up for an hour and a half!
Next stop walk to the security gate - no time for Tim Hortons tonight. I always have trouble passing through security - they are so rude - another 45 minutes to pass through as I always get pulled over for a body search even when I have no metal on me at all - water emptied or drunk from my tgermos drink bottle, shoes off, gels separated, laptop, coat etc all out in separate trays to be scanned through the xray. I should be clean but am always pulled over for some reason. This time it was the amount of gel or liquid based tolitries and cosmetics I was carrying - I again had stuff taken out of my plastic cosnetic bag and confiscated. I don't understand what comes in must go back out with me so I selected moistly stuff that were free samples or replaceable to be confiscated. Next the long walk to the boarding gate which is usually a very long walk to the end of the airport - usually gate # 50 +. I reach the gate and have just enough time to purchase a bottle of water ( price gouging) and recharge my phone before boarding my long haul flight of 15 hours back to Sydney. I usually have a seat in Zone 3 right towards the back of the plane in rows 40+. I arrive at my asile seat and again the overhead lockers above my seat are full of life jackets so I place my wheelie bag in the larger overhead locker opposite. For some reason there was noone else seated in the row I was in - 3 seats next to me all empty I wonder why - was it just luck, all other seats around me behind to the right and in front of me were full. I still didn't feel comfortable spreading out to sleep though so slept upright for almost my entire flight. I didn't eat much of my dinner or snack either but ate my breakfast with a Borrocca. I must have watched 4 movies and all the episodes of Superstore available as well during my flight ( which I did during my long haul flight over as well).
Back at Sydney airport it was quicker then I thought to clear customs and collect my luggage. My ski bag ended up arriving on the normal luggage carousel instead of from the oversized luggage area however the first on last off principle still applied although my suitcase was not the very first or very last to be checked in back in Vancouver therefore it showed up closely after my ski bag.
I walk to Mcdonalds to wait for my ASN prebooked and prepaid shuttle home. Home around noon 2 days later. Shower pay bills partial unpack prep for work and a very long sleep. Straight back to work tomorrow morning and the long sleep really belped get all the jetlag out of my system.
End of another short but sweet Canadian holiday for another year. Treats for my work collegues were 2 x packets of Coffee Crisps this year as they liked them previously.
I knock on unit 1B's door to give Allan a bar of No Name French Chocolate as a gift I purchased for him. He says thanks but a few days later suspect he was moving out of the apartment block. I was correct a week later when it was pouring with rain he was gone. I found it a lityle rude that he did not even tell me or say bye. I will never know why he had to leave.. The apartment block is almost empty now - at least 4 apartments are now vacant however what I found really strange was I received an email notifying me that I had not paid my rent for 3 weeks without any notice and threatened with a notice of termination when I had only been gone a little over a week and had made a weekly rent payment as soon as I landed. As soon as I received tbis I sent a complaint to The Department of Fair Trading. I don't have to pay my rent weekly I just opted to and my lease contract ends in about a month with an option to renew it ( I asked about this right from the beginning). I have been li ing here for 10 months now asnd have paid my rent weekly without fail. As a first time renter I think I am being taken advantage of from the landlord and my biggest concern is getting my bond back in full as I never received a response to whether it was received. There was a weeks rent paid at the beginning that I had paid missing from their records as well. I haven't heard anything about lease renewal which also concerns me. Other then this there was my complaints about a faulty fridge and not only faulty but dangerous showerhead and screen both of which fell on me. The screen has been taken off by me and has sat permanently wrapped in a sheet on the apartment floor against the window and the showerhead remains upright limiting waterflow. I don't have time to muck around so have been just putting up with any faults.
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