Flin Flon

Last week I took a short drive out to Flin Flon, Manitoba with my dad to visit relatives. I'm going to be moving to Japan at the end of next month so I wanted to see my grandparents, especially, before I left since I'm not sure how long I'll be gone for. On the way out there I took a lot of pictures... But I won't make you suffer through them all. I did find this interesting old house on a hill near the highway though so I snapped a picture of that. Sorry, it's a little overcast but there's not too much I could do about that haha. The picture on the left is of Flin Flon as you're driving in to town through Creighton. You can see the giant smoke stack in the background puffing away 24 hours a day haha. You can see it everywhere you go. Actually I just found out it's the 7th largest building in Canada o_O it's 251.5m that's kinda interesting.

After I got there I went to see my grandparents and they're doing pretty good. I was there for 4 days and visited them 3 so I think I did pretty good haha. We went out for dinner one night too, it was nice. I haven't actually been to Flin Flon since probably 2002 so it was pretty nostalgic to see the city and all the people there. My grandparents have moved from their house I remember to a retirement center but it's a nice place and they seem pretty happy where they are :) Especially my grandpa, he kept bragging they have one of the only 2 bedroom places haha.

After that I spent some time with my uncle and dad fishing from the dock at my uncle's cabin. It was really cold and windy but we actually managed to catch one! Surprising eh? It was pretty fun though, I also haven't gone fishing since the last time I went to Flin Flon so.... like 6 years ago probably. It might have even been longer, I don't really remember. And then my aunt and I went to a club and ended up drinking quite a bit together haha. It was a pretty fun night. We were swing dancing together making fools of ourselves probably. Everyone else was grinding away around us and we were bumping into them spinning around and whatnot. I think we probably took up a quarter of the dance floor for the most part. Most people moved out of the way haha. I don't have any pictures of that though, I didn't bring my camera =/

Well after all the fun in Flin Flon it was time to head out. We stopped at a few places on the way home so I have a couple pictures to share. But first, I found where Bill Gates took his picture for Windows XP haha. That's not from Saskatchewan suprisingly, it is just out of Drumheller on the way to Calgary ^_^ Then it was off to BC!!

Our first stop was Drumheller (which is before the previous picture hehe oops). Anyway, I got my picture taken with a giant freakin' dinosaur. This thing is gigantic!! You'll probably have to click on it then find me standing on it's toe before you really notice the sheer size of this thing. I was blown away haha. For a little reference I'm 6' tall or 183cm (I'm a little taller than it's toe).

Then off to Banff to the Banff Springs Hotel for a bite to eat for lunch. Now that hotel.... is a nice hotel. It's like an old castle turned into a hotel. It's amazing and the architecture is beautiful. It's one of those places you just want to go explore for hours and hours until you get lost and have to explore your way back. The food there was a little pricey, but it was good. And it's not too often I get the chance to go eat there anyway haha. It ended up being a little over $50 for 2 sandwiches and 2 coffees haha. But what can you do right? The view was awesome. I took that picture from my seat (we sat on the patio). I just turned to the left and pointed my camera over the railing. I didn't even need to stand up haha.

After that it was a short drive to Lake Louise to see what they had to see. We didn't stay long (it started to rain) but it was pretty neat place too. I'd say Banff is much more interesting, especially since there's a city nearby and stuff to do, but I guess some people might disagree ^_^ It was nice all the same though. Other than that, it was a short drive back to Penticton so nothing interesting to report there haha.

First day on the job

Last night my brother drove me down to Princeton to start my new job this morning. It was an early start and a tiring day.

This is the first time I've done any real physical labour for any extended period of time and wow it's tough. I'm a Diamond Drill Helper. Only 2 people work a shift together. I'm actually working with my dad so it's pretty cool. He's the driller and I'm the helper. He does all the pressing buttons, pulling levers, fixing, and everything to do with running the drill in general. My job is to move everything around the drill so he can do his job as fast as possible (we get bonuses by meter drilled).

So, I'm tired. Totally pooped. I didn't even do all the work today - there's a second helper teaching me all the ins and outs today and tomorrow so, come Monday, I'll be in rough shape probably haha. I enjoy it though. It's really repetitive but I'll get the hang of it. I guess I'll have to eh haha.

Unfortunately I don't have my camera so I won't be able to upload any pictures for a few days but I'll be getting it on Saturday so check for some pictures around Monday or Tuesday probably.

I'll keep studying Japanese out here at night too when I'm not writing my blog (I don't have much time from when I get home to when I want to sleep). I get back here at about 7pm then have to eat dinner so that's about 7:30ish? And 10 is probably about the latest I want to sleep haha. So that doesn't leave too much time, but it'll be enough. Also, to any of my friends in Penticton, sorry I wasn't able to hang out before I left - it was kinda short notice ^_^

While I've Been Home

Nothing too amazing has happened but I'll attempt to highlight the interesting... or mildly interesting.

It all started out with a near-finished retirement home going up in flames on the 7th of April. This fire was started around dinner time and wow did it go up fast. The entire construction site was covered in wood and the building was, also, entirely made of wood. As you might have guessed already, it was found to be arson. Three teenagers deemed to be the culprits were arrested at the scene but only one's name was given out in the morning paper (due to the criminals' age). Damn kids nowadays eh.

A week later I expanded the garden in my mom's front yard so it would look nicer and would be easier to mow the grass. My sister and I dug out all the grass around it and dumped it into a big pile. I ended up getting pretty dirty. In the end we ended up with 850kg of sod (grass and dirt) we had to lug up to the dump. We were planning on putting down some wood chips the next day when BAM it snowed 10cm overnight. What in the hell? The past few days had been gorgeous! The average temperature was around 16 and it had even got to 22 the weekend before. Now it was -1. Good ol' Penticton - never ceases to amaze me.

My brother arrived home from College and I gave him the some of the souvenirs Hime had bought him in Japan when I was there. Most of it were random different candies and sweets. One of them being a strange honey-looking candy you have to spin up on sticks and then eat after it gets thick and full of bubbles. It's a pretty strange candy but they (my brother and sister) had a lot of fun with it.

On April 27th I went to hang out with a few of my friends I hadn't seen in a long time. We went out for dinner at Anthony's (I think), had some food and a drink then came back to my place to play video games. We played Guitar Hero III, then switched over to the classic SNES and dusted off Mortal Kombat II and Street Fighter II Turbo haha. It was a pretty fun night. It ended a little prematurely but everyone was tired and one of the guys had to work early the next morning so we called it a night.

We decided to give our dogs a bit of a grooming on the 29th because they were getting pretty scruffy haha. Hallie got the nicest job of them all - we thought it would be cool to give her a lion mane and a mohawk down her back haha. It turned out alright. We just didn't shave off anything around her head and we left a strip on her back about half way down. For all those who think this is animal cruelty - I assure you she is completely content with losing as much fur as she can since it's starting to get warm. And we're bringing them to the groomers soon anyway. And she likes her mohawk! ^_^

Yesterday I attended a Japanese Tea ceremony in Penticton at the Japanese Gardens we have here. It was pretty neat. They had one girl from Osaka that flew over here to be here for the ceremony (she doesn't actually live here) I was pretty surprised haha. I believe her name was Mutsuko. She sat there all alone on that mat waiting for water to boil and then meticulously adding and stiring the maccha. Very interesting - I don't think I'd be able to sit there that long. Atsuko was the one playing the instrument. I didn't get to hear her play much since I forgot my camera at home and had to go get it but from what I heard it was also really nice. It was a beautiful day to have a Tea Ceremony. I'm so glad I was able to go.

お祖父さん、どうもありがとう

Today my gf's grandfather presented me with a beautiful carved wooden bear. He wrote me a message under the wood on the bottom which I'd love to put on here but it has personal information so I can't. His writing is incredibly neat and looks so cool. When I come back to Japan I will bring him something similar from Canada. He wanted me to remember Hokkaido from this bear since bears are famous in Hokkaido.