Homeless Japanese

Never seen a Japanese homeless person... and when I see the first (and still only) it would be in an ultra rich shopping complex in Mito that has Gucci and Salvatore Ferragamo stores...

Dreamers

Dreamers, like anywhere else... ah, the carefree youth when you don't give a damn for your financial status, so you don't give a damn if you get money for doing something, when you don't give a damn that it is cold outside... why would the Japanese be spared of such beauty? They talk about Japan being a super stressed country where from an early age people learn to earn a living, or make commitments to friends and family about being cool physicists, but still there are dreamers in this world... and, as it turns out in this case, people who are afraid of germs...

Starbucks

oh no, in Mito too...

As leaving the US was impending, my sister said to me, "you know what I would miss most about the US?", waiting for her to say something along the lines of boys, I was surprised to hear it was Starbucks... I said "Are you kidding me? Everywhere I go, I try to avoid Starbucks but it is freaking everywhere" and later thought maybe Ibaraki doesn't have any - man was I wrong...

Fish parts

So, my physicist, Japanese friend who works at JPARC, and I, like to meet at least once when I am in Tokai and go for a fancy dinner. He picks the restaurant and has not disappointed me, to this date, and we spend accordingly ~5000 Yen per person, for the meal only. The first time he took me to this super traditional sushi restaurant, the second, to a fun izakaya where we had nabe (Japanese hot pot) to stave off the onset of winter and commiserated about our love lives.

This time he took me to eat fish pod or nabe or fish soup or fish hot pot, made of ankar fish, a famous dish in Mito, the capital of Ibaraki at the most famous place for this in Mito, Sansui. So, it comes like this: with all the vegetables and mushrooms (Japan has the yummest assortment of mushrooms, as you might imagine) and fish, all on a separate large plate and then at the middle of the table there is this pot of boiling water - you make the broth yourself by adding a bit of the miso pod they give you. The nice waitress explained this all to us and then she proceeded to make it for us anyway. The idea is to not waste any fish - so she started naming the fish parts on the plate, and my friend started translating from Japanese to English. At one point, unable to find the English word, he goes "well, you have it": I would have guessed right away, but I was thrown off by the direct non-shy way he said this, because in my head I have it that Japanese people are pretty shy and while he is not super shy, he's not completely me either... but after some back and forth I said "ovaries?" and yeah it was the fish ovaries - not that yummy, specially when you know what they are... they do look different and almost just only skin and all... But, I ate it of course - lately I have decided I will try my very best to eat everything that is put in front of me... It was quite salty - he asked me if it was and I said 'no, it is great'. When the waitress asked later, he said it was probably too salty for me, because I am a city person - apparently there is this big thing between rural and urban Japan and the urbanites scoff at the bold tastes of the rurals... My friend himself is from Tokyo - and no, not a suburb, right from Shinjuku ward in Tokyo.

And, then like we always do, we went to this bar to have calpis sour - such a yummy Japanese cocktail. Today we commiserated about careers in physics and how I am contemplating leaving physics. He said: "I can never leave physics.. when I was little I fought my parents to do physics... and now them, all my friends, they all think one day I will be a cool physicist. I can't not be a physicist". It is a very good reason to remain in the field - in fact I will miss the cool aspect when I leave. And I want him to do well and become that cool physicist everyone wants him to be. We ended up discussing another one of my Japanese friends from grad school who has now come back to KEK at the assistant professor level and we decided my friend should try and come to North America for a postdoc stint. As much as I see no future for me in physics, at least not the future I want, I want my friends, who are deserving, to remain in the field... Constants comforts in my otherwise rapidly varying life...

Washing and Drying Clothes in Japan

the monumental task of operating any sort of machine in Japan... as also evidenced by my brother's imported-from-Japan car that talks to him and what not but all in Japanese and how he doesn't even want to deal with the movie-watching function since it is also in Japanese.

Anyway, this is how the washer and dryer should look like, if you are like me, and want your clothes lightly washed; i.e., in North America I always use the cold and delicate settings and air-dry my clothes, so...

Holywood and Reuters

So Robert Redford and Shia Labeouf were in Van downtown (since it is the city with the second most movies shot, in North America and all) and all these people and also Reuters!!!! What's up Reuters? Nothing better to cover in word news?

Bernard Derome

I had no idea who this was until someone actually told me of this event - but he was apparently an acclaimed Radio-Canada anchor and what not. I went mostly because these days I don't miss any CBC/Radio-Canada event since I am sort of keeping an eye on a career there and also to better my French... I read that he was really a grounded anchor (you would think by virtue of the meaning of the word they all would be, but...) and in fact did a great un-provocative coverage during the QC referendum and all.

prendre le temps prendre le temps pour le reflechier
- Bernard Derome

This, that he said at the seminar stuck with me. Always a good virtue to have, not just for news reporting.

The Alchemist

My brother's birthday gift to me; he wrote:

As I read this book I could not think of anyone else I know whose life's journey resembled that of Santiago, than yours.

It's always complex to read a book that comes with that prologue: did he actually read it? (it doesn't look like his kind of book - I didn't know he read novels - of course this based on something he said to me about 10 years ago!!!); was it this part that he thought resembled my life or was it another...

But soon these thoughts were gone away - the simple allegorical story was in some sense perfect for this time of my life - a window to the things I once loved and maybe not any more and the things that I have grown to love and the call to make a decision, to make room for the dreams, the new ones.

So this was the book that gave the infamous,

when you want something all the universe conspires to help you achieve it

I loved the writing style - short, simple sentences. And very interestingly the first line of the book states "the boy's name was Santiago", which is the only time he is named - he is referred to as 'the boy' throughout the book. I also loved the way he wrote 'Personal Legend', capitalizing the first letters, like it was a proper noun.

Interestingly, the epilogue for the book talked about how Coelho found inspiration for his first novel, The Pilgrimage, after doing the camina the Santiago de Compostela. I had never heard of this, until a friend who I have great respect for, talked about this in Tokyo about a month ago. The next day, taking the flight from Narita to Vancouver, I read in the UA magazine, an interview with Martin Sheen on his movie, The Way, again about this camina (terrible story, but I watched this for the scenes of the camina, and I was not disappointed). So I go from never hearing about this to hearing about this from three independant sources within the course of a month - speaking of omens, the recurring theme of the book!

But here are some quotes that really spoke to my heart:

But this was the present moment and he wanted to live it as he did the lessons of his past and his dreams of the future. Although the vision of the date palms would someday be just a memory, right now it signified shade, water, and a refuge from the war.

You must love the desert, but never trust it completely. Because the desert tests all men: it challenges every step, and kills those who become distracted.

And if you didn't fall hopelessly and romantically in love with the desserts of the Giza pyramids after reading this book, well then you must not be a hopeless romantic!! :)

Day before yesterday my bosses said they wanted to talk to me today; they are probably getting concerned about the less than stellar performance promised by my previous bosses. I was able to talk myself through it and they seemed happy at the end. But today, well actually yesterday, after lots of crying that physically shook me like it hasn't for a long long time, I decided I will become happy again.

It was also a time I felt gratitude for the constants of my life, for the love, for the witness to my life. Even at times that my mind strays, I have found comfort in the constants. And for the first time in a long time, I said a clear 'no' to temptation, so I will be comforted in the constants.

And tonight I came home and huddled on my couch under the throw with a hot chocolate and finished reading The Alchemist and it calmed me in so many ways. Paranoia and psychosis are gone tonight and a strong determination to keep them at bay is now within me.

It also made me think of new beginnings; I have been for a while, but this time it felt stronger: my yoga teacher said last week (I know, I don't believe it either - that I am quoting a yogi):

Something's have been in your life and served you well and now they have earned the right to die. Offer them up to the fire, to agni, to make room for new beginnings. Let them die with dignity.

and the Alchemist quote that really, really talked to my heart at this time,

“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.”

If I were to go by the book's theme of 'recognizing omens' so I would realize my 'Personal Legend', this would be it!

"Well, then, why should I listen to my heart?"

"Because you will never again be able to keep it quiet. Even if you pretend not to have heard what it tells you, it will always be there inside you, repeating to you what you're thinking about life and about the world."

- The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

Dental Cleaning with a view

my first dental cleaning in Vancouver - about time you'd say, but there was like a 3-month wait period after making the appointment - perhaps, because I looked up ratemyMD and found one of the top 5 dentists. So the X-ray revealed one bad tooth that needed a filling and perhaps even a root-canal (!!!!??) - this made me throw a huge fit of denial, which surprised the doctor and so he opened his mouth to reveal like 10 crowns!!! I didn't tell him I intended to get to 50 without a single filling and also wondered if I made the right choice - I mean the man has obviously not taken care of his own teeth. A week or so later they would do a filling, and it seemed I was just short of a root canal, and they put a white crown (that cost me $50 out of pocket!!!! - they didn't even ask if they could put the silver one, that was in fact covered by my insurance... I might have opted for the silver, since it was an upper tooth and since I am a bit shorter than average people, the chances are no one would actually see the color of my crown... oh well). Anyway, it was also the first time I was anesthetized, which freaked me out since I didn't know how less is normal, to feel once you are been anesthetized - so it was this big drama of me asking for more anaesthesia and wanting the dentist to hold the mirror to my mouth every 2 minutes so I see what he was doing - so of course now there is a small roughness, that I will have to wait for a month or two before I get smoothed out.

This is the view from the dentists office - looking directly down my street - somewhere at the end of this picture is my apartment, eclipsed by the giant high-rises in the horizon.

Anyway, this all made me think of one of my friends from MN, who shuffles back and forth between there and Van and he is this former Soviet Union person so he is all-glory-to-socialism and is so enamoured by the Canadian health care system, compared to the US one, and he specifically talked about getting a dental cleaning appointment in Vancouver within a week of calling... so either he is lying, or he lives in some God-foresaken suburb - I am going to go with the latter... a lot of people tend to refer to suburbs of big cities as the big cities themselves... I beg to disagree, and disagree very much...

Anyway, I like universal health care because it allows affordable health care to everyone - so go universal health care, yes! But, I must admit, as a poor grad student at UMN, I had way better health care than I ever had in Montréal (maybe Vancouver might be different, I haven't been to the hospital yet) - in the UMN hospital there was a sign that said 'speak to us if you have been waiting here for more than 15mins.' and in Montréal, even when I went to the supposedly faster clinics, I had to wait for 1hr and 20mins, with a killing stomach-ulcer pain, before I got seen! But that was regular hospital; ok, so in UMN, you had to make a dental hygiene appointment 6months ahead, but you have to remember that was in the dental school - I tried to get in to the UBC dental school, they wouldn't even consider me unless I had some dental problem (makes sense - they are after all a teaching hospital for dentists where cleaning is not that important I guess)... So, yes I agree, I was one of the lucky few who got to go to a large enough school with good enough health insurance in the US - but it is indeed a little disconcerting that one had better health care when one was earning less than 1/3rd of the current income... I am not saying, "Canada c'mon get with the US program" - I imagine the Canadian system is better on the overall, but it is not as spotless as people like to think...

Autumn, as they call it...

Autumn - that is what the "British" Columbians call it - is here... If it were up to me, I would leave all those fallen leaves on the streets; they look quite pretty. Here in the west coast, we don't do the spectacular Fall colors, but Vancouver has introduced all these deciduous trees, so we have some colors in our city-streets (it follows then, if you go in to nature for hiking/camping etc) you won't see these colors. I am not a big fan of plant life being introduced: I am more with the movement that say grow only the native plants, get rid of your lawns (lawn grass is not native to North America) and help prevent soil erosion and excessive chemical usage etc.

But as you can see, it is not up to me... blow blow blow (the leaves, get you heads out of the gutter) and then wash wash wash (the sap...). On my way to the library, on a glorious Autumn Sunday afternoon.

yoga O.O

It's now been exactly a week since I began yoga!!! I am on a two week trial for unlimited classes for $35 at this fancy yoga studio. When I planned to take this trial one of my friends said that I could probably find cheaper at a community center, because, she said "let's face it; how many times will you actually go in this 2 week period?". I said to her "fourteen times!" and reminded her that if this surprises her she clearly does not know me; I am known to go to greater lengths for less amounts of money.

Anyway, so thus I have become what I vehemently made fun of: lululemon pants wearing, yoga mat carrying yuppie hippie. I am yet to go grocery shopping in my lulu's or walk around town with my yoga mat (they provide mats for free during the trial), but these days might numbered.

About 5-10ish years ago one of my friends suggested I take up meditation (probably because he thought I was going through some hard periods in life) and I remember saying that I really wasn't a meditative type and politely declining. Once when he was visiting me, I walked in to him sitting cross legged on my living room floor, meditating - I barely covered my laughter, but this incident made for many jokes with my other friends later on. Couple other friends have encouraged me to take yoga, more as a way to calm my mind (why people think I need mind-calming, I wouldn't know, but this they do) and I have time and again declined, sometimes not so politely even. The only reason I would have taken up yoga was for the physical exercise, and yoga seemed like a lame way to get in shape; my Mom had brought a yoga book and I remember trying out those poses back when I was a kid and finding them beneath my level.

Now I don't know if I just didn't do those poses quite right back then or if I was a more flexible person back then, but man is yoga hard or what! I usually come out of the class sweating like a pig (I know they don't sweat much, but you get the idea)... And I went in there thinking 'pfffttt how can these yoga hippies have more strength than I do' and man was I wrong. I wasn't able to hold quite a few of the poses, sometimes at all, sometimes not as long.

Some teachers like to talk and chant in Sanskrit and all that stuff and I am sitting there thinking, 'ok ok, cut the fluff and let's get burning'. This one teacher who spoke for about 10 minutes about 'santhosha' was really making me think that's the last time I am taking her class - but as it so happened she turned out to be the best teacher in the studio, making us bust move after move, but also paying attention to our forms - oh-ho I even got my neck massaged a bit when I was in downward dog! And one thing that she said stuck with me: as she talked about contentment she said 'acceptance is letting go of a past that you wish was different' and I thought back about my own life and the times I had felt content was when I did exactly that. Some things that happened in the past are not ok things to have happened. If they happened again now they still would not be acceptable. But at some point you have to let it go and look more towards the forward...

I haven't worked out for about 3 months at all now - not even running. So it feels good to be stretching and burning those muscles. Somehow it is also giving me more clarity of mind; strength training does this for me - it is probably the endorphins.

Today I got myself a yoga mat so I can practice at home - it wasn't as bad as last week when I bought my lululemon pants and was walking around town with one of their bags, when more conscious minded citizens were doing the Occupy Vancouver!

Now I do the Om with the class without cracking a giggle. It almost soothes me to listen to some teachers chant in Sanskrit. I love the Hindi classical music the teachers play over their ipods. I love the focus on the breath. All these, I would have laughed at 10 years ago - so feel free to laugh as you read this. There is a time for everything in life - right now in my life, it looks like it is a good time for yoga!

One big thing in yoga is to let yourself be content, not to push yourself to your limits: 'you are whole, you are missing nothing' one of my teachers always says. I understand it is nice to have a bit of this sort of thinking, but whenever she says that I can not help but think that the human species would be no where near where it is now if we all thought this way! My philosophy is more in line with:

Yeah, if we were all just satisfied with what we had what a beautiful world it would be. We'd all slowly starve to death in our own filth, but at least we'd be happy. Listen. I need your self-worth to hand on this job. For kicking ass here to be all that lets you rise above miserable If waking up in the morning is enough, I don't need you.

Greg House, in House MD

I am still a sucker for hippies - I still like the calm flowiness of the Owen-Wilson-in-Darjeeling-Express look alike (more in mannerisms than in the bandages) teacher who has the word 'vegan' tattooed in to his wrists; I will still give a lot to watch his sandy hair fall over his face as he rocks back and forth in the turtle pose! And I still laugh when I have to 'fluff my armpits so I can let go off the day's stress'.

Psychiatry

"P$YCHIATRY is a Fraud" says her sweater... Oh please, ignorant hippy... Do you get out of your incense-stick-smoke infested voodoo world and read books that talk about chemical imbalances in the human body?? Not to say a lot of psychiatrists might not be qualified/patient enough to prescribe proper treatment for such problems, but to sport a sweater that discourages psychiatric help and treatment, is not only ignorant, but also dangerous... We have come a long way from the times of the likes of 'One flew over the cuckoo's nest' of psychological problems only being in the head of the beholder, and I for one would like to keep moving forward, and not backward!

This reminds me of my first roommate in Vancouver; yep, the voodoo one. He actually once suggested that I should actually not wear glasses, that 'near-sightedness' is only in my head and optometrists are running this scam to make a living!!!!

Occupy Vancouver

maybe a lot of people with a sense of entitlement... but I like this idea of people mobilizing to keep the powers be in check...

Steve Jobs

this is the Apple store at the Pacific Center - Vancouverites - never too happy, never too sad, always business as usual and always, of course, driving me nuts (for this emotionlessness), but this time I welcomed the taking-a-step-back-from-profound-sadness.

Don't get me wrong - Steve Jobs is a personality that I admire a lot. There is something in me that really likes self-made people, maybe because I am one myself. And, while I don't want to join any cult, even an Apple cult, I am also in general against the new-age hippy mentality of 'I want blood - of all successful people', that most of the time is connected to an illogical sense of entitlement...

There were a few of Jobs's saying that were made in to touching eulogies, but none that really stood out for me... except for maybe iSad.

RIP Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) what a birthday eve present - iSad that the world lost such an innovative personality. But if there's one way I would like to go, it is this way, while I am still at the helm of my life.

Don't let 'em keep taking it away from me. Don't let me lie here 'till I can't hear those people chanting (my name) no more.
- Maggie Fitzgerald, in Million Dollar Baby

typhoon in Japan

stranded in Narita with the typhoon - the plane was so late that the last bus that goes to the tiny town of Mito in Ibaraki was gone. After like $50 worth of phone calls, I decided to stay in Narita. Tried to get in to a hotel, all of which were booked as a result of all the stranded passengers - even volunteered to share a hotel room with a stranger (yes, you got it, a good looking guy), but at the last moment, called it off... Tiny airport officials ever so guiltily distributed food water and sleeping bags. You could tell they thought the typhoon was their fault... So since I got a sleeping bag, I decided to stay in the airport... And now I don't mind sleeping in airports, but I hate to do so when I am travelling for work. Was I ever so glad I had a smartphone and that I could use Google Translate to communicate with a police officer - when I also learned, Japanese people, like Sri Lankans, don't like to say 'no, I don't know how to help you', so they will just 'ummmm' and 'hmmmm' until you go away by yourself. But since I wasn't leaving his side until I got answers, he ended up taking me to where the sleeping bags etc were distributed.

By the next morning, I was truly in tears. Maybe more also because I learned that the my colleagues who got stranded in the typhoon had their plane diverted to Osaka and they all decided to stay in a hotel there.

So this picture I took, of the view through blurry eyes, sitting near an airport coffee shop.

BC license plates

and she, well we can call her Betty, has a new name... a new last name... like she was married again... for the third time now... What a whore! Awww... my Betty ain't no whore...

East Hastings, again...

Today, there was a protest in East Hastings, by the people who use (and canvas for) affordable housing, mostly protesting a new housing development my a luxury condo maker. East Hastings, as I also wrote about in an earlier post, is the most interesting hood in Vancouver, the hood in which most Vancouver novels are set.

I also loved the nice Londoner who described the whole protest to me and actually didn't mind taking the time to do so. He had a central library employee card and fingers cracked from cold and excessive washing - the feature in all of him, that I noticed most... I wish I could find the time to do more things like what he does...

multi-culturalism

Vancouver is truly the most multi-cultural city I have ever lived in - and it is what I like most about Vancouver and it is what I will miss most about Vancouver, should I chose to leave. This, in a grocery store close to Kingsway...

South Asian bread weekend

all from scratch... the naan wasn't that great, but the gothambara roti was greeeat!!!!

Hammock time

Beautiful sunny day here in Van - a good reason for a hammock!

I took a long hike in Stanley Park, finally really discovering it and seen all the beautiful humongous Redwood fir trees. It was a great day with crowds all over the beach unto second beach; it gets thinner after that and more peaceful too.

Sitting here like I love to, watching the sunset, hearing all sorts of different accents passing me in the background (I even heard Sinhalese just now and automatically turned my head to look, like I do when I hear French, and they acknowledged.), I am again blessed with a peaceful evening by the ocean (not a real ocean, I know, but hey). Also as I mentioned the other day on Facebook, watching bald eagles from my office desk, seeing coyotes on my way to work, picking blackberries on my way from work and still, every evening, retreating to the safe haven of my apartment in the cosmopolitan city centre - how can I not love Vancouver? I don't know... but sometimes I don't...

Rock Balancing Art

Joesf Toth (not to be confused with the like-sounding Josaphat-le-violon, of Michel Tremblay's La grosse Femme d'à côté est enceinte) is doing his Rock Balancing art, that has taken Vancouver by a storm it seems - If you ever walk by a beach you are bound to see these amazing displays of rocks balanced in a seemingly unreal way. If you have been to Van and walked on the beach and haven't seen these consider that you haven't walked far enough. They don't chip the rocks or anything like that - they just find the rocks that would balance on top of each other and place them so, and they will withstand your daily wind even. I was reading his thing when I laughed at one of his silly jokes so he immediately took a liking to me and said he will build this for me. It takes a long time obviously and I stood there with glazed eyes for like half an hour. Later he commended my patience and took some pictures himself of the art he dedicated for me.

I almost never put pictures taken by others in this blog - in fact I never remember doing so - but I have to make Josef Toth an exception - I have, after all, never been rock-art serenaded.

Zombies in West End

Today there was apparently an sort of an impromptu call for zombie dress up on Facebook and all the Zombies conglomerated on my street. I was out on the heritage tour and then running errands so I didn't catch the main action, and also I am on a Facebook hiatus, so when one of my friends called me about the event I looked out the window and lo and behold there were some disoriented zombies…

a city's old people

Old people are a window to a society's not so apparent ways of life. Happy old people tell a story of a society that makes it possible to still be happy, long after your traditional productiveness has gone, and in this case, story of a people who grew up with grand parents who witnessed the Chinatown riots of Vancouver in 1907, great grand parents who witnessed the 1887 Chinatown riots - so grew up possibly with some anti-Asian sentiments themselves. But today they are standing here, in my West End neighborhood's heritage art walking tour - singing away sultry Ella Fitzgerald hits and hitting on men 30years their junior. Most ciites have a racist past, some a racist present; Vancouver's was against the Asians, that didn't really end until about 10 years ago, when the city actually took pictures of subtle acts of racism and put them on billboards so everyone can see them and be ashamed of. So if people growing up and growing old in such an environment can become open minded enough to be singing sultry songs and daintily hitting on a West Coast hippie, I think I can definitely grow old here; not that I want to be daintily hitting on a West Coast hippie, but you know what I mean - it does reflect a certain open mindedness. Standing in the hot sun, I watched them coo away , tears rolling down my cheeks at the possibility of a home… Ah only if Vancouver didn't get that much rain…

home brew

I dragged myself to this bbq/bottling activity organized by one of the professors, because things were not going so well in my life and I could use the distractions, even the boring ones - it turned out to be more fun than I expected though; just the regular teasing and what not but it was fun. And then we bottled the home brewed beer.

Gay-O Canada

Ah look the Canadian flags replaced with the gay ones, for the Vancouver pride fest!! heh heh… See my post from March, O Canada

Best fireworks

I have not properly captured the beauty of this fireworks festival with my phone camera - it was, hands down, the best fireworks I have seen. They had this waterfall thing mimicked with the fireworks and other fireworks shot up from the water fall… beauty beauty….

over False Creek, from 10min.s walk from my home, on the banks of the West End beach... and for free even... the gentle slopes of the West End beach allows for spectacular free views of fireworks, as opposed to the free views of those in Montréal where you don't really get a complete picture, because you don't really see the bottom part, unless you pay and go to Parc Jean-Drapeau.

pigeons in Chinatown

Pigeons flying in a and out of the produce, I bet they poop too…

Teeth...

yeah... on an external windowsill, at the corner of Davie and Granville... I wouldn't know what to say - am as perplexed as you are...

Bas-Saint-Laurent

Ah Bas-Saint-Laurent! Of beautiful sunsets and peaceful beaches. It was the most romantic vacation I ever took, given also its short duration. These tiny little fishing villages make me think weird thoughts like I could move up here and live here for the rest of my life. I could open up a little café to get myself some income. And have a little house close to the beach of the fleuve St-Laurent, on the water side - the other side (of the streets) doesn't work! And have a little swing to watch the sunsets! And then when I entice cuisine of the big city, I can drive down there once a month, hangout with my friends and all that stuff. See, I have it all planned out.

I have never lived in a small town, hence the extreme romance - ah ignorance is indeed bliss.

Also check out the impressive (and over bearing windmills) just out of Matane.

Montréal public transit

Has been going on for 150 years apparently; probably horse drawn carriages etc, but still public transport. And Vancouver celebrates 125 years!!

Montréal - you are still home

I've missed it so much. I went back with trepidation. Would I love it so much that I wouldn't want to go back? Would it and my friends there have cooled off to me than when I left? But taking the taxi from the airport to my boyfriend's home, it was like I never left. The familiar road signs, my old neighbourhood. Then his home is in the plateau; you can not miss with that. What a great place to come back to? Watching all the good looking people and their dogs from the balcony on Mount Royal - I didn't feel nostalgic, I didn't cry - because I thought I am definitely moving back here and this is where I will grow old.

I went to my old school to help out with some stuff of my old experiment and immediately felt at home and warmly welcomed. Well if I actually move back here I am not going there though - I won't kid myself that the last days of my stay at this school was pleasant.

Some days latter back in Vancouver, I would have renewed energy to hurry up and finish up my contract so I can go back to Montréal. It wasn't too hard to leave Montréal because I was going to come back. And suddenly Vancouver looked very pretty and likeable, maybe also because I was not going to have too much time to enjoy it.

my home, it used to be

And here's my old home, now someone else's home. I thought I'll cry so hard when I see this... but I didn't... - strangely I felt it was definitely the right decision to sell it. Mile End is so much better. I had a good time here, but if I come back to Montréal, here is not where I will live... And it looks like whoever is staying there is enjoying it as much as I did - new curtains, new balcony table, windows slightly opened to combat Montréal's summer humidity... just like I lived there... Nostalgic? yes. But a sense of satisfaction that I loved it well and as my love dwindled, passed it on to someone who loves it the same...

After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting
Spock

Like I wrote once to a good friend:

I hope you always want what you have!

I actually did consider for a split second, ringing the bell, introducing myself as the former owner and taking a look inside, but before I acted, I came to my senses...

from far away

I am not the only one who came all the way from so far away… in the TRIUMF parking lot.

Vancouver is 125

Vancouver celebrates 125yrs - I know, right? My grade school in Sri Lanka is 121 years old! But Sri Lanka is also a country that has a continually written history from as far back as 2500 years ago (and I don't mean cave drawings - these were notes kept in books, the Mahavamsa, Deepavamsa) and cities founded in AD 500 and the world's first hospital and what not; Canada's oldest cities celebrated 400years in the late 2000's (and that is CE for you). The reason I remember these nationalistic pride points is because I had to grind my axe for an obnoxious French guy who stayed with me recently and belittled Sri Lanka in the face of the oh-so-great-country of France! I was able to instil some culture and world history in to this redneck and shut him up for a bit - but redneckism isn't something that goes away that fast… so I need to keep these things fresh in my mind… I am beginning to conclude that all people from France, except the ones from Paris are a whole bunch of rednecks right on par with all the bible-belt Americans. Ah, but you can't quite blame them too much - rural France, rural US, rural Sri Lanka - why would they be any different from one another? Anyway, where was I? I remember when I first came to the US finding it a little amusing that people would take a plane to go see 200 year old "historical" sites, i.e., in Boston. So then I dialled down my historical marker to 200. And then I went to Québec where cities were celebrating 400years and that felt "old" and "very historic" to me; so I dialled up to 400. And now I am back in Vancouver. But that's ok, I think these young countries like the US and Canada are doing quite well in the present. For the record, the oldest city in France, modern day Marseilles, was founded in 400CE - such a young country France is!!! Ok so really, where was I? ;)

Ah yes, so I headed off to Stanley Park for the celebrations - they were not exhilarating like such a celebration would have been in Montréal - the passive Vancouverites were sitting on their picnic blankets and quietly enjoying the music… There were ice cream carts and hot dog stands - how quaint? Now where's the beer? Oh that's right - anglo-saxons and fun! roll eyes! Where was I now? I don't seem to be able to get anywhere beyond English/Franch bashing today….

Anyway I was walking along, still not over my depressive state too much, and then these teenagers asked if I could take their photo and I readily took a couple. And that incident alone, put things right in my head. It is funny how just an exchange of 10 words can set things right for me. I am really a people person - the problem is I don't find girls to be too fun too often, with the exception of a very few, like my ex-landlord turned role model and good friend from Minneapolis, and I find a lot of guys fun and interesting but it is sometimes hard to hangout with them without sending them mixed messages (and I don't necessarily want to get in their pants, so…). And then I proceeded to walk the perimeter of Stanley Park - a good 10km, with my camera and all in tow - it was a beautiful evening of stunning sunsets and I even got to watch Lions Gate bridge light up. I walked a total of about 20km for about 7hrs, mostly by the serene bay and when I got close to home my feet were gone, but my mind was at rest and I treated myself to a nice Falafel pita wrap from the small Meditaranian resto near my home (not the Falafel King) who advertise themselves as the best(!!??) shwarama in town. Life is still good!

Delirious woman on condo balcony

Granville Street in summer - closed to traffic for various activities, like the Carnaval de Sol that I wrote about a few posts ago. This day there were some street artists and some craft vendors. But of course all these people lined up on the side walk with cameras? They are looking at a delirious-looking, butt-naked woman standing on her balcony in a spiffy high-rise condo two streets away from Granville, so it affords a good street view without breaking your neck. I couldn't bring myself to photograph the woman - I later attributed that to the sensitivity lesson I learned in front of Insites, that I also blogged about a few entries before. The woman, good looking and perfect figure (nice boobs, beautiful legs, no belly fat and all!) kept doing splits and all sorts of gymnastic moves and would yell "fuck yeah" every now and then. She went in every now and then and would bring out a top or tshirt and just swirl it around and then throw it on the balcony floor - she didn't toss anything out of the building, which for me would have been a sign that she was next, so it was a relief, but I was not completely convinced. All the giggling teenage boys (and old men) with their jaws dropped, the women, some laughing, some in disgust: "des pervert" someone said.

And then there were people like me watching, perplexed, is she sick, has she broken up with her boy friend, and anyway, "please please don't jump". I must admit I wasn't in the best of moods today, nor have I been for the past several days, if not weeks. I think it must be my TSH levels - I remember having a crazy TSH level back when I was in grad school and the doctors were stumped and ordered me on thyroid medicine which of course I refused to take and then it eventually went away. And my internet earned MD says that hypothyroidism has symptoms of depression and dry skin and fatigue and all that stuff that I now have. In about a week from now it would seem like my TSH levels are back to normal - but in a week from now I am also doing a bit better at work and am going to Montréal - so I don't know if the TSH comes first or life comes first. Anyway, all this prelude to say, looking at this woman all I could think of was "what makes such a good looking and obviously mindful of what she eats and exercise and also probably holding a good job that lets her afford this condo, go delirious like this?" and I couldn't help but think that this is one of those cities where it is nice and fun and all that stuff, but everybody is so lonely. It was perhaps a reflection of my own state at that time.

This in turn reminded me of about five times now, that I had heard people say how Vancouverites are so nice and friendly when they meet you, but then that's it - they don't like to make long or committed friendships that extend to outside of that meeting. At first I brushed this aside, when it came from out of towners, thinking "well were you open enough or inviting enough or were you like 'I dare you be my friend?' ". Ok so I know a lot of people don't intentionally do this, but a lot of times when people are in new environments they tend to give off not so friendly signals. But then twice it was a Vancouverite themself that said this (that Vancouverites don't like to make long-term friendships with strangers) to me - which begs the question "well, why are you like this?" and of course they just stuttered away. I attribute it to the anglo-saxon way of life - not that they are born with unfriendly genes, but if you grow up in an environment where everyone else is like this, it is kind of hard to not be like this, unless you make a conscious effort - actually one of the Vancouverites who said this, was of Chinese origin, but born and raised here - my case in point (about more the environment and less the genes). I love quite a few things about anglo-saxons, their work ethic for example, but warming up to a fellow human being is not one of their fortes. And before you send me hate mail, I never said all of them are like this or even most of them are like this. Remember, 40% is still a majority if the rest of the 60% are not in unison - as we learned from the Canadian elections in 2009.

A couple cops were on their radios now, obviously I was not the only one who feared a disaster. After about 15minutes she went inside and didn't come out and people dispersed and I walked away too, choking back my tears, because now I had a story in my head for her - she's a good looking career woman who has an amazing job and lives in this spiffy condo and she works out every day and eats right and is all cosmopolitan and then one day her boyfriend leaves her for someone else and she just goes nuts. I know right? Out of all the possible stories, that was mine!!!

In retrospect I can come up with several stories - she was a prostitute hired by one of the richnesses in that condo, but a prostitute with bi-polar disorder; she just took a bet with some of her friends that she could go naked on the balcony and now her friends are inside the apartment laughing their hearts out; she smoked a bit too much pot…. Later I was surprised at how many non-oh-the-poor-victim stories I could come up with… and I sincerely hope it was one related to a fun bet or something like that… I could see myself taking a bet like that… or maybe not… probably not…. :D If you are visiting me this summer, please don't try this on me - I don't think I will do it actually… :D