Much Ado About Everything

Well, the weather continued to be nice today. I left home at half past 11 and came back just after 6. I spent that time walking around town. I started by having lunch at Cactus Club near Best Buy (I mean on Broadway – but hey, my landmarks are stores, not intersections). Then I walked to a specialized travel book store across the street and after a lot of thinking I got me maps of Tokyo and Kyoto, and a travel guide to Tokyo (there were no guides to Kyoto). Then I walked – predictably – to Best Buy. But I ended up buying nothing there – I had a few things in my hands as I walked around, but eventually they ended back on shelves. I would’ve bought Eureka 7 volumes 4-6, but they only had 5 and 6 so I didn’t want to get them despite a pretty good price of 20 for one and 22 for the other. I also didn’t get the Logitech MX Revolution mouse, which cost $10 more than at Netlink. Anyway, I proceeded to my favourite walking path, next to the False Creek and towards Granville Island. I ended up taking a lot of pictures with my camera phone today – this was just a start.

Looks like a perfect place for hanami – but these aren’t cherries…

This, however, is a cherry. A very pretty one too! But it’s no place for picnic.

But just a few meters further, there IS a nice place for picnic. There’s even a fountain. It’s not necessarily the best place for hanami as cherries are small and fairly sparse, but hey, it’s a great location between two bridges, and you can buy all the food stuff on Granville island – there is no better place to get some deli.

After a brief washroom pitstop on Granville Island, I proceeded to walk along the seaside towards Vanier park in Kitsilano. There I decided to visit the Vancouver Museum, for the first time ever. Probably the last time too, because the prices are very Canada-like. I cannot understand how we get any tourists, when they have to pay 10-15 dollars for only one of the activities in that building. Space center is 15, but that’s just space center. Museum is 10 but that doesn’t include special exhibits. Those are 10 too. You can get a combo – which I did – for 15. I don’t know, 10-15 dollars sounds like a lot of money. I am not sure that the size of exhibits justifies paying that much. But as a one-time visit, I decided to let it slip.

The Vancouver Museum and your friendly neighbour… never mind.

The view from the museum’s orientation area was almost worth the price of admission. Right now the cherry blossoms are just starting to open and the massive cherry trees in their backyard look simply stunning (this is camera phone, through glass, so don’t complain). It will look even better in a few days, I bet.

I spent only an hour and half at the museum. I didn’t really skip anything – unless there’s something on the lower floor that I missed; I was feeling bad though, so I wanted to leave. Maybe it was the wine I had at Cactus – it tasted fine but my head was soon spinning, which is usually a sign of a lack of quality. By the time I was at the museum that feeling was long gone, but I was now feeling as if I was in starting stages of a flu or a bacterial infection of the throat. I felt better once I left but have not completely recovered, even now. I might wake up tomorrow in a sick state. I hope not, as the forecast is more sun, but unfortunately this is a fairly common occurrence – weather pattern changes, especially if it was stuck in a rut for long time, and people suddenly do something out of ordinary, and their bodies pay for it.

I proceeded upwards, toward Broadway, to go home. I was thinking of visiting the Future Shop on Broadway but I wasn’t feeling good so I stopped at Starbucks on York and got me some herbal tea (I am trying to limit my coffee intake to a morning espresso). I even managed to find a seat. After that I walked one more street up to Cornwall; I saw bus number 22 coming so I crossed the street and went to the bus stop. But the bus didn’t stop – it was full! On a Sunday afternoon! Angry (as usual) I proceeded to walk further up, eventually getting to 4th Ave. Of course, number 4 just passed right in front of me, but another bus was coming. I went to the bus stop – the bus didn’t stop. It was empty though, and probably wasn’t even on duty. I reluctantly went all the way up to 9th Ave, I mean Broadway.

Since I was there already, it made no sense not to go to Future Shop. I was planning on getting them to match the price on that Revolution MX mouse, and I wanted to see if they had Eureka 7 volume 4. As I walked in – by the way, Death by Chocolate is on Fir, not Burrard – I was handed a “friends and family sale” flyer. Oh, right. That was on today.

Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on who you talk to – I didn’t buy anything there either. They had no mouse in stock (I couldn’t find it anyway, and believe me I tried), and they had no Eureka 7 either. They did have a few PS3 games that Best Buy didn’t (Virtua Tennis 3 and Armored Core 4), but I wasn’t in the mood to spent any more money on games, even with 10% off that was on right then.

As I walked out, number 9 passed right beside me – this was becoming a pattern. So I walked all the way to Granville and waited – and waited – for number 99. When it finally arrived, it was full, and crowd which was waiting was big. I got in, but it became an annoying ride as there were a lot of people at every stop, and driver kept saying to “go further back”. I hate that. At least the bus was going pretty fast and traffic wasn’t bad so we got to Broadway Skytrain about 15-20 minutes later. I bought some food at Safeway and finally went home.

And no, I didn’t take pictures of Best Buy and Future Shop.