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China day 5: Here come the Big Potatoes

holly — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:00:58 +0000

Today was the second day this trip that crossed off one of my bucket list sights to see. I woke up Christmas-morning early, and then spent hours drinking my body weight in tea at the breakfast buffet as I killed time. I just wanted to get going! There was so much to see! I wasn’t the only one, though. Two of the other agents awoke at 4am, convinced we had another super early morning and in a total panic because they thought they had missed the wake up call and were going to be left behind. Luckily they called and woke up the tour leader (well, not luckily for the tour leader) before rushing downstairs. That would have been incredibly funny in hindsight…

An en route souvenir stop at a terracotta factory selling scale models to tourists (4 out of 10 on the nice bathroom scale), and then we were at the Terra Cotta Warriors museum. The excitement was palpable. Because, as the guide said, we were “Big Potatoes”, our tour van pulled right up to the entrance gates and let us out, a much shorter walk in than the normal one from the parking lot. Sweet. From the outside it looked nice, a cluster of modern airplane-hangar like buildings with a very clean, busy courtyard connecting them, but it was once you stepped through the doors of Pit 1 that it all becomes real. The vast expanse of space stretching football-field length out in front of you, with the dug-out rows of marching Terracotta soldiers and horses lined up in greeting. Damn, I’m really here. I kept reminding myself to put the camera down every once in a while and just drink it all in with my eyes, as there was so much to see and so many amazing photos to take. In person, they are even cooler than they look in the media. Individually, their details are striking, but seeing them all lined up together really is what makes this so special. In spots there are ladders and tables erected as workspace for the archaeologists who are still actively recovering more and more pieces and rebuilding more of the shattered warriors, and opened, unfinished pits show the piles of rubble (feet and hands and scattered bits of torso) that they have yet to work through. I can only imagine what this place is going to look like in ten years, when hundreds more of the warriors will be standing sentry and all the buildings would have to be extended to house them all. And keep in mind, they still haven’t unearthed the Emperor himself, the man of honour whom all these figures are guarding for eternity. He’s still somewhere beneath the giant pyramid of grass (it sounds silly, but it really is a huge, pointy grass hill), located a mile behind the warriors museum. This is a living, breathing wonder of the world, changing on a daily basis. Oh well, I guess I’m just going to have to come back…

After the short movie showing the history behind the statues, we explored the gift shop (did you have any doubts?) and picked up copies of the souvenir guidebook. What was really cool was that the 85 year old farmer who had discovered the warriors while trying to dig a well back in the 80’s (he’s one of 5 men who found them, and one of only 2 surviving) was there in person, signing autographs and posing for pictures. Hell, he didn’t make much from his monumental discovery (go communism, the land belongs to the government, so they just take it back for free), so earning a living this way is dramatically better than going back to pig farming. He signed and dated my book, and having that date in there, commemorating this forever, is awesome.

Another giant lunch (really good) and then Pits 2 and 3. They have a dramatically different feeling from Pit 1, more polished museum style, as opposed to active archaeological dig, but really well laid out and informative. Many more pictures to be taken and souvenirs to be bought. It’s funny, in Beijing most of the tourists had been Chinese, but here, about half of them were the standard North American/European tourists, all clad in their fast-dry “travel” cargo pants and millions of pockets vests, giant cameras around their necks and two bored looking kids in tow, heads down in their smartphones, oblivious to the amazing sights beside them. There is definately a more adventure/backpacker vibe, and because of it the whole city had more of a tourist atmosphere. You could tell that these warriors really are the only reason most people come to Xian, that it’s more of a once in a lifetime pilgrimage than a place to come and stay for a while. I could have spent more time at the museum, staring down each figure in detail, but with the crowds (once again, this was super low season) you really had to keep moving to allow everyone a chance to witness the spectacle.

Technically, the rest of the day was scheduled as “leisure time”, but we were on such a tight timeline and everyone had such big dreams of what to see and do, we actually just divided up into two groups for yet another adventure. Half of us went with our guide to get a foot and neck massage, while the other half (me included) went to the Xian city wall for a little bike ride. This was no Great Wall, it was actually more sturdy looking, wide and fat, gray stone with big decorative towers and guardhouses spaced intermittently along it’s top. We rented our bikes from the south gate (CAD$3.50 with a CAD$8.50 damage deposit – technically we could have taken these bikes home with us for only CAD$12) and were off. Sort of. The bikes were circa-1950, so it took us a few tries to find ones where the chain didn’t fall off every time you tried to pull the pedal, or where the pedals themselves were rusted still. Eventually, one girl actually just took one with no brakes at all because it was the only one close to her size, and she just carefully coasted to a stop when needed. Needless to say, no one took the bikes home. This was so much fun. It’s so peaceful up on the wall, you’re still surrounded by the heart of Xian, but you feel removed from it, safe up in your perch in the clouds. You can look down and see the hustle below you, then keep pedaling on in comfortable (relative, this is China) silence. And it felt so good to get some exercise and (un)fresh air. The stone pavers were really uneven, being built 641 years ago and all, so we were swerving around like we were drunk, trying to avoid the potholes. Mainly because we thought that if we hit one the bikes would just start falling apart beneath us. Tourists and locals waved and laughed at us as we rode past, gladly moving out of the way of the crazy Canadians.

We returned the bikes (they did give us one of those surprised “you brought them back?” looks, leading me to believe they go though a lot of bikes. So, if you’re ever in need of a rusted and barely functional piece of crap for your biking pleasure, Xian is the place to go!) then kept our legs moving by walking from there to the Drum tower, which is conveniently also one end of the Muslim Market. En route we stopped in at a McDonalds for some drinks and fries, as there is very little more comforting than McDonalds’ fries when traveling internationally, and to use the bathroom. McDonalds always have good bathrooms. The market shopping was good tonight, we found a quieter side street that was just as filled with stalls, but had a third of the crowds. We brought home a pretty sweet haul, let me tell you. Talking a taxi back from the hotel was an adventure, too. We found a minivan taxi that didn’t have any real seats in the back, so we just sat on wooden planks slightly raised off the floor, and hopped in hoping the driver knew where we were going. I had shown him the address written in Chinese and the little tiny map on the back of the hotel’s business card, both of which he had nodded “yeah yeah” to, but taxi drivers are notorious for nodding like that and then driving around in circles for weeks, trying to figure out where to go. I like to call this a “cultural experience”, which involves a lot of blind faith, but in our case it worked out, and for a ridiculously cheap fare, too

So back to the hotel for one last night in my giant room, filled with a lot of “oh my god, how am I going to fit all this crap in my suitcase?” packing. Yep, you guessed it, 4am wake up call tomorrow!

China trip day 2: The Icy Toes of History

holly — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 23:45:53 +0000

Gotta love jet lag. I was dead tired, barely functional the night before, and here I was waking up at 4am, wide awake and ready to go. Unwilling to conceed defeat to the sleep monster, I lay there for the next two hours, but ended up mentally going through the order teams had been eliminated from the Amazing Race, all 19 seasons, instead of getting more much needed shut eye. Up at 6, but not needing to meet the group until 830, I bundled up against the elements and went for a walk around the block. I love mornings like this in a new city, getting to see the place wake up, as the working class hits up the food carts (not the ones with the snake on a stick, or at least I hope not…) for their bag lunches to go, and parents walk their kids to school. I feel invisible, but that’s a good thing, as I don’t get the standard cheezy tourist treatment and can just enjoy the everyday life of this great place. Beijing was dawning beautiful and sunny, and the hustle and bustle was there, but still not the craziness or the crowds I had prepped for. Instead it was just comfortable, and being comfortable in a place is a huge, huge factor for me. When I, as a single woman, can walk around a city and just relax and enjoy it, that is the best sign that a city is going to be fantastic.

After a giant breakfast at the typical Asian “everything you could possibly imagine – fish and pizza and congee and Cocoa Pops” hotel buffet (they always have Cocoa Pops. Every country I’ve ever been in. Go figure. For this sole reason they have become my strange vacation obsession), we loaded our gloved and scarfed selves into the minibus and headed for Tianamen Square. Our adorable guide Jimmy – if keeping him in our luggage had been an option, we would have kept him throughout the whole tour – paraded us around carrying a bright red fabric fish on a telescoping pole, which, despite the fact it looked ridiculous, was amazingly easy to see in a forest of tour groups whose leaders were all carrying identical flags. There were thousands of people here, and every one was with a tour group, all moving in little flocks through the vast expanse of the square. If you turned your back on your group to take a picture, you had to be careful that when you turned back you were still with the right people, as it was so easy to get swept up with another group and before you knew it you were on the bus with a bunch of Israeli tourists. The square itself is pretty plain, a big white expanse of concrete with some cool statues on one side, the Mao’s portrait-clad entrance to the Forbidden City on another, and the giant queue to see the refridgerated body of Mao on the other. The lines were too long, we missed him on this trip, but I’ll get it next time… We found out after the fact that there are a lot of plain clothed securirt patroling the square and the Forbidden City, but you’d never know it, it feels so open and friendly. Got some great pictures, the cloudless blue sky made everything look spectacular, but once again it was really cold and windy, so we spent a lot of time huddling together and trying not to die.

You’re going to notice a trend in these blogs – that we were freaking freezing. The whole time we were in Beijing it stayed subarctic, and, despite the fact that some of our group were from tropical cities like Halifax and Calgary, we just could not get warm. The wind permeated everything, and before going to the Great Wall we were even warned to really bundle up so to not loose toes to frostbite. There’s nothing more comforting than that. It got to the point that our drivers, who spoke no English, knew the words for “crank up the heat!!!!” by the time we were done with them. I’m from Vancouver, where we don’t really get weather aside from mild temperatures, sun and rain, plus I traditionally run a little colder than the average person, so I should get a free pass for being so cold. But the people from the Praries really have no excuse

Then through the underpass to the Forbidden City. This was the first of many surreal moments on the trip, seeing in person those iconic red buildings and carriageways we’ve all seen on TV a million times. It’s more like the Forbidden City within a city within a city, as you would pass through one massive gate to a giant plaza, explore that, then pass through another massive gate into a larger version of the exact same plaza, with a more gigantic courtyard and even grander building. One of the things tat really surprised me here was how 90% of the tourists were Chinese. I had expected the standard flocks of overbearing white people (ourselves included), but practically everyone (and there were a lot, despite it being low season. I, for the record, never want to be in China at high season, that would be insane!) was Chinese. That’s actually a really amazing thing, though, as so often we forget to visit the awesome treasures in our own country, and these sites are definately once in a lifetime, bucket list places. The second half of the Forbidden City, the residential area, definately has more character and less pagantry than the first half. Smaller spaces, the details still ornate, but more homey feeling, cute little courtyards with trees, and a beautiful garden with gazebos and giant limestone rocks (because a traditional Chinese garden is not complete without a rock). This is also where I learned that the best way to get a bathroom stall is to literally grab people and pull them out of the way (they didn’t seem to mind, everyone was doing it, and I’m bigger than the average Chinese woman, so I can take them, lol), and that the tip to always carry a roll of toilet paper in my purse paid off in spades, as I became the defacto supplier for the group, whenever someone ran out.

After the grandeur of the Forbidden City, it was time for the first of many massive Chinese meals. The drill goes like this – you sit in a private room, because they clearly don’t want us in the general population, around a big table with a giant lazy susan in the middle. There’s unlimited tea and one small class of water, beer, Coke or Sprite. Waiters just stary bringing giant plates of food and you eat whatever you want. Sometimes you don’t really know what it is, so you make an educated guess. Normally most of the dishes are a variation veggies and some meat, not really spicy, theres a bowl of egg drop soup, one bowl of plain rice, and dessert is always either watermelon or oranges. At this point in the trip, it was all new and exciting food, and we all went to town, so much that only 2 out of the 10 of us even bothered to have dinner that night.

Today was one of those “but wait, there’s more!” days, because everywhere we went there was always another stop on the itinerary, and they were all great. From Lunch we walked through Tientan Park and saw the awesome Temple of Heaven. Lesson learned, everything is bigger here than it looks in pictures. Especially on the nice sunny day we had, it looked really spectacular, and you nearly forgot that the chaos of Beijing was just meters away. An hour commute (which in Beijing commuter minutes is a really short drive) brought us to the Summer Palace. I had always thought this was outside of Beijing, as when they say in the guidebook it’s more than an hour from the city centre, you assume it’s out in the ‘burbs. But as I was coming to learn, Beijing is so expansive that to get to the ‘burbs you have to practically get to Korea. Instead of spreading up, like so many major metropolises (metropolii? Whatever), it spread out, and as far as the eye can see from the highest point you can get to, it’s still central Beijing. Back to that “everything’s bigger in China” thing. It’s hard to wrap my brain around just how giant this place is, and how many people are here, but I’m trying.

The Summer Palace, the tranquil garden escape of the “Dragon Lady” (look it up), is incredible. She may have been domineering and ruthless as she took over the Empire, but she did build a pretty sweet garden oasis. The fifteen foot stone walls really do keep the outside world out, and if you didn’t see the telecom tower in the background, you’d think you really were away from it all in another world. Vast, beautifully landscaped, with a giant lake, rolling hills and pagodas lurking off in the mist (read:smog), more classical buildings and pedal boats that would be a fun way to explore if it had been warmer. The highlights here are the sprawling riverside corridor covered hundreds of detailed paintings, each one different, and the marble boat, a gaudy, immobile boat used for the sole purpose of sitting in and sipping tea. The ultimate display of self indulgence. Personally, I would have added a slide

At 5 we were deposited back at the hotel. It had been a long day of sightseeing, but an incredible one, and we were all more excited and energetic than tired, bouncing around like caffinated hamsters. I set off for a little geurilla shopping, as I had an hour and a half to kill before meeting with the local Chinese sales rep I deal with all the time (super nice, sweet guy, great to meet him in person, boring to blog about), and a giant shopping mall to explore. Moving as fast as possible I hit up all the stores, only to discover China doesn’t carry my shoe size except in Men’s, at Sephora it’s easy to have an entire conversation with a sales clerk using nothing but hand signals to bridge the language barrier, and that I love tacky souvenirs so much that I chose to save my cash for them rather than spend it here on any of the actual functional stuff.

Now that’s what I call a good day. Tomorrow, the Wall!

Hey Baby let’s go to Vegas

holly — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 05:13:52 +0000

We called it The Hangover part 3 - The Birthday. And we made him wear a
wolf t-shirt to show the world he was no longer a "one man Wolf Pack". 
The twist was that instead of the four of us trying to get home from
Vegas, most of the drama was in the getting there. But there was a "huh,
why am I waking up in the middle of the night...and what are you doing to
me?" moment.
You see, up until 5am on the morning of his birthday, Fraser, the man of
honour had no idea he was going to Las Vegas. In less than an hour, to be
exact. Epic birthday present of epicness. It wasn't even my surprise, or
my Husband, but I was super excited just to be part of it. The planning
had been months in the making, and I have gotta give my best friend some
serious credit for managing to somehow book the trip, arrange it with Eric
and I, set up a ride to/from the airport and pack his suitcase, all
without her husband ever suspecting a thing. The only (weak) red flag
that had gone up in his mind was that he thought some of his clothes may
have been missing, but he just assumed they were in the laundry and let it
slide. The night before Eric and I had gone over for our usual friday
night Rockband extravaganza, and planned on crashing on their hideabed
under the guise that we were going to be too drunk to drive. Nothing
remotely unusual there. Except that at midnight we all started getting
suddenly really, really sleepy, but luckily our horrible overacting and
really dramatic yawns and stretches worked, and we were able to get some
shut-eye before our middle of the night wake up call. 
Long story short, he had a happy, still asleep grin on his face when we
loaded him on the plane, and by noon we were in shorts and beginning that
great Vegas passtime, drinking, in a booth at Hooters. When in Vegas, go
as classy as possible, right? 
Us girls had been to Vegas before, but both guys were Vegas virgins, so
we wasted no time showing them how to navigate the maze of Mexicans
handing out hooker cards (collect all 10,345 for a free t-shirt! No, not
really, but that would make all the guys collecting them slightly less
perverted). Funny story - we were all trying to collect a pile of these
to give as a free gift to a friend back in Vancouver (I swear... oh, never
mind...), so I reached for one as we walked past, and the guy wouldn't
give one to me because I was a woman! Sorry, lesbians, apparently Vegas
won't let you call 1-800-LIVEGIRLS.
Vegas is such a surreal place. Everything is oversized, flashy and
gimmicky, like Disneyland with exposed breasts. A place where everybody
walks around with their yard-ling frozen margarita permenently attached to
their lip and either a lizzardy brown tan that definately is not supposed
to appear in nature or clothes way, way too tight for the amount of flesh
squished into them. And if you tick both boxes... now that's just wrong,
people, wrong! I'm a shorts and tank tops kinda girl, and don't get me
wrong, I like my tanks pretty low cut and my shorts well above my knees,
but Vegas always makes me feel overdressed. Dramatically overdressed. 
Unless I'm standing next to a fully decked out bride (Vegas bride count
this trip - 7) sweltering in the heat and trying to look fabulous (and/or
trashy), then I feel underdressed and confused as to how my invite got
lost in the mail. Is it just me, or is Vegas the most impersonal place to
get married? It makes a wedding a production line event there.
But I digress. Back to The Birthday. The one thing Fraser had told his
wife he wanted to do if he was ever in Las Vegas was to see Carrot Top, so
we made sure we had third row seats on birthday night. Let me just say,
Carrot Top was freaking hillarious. The posters tout him as "Vegas' #1
act" for _ many years running, and I can see why. It's approachable
humour, not too dirty, not too clean, not too overpriced and just straight
up funny. But he is one weird looking dude up close! I am so glad we did
that. He had this one joke about how the theme song to Las Vegas should
be The Proclaimers' "I would walk 500 miles", because all you do all day
is walk. You walk the Strip, where the hotels are so big it feels like
half a mile just to get from the Paris to Bally's next door, you walk
through the massive casinos, and then you walk down one of those endless
hallways from your nightmares with nothing but a thousand doors to finally
find your hotel room, which is always in the other direction that you
originally turned. By the end of that first day we were all coated in
that wonderful Vegas combination of sunscreen, sweat and casino smoke, had
an "oh my god I've been up since 5 and drinking since noon" glazed look in
our eyes, and our feet were actually blistered from all that walking in
the wrong shoes. Eric turned to me as we got back to our room and
sleepily commented that he didn't care what we did the next day, but could
we take a cab there?
Day two began with the other Vegas passtime (aside from drinking,
gambling, and gorging on buffets - which we didn't do, BTW. The buffets,
anyway. Not yet) as we headed to the half price ticket booth to secure
discounted day-of tickets to Le Reve. From there it was to the Venetian
for a gondola ride. I love that! And then we walked. And gambled. And
walked. And gambled. My casino luck in the past had been a consistant
thirty seconds to watch my $20 dissappear, after which I gave up and
watched everyone else have fun. Not this trip, baby! While the guys
watched the Canucks' playoff game at the diner in the Treasure Island, I
won $200 on the penny slots, and by the time we went home was up over
$400! We all did pretty good, actually, winning over $1000 between the 4
of us. Booyeah! So we celebreated with a ridiculously overpriced steak
dinner at Ruth's Chris Steak House (I will never understand that
restaurant name. Is a Chris Steak something that belongs to Ruth? Or is
it Ruth Chris' Steak House and someone put the apostrophe in the wrong
place? And what the hell is a Chris Steak? Looked like beef to me? 
Needless to say, I had the chicken, just to be safe).
Everyone kept telling us Le Reve was the best show in Vegas. For that
price it had damn well better be! Well, we almost didn't get to see it. 
We get to the Wynn, find the theatre and I reach in my purse to pull out
the tickets... only to find the zipper stuck. Not just a little stuck, but
terminally, can't even stick a finger in there to wiggle out the tickets
stuck. So we drop to our knees, pulling and yanking and trying to tear my
purse appart with our bare hands, which was then followed up with us
trying to hack into my purse with keys. This is when security showed up
and told us we couldn't sit on the floor in the Wynn. Apparently hacking
at a purse that may or may not have been ours was totally okay, but
sitting on the floor was just wrong. After a lot of elbow grease we
successfully ripped the zipper apart, shredded my purse, got the tickets
and enjoyed the show. Had to hold my purse closed for the rest of the
trip, but enjoyed the show. It was a kind of aerial acrobatics/high
dive/synchronized swimming/ballroom dancing show (try to picture that, I
dare you), but it was actually pretty cool. I'm not a fan of any of the
Cirque Du Soleil shows, they're just not my cup of tea, but this was
pretty cool.
Ironically, while all this was going down, the Billboard Music Awards
were going down at our hotel, the MGM Grand. Who knows, had we stayed
closer to the hotel we might have rubbed elbows with Rihanna or been able
to tell Britney that she's shorter, but just as slutty in person. But
alas...no.
Day three, the finale, dawned with us finally hitting a Vegas buffet. 
Shit that was a lot of food. Good, but a lot of food. And you feel
obligated to eat it all to justify the $30/head price tag. In an
overstuffed syrup induced stupor we then hopped a taxi to do something I
never thought I would ever do - fire machine guns. Not toy guns, not
paintball guns, but big ass, turn the wrong way your doing life for
manslaughter machine guns. The ads for the Gun Store were everywhere, so
we figured, what the hell. The boy went for the giant scare the shit out
of me packages, firing things that looked like they could take down
passing aircraft, but the girls stuck with the "Ladies package" firing a
nice, feel like a TV detective handgun and a pink AK-47. Not only was it
pink, but it had a sticker of Hello Kitty holding a machine gun on the
butt. No joke. I have pictures. Have to admit I was shaking during the
actual firing, but it was fun. The feeling of power it gives you is a
rush, and that adrenaline is actually kind of unnerving. We should have
considered the fact that we then had to fly home with gunshot residue on
our hands, but luckily we made it past the dogs all right.
In the taxi back to the hotel, we all had drinks to replenish our lost
fluids from the two-hour wait at the Gun Store, and our taxi driver, while
stopped at a light, actually used the clippy part of his seatbelt to open
a beer bottle for Fraser. Amazing. He got a good tip.
Then it was suddenly time to go home and back to work and reality the
next day. We were all packed and ready, and upon arrival at the airport
my friend tells the online boardingpass printer thing that we're
transporting dangerous goods. Seriously. One wrong button press and you
get this voucher telling you to report to the check in counter for
additional screening. Visions of cavity searches and that aforementioned
gunpowder residue test start flashing before my eyes, but luckily this
must happen all the time, because the gate agent believed us that it was
just a little mistake and printed out our boarding passes without problem.
Will keep that in mind if I'm ever on the lam from the po-po.
And as quickly as The Birthday had begun, it was over. Back in Vancouver
we collapsed into our beds, only to wake up the next morning and wonder if
it was all a dream. But no. The free camo tee from the Gun Store and the
extra $400 proved it was real. And so worth it. What a great birthday to
Fraz. And, just for the record, if anyone ever wants to surprise me on my
birthday with a vacation, the date is August 28th

And then she fell – experiencing Vancouver’s ski culture – a beginner’s perspective

holly — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 20:09:06 +0000

It’s where the first ever gold medal was won by a Canadian athlete on home soil almost a year ago. It’s got great snow, great runs, great facilities and it’s only half an hour from my driveway. Cypress Mountain had been, until recently, an enigma to me – I knew where it was but had never gone up there. There was no reason to, because, after all, I am not a skier. I am the exact opposite of a skier, actually. If it is possible to be the negative of a skier, that’s me. I don’t even like being cold. The only time I previously wore skis was in grade 6 and it ended with me and my sprained ankle being loaded onto a sled and taken away by first aid ski-doo. And that was flat-land cross country. So you can imagine the trepidation I felt agreeing to try snowboarding. But when you have these amazing facilities on your doorstep, it’s stupid not to experience them, right?

When I told my Grandmother my plans she asked sweetly if I was “going snowboarding or snow falling?” That was not a good sign. But I’m always up for a challenge, and with good friends, a brave face and a “good luck” A&W hashbrown in my stomach, I was ready to go. The first thing that greets you at the lodge are the giant lime green Olympic rings which, I swear, are just there to make you feel invincible. There’s something about seeing them there that suddenly takes over your body and makes you believe that you too are an Olympic caliber athlete. Clearly this mountain would not accept any less. And clearly I am totally delusional. I’m a big believer in that when you look like you know what you’re doing, it helps your performance (see delusional comment above), and once we were all kitted out in our rental gear I honestly thought this couldn’t be nearly as difficult as I’d previously thought.

Thank God not one of the four of us really had any previous snowboard experience, so we started off the day in the only logical fashion: with a lesson. It was pretty much us and 100 elementary school kids all learning to swoosh and splat together. We were the taller ones not wearing neon. It was only when I landed on my knees the first time that my imperviousness started to wane when I discovered that I couldn’t get up gracefully. It was more like a giraffe trying to drink – ass in the air, knees splayed at odd angles, inner thighs screaming as they attempted to keep the board from flying out from under you and sending you right back to the snow. I’m pretty good at laughing at myself when I tank at something, which turned out to be an invaluable skill. Two hours later we had mastered the learning hill (six feet of fun with a bench at the top) and I was getting the hang of this snowboarding thing. There’s still something horribly unnatural to not having your body face in the direction you’re going, and knowing if you try to turn that way, you either stop or fall, but whatever, I was psyched and ready to move up to the big girl hills.

By big girl hills, I mean the mile long bunny hill. I’m not that stupid. To get up there it meant taking my first chair lift, and that was nearly as exciting as the run itself. It was when we were about halfway up that I remembered that my lesson had not included chairlift instructions. My boyfriend, who’s lesson had included that important skill, tried his best to talk me through it, but it still ended with me making an ungraceful splat and then trying desperately to crawl out of the way of the incredibly talented 8 year olds who were in the chair behind. My record for the day ended up at 0 for 4.

Holy crap, this thing looked steep from the top. Visions of that first aid ski-doo ride started flashing through my head, but I came to snowboard, dammit, I could make it down this hill no problems. Sometimes being young and stupid works to my advantage. Face sideways, perfect form… oh shit! I’m going too fast and have no idea how to stop… and I was on my ass in the snow. I’d made it about fifteen feet. Now I had been awesome at getting up back on the flats, but when you throw in a 50 degree angle it’s a whole new ball game. Ten minutes of trying everything I had in my arsenal, including squirming, panting, praying to the Gods of snowboarding and making snow angels (that last part was just to make me feel better. It was an ugly snow angel with my feet attached together) I had to resort to taking one foot out of the bindings, standing, and buckling myself back in. Standing back up is the hardest part of snowboarding, hands down. Take two. All told, it took me fifteen minutes to get down that hill, complete with two spectacular face plants and a lot of snow stuck in interesting inner places in my gear. Thankfully, falling didn’t hurt nearly as much as getting up did.

By now I was exhausted. But the only way to learn something is repetition, so it was back to the chair splat, I mean chair lift. By the end of the day I was noticeably better, my record was only three falls on the way down, and I was very, very good at taking off and re-fastening my bindings. I’d only cried once, out of sheer frustration when I fell right at the top of the hill (read: inches before I’d actually started going down it) and had been unable to get up while a kid the size of my right thigh swooshed past me with ease, but that actually turned into my best run of the day, so it had been worth something. I cannot tell you how much I appreciated flat ground, my running shoes and a hot tea, though.

All told, snowboarding was really fun. Now I understand why people from all over the world flock to Vancouver just for the mountains, as you can easily head up after a long day at the office and still get a few good runs in before closing. And it’s conveniently close if you have to be heli-lifted to hospital, so that’s comforting. I’m not sure if it’s my sport… yet, I’ll need more practice and the ability to get up and stop without falling (both skills which I’m nowhere near mastering), but I’m not giving up. Just taking an extended break

Home is where the holiday is

holly — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 01:10:23 +0000

‘Tis the season for millions of people to migrate back to their Motherland and spend the holidays with their families. Consequently, it’s also the time of year all travel providers (airlines, hotel chains, etc) jack up the prices because they know whatever the cost, you’ll pony up, because being with your family is that important. Hell, even seven elevens increase their prices, so you’re paying more for that road trip essential Slim Jim. But with the economy being what it is, this year I’ve had a lot of clients forced to walk away from their standard plans, as the cost is just too high. The majority still traveled, but it got me thinking about the significance of spending the holidays at your home, away from the usual folks.

Yes, this is sad. It hurts. And there’s probably a good amount of guilt rolled up with it. But at the same time, this is a chance for a fresh start. A chance to spend time with your new “family”, biological or not, to gather together with the ones you love and see often and appreciate one another all the more. And a chance to create new traditions of your own.

We all have one – that family tradition you’ve been begging to get out of since you were old enough to formulate sentences. It may be Aunt Suze’s caroling around the neighbourhood, regardless of the weather or her singing ability. Or it could be watching A Christmas Carol, the old creepy one, for the millionth time. I mean, I am all about the holidays, but that is one seriously depressing movie. This year, you’re off duty. You don’t have to do any of that crap, and you don’t even have to pretend you did.

Ah, the Christmas dinner. That gold mine of traditions and “oh my God, what is that and why is it mushy”-ness. Being away gives you the freedom to decide what you want to consume. If you’re invited to a loved ones’ family fete, you can always create a phantom “allergy” to anything you don’t want to eat, they don’t know your medical history, and as long as you’re friendly and festive, your lack of eating anything that wasn’t turkey or off the dessert table will be completely overlooked. Or, if you’re cooking yourself, it’s even better. Always wanted that Holiday lasagna? What’s stopping you? For less than 4 people, turkey is way more effort than it’s worth, and what could be more festive than a red-sauced lasagna with white noodles and a green side salad? If it makes you feel better, refer to the cheese sprinkled on top as “magic snow”, then sit back and enjoy.

But the point is that no matter where you are or who you’re with, the holidays can be special, and if circumstances prevented you from reenacting the identical holiday for the 30th year, that doesn’t mean all is lost. It means you just have to redefine your definition of merriment and joy. Have fun! Have the happiest of holidays!

Just don’t forget to call your Mom.