Home Again Home Again Jiggidy Jig!!!

So...up at 5:00 on a Saturday morning, (bed at 2:30 after porn motel...another post!!!) 2.5 hour bus ride to Taipei and I was off. Next was the 2 hour plane ride to Manila where I got to spend 5 hours, at least I got one last cool stamp in my passport before I renew it!! After that was a lovely 13 or so hours to Vancouver. I took a sleeping pill so it was relatively unscathing. Coincidentally I was seated with a guy who teaches in Taipei, and is from the town I grew up in. We were part of the same drama club in high school!

Bleary eyed, I disembarked my make-shift home only 5 hours later than the time that I left Taiwan!! Standing there smiling in the beautiful Vancouver airport, was my friend Ali. This girl is SO cool! She took me back to her place by Main and Broadway and took me out for lunch at some cool, funky and DELICIOUS veggie restaurant! She was starting a house-sitting job that night so we Sky Train-ed and bussed out to the North Shore! What a great reintroduction to Canada!!! This house had a panoramic view of mountains, ocean, bridges, beautiful Vancouver skyline!!

Next day I went out to New West to meet up with my friend Kathy. She is as jaded and cynical as ever! I am glad that some things never change!! We shopped, we walked along the Quay, we giggled, chatted and best of all we had micro-brewery beer-waterside!!! Monday we did some more shopping (and clothes fit me!!!!), traveled downtown and did some running around and had coffee, again you guessed it-seaside!! I went back to Ali's and we headed back to the North Shore to eat dinner on the deck and watch a movie. Tues (yesterday) I was scheduled to fly here to Saskatchewan so Ali and I got up early got her bikes and went for a ride. First we rode out to Granville Island, then over the bridge and back up to her place along the seawall! God I Love Vancouver!!!

I am now in Saskatchewan with my mom, and it is great! I am glad to have the decompression time in Van before I came here though. No big reverse culture shocks though, I was expecting much worse! The biggest things that I noticed was how fat everyone here is! I am far from skinny, but I did not remember how overweight we are as a society! The most notable was teenage girls. I remembered them to be skinny minnies, but even the ones that are not 'fat' are not healthy looking....
Second thing I noticed was that people stopped for me when I was crossing the street. Ali laughed at me and said they must be mistaking me for a foreign dignitary because I was so surprised when they stopped without even a redlight!!!

I am really trying to keep Taiwan in my forethoughts, and even try and to miss it a bit! It will be too hard to go back if I don't!
OK well that is about it for now.....I have lots of time, so I should be posting more often!!! Miss you