Chillin' in Van

We crossed the Rockies on the way to Vancouver which made the journey one of the most spectacular that we've done in North America. In addition, the snow increased as we travelled higher, at one point resulting in a whiteout that left me wondering how the driver was dealing with it (and how sheer the drop at the side of the road was). I decided to put it out of my mind and went back to my playlist of podcasts and Christmas carols.

Our hosts in Vancouver were to be Ted and Betty Siverns. Ted was the minister of the Community Church in Deep River when my parents lived there and, along with a number of other "Revs" we've encountered over the years (one of whom being my Grandfather) was quite a big influence on my family's theology and faith. They met us at the bus station in Langley (one of the suburbs of Vancouver) and we enjoyed an evening chatting about all sorts of stuff and eating some fantastic meatballs (which can be found in the recipes section).

Ted and Betty had a few things to do the next day so we decided to make it our day exploring downtown Vancouver. Most of the North American cities we'd been to so far had had Chinatowns but I'd been tipped off that Vancouver's was one of the best. We had decided that it would be the one we ate in so like the intrepid explorers we are, we ventured into it. My tip-off turned out to be accurate and logical when I thought about it. We were now on the Pacific Coast of North America (8 h ahead of the UK) and if anyone from east Asia heads west, the first place they would find. There was a baffling array of shops selling rice, dried shrimp, mushrooms and a myriad of other unidentifiable things that you could scoop out of boxes and buy by the kilo should you so desire. Finding somewhere to eat was tricky given the number of places available but we selected one that looked OK and went in (the Gain Wah). It was a great place and the staff very friendly, particularly when we were looking confused at the selection on the menus and specials lists and recommended some dishes for us which we duly ordered. They were fantastic so we left a nice big tip for the staff. Incidently, tipping is something that we're really trying to get to grips with here as it seems there's a bizarre system whereby the non-compulsory tip is actually more than compulsory. In fact, many of the businesses here get away with paying their staff a lower-than-minimum wage on the assumption that they'll get tips. If I remember back a few businesses in the UK tried that as well and were nailed up for it. It's not a practice I like.

Anyhow, downtown Vancouver is nice, particularly the area called "Gastown" which is an area which would probably be described as "bohemian" with a far higher concentration of non-chain stores than I've seen just about anywhere. A particularly nice sight is the steam clock which we came across quite by accident. The only down side of the area was the slightly distressing number of homeless folk. At one point a guy came up on the pretext of just being friendly and interested in us but inevitably it lead to "would you happen to have a dollar or a quarter so I could buy a burger". We have a policy of not giving to beggars as we don't think it actually does them any good so we politely declined. It harped back to memories of Cuba though - it's such a shame when no-one really does just want a friendly chat.

The next day Ted and Betty drove us to Steveston which is a fishing port close to Vancouver. It was a great opportunity to sample fish and chips - something I've been missing a bit but was surprised to see advertised all over the area (as opposed to "fish and fries"). I was a bit dubious as to whether the Canadians could replicate this British classic but I wasn't disappointed. It was pretty similar to what you would be presented with in a UK pub.

The whole of the coastline where Steveston is situated used to be awash with canneries, the main industry of the area being salmon fishing. All of the canneries have closed now the fish stocks are depleted but one has opened up as a museum. You wouldn't think that a museum about fish canning would be any could but this one was a particularly interesting history not only of the industry but also of social attitudes over the last 100 years. There were various jobs dished out at the cannery including butchering, cleaning and canning and the nicer jobs (canning and labelling) were always given out to the white folk of European descent. The butchery was given over to the Chinese men and the particularly unpleasant (and cold) job of cleaning was given to the Chinese women and the Native Americans. What was also interesting was the terminology used. All Canadians now refer to "Native Americans" as "First Nations" which is their self-chosen term. On the way home we stopped in by the Aberdeen shopping mall which is in Richmond, now known locally as "New Chinatown". It was a really interesting mix of stores and had one of the most spectacular fountains I've ever seen which was synched in with music which played every hour. I managed to catch it on video so along with whole load of other "Cool things in Canadia-eh?" is in our Canada video.

As well as being an important site for fishing, Vancouver was also important in the fur trade as we saw the next day in Fort Langley. The town itself is very pretty with a number of wee stores and was a great opportunity to get into the festive spirit with all the Christmas goods in the shops. We also took a look at the Fort Langley living museum where we saw a First Nations woman demonstrating blacksmithery (or whatever you might call it!) by making a coathook from scratch. She then gave it to one of the members of the audience by having them guess numbers - the right answer being the year that BC was founded. It was probably just as well we got it wrong as we'd never have got it through airport/Greyhound security. We did buy something to take through Greyhound security at the wine shop we visited afterwards. It specialised in fruit wines (as do Charlotte and myself) and the enthusastic staff allowed us to sample their red AND white mulled wine, both of which were really warming and Christmassy. We plumped for a bottle of the blueberry wine which was the mulled red base to share with Ted and Betty and a bottle of their strawberry wine to take to Portland.

At the Sunday service the next morning Betty had asked if I would contribute something to the music. After some discussion with the music leader (who'd forgotten that she'd already arranged this with Betty) it was decided that I would do a song at the beginning and some music for the second half of communion. I couldn't think of a Christmassy religious song that I fancied teaching them so I opted for my classic - "There Are No Lights on our Christmas Tree" which while not being overtly religious has a pretty good message. It seemed to go down well and I also played "O Come O Come Emmanuel" during communion. It was really nice to take part as given how involved I was at St. James Penicuik, attending a church service but not being part of the guts of it always feels slightly disconcerting. There was an ecumenical service that evening in the Unitarian church which we also attended and ended up at one the house of one of the younger folk from Ted and Betty's congregation. Charlotte and I were quizzed on our adventures over spiced cranberry juice and various edibles - just like being at a church gathering at home.

Part of the beauty of Vancouver is its location in the mountains. You can take a cable car up one of the mountains (Grouse Mountain) and we did this the next day to take in the view over Vancouver. The view from the top was lovely and it was funny how we were back in snow territory again having ascended a couple of hundred metres. In fact, this seemed to be Vancouver's premier winter sports site and we were surrounded by loads of crazy snowboarders and skiiers while we tottered around on the slippery packed snow trying not to become a cropper. Betty was hoping we would see the twinkly lights of the city as the sun set but unfortunately the mists and rain over the city prevented that. It did lift just as we were heading back down so we did get to see it through the car windows. It was an awesome site. At the bottom we found that they had closed the second cable car line and there was a police car and a couple of TV cameras attending to some sort of "police incident" where they were "trying to assist an individual". We never found out the full details at the time but it looks like this was the incident in question - exciting stuff!

Betty and Ted dropped us off at the end of the pier where we caught the boat and then the Skytrain to meet Leo, one of our friends from Edinburgh who's spending some time in Vancouver. He'd arranged to meet us at the Cafe Deux Soleils - a cafe/bar type place for that evening's "Nerd Poetry Slam" which is a competition for poets to prevent a three minute poem on a Nerdy subject. It turned out to be great fun and quite reminiscent of the movie "So I Married an Axe Murderer". We ended up judging but like the mean Scots we are, we made sure we were mean with our points. The main act of the night was "The Klute" who was totally amazing.

It turned out that one of my schoolfriends (from way back in Cuiken Primary School days), Linda Shedden was now living in Vancouver so we arranged to meet up on our last day there. It was a bit rainy and grey (which I believe is typical for Vancouver!) but she managed to tour us round a couple of the Olympic sites including a giant Orca that looked like it was made out of Lego. We the caught up with some old memories and gossip of old "Penicuikians" over a couple of pints and some yam fries. It was really great to see her - a major blast from the past!

Back at the house, Betty had made us a Lebanese feast from some of the recipes she'd learnt while her and Ted lived in Beirut in the late 80s. It was a fantastic meal and was at least as good as the Lebanese food we'd had at restaurants in the UK. You can find her recipes in the recipes section along with the butter tart recipe that we'd made that morning - a real Canadian classic.

As with all of our hosts in North America, I was gobsmacked at the hospitality we received in Vancouver - Ted and Betty even waited in the Greyhound station with us when the bus was an hour and a half late! They were talking about visiting Bath at some point so I really hope that comes to pass.

We were a bit nervous about the bus journey back into the US as we'd be crossing the border with a few food items (mainly our lunch), our contribution to Christmas in San Jose (more later) and a bottle of Strawberry wine from the wine place in Fort Langley. The border crossing was surprisingly easy going and the border guard even chatted (no, reallly!) about how he'd learnt violin as a youngster. When our bags went through the X-ray the two folk manning it were too busy chatting spend any time looking at the picture so if we were carrying anything we weren't supposed to be it wasn't detected. Before long we were met again by our bus driver and headed back into the good ol' US of A!