Main Street

I was at Stanford University yesterday taking part in an all day career fair.

Whilst there I was sat next to a Captain from the Marine Corps who was also recruiting. We got chatting about my trip to Vancouver and I explained about my negative experience with the prostitutes and tramps.


He then said "yea there are some bad areas like that, you just have to make sure you are no where near Main street"



On closer inspection of one of the only pictures i took on the streets of Vancouver.



It seems that Main Street was exactly where I was!

bx

Exploring

Looking at the last few posts I would not blame people for thinking that I am not having much fun on this recruitment trip!

Thankfully a few of the universities I have visited in San Francisco yesterday have been downtown, which gave me the chance of walking through some great tourist spots!

This first picture is San Fran from the air.

Although I did have to visit Chinatown and have some dim sum and iced lemon tea to cure the homesickness.

Also, the weather is perfect!

bx

Liquidation

So the day after I begin my big trip I find out that my aircraft carrier "Oasis", has just been liquidated and is no longer running anymore. It has vanished.

I have NEVER had any type of trip involving aircraft go off without a hitch. My return flight carrier going bankrupt being right up there at the top.

bx

Oh, and I just got abused by a US customs officer. They are all dicks with attitude problems.

bx

Vancouver and prostitutes

I'm now in Vancouver!!!


The flight was like being a sardine in a tin. I say 'like' being a sardine because to the left of me was a crying baby, and to the right a coughing and sneezing adult man. I bet real life tinned sardines don't have to put up with that kind of crap.


I managed to sleep about 10 hours of the flight, which made the journey go really quickly. One frightening aspect of Oasis is that the planes have cameras on their underbelly so that you can view heading towards the ground on your tv screen, pretty cool, but it makes landing scary!


After checking into my hotel and having a very hot shower, I decided that as it was only 6pm I should go exploring. So I talked to the receptionist about which bus to get/when it gets dark etc, purchased a map and set off downtown. Chinatown being my first tourist spot I wanted to check out.


Then next part will be written about as quickly as the events took place

So I got off the bus with the sun in my eyes and began walking towards Chinatown. Within seconds a guy had come up to me out of the sun glare and asked for change. Then another, then another then another did the exact same thing. Then a prostitute stood in my way and muttered "do you want some skirt?" I said "no thanks", and walked past her. She promptly began to follow me shouting "Hey, hey, hey!" at random points down the street at me. I passed another prostitute who pointed to my umbrella and mentioned how sensible I was, I smiled and kept walking. One minute later though I looked back to see that now I was being followed by two prostitutes. Seconds later a drunk guy fell out of a bar and shouted at no one in particular spotted me and began to head my way for what looked to have been a slow motion hug.


It was at that point that I realized I perhaps was in the wrong part of town. I hailed a cab and jumped in, requesting to be taken somewhere safe for tourists. The taxi driver laughed.






So my marks so far for Vancouver


Place: 8/10
People: 2/10


Because Vancouver is a stunning city




I just seem to be the pied piper of prostitutes and tramps today.

bx

Just a simple school teacher

So having returned from the pig roast party on the beach I can report back that the entire day pretty much consisted of beer, piglet, fire and more beer.

It was a really good day out except the journey to get there. The beach was at the bottom of a mountain that itself was a thirty minute drive from Sai Kung. Problems began when we got out of the taxi assuming we had found the jungle path to the beach, then realized once the taxi had left us in the jungle that we had got it wrong and needed to walk over the mountain to the next path. In the heat, with three crates of beer in my arms.

Last night was the birthday party of Rosie, so we all went to the peak to celebrate.




After the dinner we went to see a friend perform with his band. The lead singer used to be part of the company and this was to be my first experience hearing him. The band is called F.B.I and here is a promo shot they use.




Going into the venue, I expected the whole thing to be a bit of a joke. This expectation came mainly from lines from the songs consisting of such lyrical classics as


"I'm not a preacher just a simple school teacher"
and
"Give me your children, put in a cauldron"


After watching them though I am now an official F.B.I fan! The entire band puts on a really good show, even if the showmanship outdoes the music sometimes. If you want to look at a clip of F.B.I in action then click here.


This is going to be my last post before travelling to Vancouver on Tuesday. This time I am taking my laptop with me and most of the hotels I am staying in has free internet, so I will post some pictures of my travels up as I go. (I have still not packed yet)

bx

Pig!

This weekend I am going to a beach party and we are going to spit roast a whole baby pig over a fire! Very cavemanish. Then on Saturday I might go to Disneyworld, which is not very cavemanish at all...

I have nothing else to report really, my brain is going to explode soon planning this recruitment trip. I have been trying to book my plane ticket from Toronto to Vancouver on the 25th of April.

I could not work out how the journey is 5 hours long, but the plane arrives two hours after I take off from Toronto.

It was the end of the day and my brain was not working, took me a while to remember that it's all down to time zones ... fool that I am.




bx

Wagyu

I just ate a 100% Wagyu beef burger.

Click here to check out what Wagyu beef is, but basically I just consumed a high living happy cow.

bx