I did not get enough porch swing time in. I did my best but stuff kept cropping up, like yesterday when at 4 pm I left to go visit with my old high school French teacher, assuming I'd be back in plenty of time for supper and packing and at least an hour or so more of porch time. And then the next thing I knew it was six and a half hours and several bottles of wine later and it was actually dark out. Oops. It was a good time, but when I got up at 6 am this morning to get ready to head out to Calgary, I had occasion to regret it. Fortunately I lived (although it took me until the time we reached Mt. Robson to actually start feeling human again) and the drive through the ice fields was lovely. I took about six million pictures, most of them from the window of our moving vehicle.

Thanks to dad's new GPS, we found the hotel and Laura's parents' place easily tonight. The original plan with the hotel was to get a one bedroom suite and then on Friday my godmother would join us and sleep on a cot in the living room with me (I'm on the sofa bed), but when we got here we realized that the only way to set up both beds was to put the cot out in the hallway, so the new plan is that we two will get our own room on Friday, which is great for many reasons, not least of which is that we will now have two bathrooms between four people instead of just one as we all try to prettify ourselves for the wedding.

Shopping tomorrow, time to finally give my debit card a workout.

Today is the sort of weather I had feared. It's overcast and windy and not even 20 degrees. Mom, of course, is wearing capris and a t-shirt. I...am not. On the plus side, things are set to improve tomorrow.

I also have a pedicure appointment tomorrow. Apparently mom has been showing the lady pictures of what my normal pedicures look like and now she is extremely nervous and afraid that I will be disappointed. Intimidating toes, I has them.

It kind of looks like I will be doing a reading at the wedding. Eep. I told Laura that it's probably ok as long as I don't have to memorize it, as I don't do well standing up in front of people and if I don't have something to read off of I am likely to freeze and forget and then improvise, and since my improvising usually involves jazz hands, this is not a good thing.

I have to go outside soon, I have some errands to run (and I really do need to stretch out my legs.) It looks like I will be keeping the jacket I ordered...it fits and is cute and I think I need it today, so off come the tags.

Well, looks like it is going to be a beautiful day here in Vancouver, I hope it's as nice up north. Last night was not as chilly as I had feared, although it felt more like late October than July to me. When I got to my hotel room, though, they had the AC already on. Set to 20. I laughed hysterically (the other day at kindy I finally turned the AC on but still only set it to 28), turned it off, and then the phone rang. I thought it was the front desk but it turned out to be my mother, which in my jet-lagged state caused me to stare open mouthed at the phone for a bit. I'd been in the room for 20 seconds! How did she know?

Going to check out soon and head back to the airport, although it will be hard to drag myself away from the nice big comfy bed. I slept well last night but woke up at 6:30. I'm not exactly ready for a nap but I'm also not really bursting with energy. I sense an airplane nap coming up!

Whee, free internet at the airport! Almost better, someplace to plug the computer in so I am not using precious battery life.

I slept for approximately four hours last night and it will be a good 24 hours before I get the chance to lie down again. I really wish people would perfect Star Trekkish transportation technology.

Ear thingy seems to be better, my head is less blocked. It has moved on down into my chest but I shall endeavor not to cough on my fellow passengers.

I have gotten sick exactly twice this year. Once the day before I left for Hong Kong, and now again right before I fly to Canada. I think this might be a mild ear infection, even. The only thing I can think of is maybe swimming? Water got in my ear and then didn't get out? And then of course today was a holiday so I couldn't even go to the clinic, so I will be chowing down on decongestant tomorrow instead and hoping that does the trick.

I have to be up in five hours, so I'm going to go pass out now. Talk to you in Canada! (Or Taipei, if I find wi-fi.)

One of the definite advantages to the expat life is that whenever you want to go somewhere, someone you know has either been there or knows someone who has and all kinds of help and advice is forthcoming. In this case, Andy has a friend in Taipei who was kind enough to give me his contact details and answer some questions I had, and who has further offered to meet me after he finishes work, show me around a bit, and then see me safely off to the airport.

Rather embarrassingly, I was all "But wait, I am leaving my phone here. Um. Maybe I can borrow Masami's old iPhone, which now functions as an iTouch and is mostly used to distract Liam? Is there a lot of wi-fi in Taipei? I could text you?", and then later in the day, apropos of nothing, I suddenly realized "oh, right, pay phones", which is pretty much the email I then received. In my defense, pay phones are increasingly rare in Japan and outside of the airport, I can't think of the last time I even saw one. He did mention that if I failed to find a phone, I could always just ask a random stranger to borrow theirs, which would strike me as weird, but I've seen Liz do it. I do not have her charm offensive, though, and I fear people would just look at me funny and then walk away quickly.

Kim is doing well with jet lag. She is very sensibly ok during the day and then exhausted at night, which is far better than the reverse. We have been doing some shopping and I somehow ended up with a new hat. Oops. We also stopped by a glasses store and I tried some on. What do you think? The colours are not as pronounced in these photos as in real life, but generally speaking the pinks and browns worked better then the greens and blues.

Ah HA. Ever since I started googling "what to do in Taipei during a long layover" I've been hearing references to this free airport tour but couldn't find any official links. I was starting to wonder if it was no longer offered when I found this. It is unfortunately very limited, and also gets me back to the airport waaaaaaaay too early, but the morning tour especially sounds like my cup of tea. I'm not sure if I'll make the afternoon tour, but maybe I can see about signing up in advance for the morning tour on my way back.

I think I've caught Kim's jet lag. That's the only excuse I can think of for falling asleep at 11:30 on a Friday night. We didn't do too much yesterday. We went to the supermarket (today's test: can she find it again?) and then rode out to Loc Town, which has the Uniqlo and the 100 yen store and the phone store, in an attempt to get her a pre-paid phone. Turns out Japan does not care if visitors to the country can get a phone or not, there appears to be absolutely no way to get a short-term phone. I'm probably going to end up just leaving her my phone ("There is no instruction book. Just press buttons until you work it out. Have fun and don't accidentally call New Zealand!"). We also went out for dinner last night, where I introduced her to the cocktail known as a sour, which basically tastes like juice but has the same alcohol content as most beers. It is delicious and dangerous, although not so much if you just drink one as we did.

Today will be more touring around, maybe an actual visit to the 100 yen shop, and then either a trip out to the beach for a birthday party or else just downtown again, as we didn't have much time to see it last night.

Hurrah, Kim made it! I was on tenterhooks all afternoon (I told you I would be), but I also reasoned that if she was stuck at Narita airport for several hours that she'd have plenty of time to figure out how to call/mail me, whereas silence probably meant she was busy catching airplanes and buses. And I was right. Phew.

We had a nice little mini-visit ("I'm in Japan!" "You are TOTALLY in Japan!") and I fed her and put her to bed, where I will probably follow not too long from now. Getting up at 7 am is exhausting.

Got my travel insurance. Was chatting with the travel agent while we waited for things to print, and she asked if I was excited and I explained about KIm coming today and how she was covering for me and how it was very "whee!" and she looked at me a bit askance and asked "So...just anybody can teach English?" Pretty much, yes. I have no qualifications and yet I have been employed for nearly 10 years.

I woke up at 7 am this morning. That in itself is not so unusual, but mostly I surface long enough to go "mmf?" and then fall back asleep. This morning, however, my brain decided to get all wound up. "Kim gets here today! I wonder if she will make the transfer? I need to finish cleaning the bedroom! And organize the closet so she has some space! And do laundry! And make peanut sauce for dinner, and then wash the dishes! And also I have to go downtown and buy travel insurance!" And so, I was up. My body was not so on board with this, though, which is why I spent over an hour eating breakfast and staring blearily at the computer. But even with a slow start, I managed to get most of that done (still have to head downtown.) In the process of cleaning the closet and washing the dishes, I managed to sweat as much as if I'd gone to the gym, so I think I will declare that a workout and not feel bad that I couldn't get to the gym today.

My mint box has stopped producing mint and started growing mushrooms instead. I think next year I'll give up on herbs all together and just grow shiitake.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to freeze my ass off in Canada. I'm resisting the urge to fill my suitcase with winter (or at least fall) clothing, but I did go ahead and order a jacket online to be waiting for me when I arrive.

Packing is coming along. The problem with starting it so early is that there is lots of stuff I can't actually add yet. My goal for today is to pack what I can, then mostly fill the rest up with stuff I can donate to the thrift store when I get there, leaving just enough room for things like toiletries and my sandals. As plans go, it's pretty solid, but we'll see how it plays out in reality.

Kim gets here tomorrow! I'm going to be on tenterhooks from about 2pm onwards, as she has a really short time to get through immigration and connect to her domestic flight in Narita. Tenterhooks, I say!

I still don't really have a plan for Taipei, but Andy has a friend there who was kind enough to give me his contact details and answer some questions I had. He suggested the Taipei City Hall Station, which looks like it is connected to Taipei 101, a huge shopping complex. It's supposed to be crazy hot and humid there, so wandering around somewhere indoors and airconditioned sounds like a pretty good plan to me. He also assured me that even if traffic is really bad on my way back to the airport, it shouldn't take more than two hours (normally it's one), so I don't have to leave the city six hours before my connecting flight. I also keep seeing references to a free tour provided by the airline if you have a long layover, but I can't seem to find an official link.

The rumour is that rainy season is set to officially end this weekend, and certainly the forecast is all hot and sunny. Kim claims she is looking forward to this and even wants to sunbathe. I say we'll see about that.

My last class on Fridays is currently two young teenaged boys. I think they are around 14 or so, and they are very amusing. They both lived in America for several years and one actually just came back about a month ago, so their English is fluent. Today we had gone through the niceties and were settling down for the lesson when the most recent returnee put up his hand (in a class of two! Is that not adorable?) and said he had a question from his English class at school. Quick note: he is not in a special advanced English class. It does not matter what your level is, all the kids from a certain grade are lumped together. So the majority of his classmates would be stumped at anything more complicated than "I belong to the soccer club. I like soccer." Anyway, he said his ALT (an American man in this case) used the word "phallic" to describe something, he no longer remembers what. But he wanted to know what that word in particular meant. I asked if he had asked the ALT, but apparently once he remembered that at least one of his students could actually speak English, he got all vague and "um, ask someone else."

So I told him. After which he changed the subject really quickly.

Pauline was not wrong about me needing new glasses, although my reasons have more to do with practicality and less to do with a burning desire to look, and I quote, "funkier". (Is "funky" even my style? I'm sitting around wearing a t-shirt with cartoon sushi on it.) The lenses are getting scratched to the point of distraction, and since I've had these glasses for...five years? Longer? I remember Masami came with me and she wasn't pregnant with Liam yet, so it's been a while...anyway, new glasses are on my "next major purchase" list. Luckily I have enough change in my adorable Tare Panda bank to buy new lenses, now I just need to save up for frames. Also, I need to convince someone that coming to the store with me to help me choose a new style will be the most awesomely fun use of a random Sunday afternoon ever.

On an unrelated note, I would like to take this opportunity to remind myself that I promised to bring Letitia back some Canadian sticker flags. Self, take note.

Farewell long weekend, we barely knew ye.

Beach day was good fun. Yesterday had me worried, as there was rain of biblical proportions, but today dawned sunny and stiflingly hot. Which then made me worried that I was going to die of heatstroke, but once we got to the beach it could not have been more perfect. Sunny and breezy and not at all sweaty, oh my! Garbage was dutifully picked up. I don't think we found anything especially interesting this time. No tvs, all abandoned drink bottles and plastic wrappers. The yoga part was great. Beach yoga is one of those things that sounds, in practice, quite lovely and even high-minded, but turns out to be sort of goofy. The sand alone is enough to add a touch of comedy to the proceedings.

For the bbq I made this slaw, which I have been eyeing for a while but ultimately rejecting in favour of roasted broccoli. It is delightful and will be made again this week. Along with, probably, roasted broccoli. Can one actually OD on broccoli? I suspect I may find out this summer.

So far the "get pedicure and have dinner with friend" portion of the long weekend is panning out better than the "clean the kitchen" part. Are we shocked? No? Yeah, I didn't think we were. I did wash the floors, though, and have excavated the kitchen table.

Actually, I had to interrupt my cleaning this evening to go hang out at work for two hours. Last week we did a combined FBC order (cheese! and root beer! and other stuff!) but I placed the order on Thursday, failing to remember that they usually deliver exactly a week afterwards. So, sure enough, they did not come on Wednesday night and then when I swung by last night on my way home, there was a delivery notice.

Momentously, though, when they called this morning I was actually able to arrange a re-delivery. On the phone! In Japanese! Of course, it was not the most complicated of transactions, but phone talk is usually horrible and no one knows what is going on, and until now the only thing I've been able to do over the phone is arrange for a pedicure, so I'll take my victory where I can find it.

OF COURSE they then came closer to the 8 in the 6-8 delivery range, which would not have been so bad except that I finished my book around 7:15. However, I now have feta and root beer and a large bag of cranberries, so all in all I am pleased.

Because Canada and palm trees go together like chocolate and seaweed. Happy Canada Day!