Will the last person to leave please turn off the lights

It's August 31st and it's my last night living in Vancouver. Tomorrow morning I set off for Seattle and then on the train to visit San Fransisco, Los Angeles, Flagstaff (Grand Canyon), Kansas City, Chicago, Washinton DC, New York, Montreal and Boston. One month, lots of cities, lots of trains, lots of money spent and hopefully lots of fun.

This will be my last post on the blog ever written on this stay in Canada. But don't worry, the blog will be continuing but not until I get to England where you lucky people will be showered with all the pictures and stories from our epic adventure.

The last couple of days have been pretty quiet, apart from one last visit to the Royal. It's mainly been spent packing and throwing stuff away. I'm pretty much done now, all that's left is to give Shuji his computer back and it's done.

Anyway, thank you for reading and see you in October..... in England. I'm just going to cry.


Tuesday night saw a visit to the Two Parrots for a spot of karaoke. It was full of beautiful singing, but mainly it was a tone deaf mess


Bully belting out Young Girl. It was a good job there weren't any young girls there, or they would have probably started crying


Ian murdering the Beatles She Loves Me. She won't if he continues to sing like this


Hannah giving her reaction to the performances


When we first came to Vancouver we went to the Royal all the time. But we haven't been in the whole of 2006, until the other night. Guess which person isn't having fun


For those of you who didn't make it to Royal, it hasn't changed. I'll leave you to decide whether that's a good or a bad thing


Release... the beast


More caged antics, only in the Royal


Gav and Keenie "play?" fighting on the streets of Vancouver. Doing the British name proud


The stamp of quality


The last time I saw Liz (Canadian)


This man can now be shown as the fraud and liar that he truly is. All year Ian has said he would never visit my house, but the lure of a computer to update his ipod and a free place to store his luggage made him give in


Laura yet again pushing away the camera


At last she agrees to have her picture taken with me. Laura, the last of my 11 housemates in Canada, but easily my 8th favourite

I better go and get some sleep. Laura is selling my phone, which means I now have no alarm to wake me up tomorrow. So if you are in the Kerrisdale area in the morning, come and give my door a knock around 8am. It would be very much appreciated.

So long and see you all back on the blog soon. Just what are you going to do for the next month without me!

Back to the Beluga

Before I came to Vancouver I never knew what a Beluga was. But after going to the Aquarium I've learned so much about them. Did you know that they have 15cm of blubber surrounding their bodies. How can you live with not knowing facts like that.

Anyway, I went to the Aquarium for a second time yesterday. Following on from the fun at Science World I went with Liz to see those Belugas for one last time. It was like saying goodbye to a best friend.


You won't believe me but I built this. Out of paper mache, in 30 seconds... with my teeth, blindfolded, hanging upside down and unconscious


Under the sea, under the sea, you all know the lyrics, sing along


Can you remember Sharky and George, Crimebusters of the Sea. I think they should have people dressed up as them in the Aquarium. It would help boost attendance and diminish crime


The tropical zone was full of beautiful creatures such as these red birds...


Stunning butterflies...


And some not so attractive creatures. Only joking Liz


It's me, hello everyone, how you doing. Really that bad, sorry to hear that. I'm good... what no they didn't tell me that...


Snakes on a branch, they've already started filming the sequel


I actually wrestled this crocodile. With my arms tied behind my back, concussed and with pins and needles in by right big toe. I won with a submission in the second round



You could get some great shots of the dolphins from underneath the water with the sunlight shining through


Reminds me of playing Ecco the Dolphin on the Sega Megadrive


Liz blocking the shot of the dolphins. Some people have no manners


At last the belugas. They have funny heads that can move around. I tried to steal a beluga to take home and put in my bath. I won't go into detail but it went horribly wrong


A proper beluga shot underwater. They can even wave to people. I tell you they're clever. Too clever... kill them all before they take over the earth


The sea otter was a cheeky character. It constantly mocked you, swimming around on it's back having fun


Two stamps on my hand to prove that I went to Science World and the Aquarium in one day. We'll never see the likes of them again

The day ended with a trip around Stanley Park on the free shuttle bus. It was a last chance to see some of the great sights that only Vancouver has to offer.

Weird Science

(Weird science)
Things I've never seen before
Behind bolted doors
Talent and imagination

(Weird science)
Not what teacher said to do
Makin' dreams come true
Living tissue, warm flesh

(Weird science)
Plastic tubes and pots and pans
Bits and pieces (and)
Bits and pieces (and)

(Bits of) my creation--Is it real?
It's my creation...my creation
It's my creation

Weird Science
Weird.....ooo!


One of life's great unanswered questions is which is better? Weird Science the movie, or Weird Science the tv series. My personal opinion is that the while the movie is good, the tv series was able to expand on the main idea and take the story to new and unimagined levels of excitment. And the tv series had Vanessa Angel in it.

Which do you prefer?

The 1984 movie


Or the 1994 Tv series


Why am I talking about Weird Science though. It's only because after alomost a year of being in Vancouver I finally got to go to Science World. Luckily for her Liz came along as well. A place where people can learn and have fun.


Welcome, to the world of tomorrow (please read as said in Futurama)


Liz showing her lightning fast reactions. I have a video, but her hands move so fast you don't actually see them move


I imagine this is what the sleeping conditions will be like on the train


Don't worry, Liz hasn't broken any more bones. She was just getting prepared to lose against me in a wheelchair race


This mirror is supposed to reveal a persons true beauty


I pushed over 10 young children and made them cry to get on this slide. It was worth it


Liz was good at shooting, too good perhaps


Although I doubt she'll be getting a call up to the Canucks anytime soon


Ladies and gentlemen, scientific proof that I am hot stuff


You could make psychadellic patterns on this screen. Either that or I was on drugs


There was also a lego display on Ancient Egypt. They had a few spare blocks lying around so I knocked up this replica of the Sphynx


That large globe thing is the ominax theatre where we watched a film about Ancient Greece. The screen goes above your head and around the sides. Science hey, it's weird...

Me, Grimlock, fight

Yep, this Saturday was (for most of us) our last Saturday in Vancouver. We mainly spent it saying "do you know what, this is our last Saturday in Vancouver", which was followed by heads tilted down shaking from side to side in disbelief. It's flown by. To celebrate this we headed down to Granville Island and gatecrashed Andy's leaving do from work. Some of us got dressed up in suits, others (ie me) decided to go for a smart casual dress code of shirt, ripped jeans and flip flops. It's all good.


Thumbs up. There is a similar picture to this with Andy making vulgar signs in the background. But I know it will only dissapoint his family


You may be smart Ian, but do you have style


Liz showing what she thought of her prawn cocktails. If only she could read a menu properly


Soon I won't have to see these people ever again. Hahahah


I've blurred this passport photo to save him from embarressment. Let's just call him Ian P. No that makes it too easy, how about I Pope


Cheeky


On the way home having just passed Ian's, he ran out of his house shouting "PAUL". What's wrong I thought. Has Andy hung himself in the living room, have they been burgled. No, he'd ran all the way down the street, still in his suit to tell me that Transformers: The Movie was on TV.

Watching Transformers: The Movie it occurred to me that the film wasn't as good as we remembered. The narrative structure was all over the place and who knows who half of the characters were. Well at least it gave Orson Welles a fine cinematic send off.

The new live action Transformes movie is going to have to be good to match up to this. Which is going to be hard considering they hardly have any transformers in it. I want a huge fracking transformer war with every transofmer ever created battling it out. They don't even have Grimlock

Autobots, transform....