Mai loves cherries

It was with a little sadness that we left Brad’s place and set off to Victoria. It was good to see and stay with him. Alas, we will see him again soon, as like me, he has fallen in love with NhaTrang and has decided to move there. Now just one or two more friends, and my evil plan will be complete….. Bwaa Ha Ha Ha!……..  OH… ahem…. Anyway, we had our appointment with the Doctor and Mai passed all of her tests with flying colors.. Great!! He is concerned about here ear however, and we have to follow up in Victoria to make sure that everything is OK. Mai as a young girl, had somebody hit her hand while she was cleaning her ear. The instrument pierced her ear and destroyed the bones and drum. When I met her in the late 90’s she was a bit clumsy and suffered from very bad bouts of motion sickness. A few years after we were married, we were presented with a chance for some experimental surgery and we had her inner ear reconstructed. The surgeons cut above her ear and removed certain parts of cartilage and other material to reconstruct her ear bones and drum. The surgery was a complete success and for the first time in 30 years, Mai was able to hear out of both ears. (She still does not listen though!!) Even though the surgery was a success, there was a very small hole left behind that nothing could be done about. Very occasionally, if Mai gets water in her ear, she may have some discomfort or even a minor infection which ear drops clear up. This time it is a bit different. Mai had developed a bad almost choking cough in Vietnam before we returned. The process of hard coughing caused her new ear drum to tear. The tear will heal on it’s own but has become infected. It is infected so bad that we were given some special stuff and sternly instructed that we HAVE to visit a doctor in Victoria before leaving. On the positive side… Don our doctor, has been aware of our new adventure and has plans to come and stay with us when he has some time off. Great!! Not only is he a very nice guy, but we will get a good old fashioned Canadian check up overseas. I guess I might owe him a beer or two for that J.  The pictures today are taken through the windshield as I drove today

We headed out of Edmonton on a cloudy day but soon ran into miserable rain that was headed for the city. We were supplied with some chicken and potato salad left from yesterday’s dinner, so we were able to make good time on our way through the mountains. As usual, the drive from Edmonton into the mountains was spectacular, and we encountered the almost always expected herds of mountain goats and Elk. I spotted no bears on this trip so far, but if you ever spend a weekend in the Canadian Rockies, there is very little chance you will not encounter a bear or two… Just leave them alone and they will do the same. Odds are you will never see a grizzly. ( I have encountered a few of them in my life time and believe me when I say, you are better off not to see them)

Here is a bit for my Vietnamese readers…… The distance from Edmonton to Vancouver is about the same as Saigon to Hanoi. I left Edmonton at 11:00 am and drove at an average of 118 kph. I stopped a little short, however, If I would have continued for 1 more hour, I would have taken a total of 12 hours to drive the total distance. Think about how many days it takes to get to Hanoi if you drive… or even by bus or train. The speed at which traffic moves here is very different than in Vietnam.

The drive away from Edmonton has me thinking of new friends I have waiting for me back in Vietnam. I have only been gone for a little over a week, but am looking forward to carrying on from where I left off. There are many long bicycle rides to do with Carrot, and I have had only a very brief time to talk with the guardian angel of my hotel, Baz.

The nest week will be a very special one. As I age, I see the importance of spending as much time, quality or not, with those who you love and have shaped a person into the individual you are today. Who knows how much time you have left. It is important to enjoy what you have and truly live. I no longer exist and just die a little bit every day, I live and deal with what comes my way on a daily basis….. I can thank Tom for that.

I have just looked at the website stats and have again been totally amazed!!! I will try with my poor memory to tell you about it in my next post

northern lights

Tomorrow if everything goes well, we will head back into the mountains towards Vancouver. The plan is to overnight in a small town located in the Rocky Mountains and then continue on the second day through Vancouver to the ferry terminal. We will board a large ferry and the car and contents will be transported across the strait to Victoria where we will spend a week or so. Ahhhh…. The contents you ask? The last time I was in Edmonton we tried to load a grandfather clock into my fathers SUV. There was a lot of luggage ant there was no way we could squeeze it in. Well today we were successful and the clock will be tagging along with us for the 1200 Km journey.

When we arrived here the plan was to stay with my sister for the entire time

Light Rail Transit

 but unfortunately, there was no high speed internet and it is extremely important I am in contact with the hotel, so we ended staying with our friend Brad. Today I decided to pick up a BBQ chicken, a potato salad, and a bean salad for dinner. I left it on the counter and went out. When I arrived back later, Brad had picked up a Chicken, salad, and a potato salad on the way home. Huh!! I guess great minds think alike. Mai and I saw most of the people we wanted to see. There are a few those that we did not have time to visit, but some of them are kept in our memories through this blog and other computerized ways.

The River Queen

I can see a bit of a change in Mai. She does not seem to be disappointed in leaving Edmonton. I am hoping she is coming to the realization that our new life is working out just fine. I will not be looking back. My life is no longer in Edmonton. I had made arrangements to extend my leave of absence in cast things did not work out in Vietnam with the small chance that I would return to my job and Edmonton. Unfortunately, my Employer has decided not to extend my leave as was arranged beforehand. I guess people retire or move on and others take their places. Others that may not have the employee’s best wishes in mind. That is fine, but it forced my hand and I was given the option of returning to work last Monday or resign. Some

The Muttart conservatory

 of my co-workers have been trying to get me to file grievances and the like. They say I have been Kadatzed!!;) But if I am forced to return to Canada, I do not want to burn bridges. I may need my good record as a reference if I am forced to start over in Victoria…. It is really too bad that my insurance policy has been quashed, but life is an adventure. By forcing my hand to resign, there is now nothing left for me here. There is family and friends, but they will now be people to holiday with. Edmonton is no longer my home. My new home will now be NhaTrang or Victoria. For now it is NhaTrang, but we will see if it swings to Victoria in the coming years.  Now I feel I can not leave here fast enough. The construction, traffic congestion,

West Edmonton Mall indoor Roller Coaster

and the blithering idiot who designed the traffic light timing have me constantly frustrated. Do not get me wrong!! Edmonton is a nice place to visit and as a tourist you will find a lot to do and see. 

Tomorrow morning we have doctor’s appointments for a check up. This is the first time that I am asking my doctor to put on that rubber glove and get me to bend over. I never thought there would be the day, however, if you would have asked me if I would be living in Vietnam with all of my life long possessions disposed of…… I would have sourly looked at you askance and asked if you were totally off your rocker. If everything checks out OK with Mai and I, we will say goodbye to Edmonton as our home forever….. Do I feel sad about this? Not really… there is an echo of past thoughts about

WEM submarines

 growing here as a child and the happiness and pain associated with any lifetime. These are things that will always be part of me, so I guess Edmonton will be a pert of that, but I feel truly that home is where the heart is, and my heart is just not here anymore. 

If I am on the road tomorrow, there may be a chance that I might miss a day or two….. stay tuned.

Today we spent the day with some Vietnamese friends. We were invited to stay for dinner, but thought it was better if we dined out. I thought it would be us, our friends, and Ken who we also invited. When we left for the restaurant, there were 11 people who came. Huh?? Oh well, I asked Maii and she said that they would look after themselves… Yea right. After the meal the check was put on the table and it seemed always to end up in front of me. Nobody offered to help pay, si I got stuck paying for a lot more people than I had intended to invite. I would expect this from the Vietnamese in Their home country….. but here??? Needless to say I am a bit dissapointed and our friends will never get a dinner invitation again as long as I live.

In many asian cultures you are expected to pay if you are the one that invited them. Be careful about how many are around at the time because it may cost you a fortune.

I am too exhausted to continue…. sorry for the short blog

WEM

Well it is official. Driving in Edmonton is a frustrating experience. There was a time only a few years ago where a person had no real thoughts about the delays and the traffic nightmares that exist now. The founders of Edmonton had no way of knowing that it would swell to the population level it currently has, and the infrastructure never really developed with the growth. Well now the city has been forced to deal with the high number of cars on the roads by widening streets and bridges, and extending rapid transit lines to move people. A person can understand the need for all of the construction there is here. What a person has trouble dealing with is how long it takes to travel any distance because of the constant stopping, and for no reason. Here is a typical example. I leave a red light on a road that is marked 60 kmph. I do the speed limit and the next

waterpark

 light will turn yellow and then red as I near it. If I am patient, the light will change and the same thing will happen at the next intersection. By the time you get to the third light, a person is tired of stopping when there is no reason to and you speed up to get through the next light that will be turning red. But guess what?? There is a red light camera at that location that will snap a shot of your license plate as you angrily roar through the offending intersection. What kind of IDIOT!! Designed the lights to work this way?? 

Fort Edmonton

There seems to be two different schools of thought. One is that the lights should be timed so that if traffic is maintaining the speed limit, it will flow without disruption. The other seems to believe that all people are inherent speeders, and should be slowed down by red lights. Well guess what?????  all of those mistimed lights just make us angry and frustrated. Perhaps that is the plan… They can collect much more revenue from frustrated drivers breaking the law than

roller coaster

happy law abiding folk.  Now add to the mix of angry drivers, construction everywhere, a large number of immigrants that have slightly different driving rules, people from other cities here for work and not quite sure where they are going, and the recent need for speed attitude of the young driver……AAAcccckkk!! I have to say again that driving in Vietnam may be a bit harder because of the skill level needed, but is is a lot less frustrating than in Edmonton. Anyway…. Have I raved enough?? 

Edmonton is one of the most northerly cities in Canada. If you had a globe and put your finger on Edmonton, then gave it a spin, you would see that we are almost exactly even with Siberia in Russia. Edmonton was a gateway to the north. People that came up from the south with the gold fever would use Edmonton as the final post to buy supplies and everything a prospector might need. At the time there was a fort made from sharpened logs and a small community surrounding it. The outpost was owned by the Hudsons Bay company. The Natives and the British colonizers would use Edmonton as a large fur trading hub that eventually developed into a major trading post and the last a city. Across the river to the south, a town called Strathcona developed and over time the two merged, and grew to the City it is today with about 1 million people in the city and it,s surrounding municipalities. Today it is a very modern city and hosts the largest shopping mall in the world. Inside West Edmonton Mall, we have 6 operating submarines, (More than our Canadian navy) that a person can ride in. There is also an indoor water park that rivals anything in the world. The mall also houses a full sized replica of the Santa Maria. Other mall attractions are a casino, driving range, mega theatres, an amusment park complete with roller coaster, mini golf, laser tag range, a skating arena, and many more that I cannot recall at the moment. Even though I may complain about the roads, as a tourist, this city is a great place to Visit. Besides WEM, there are other beautiful places to Visit. Perhaps tomorrow I will write on some of the things to see and do here. 

This afternoon, my ex co-workers are throwing a party. I am expected to attend from 2 pm until 10 pm. It will make for a long day, and I will have to pace myself. It will be goes to see all of those that I had become part of my daily life. There are few things that I miss about my big move and they are one of them.