Nuff Ting Gwon: Photography, Film & Adventure

Edith Piaf playing in the background, the mountains in the foreground. This is my first morning in Vancouver. My life once again positively transformed through change. Just over 24 hours ago I was celebrating new years in a park in Kensington market in Toronto with my sister and a couple close friends. We had a small stereo system with us, so with fireworks exploding in the background, the roar of the bars and the not so impressive sound coming from our $30 stereo system we spent the last second of 2007 at the top of a park slide and we brought in the new year by sliding down the slide and making our 2008 wish.

Toronto started getting hit with a snowstorm at around midnight but it didn’t slow down our outdoor conversation, dance and music party. Shortly after warming up at a nearby house we made our way to Kum Jung Yen, a grungy but welcoming little restaurant in the heart of Toronto’s China town. The restaurant doesn’t play music so we used our portable music player to entertain the full restaurant our mixes of Wu Tang Clan, Tribe called quest and Hot Chip. Nobody seemed to mind.

I then waited up until 4:30 in the morning for Samantha to finish work. We spent the next hour getting ready for our 5:30 airport cab pick up. We barely got our sleepy bodies and 300 pounds of luggage into the cab before departing to the airport.

The snowstorm was now getting worse but we made it to the airport with much time to spare. After paying almost $200 in overweight charges for all of our baggage we made it (¾ asleep) through security. Sam fell the other ¼ to sleep just after the metal detectors and passed out on the floor of the airport.

I stayed up taking pictures of her until our plane arrived. And of course we sit beside the lady with the worst cackle laugh on the plane who found great humour in a Jackie Chan movie. Apparently she’s one of 8 people in the world who find him funny. So after having left an hour late because our plane was frozen and needed to be sprayed with antifreeze solution, we landed in Vancouver. We threw our stuff in our sublet and we immediately went out for a quick walk to the grocery store. After getting settled in we both passed out early.

At 7am this morning we decided it was time to explore Kitsalano neighbourhood, Kit’s beach and Granville Island. We spoke with locals on the beach early morning and slowly made our way to the outdoor market. We cruised around very slowly, checked out many of the local shops, purchased fish and cheese and made our way back home through downtown.

After having a glass of wine at a friends house I’m ready to call it quits. Looking forward to seeing what’s next.

Labels: Vancouver