Well, I was trying to post some photos from my recent ferry trips to and from the Island, but, for some reason, it doesn’t want to let me, so you’ll have to wait. Sorry. But I felt the need to say hi anyway since it has been a few days since I posted last. I’m now back in Vancouver until Friday when we jet off to China for 6 weeks. Crazy times! I’ll keep you posted on how things go and am planning one last post before I leave (more if the mood strikes me).
But, while I’m here, I’ll describe some of my goings on for the last couple of days. The ferry over to Vancouver Friday night was quite fantastic. I love the ferry later at night during the summer because the lighting is quite dramatic. Just as we left Active Pass, the officer of the watch got on the PA to alert us to Orcas ahead, port side. So the entire passenger component of the ship leaped up and rushed port side. Two minutes later, there were orcas ahead starboard side. I had been sitting starboard side the whole trip and hadn’t moved, so I had a fantastic view of the whole thing (and ended up trying to help 6 middle-aged Greek women infront of me locate them. It was quite amusing). It must have been feeding time because that is the only time I ever see the whales out when I’m on the ferry. In any case, they were having a bit of fun, flapping tails all over the place. We ended up with a postcard-perfect view because all of this was going on with Mt Baker in all its glory looming in the background.
In a slightly more amusing and less picturesque anecdote, I was coming over again this afternoon Victoria to Vancouver and there were a [large] number of tourists on the ferry. One couple had the nautical look down to an art – blue and navy striped shirts, 3/4 length pants, and scarves wrapped around their necks with anchors on them… then the woman proceeded to tie another anchor scarf around the man’s head like a bandana… oh dear.
Author Archives: Gillian
Down to the wire
Time is getting short! I’m off to China in less than a week now. There are still lots of things to be done, like finish up our lesson. I also wouldn’t mind your prayers for me because I’ve been getting pretty bad headaches almost every day for the last couple of weeks. Last night no amount of Tylenol would rid me of it (not even neck/back massaged from Dad or Colleen helped either). I really don’t want to have to deal with that kind of thing in China.
China
Since it is just a short period of time until I leave for China, I feel like some comments to that end are appropriate. In 9 days time, I will be sitting on an airplane bound for Beijing via Shanghai, off into who knows what. The first week I am there, we will be in Beijing for orientation (and, I hope, tourist stuff). Then it is our bum-numbing 36 hour train trek to Xining. I have no idea what to expect there in terms of Internet access. Our program director said that we should be able to get on when we are in Xining, but no promises in Beijing. So if you don’t hear from me right away either on here or by email if you are on my email prayer list, don’t worry.
I’ve been trying to figure out if I will be able to update my blog while I am over there. I’m not sure if blogger.com is loved or hated by The Great Firewall of China. I’ve been reading other blogs to figure out if I’ll be able to post while I’m in China, and so far it looks like I might be able to, but then again, I might not. According to one report I read, and I can’t for the life of me remember where because I read it yesterday and didn’t bookmark it, the blockage in China is fairly sporadic: I might be able to access one site at downtown Beijing but not back at a hotel. Someone else wrote (again, no recollection where) that they have been able to access blogger.com, but not their actual blog site to see what the blog looks like and read comments. So who knows what it will be like?!?! It may even change from day to day.
So with that in mind, if you want to be on my email prayer list, and you’re not sure if you are or not, or you know you are not, leave me a comment or drop me and email at gillian [dot] hoyer [at] gmail [dot] com.
Update: More on Chinese censorship here or here or here.
Update again: I found the China article I was talking about here – scroll down to ” China ‘net censorship: not one big brother, but many”
Inner Harbour Buskers
Watch my video here.
Happy, err, scary Morning
This is, without a doubt, the craziest add I’ve ever seen. It has successfully made me want to avoid Folgers Coffee for life. Strange glowing people staring at me? No thanks!
Ask Dr. Gilligan
Due to popular request… or just Nanc’s request, which is good enough for me:
(Disclaimer, I am not a Dr (OD)… I just happen to work for 4).
Nanc said:
Do dollar store sunglasses actually do any good? Do they actually protect you from UV rays?
I have a theory on sunglasses that unless you buy really expensive ones they don’t do any good. Because they let less light in so your pupil dilates more letting more UV rays in… so in effect you’re just wearing cancer causing machines on your face.
But I could be way off base… or you may already know the answer to this silly question and in which case perhaps this could become an advice column and you should change the name to “Ask Dr. Gilligan”
Well Nanc, most dollar store glasses do have UVA/UVB protection on them. If you don’t know, you can take your glasses into any optician and they should be able to check for you, especially if they have a newer lensometer (which is all we use. It takes about 30 seconds, not counting the time it takes you to walk over to the machine). However, “more expensive” lenses can be better because of what you said above (let more bad light in)… but only if they are polarized. It is amazing how many expensive glasses don’t actually have polarized lenses (for example, a lot of Oakley’s don’t)… I must say that I am absolutely loving my Maui Jim’s (which are polarized) and wouldn’t switch back to “regular” glasses for anything… unless I break my Maui’s and don’t work at an optometric clinic anymore, in which case I wouldn’t be able to afford my Maui’s.
Possibly the best reason I’ve heard to give money yet… some teenage punk came up to me downtown today and asked if I could spare some change for a “marijuana testing experiment”. Hmmm, um, no.
a slightly delayed post on last night’s game:
Yay edmonton. Never thought I’d see the day when I was cheering for Edmonton. Still, it is a step up from cheering for Toronto(!!!).
Comment on the game: What the heck was Don Cherry thinking when he got dressed?
They’d better win tomorrow night… I won’t get to watch becuase it is the 2nd last volleyball game of the season.
Its official
Catching up
I’ve been doing a lot of nothing lately, and I’m loving it. I spent the better part of a couple days wandering around downtown and going places I haven’t really gone before. I went to an IMAX at the Royal BC Museum on Thursday (was that only yesterday?!?). It was on “Mystic India” and it made me want to go to India even more. The IMAX was mainly about a young Yogi and his spiritual journey. Not that I am thinking of converting or anything, but there are some aspects of other religions that I really do admire. But that is a whole other story line.
After the IMAX, I walked home to Oak Bay. It took about a half an hour, or at least that’s how long I estimate it would have taken if I had walked direct. But I didn’t walk direct; instead I walked up Fort Street and stopped at just about every single antique/collectible store and gallery on the street (if you’ve ever been down Antique Row on Fort Street, you’ll have an appreciation for how long I must have spent there…). I love looking at old jewelry, especially the rings, broaches, and earrings. They are so much fun! Possibly the best I saw was a hat pin from the 40s with a huge deep blue swastika on the end. Crazy stuff! Possibly the worst I saw (not because of what it was but of how it made me feel) was my favourite mug that I always drink my apple juice from when I am at Dad’s. Yes, my mug, that I got when I was a pipsqueak was in an Antique store. I am getting old: one more nail in the coffin.
Anyway, the real reason for my title today of “catching up” is because I am now catching up on all the reading I have been wanting to do over the last year. Unfortunately, I packed my list of books I wanted to read, so I’m having to do with whatever looks good at the library. I have just been reading “A Complicated Kindness” by Miriam Toews. Its won a bunch of awards over the last couple of years. Its about a girl growing up in an fundamentalist Mennonite community in Manitoba. It was good, interesting, compelling, haunting, thought-provoking (…). Go read it sometime. Next on my list are a couple of other Canadian books (by that I mean by Canadian authors although I think they are all set in Canada as well). I just started one which was a little odd – took place in a small town north of Kingston (yay Kingston) and seems to be about a few disfunctional families in a disfunctional town. I’m sensing a trend in my books. It has failed to grasp my attention – I don’t know that I feel like being engulfed by disfunction at the moment. I’d rather be uplifted. I’ve packed one that my sister really liked, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, to take with me to China because it is long and I have a stinking long flight and train ride (x2) to take care of. I’d rather just take one book and have it last the whole time than take a bunch. I usually take a book in French with me on a trip like that because I read much slower in French, but I decided that for China I’ll have enough crazy culture and language stuff to deal with that I will likely rather just relax when I read then have to think in French. I love to read.
gillian's island 