First let me preface this by saying that I’m typing this on a computer that has a non-functional comma key. Given my proclivity for commas this will be a challenge but bear with me.

Today we went to the zoo. It was an unusual April day: sunny and hot. Real hot. 25 degrees hot. Boy what a weird year for weather. The snow packs are at over 150% of normal and they’re talking about bringing in the military to help with sand-bagging. In the mean time those of us who don’t live live in a flood plain are enjoying the warm weather. The skiers are enjoying the continued large bases (still over 300 cm base on the local mountains!).

So we decided to go to the zoo. The one of the big draws to the Greater Vancouver Zoo is the fact that they have a train that goes around the perimeter. The animal selection is actually pretty poor and it certainly doesn’t compare to some place like the San Diego Zoo but it’s not a bad place either. It is a little bit out of the way — some 50 km from Vancouver — but for an occassional trip it’s not too bad.

After negotiating the traffic — don’t come to Vancouver without expecting a complete and utter traffic mess — and a stop at Subway for nourishment (and some gasoline: did you know that gas in Aldergrove is more than 12 ¢/litre cheaper than in the city?) we went to the zoo. Seems like several hundred other people had the same idea as the place was packed.

We worked our way through the zoo with a stop at the train station for some tickets. The next available ride was over two hours later which was a good amout of time. The plan became that we would tour the zoo and then wrap it up with the train ride.

We started with the giraffes and worked our way through the wild cats and other exotics.

And as planned after touring through we went and waited in breathless anticipation for the train…

Excited does not begin to describe the boy. He was just thrilled and literally vibrating. Once we got on the train there was lots of “The train – the train!”.

Here’s a shot of what the train looks like:

All in all it was an excellent day.  Aidan fell asleep on the uneventful ride home and we all relaxed after arriving back at the condo.

I know it’s been just a teaser — hopefully tomorrow we’ll get some videos loaded up to Youtube.

Today, we took a day trip to Seattle. Well, actually, we were north of Seattle, at the Seattle Premium Outlets mall. It’s a bit tough for Gwen to find certain items of clothing made in sizes that are larger than the predominant female Asian body that Vancouver seems to cater to. The average American body, however, is somewhat larger and the stores accommodate that. So, we went down and did our first-ever “cross-border shopping”.

The drive to Seattle isn’t that far. It’s a little more than a half hour to the border, there’s a delay at the border anywhere from 5 minutes to several hours, and from the border, it’s about 2 hours to Seattle. Today, the wait at the border was about a half hour. Interestingly enough, it was the easiest border crossing I’ve *ever* had (and I’ve had quite a number of them). Just a few questions and a friendly border guard. Almost unheard of!

It was also Aidan’s first international trip. He was getting a little cranky by the time we actually made it to the border guard, but once we were moving it was all good. In fact, on the whole trip (which consisted of 5 hours of driving, several hours of being dragged through the outlet mall, with stops at a McD’s and a couple Interstate rest areas) he was as good as gold. We were a little unsure of how he’d be, since it had been a while since we’d driven any long distance with him (the last time was a trip to Harrison Hot Springs last summer). We didn’t have to break out the video iPod even once!

The outlet store mall wasn’t too exciting. Gwen did manage to find some things that fit, and we each picked up some sneakers from the Adidas store (admittedly at a good discount). There were a number of kids stores too, but the selection and prices were typically what we might find locally when there are sales. So, we came back with all of $140 of goods.

We didn’t know what to expect at the Canadian border (since neither of us had ever done any of this cross-border shopping before. Nothing to it. Standard 3 questions at the border: where do you live, how long were you away, are you bringing back any goods. Answering affirmative to the last question brought another: what value of goods, and on being told the amount, we were told to have a nice day. I though we might be told to pull into customs so that we would pay the GST at the very least, but apparently the amount was too little to bother with. Oh well!

Sadly, no pictures. We forgot both cameras. Who takes pictures at a mall anyway? The shot of the Space Needle was pilfered from Flickr, and the photo credit goes to a Mr. Andy Chang (who seems to be a new dad).

Or, “Congratulations and be prosperous”, the traditional Chinese wish at the New Year.

Today the three of us took the bus down to Vancouver’s Chinatown to watch today’s Chinese New Year parade. It was unusual today in that it was dry, and as a result there was a huge turnout. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. What’s below is only a sampling, and I’ve uploaded a larger set to the Picture Barn.

We shot some video with Gwen’s little camera, so here’s a taste of what it was like to be there.

Ooops. I forgot to blog about last weekend.

Last Saturday was a gorgeous day, sunny and warm. No Wii nunchucks in Toys’R’Us (60 Wiis for sale, 18 extra controllers, and everything all sold out before the store opened!) nor at Futureshop. But, it was such a nice day and we wandered down to Granville Island. After going through the market and picking up some brunch for Gwen and the boy at Terra Breads, we went onto the patio. Aidan had great fun chasing the pigeons and seagulls. Too bad we didn’t get any pictures of him actually chasing the birds, but we did snap a few.

After chasing the birds for a while, we went over and played in the play area by the rec centre. Water parks look lonely in the “winter”.

After playing there, we strolled along the seawall and played a bit more in the playground by False Creek Elementary, then headed home. Four or five hours unscheduled strolling around the ‘hood. Ahhh, winter in Vancouver!