Arriving in Ponoka + Day 1 & 2 Banff & Lake Louise

Curling In Ponoka!

Team Baron

Danny Baron

Bev Baron & Lindy

The Baron Family & Friends at Club House

Okay so after the day in Taipei and overnighting Vancouver we arrived at Edmonton Airport and were greeted by our victims we kidnapped in Sydney over a year ago! In Vancouver the night before we thought 6C was cold...holy shit - when we walked outside at Edmonton Airport it was -21C. We were not prepared, we were not dressed appropriately, we waited with Bev for 10 minutes for Danny to bring the car around, I thought my lips were going to drop off, I thought my face was going to drop off!
We jumped into the car and started to thaw out..G had a heated seat in the front :-)
It was a 45 minute drive to their home in Ponoka, south of Edmonton and north of Calgary. The town has a population of 6,000, tiny. We drove down the main street and it was straight out of the movies. BIG blocks of land with a store on each. All single level - no need for any high rise or 1st levels with all this land to build on. Bev pointed out the house she grew up in and walked to school from. Danny grew up near here and has lived in the town most of his life so as we walked into the local IGA grocery store we met Marvin and Danny said Hi to others as well. Danny stops to say Hi to a lot of people - he reminds me of John Boy :-). (You know who you are John).
By this time I am so excited to be with Bev & Danny, no mobile phone for 2 weeks, no need to organise anything for 2 weeks, no need to worry about anything for 2 weeks, just being able to chill, get to know their town, their families, friends and way of life.

Danny stoking the fire next to our bed in their basement

They proceed to tell us the final comp is on tonight of Danny's CURLING club. EXCELLENT the party begins! Danny & G go on ahead at 6:30, Bev & I arrive at 7:30. The game goes from 7 - 9 pm. we sit with Dale & Sue and watch from the glassed viewing area above. Bev buys me a hot chocolate with Kahlua - okay thanks! Sue is drinking tea with Drambuie - okay thanks I'll have 2 of those as well. Danny's parents arrive, the Baron team consists of their 3 sons plus a friend. 4 to a team.  
The Barons win out of their 2 teams but not the overall tournament. At 9:15 pm we all gather in the clubhouse for announcements about who has won the tournament and for more drinks and supper is provided by a local business man who has provided Subway rolls and cookies. We drive home at 11pm and it is freezing going to the car - but hey....these people have automatic car starters with a range of 1000 metres so they started the cars from the clubhouse ahead of time so the engines are warmed up and the interior is warm too. Great idea!

Highway to the Rockies

The road from Calgary to Banff

Approaching Banff

Snow angel...

Road to Thermal Pool in Banff

Next day we head off to Banff - major exciting - I want to see a village al lit up with Christmas lights and snow everywhere - I was not disappointed. 

Main drag in Banff

Gerald outside outside our hotel room

Us shopping in Bannf

Cool shot of an alley way in Banff

G & L getting up close with the wild life :-)

Banff by night at Christmas time awww

Noice!

Very Noice!

But I had to wait as it was daylight when we got there. We checked into our very nice hotel and drove up the mountain to checkout the thermal springs where we would be swimming that night. Okay so I'm thinking these people are nuts - it's minus 10C and they want to go swimming - I know it's thermal springs and hot water and all that but how do I get from the dressing shed to the pool in just a cozzie in this temperature. I would have to wait till that evening as we wanted to go check out the shops first while they were still open.

The thermal pool where we would swim later that night...

Back down to the village of Banff - just like you see in the movies all ski resorts, young skiiers everywhere but what I wasn't expecting was how many AUSTRALIANS are in Banff. No joke every second person walking the street had and aussie accent and EVERY person behind the counter was an aussie. I may as well have stayed home :-)...We bought a few souvenirs and headed back up to the thermal pool. (a voice in my head was saying, "It's alright Lindy you can do it - it won't be cold)....We get changed in very warm dressing rooms, so far so good, we walk out past the shower area where you are supposed to rinse off before entering the pool (yeah, right, as if - Bev and I keep walking straight past those suckers) and then I come to the door to go outside...God I am going to freeze...NOPE it was a short dash of only 5 steps into a beautiful swimming pool naturally heated to 38C. MAN this was surreal - fabulous warm (hot) water around your body and freezing air around your head but this was not bad as the mist rising from the pool even warmed the air around your head...it was dark 6pm...snow all around the pool...absolutely breathtaking experience..thank you Danny & Bev. We would never have done this without you. We stayed in for 30 minutes - that is long enough in that temperature. Cost $7 person - worth every penny!Back to town for Ribs for dinner and stopped by a Fudge shop for dessert..there goes the diet :-).
Back to the hotel and talked and drank till midnight..
Next day packed up and drove to Lake Louise. On the way we saw a group of people setting up for Husky Sled Rides. Jumped out of the car and snapped loads of pics of the dogs, equipment and people. We were in the right place at the right time to stumble upon this group.

Checkk out the blue eyes of the Huskies!

Husky transport vehicle

In you go boy!

I haven't described yet how beautiful the Rocky Mountains were leading to Banff  - they were awesome, majestic  - but now we were heading even higher and the snow was thicker and the mountains even more majestic. Pulling into the carpark at Lake Louise and walking to that famous Fairmont Resort Hotel was breath taking. a vision of: Frozen Lake Louise, People playing ice hockey on the lake, kids ice skating on the lake, snow EVERYWHERE, people cross country skiing, kids tobogganing, yellow pee in the snow, cypres tree branches snapped off from the sheer weight of the snow & ice, Hore Frost, icicles, ice sculptures, sleigh-rides, cars covered in snow and more.

Hore Frost

My first view of Lake Louise - I will never forget it!

People out and about in wonderland!

Coming up to Lake Louise

We go to the hotel and Bev asks if I want to go on a sleigh ride - Hell Yeah! We buy the boys a ticket without asking if they want to come - they are coming regardless :-). Well I have 3 short videos and a few photos to show you of this magical sleigh ride with our red blankets tucked around our legs and FACES  - it was -12C out there by this stage. We will never forget this day - so pretty, so relaxing, so surreal :-).

Anyone for a Sleigh ride?

Bev & Danny on seats behind us in Sleigh

So beautiful - frozen waterfall

Tiny patch open water on Lake Louise

Fairmont Resort Lake Louise

Cross Country Skiers on Lake Louise

Drove back to Ponoka and arrived home at 7 pm. Tired but happy and ready for what the coming week will bring. It will be Christmas tomorrow. Bev's son is arriving for a night and her daughter arrives from Vancouver on the 26th. We will open presents then!
It is Christmas day now..G has gone to work with Danny who needs to check some stuff on his computer - Danny & Bev both work for the government at the local Brain Injury & Rehab Hospital. Danny is the Purchasing Manager, Bev is the database manager. The Hospital employs most of the town. I am catching up on my blog or else Johnno will never forgive me - I have caught up.
MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL...I will continue soon. Love to you all from the Tornos in Canada. XXXX

Taipei

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Purple Rice & Dry Pork parcel for breakfast

More breakfast options

City Centre Taipei

Bag lady in Taipei reading the paper

Taipei Central Train station

I am days behind in writing this blog but I guess better late than never. After leaving Sydney we spent a day in Taipei. We were greeted at the airport by Eva who is a friend of the family and she took us to the city first as the airport is an hour from anything. Our bus was not an express - it stopped at every stop all the way. The country is a first world country but still there are a lot of rundown buildings amongst the new ones. The transport system is fantastic - Christina Kinnearly could learn some tricks from them and improve our hopeless ticketing in Sydney.
After arriving in the city we asked Eva to show us what the locals buy for breakfast. They eat a variety of things including rice parcels filled with either dry shredded pork & beans or other beans and weird shredded Yams. I bought the Purple Rice parcel with dry pork. I like this kind of food so I was happy to try something new. Eva also chose for us fried Yams, omelet and fresh deep fried batter in a bread roll. We liked it all except the fried batter as it was too greasy and we didn't eat it. Our drinks were all milky drinks made from either yellow beans or some other plant- all good but very strong in flavour and we couldn't drink lots of it.
So we then bought train cards and loaded them each with $20 Taipei dollars = AUS$8 each (we would not have known to do this without Eva's help). As it turned out we had a bit left over so we rode the trains, buses, metro & Gondola all day for about $4 each.

Downtown Taipei 

All set with our train cards and full bellies we headed off for the Gondola (Cable  Car) to the top of the mountain surrounding the city. It was a foggy day so our view was not clear but still good enough. We had a glass bottom car.  Arriving at the top we noticed a street vendor selling parcels of green  paste in sandwich bags which she was patting out into balls. These are a local snack and they only cost about 50 cents. We couldn't help ourselves and wanted to try one. It was sticky rice filled with meat and more of that shredded Yam. I was a bit worried about the hygiene factor buying from a street vendor but Eva assured me it would be fine. Well I'm still alive 4 days later so she was right. I love sticky rice, once again I liked it. I think I was an Asian in a past life - I love Asian food even the weird stuff. A bit further up the street of the village at the top we came to a very large corrugated roofed but open on all sides, food street market. There were about 10 vendors all side by side selling fried rice, noodles, sausages, drinks, Dagwood Dogs on a stick, fried meat, soup and last but not least STINKING Tofu. Now I love tofu but the sauce this was cooked in was not to my liking. Eva loves it so I tried it. I couldn't eat it but Gerald did.

Gondola Ride

 

 

 

Market gardens viewed from gondola

 

 

Street vendor we bought sticky rice green stuff off.

     
We walked further up the street and had a local beer or two. Now were getting very relaxed and having a great time with Eva. Further up we saw more of the village and how people live up there in old shacks nothing fancy but they seem a happy people. Hard to tell. On the way up we saw lots of market gardens all neat and flourishing. Up here were more of the same. They didn't waste and inch of land and had lettuce, rhubarb, cabbage etc. growing everywhere.

Food stalls under iron roof

Lindy & Eva

Locals using every inch of ground 

                

Heading back down

     After spending an hour or so we went back down the cable car and into the city to check out the National Imperial Palace Musuem. By this time my feet were killing me (damned orthotics were not helping at all!) and I didn't want to go but my brother Tim had told me not to miss it. So I soldiered on and boy was I glad I did. This museum was so beautiful, so big, so ornate, so well organised and impressive! Our tour guide spoke fluent English and her knowledge of chinese history was extensive. The museum houses treasures dating back 6,000 years (don't quote me on that - ask Gerald) from all the Ming, Ting and Zing Dynasties that ever exisited.
We had a mini lesson in reading chinese characters- I could have spent a day just doing this. Each character symbolises something from our lives - a man, an old man, a girl (no boobs), a woman who has had children (big boobs with large nipples for breast feeding), a woman who has not had a child (small boobs with small nipples which had not been used for breast feeding) etc. so trying to guess what was what was a lot of fun and interesting.
The Ivory carving section was amasing - man were they talented! The Gem Stone Section bloody amasing - the collection of  Tourmaline, Jade etc. and what they did with these stones is worth googling to find out.
Copper & Bronze statues, Wooden carvings, water colours and on and on...the museum rotates the items on exhibition every 3 months and it would take you 4 visits to see the entire collection.  It consists of thosands of pieces. If I was a local I would come back every month and spend hours strolling through the various collections.

    The tour went for an hour and by now it was 4pm. Our flight to Vancouver was at 11:30pm so we had time to go into town for dinner. Before we left though we sat outside the Museum and G took some happy snaps while I asked a guy sitting next to me where he was from. He was in our tour group and asked our guide a lot of questions and I thought I had detected a Dutch accent. He was from Amsterdam and was invited to Taipei by a film company. He had recently filmed a documentary called The Erection Man  or Vaigra Man. No need to explain what it was about. The film had been received very well world wide and sold to 10 countries, Taiwan being one of them. His name was Michael and if you google the title you can read all about him. Yes, well, the Dutch are known for these kind of films and I'm sure it will be bought by SBS and aired in the near future.
So into town we went to a Noodle House for some more local delicacies. We had Pig intestine filled with meat - not dissimilar from a sausage which is some form of animal product filled with meat, dim sim (our favourite), soup, green vege with soy sauce - all good.
Eva then put us on the bus back to the airport and we caught our flight to Vancouver. That was our fantastic stopover in Taipei and we get to do it again on the way back when I want to see the Flora Exhibition which runs for 4 months and G wants to visit the computer stores.
BTW - it is winter in Taiwan and everyone has coats on - we were not cold at all. They are not used to the cold so were rugged up.
Bye Taipei - till the 9th January 2011. Thank you Eva for your hospitality and taking the time to show us around your beautiful city.