Friends in Town

This weekend is shaping up to be a busy one. My best friend Graham is flying in from Calgary for the weekend and he always has a list of things to do while in Vancouver. I've just finished my best rain dance so that we don't have to go to the pitch and putt in Stanley Park. Tomorrow Sam and Barclay arrive for their two week tour of the Vancouver area but their list of things to do will prove to be a lot harder to complete. They are stopping by on their way home to England and have visions of Moose steaks, ice hockey (not sure what that is) and a sampling of all the micro brew beers the area offers. Good times to follow I'm sure.

Gone to the Movies

This past week I've been to the movies a couple of times. The first go round was to get a horror movie fix with Paranormal Activity but sadly it didn't live up to the hype and it never once made me a)jump b)scream c)throw off my glasses in fear or d)all of the above even once. The second movie was Saejin's choice so that meant seeing the latest big budget movie pretending it has a convincing story line, so we went to see 2012. It too was crap.

The fun part for me was remembering how different theatres are here compared to my old stomping grounds on the ROK. They mostly surround pricing. Here the tickets are almost five dollars more for the same movie, released mostly on the same day and housed in the same quality of movie theatre but here you have to go a whole lot earlier to get a seat. In Korea your ticket gives you a seat number that you can choose when you buy it. I'd love this system to catch on here but it won't because the crazy people who camp out for tickets would then disappear. If they aren't there then the news cameras aren't there and the big studios are no longer getting free publicity so then people wouldn't know what crappy movie they should be wasting their money on.

Saejin had a few good laughs at the theatre. He ordered a small coke and found out it was bigger than the largest coke in Korea. When he pointed this out to the cashier she pointed back that this is why we're so fat here. What bothered Saejin even more was that he couldn't believe the price of a small popcorn, "$6.21 for popcorn? That's more than the price of a beer!" In a world of monthly budgets. he knows where his loyalties lie and declined the popcorn.

Tim Horton's

It's embarrassing to admit because it is way to Canadiana but I have been visiting Tim Horton's a bit too much lately. There is one a block from my school and it's not for the cheap price of coffees or their selection of donuts and timbits that I visit. Sadly, I've become addicted to their new French Onion soup. (Their advertisement has clearly worked on me.) The soup lacks the perfect amount of cheese and bread to soup ratio you'd expect in a good French onion soup but it's amazing none the less and like everything else there, it's cheap.

As for work, I'm scheduled to teach the conversation classes now which is better than just doing one on one classes because there are more students who talk. The school seems quite good and the people running it are organized and super nice. The only bad part about it, is that I never know my daily schedule until the night before work and my hours (while increasing) are also just over part time for now. They have Friday night parties which I will probably check out this Friday so that the staff and students know I want to be part of the team but hearing the stories of last Friday's tomfoolery, I need to be careful. Turns out Koreans drink the same way as they do back home and that means a lot. To quote another teacher from the school, "there were tears,a fight and destruction of property" not sure if that means a good party or something I think I'm too old for.

Homeless Signs

The homeless in Vancouver are among the best marketers I have come across in a long time. Here is a collection of cardboard signs I have seen held up asking for help this week:

Too lazy to work, too ugly for prostitution. An approach that makes people look at their faces and sees they aren't ugly so they'd better give money so the person doesn't get caught in the sex trade.
Battle of the sexes, who gives more? He then had two boxes set up and gave a running today of who was in the lead. When I walked past I was surprised to learn the men were up by $1.45.
If you feel like giving, make a second lunch to pass along. This one plays off knowing you have too much food and it wouldn't cost too much to put together a second meal.
Smile if you masturbate. Gets people's attention.
Spare change for weed and beer. Weed and beer are a Vancouver staple that locals wouldn't want anyone to be without.

Work

I started to work today after a very long, long vacation. It's not exactly what I want to be doing but it is money with a lot of flexibility in the future. I'm teaching conversation classes at a small school downtown with...surprise surprise mostly Korean students. I can't escape Korea.