It’s been almost 6 years since I wrote a post here. It was before the time that WordPress.com allowed you to do that impressive looking Drop cap effect for the first letter of a paragraph. Writing daily on the round the world trip was something I knew I wouldn’t keep up. To say that was a life changing trip is accurate, ever moreso in retrospect.

It may cost me a few dollars a year to keep this site going, and it wouldn’t disappear if I didn’t, but I still like preserving it. If someone wants to read about what a 25 year old did on a world trip 12 years ago, I say let them. Ideally it will find that higher purpose of memorialising how things were travelling then, but I’m not the only one who did that.

In case anyone is reading this who isn’t friends with me and/or on Facebook, I’m now a father to an awesome little girl, engaged and excited to be married to the best person I’ve ever met. I’m living in North Vancouver, have been since about 8 months after arriving in 2009. I’m tremendously fortunate to be able to make living here of all places work, it can be quite a challenge. Driving a car that’s bigger than anything you’d dare get in Europe and towing a tent trailer behind it. Yes I’m being a bit vague, if you know me well you can fill all of these details in yourself, this is a broad update.

You can’t avoid talking about COVID-19 these days. All the family out here have avoided it, but several in the UK have not. Everyone is fine and there’s no sign of long covid. It has stopped my otherwise regular trips to the US, and cut off a lot of our camping options with that tent trailer. That said, things are looking up at the time of writing in that regard, I’m sure we’ll be there soon. Before the pandemic, we discovered just how much we love Hawai’i, both the Big Island and Maui!

Travel wise, the Sea-to-Sky area and Okanagan Valley still do well for us. Manning Park is also a real gem. Honestly I could write this blog about those alone.

There’s a lot going on but not a huge amount for this blog’s audience as it was. I do hope I’ll have a use for it some day and by no means is this some sort of dramatic final post, it’s entirely motivated by seeing 6 years had passed.

More in the future I hope!

I’m now in the dining room of the Vancouver hostel. I’m guarding another laptop for someone, who’s name I’m yet to catch, who has gone off to find his Mum! He’s back now thank god, that was 15 minutes and 3 emails written!

I’ve just got a CAN of Apple Juice from the vending machines… why is it in a can? What happened to cartons, bottles… they did no wrong! Minute Maid, BRING THEM BACK! I emplore you. I miss home thanks to this simple fact! Apple Juice does not come in cans!

For dinner, I’ve had my first sushi out here! It was from a small sushi takeout near the hostel. They tried hard and had a nice atmosphere, I could even watch it being made. Thats the first time I’ve seen it done in person, the guy was quite masterful. But he does need to work on his number 1 special. Oh I got a lot of Sushi and Mizo Soup for my $7.22, but a fried lemon chicken goujon was not a great filler for the rolls (although intresting when still warm), and the vegitable rolls were plain. Some spices, pickling or fusion would do well there. Overall, 6.8/10.

Apparently a lot of hostels DO have free Wi-Fi, this one is an exception… and that blows! I’m not paying $10 for 24 hours access, or going through the rigoramall of registering an account with Boingo I will probably never use.

Anyway, I really want some sleep