#viacanada150

[annaellizabeth]

Toronto to Vancouver, in Winnipeg MB so far!

[iliketransitbuses]

Sixty Four Sixteen. #viacanada150 (at Melville, Saskatchewan)

[meanmememom]

I vlogged my trip across Canada this summer so if you're interested in watching it here it is! This is the most recent video in the series so if you like it feel free to watch from the beginning 😊😊

[iliketransitbuses]

Bridge Vision. #viacanada150 (at Montreal, Quebec)

[asrilankanjournal]

The visit to the west coast made my hungry for more. More experiences with the nature, more experiences that will leave me speculating about why I love cities so much which in fact, now I understand, was a mere ignorant view of a frog in a well. I was born and raised in a city so in a way I'll always love cities. This visit showed me what I also am; a city girl missing a good dose of nature. Thanks @thil_w for your patience (for once) :D #ViaCanada150 #ViaRail150 #Canada150 #Youth150 #WTwinsAcrossCanada #Via150 #Club1867 (at Two Jack Lakeside Camgpround)

[iridescent177]

Alberta, AB

Mountain TZ (UTC-05:00)

 I have always wanted to come to the turquoise-coloured lakes. Who wouldn’t want to experience those lakes? To be honest, I had no idea about the Rockies. All I knew was the beyond beautiful lakes Alberta got. So, I’ll enlighten you guys where did those lakes come from. Here we go. So, Canada has some different geographical features. It does make sense owning to the fact that it is a big country. The remarkable feature would be the Rockies. So, some geography lesson here.

 Back then, a long long time ago. There were no rocks or mountains or the Rocky Mountains in Canada. Something happens to the mother Earth causing a tectonic subduction. Simple understanding, there were two regions of land slipped onto each other, one side is the upper side and one side settled at the bottom. And dang, the upper side produced the magnificent rocky mountains and they tend to get very tall. The reason why I said they are magnificent because when you are traveling across all land in Canada, all you can see are prairies, nothingness lands maybe some lakes in Ontario and that’s that. But, once you came across the Alberta, Banff, Jasper and their vicinity, suddenly you could see tall, real tall mountains made of rocks. They are so tall that even in the summer when the temperature gets to 30°C or above, the summits are still covered in the snow. And we called that glaciers.

 I never thought I would arrive here. The journey is so long from Ottawa, taking days by train and costing a lot of money by plane. This year, I got the opportunity to realize my dream. It seems hard at first but when you are at it, you only thought why did you not doing this earlier. One thing I discovered about life, you did not know how it is until you feel it yourself. Maybe that’s why we shouldn’t judge people but we all know that we do it all the times. Okay now back to the travel journey.

 As normal as it could be, we arrived late at Edmonton station. We canceled the Airbnb we booked earlier thinking we could save some money by staying at the train station the rest of our arrival night. But, as I got 25 off for my Airbnb, we used that to stay at the new place and only paid 5CAD for a night. By doing that, we got enough rest, slept on a comfy bed and most importantly we got to take a shower. The host was also a really nice lady because she allowed a flexible check-in and check-out times.

 At noon, we check-out and took the bus to the Hertz place. I did not know why, I might be biased but it almost seems like every time we need to walk, carrying our heavy bag packs, that day must be a real hot summer day. But, we managed it all the time. Or at least I did. And we took the car, stopped by McDonald's to get Fillet-O-Fish and damn, a SPRITE, never thought of getting a Sprite from McD. We headed to Cochrane. It took about 3 hours before we took a quick detour to buy fried chicken. You see, there was not many of eatery selling good fried chicken. So, when we know one, we would kill for it.

 We arrived in Cochrane at about 6, we rested in the house, probably the biggest, beautiful, high-end furnished Airbnb we ever had to. The kitchen was filled with KitchenAid, Lacostina, and JohnsonJohnson. This is my dream house, I told Ed. And as always, he took my word as serious as he pretends to act seriously. You got what I mean? That evening, after we had wash-ups and filled our stomach. We went to the Lake Vermilion with the view of Mount Vermont. Very confusing these two. We planned to see the sunset but the memory card on Ed’s camera did not work out. He got very pissed plus the mosquitos there made us leave earlier. We went to the Banff town and drove back to Cochrane.

 I thought it was nice that we drove all the way up the day before to only figure out the memory card did not work. What if we found about the faulty memory card when we were in Moraine Lake, it would be a shame to our descendants. Their great grandparents went to Moraine Lake and took the pictures using iPhone SE when they got a Sony Alpha NEX-5R in their car. Like what. I would not let that happen.

 So, the next day, we cooked. Nope, I cooked and we packed our lunch. I took a long time to cook because I was not used to the kitchen. And apparently, Ed got mad at me for that. The morning did not start well so the rest of the day follows suit. We pretended like nothing was wrong but we are the two young human who has big egos to protect. We were bickering here and there over the small things. The great thing about Ed which did not work with other person is that we never hide our frustration towards each other. And we always work out in the end. Fast to argue, fast to heal.

 So, enough with the emotional experiences. We went hiking at first stop at the Johnston Canyon and the almost 2 hours hike brought us to the place I wanted to go. The so-called cave has a very scenic view except there were too many people there. Apparently, the two things that made it a scenic view is the small waterfall and the sort of small but tall rock in front of it. I almost cried when I see the view. It is beyond beautiful. Imagine a turquoise waterfall with brownish hill across it. And you can take pictures with the background of these two. Again, Ed blamed/mad at me for wearing jeans when he got the chance to ask me to change at home. To his defense, he thought I would take a long time to change a pair of pants. Did he think I am a millipede that has 1000 pair of legs?

 Okay, I will stop babbling about Ed. He sometimes does not make sense. Okay, after that we drove an additional one hour to the Emerald Lake. It is in Yoho National Park so I am officially have been to the three legendary National Parks in Alberta but Yoho is in BC but whatever. Yeayyy. The view was very nice with a turquoise color lake and green mountains as the background. But we were chasing times so we only spent a while here. Ed got mad at me again for not taking his picture perfectly before the battery ran out. I could not comprehend why he did not charge his camera’s battery the night before when he knew he will be using the camera all day long. 

 We drove down and on the way to the Moraine Lake, we stopped at the Natural Bridge and took some photos of it. It was plain when we saw it before our eyes but exquisite when we saw it again in the photo library. Hard to appreciate things before our eyes ain’t it. Next, The Moraine Lake. This lake is kind of personal to me. I was really wanted to come here because mum and I talked about this lake before I flew to Canada. She said I should see it because she really wanted to see it. And, when I see the Valley of the Ten Peaks, the thing I could only do is praying so I could bring my mum here one fine day. I imagine her smiling, seeing the view beside me. I personally think the lake is my lake, for her stunning view and for the trust my mum put in me.

 Next, we went to Lake Louise. It is the most famous of all lakes. The lake is turquoise in colour with some mountain views at the background. It was beautiful but it is just that. I wish I could spend more time in those lakes but we don’t have much time. I would not let Ed drove till late night because he needed to drive again tomorrow morning and it’s going to be a long drive. If only I could drive, I don’t know how many times that phrase has been whispering in my mind all this time. But I don't want to kill someone due to my driving incompetence.

 Banff National Park visit is a lifetime experience. No matter how advanced our camera, it could never do justice to the views we see along the way. The Rocky Mountains, the glaciers, the stunning colour lakes and everything between them. I wish I could come here again one day. Perhaps, with my mum. The next day, Ed alone drove up to Edmonton and I met the lovebird, Fatin and Amirul. They both Ed’s CPU mate

 The four of us took a little stroll around Edmonton town. We went to the West Edmonton Mall, the biggest mall in Canada yet is still smaller than Sunway Pyramid according to Amirul. The reason why it is so big because it has a water park, a theme-park and seal show in it. So, above all things in Edmonton, it is good to make new friends and I am looking forward to meeting these two in the future. We took the train back to Toronto and it has been three days on the train and we are still not arriving in Toronto. Would never ride this train again in the future. But, might only be The Canadian. I still want to go to Niagara Falls.

[iridescent177]

Alberta, AB

Mountain TZ (UTC-06:00)

 The train ride from Saskatoon to Jasper was transforming from yellow canola prairie into big tall mountains and lakes and that was the prettiest view. Imagine you were sleeping while seeing the yellowish green land and when you woke up the next morning, you saw some rock mountains with clear blue lakes from the train window. It was one of a nice experience.

 We arrived Jasper kinda late but still during the day so it was easy for both us and the host. We stayed at the one of the B&B in Jasper. The place was very comfortable, completed cooking tools and equipped with some high-end furnitures. We walked to the place and it was very tiring for me to keep up with Ed. But we arrived there safely and eventually.

 After we did some wash-ups and unpacking, we walked to the town to find some foods. We ended up at a diner to have fish and chip and figured out the owner was a Malaysian. After that, we went to the information center to find some information on how can we explore the city. We didn’t rent a car here because they were pricey. So, we opted for mountain biking as walking would not take us far.

 At first, we wanted to hike Whistler mountain and I had a bad feeling about it because it was a hard/black trail. Ed was insisting but thankfully the weather did not permit it. It was really hazy the first two days because there were some fires ignited from BC area. So, I never thank the haze condition before but this time I did.

 Long story short, we were at the bike rental early in the morning. We paid 40bucks for 12 hours’ riding of a mountain bike and essentials, which were not bad. We followed the trail and at first, we decided to go the Maligne Canyon. But, we followed the wrong trail and the hard trail drained out our energy so much. We decided to go back as the journey home was still far and we needed to reach home before we gave up. We were lucky to see three bears on the way back (a momma bear with 2 cubs), an elk and a group of deer. I thought if we went to Maligne Canyon perhaps we won’t see these wild animals before our eyes.

 I biked for almost 30km in a period of 3 to 4 hours. There was no way I would ride for an additional 8 hours. So, we got a subway, went home, took some nap, got a shower and in the evening, we sent the bike back. My legs were so sore that we decided to buy a muscle cream. I tried the cryo-treatment and it was so painful and good at the same time. I could stand only 5 minutes sitting in the bathtub filled with cold water. But now I know it works.

 We went to the station to take the next train to Vancouver. This time, we called a cab and it cost us just 8CAD which is fine. Some weird thing happened on the train station and we freaked out about that. And I decided to keep it a secret as I do not trust things I put on the internet. I have this insight that anything I put on the internet, even after I deleted it, be it videos, posts or pictures. They are all staying there and accessible to anyone who knows how to retrieve them. So, I control every thing I put on the internet and I think everyone should.

The next stop was British Columbia and humbly I gonna say that I am traveling from Atlantic to Pacific in a period of a month.

[iridescent177]

Manitoba, MB

Eastern TZ (UTC-05:00)

 It was not in our plan to stay for a while in Winnipeg. The original plan was to stop here so we can take the train heading to Churchill. Unfortunately, the rail system did not work up North and plan had to be changed. There are not many things to be done in this city. Small city, weird neighborhood, less than what we usually expect from a trip.

 The view from Halifax-Montreal-Toronto-Winnipeg was splendid. It almost feels like they divided the provinces according to what the geographical features have to offer. Halifax-Montreal has small lakes, lagoons and we did see some sand dunes. They were the first time and probably the last I saw it. Montreal-Toronto filled with small towns, some small jungles and gravel roads. We spent a bit time in Toronto city to pray and Ed brought me to the Nathan Philip Square to take pictures. The worst thing was, I was unprepared and wore my pajamas strolling around probably the most well-known city in Canada .facepalm. I have a feeling that I’ll come to Toronto again later so that’s fine. And, Toronto-Winnipeg view was out of others. Very limited jungle view but full of low, nothingness land. Just land and they are very big. I can see some small lakes occasionally when it was still near to Ontario. At this point of my journey, I was waiting what the Rockies have to offer and kinda couldn’t wait for it.

 Our main mission in Winnipeg was to get recovered from the weariness incurred from the Halifax. We did finally cook and it was the best meal I ever had for the period of two weeks (Brahim sure a hell of a good cook. When it comes to traveling. PERIOD). Oh about the Airbnb. It was beyond cheap for a price of a room for two. I recalled I was struggling to adapt to it. The room is not even a/c, but worst it had no fan to cool my tired body. But it worth the price I reckon.

 One thing that cheered me up a bit about Winnipeg is the Assiniboine Park Zoo. They have polar bears in an aquarium. Not much of those white fluffy chubby objects but at least it made it possible for me to boast I have seen that creature before my own eyes, swimming, worrying nothing in the artificial tank that they called it home. I always had this mixed feeling about animals in a zoo. About animals refrained in the cages, in the tanks and had no options to select their own freaking meal. Poor guys.

 The next day, we made it to The Forks Market. It was not bad. I got to eat Takoyaki here which I have been craving my stomach out of my ileum. Takoyaki was half as bad as what I usually had in Aeon but it tasted Takoyaki so you guys are forgiven for serving me lies and sucking my 8CAD.

 We checked out the next day and I was so sensitive and emotional. Hatred from bearing the back pain of backpack and my monthly bloodied vagina. When things were at worst, there was my partner pissing me off telling me to hold my emotion to myself. About me being bad at handling my period, unlike his sister who could do well than me. I cursed you hardly in my heart, down my throat. Let my heart bleed as red as my panties so you can satisfy your utter anger you need to be delivered, don’t ya mate.

 Overall, I think Winnipeg is kinda divided into two types of neighborhood. A small neighborhood running by immigrants, who put Philippines peso inside the vending and laundry machines. And also, a generic neighborhood you are expecting from a rich country like Canada. Glad that we experienced both. I and Ed had some brainstorm and we thought the way the small immigrants’ town developed was from their geography, being a neighbor to the Midwest States which are Minnesota and North Dakota.

 We finally done with the town and rode the train scheduled at 1 PM but end up boarding at 9 PM. We arrived at Saskatoon very early in the morning, appx 3 AM. Another town without uber. Let's talk about adventures, surviving another town in the next post. See ya.