No Lake Louise

I had planned on spending this last weekend in Lake Louise, taking in the craggy majesty of the Canadian Rockies. Unfortunately, a number of things conspired against me on this front, and my plans went up in smoke. The essential difficulty of the venture is that it's a really long way to Lake Louise from Vancouver. It's about 12 hours drive, which is about the same as the distance from Brisbane to Sydney. Going all that way and back for just a weekend is pretty silly, and trying to drive it by myself isn't a great idea either, considering the possible ice and snow and the fact that everyone in this country drives on the wrong side of the road.

I did do a few decent things with my final Vancouver weekend though - I finally made it to the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Gardens down in Chinatown, and spent a great day over on Vancouver Island wandering around Victoria, walking on a quiet beach and exploring Butchart Gardens. I also went for an afternoon's bike ride around Stanley Park with my buddies Wes and Ryan, which was exceedingly pleasant in the bright Spring sunshine. It was a good solid weekend of activity, and captured the feel of life in Vancouver very well. If I can smoke a spliff, protest the war, ask for change and get an Asian girlfriend in these next few days before I leave, things will be completely perfect.

I fly out Friday night, so I still have a bit of time before I head off to London to make a nuisance of myself. The packing is going well - my usual style for this sort of thing is to do everything the night beforehand, but this time around I've been steadily packing, organizing and moving things piece by piece over a matter of weeks. I think I'm doing well, but I'll only really know when I'm on the way to the airport. If I arrive at Heathrow with no underwear, a Japanese passport and a mattress stapled to my head, it's back to the rush job.