Chapter 4 – Kelowna and the great Canadian outdoors
The drive probably could’ve, actually should’ve taken an hour or 2 less as a result of the fact that our beloved bus driver was also playing postman for most of the Rockies as we traveled south towards Kamloops where we would change buses before hitting Kelowna. I forgot to mention, we also changed time zones during the bus trip and at some point they decided that we entered a time zone of an hour’s difference which made the trip so much longer. But we did eventually arrive and were greeted by a smiling and very welcoming Ching family – excluding K Dawg (Kelsey). As we quickly found out, Kelsey was away in Victoria visiting and partying with her friends. So all our bags were swept up and we were whisked away to 28 Chelsea Gardens which was to be our home away from home. It was so great to finally meet Ang’s extended family and being here in Canada.
We were awoken earliesh Saturday morning as the plan for the day had already been set into motion after last nights eventful dinner chatter. The plan was for us to go and explore one of Mike’s hobbies out here in the great Canadian outback known to many as cross country skiing. For me, this was the very first experience of putting on skis and gliding through snow. I have worn skis for water skiing but this was to be a completely different experience. For those readers who have never skied before let me try and illustrate through words, exactly how awkward and frightening it is to be out of control even when you’re under control. Basically, it is like running on really long sticks tied to your feet that if you were to pick up completely from the icy surface, you would either slip and fall or even stick one in the surface at a bad angle allow for further greater discomfort and pain. Thankfully, Ang and I were able to avoid the second kind of “pain” however; there were a few close instances.
I as per usual was the first one to bail when I tried to navigate off the allotted path. As it turns out, they realize that there are some newcomers to skiing and in order to accommodate and help gain experience, they make pathways for us newcomers to stand in and glide through to prevent too much falling and possibly to also keep us out of the way. This made the experience so much more invigorating allowing us to enjoy the scenery and getting around the courses rather quickly. I have to admit, the best part of the skiing was definitely the down hills as you didn’t have to do too much work and you could go much faster. We learnt fairly quickly that although I was bigger than Ang, this didn’t mean that I would fly down the mountain faster. Instead it was the complete opposite as I was actually able to create more friction with the snowy surface causing me to go slower and her to catch me up. The problem with this was she spent most of the time behind me and we both were not very capable of stopping. So during our final run on the squirrel, Ang caught me up on the long and treacherous down hill. I was struggling to gain speed and could only hear the sharp high pitched wail of my beloved wife as she was careening towards me with no hope of stopping and I had no hope of escaping her descent. WHAM!!! I get taken right out by Ang breaking bones in every possible place – only joking. We did crash but I got taken out worse and it was a big joke for us to laugh about. Stopping is still something we both struggle with as you will find out when we write about our Big White experience.
So that was our first skiing experience which was tons of fun and definitely something we would both love to try again. This was not going to be the last action for the day as we had a hockey game planned for Saturday evening watching the Kelowna Rockets playing some other western league division team. We arrived a little earlier and were lucky enough to watch the teams warming up. We were sitting so close to the ice you could almost feel the particles splat on the glass protector as the players moved around hitting the puck at their keeper. These were seats I would’ve dreamed for at a soccer or rugby world cup final – front row in the action type seats. The game began and crash boom bang… it was the end of the first period before I even knew I was watching hockey. It was such an intensely fast paced game that you really struggled to keep up with what was going on. I think coaching this sport has to be the most insanely uncontrolled thing to ever do in life. For example, the starting line up changed within 2 minutes of play after which ever 2-3 minutes new players would emerge onto the rink whilst those tired would get off the ice asap. Next would be the movement on the ice. These guys would fly around the rink in the time it would take me to blink. Similarly, the puck (that’s the ball in this sport) would shoot around the rink like it was wired and being chased down by greyhounds. On a few occasions we were lucky enough to see the puck zing around right in front of our eyes at eye level. I was disappointed though as the puck never left the rink and I wasn’t able to catch one as a memento. But that was were my disappointment left because the game itself was incredible and I enjoyed every minute of it. In the end, Kelowna rockets thumped their opposition by 5 -2 which in ice hockey is a hammering. Go ROCKETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was our second evening in Kelowna and if it was anything to go by, our time here was going to be action packed and full of fun and exciting things to do. For more, you will just have to wait for our next chapter from the great Canadian outback.
The drive probably could’ve, actually should’ve taken an hour or 2 less as a result of the fact that our beloved bus driver was also playing postman for most of the Rockies as we traveled south towards Kamloops where we would change buses before hitting Kelowna. I forgot to mention, we also changed time zones during the bus trip and at some point they decided that we entered a time zone of an hour’s difference which made the trip so much longer. But we did eventually arrive and were greeted by a smiling and very welcoming Ching family – excluding K Dawg (Kelsey). As we quickly found out, Kelsey was away in Victoria visiting and partying with her friends. So all our bags were swept up and we were whisked away to 28 Chelsea Gardens which was to be our home away from home. It was so great to finally meet Ang’s extended family and being here in Canada.
We were awoken earliesh Saturday morning as the plan for the day had already been set into motion after last nights eventful dinner chatter. The plan was for us to go and explore one of Mike’s hobbies out here in the great Canadian outback known to many as cross country skiing. For me, this was the very first experience of putting on skis and gliding through snow. I have worn skis for water skiing but this was to be a completely different experience. For those readers who have never skied before let me try and illustrate through words, exactly how awkward and frightening it is to be out of control even when you’re under control. Basically, it is like running on really long sticks tied to your feet that if you were to pick up completely from the icy surface, you would either slip and fall or even stick one in the surface at a bad angle allow for further greater discomfort and pain. Thankfully, Ang and I were able to avoid the second kind of “pain” however; there were a few close instances.
I as per usual was the first one to bail when I tried to navigate off the allotted path. As it turns out, they realize that there are some newcomers to skiing and in order to accommodate and help gain experience, they make pathways for us newcomers to stand in and glide through to prevent too much falling and possibly to also keep us out of the way. This made the experience so much more invigorating allowing us to enjoy the scenery and getting around the courses rather quickly. I have to admit, the best part of the skiing was definitely the down hills as you didn’t have to do too much work and you could go much faster. We learnt fairly quickly that although I was bigger than Ang, this didn’t mean that I would fly down the mountain faster. Instead it was the complete opposite as I was actually able to create more friction with the snowy surface causing me to go slower and her to catch me up. The problem with this was she spent most of the time behind me and we both were not very capable of stopping. So during our final run on the squirrel, Ang caught me up on the long and treacherous down hill. I was struggling to gain speed and could only hear the sharp high pitched wail of my beloved wife as she was careening towards me with no hope of stopping and I had no hope of escaping her descent. WHAM!!! I get taken right out by Ang breaking bones in every possible place – only joking. We did crash but I got taken out worse and it was a big joke for us to laugh about. Stopping is still something we both struggle with as you will find out when we write about our Big White experience.
So that was our first skiing experience which was tons of fun and definitely something we would both love to try again. This was not going to be the last action for the day as we had a hockey game planned for Saturday evening watching the Kelowna Rockets playing some other western league division team. We arrived a little earlier and were lucky enough to watch the teams warming up. We were sitting so close to the ice you could almost feel the particles splat on the glass protector as the players moved around hitting the puck at their keeper. These were seats I would’ve dreamed for at a soccer or rugby world cup final – front row in the action type seats. The game began and crash boom bang… it was the end of the first period before I even knew I was watching hockey. It was such an intensely fast paced game that you really struggled to keep up with what was going on. I think coaching this sport has to be the most insanely uncontrolled thing to ever do in life. For example, the starting line up changed within 2 minutes of play after which ever 2-3 minutes new players would emerge onto the rink whilst those tired would get off the ice asap. Next would be the movement on the ice. These guys would fly around the rink in the time it would take me to blink. Similarly, the puck (that’s the ball in this sport) would shoot around the rink like it was wired and being chased down by greyhounds. On a few occasions we were lucky enough to see the puck zing around right in front of our eyes at eye level. I was disappointed though as the puck never left the rink and I wasn’t able to catch one as a memento. But that was were my disappointment left because the game itself was incredible and I enjoyed every minute of it. In the end, Kelowna rockets thumped their opposition by 5 -2 which in ice hockey is a hammering. Go ROCKETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This was our second evening in Kelowna and if it was anything to go by, our time here was going to be action packed and full of fun and exciting things to do. For more, you will just have to wait for our next chapter from the great Canadian outback.
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