Getting to Vancouver

Wednesday July 25th was my last day of work, and I felt some serious love. I got presents from people at work, and Hitoshi sent me gorgeous flowers. I went out for lunch with Dae, Marion and Maria and then out for drinks after work. It was weird to say goodbye, although it didn't feel like I was really leaving for good.

I went home and Steph and Kelsi came over and helped me absolutely cram my car as full as it would go. I left the next morning and drove all the way to Van, stopping in Banff to meet my friend Mykul for breakfast and in Salmon Arm to say hi to friends. I was pretty tired when I arrived, but so glad to see my man! It felt great to know that now we would be in the same city.

On Saturday was the Illuminaries festival, where everyone makes lanterns and goes down to this park. People are so creative with their lanterns, it was amazing. I saw a dragon fly attached to helium balloons so it was floating over the pond, and even a turtle! We had signed up to volunteer at the Wishing Well, so we spent the day making faerie costumes then went down to park and got our makeup done. They had a well set up where people (mostly little kids) came and made a wish, then threw money down the well and looked inside. At the bottom of the well was a mirror, so they saw themselves. Lots of people wanted to take their pictures with us, it was different being dressed up when no one else was, as opposed to Burning Man or Shambhala where lots of people are wearing costumes so it's not super special.

It was fun and some of the kids were super cute, the only down side was that we didn't get to go see what was going on too much. Our shift lasted until almost 11 pm then we walked around, saw some fire spinners and huge drum circles with tons of people dancing around. There were so many lanterns, all different shapes and sizes and some floating out on the pond. We decided we wanted to go out dancing, so we went home and took all our makeup off, then went out with our roommate Chelsii to see a Boylesque. There were girls hosting it, but the performances were all boys. It was a really fun night, I saw some people I had met before (a nice feeling the first time out in a new city!) and Ooah was spinning. Hitoshi and I saw him earlier in the month at Motion Notion and he just rocked. We were dancing away, but it was insanely hot in there and even standing still you could work up a sweat. So after we wore ourselves out we headed. I love that I have my own place here, and Hitoshi has the best bedroom. I have never had such a beautiful place to sleep before, he did the walls himself and bought a bed that was imported from Asia. The view looks right out to the mountain, and you can see the harbor. I love love love it.

On Tuesday a super sweet Italian guy named Fillipo came to stay with us a few days. He was living in California with one of Hitoshi's friends and was moving to Canada to live and work. On Wednesday he called us saying he was down in Kitsalano and asked if we wanted his parking spot - it was the Vancouver fireworks competition.

"The fireworks competition sees pyrotechnic experts go up against each other to show off their abilities and each have a 25-minute set lighting the skies over the waters of English Bay.

As many as 1.5 million people arrive in Vancouver for the HSBC Celebration of Light every year, which usually features new techniques and experiments as the experts look to outdo each other at the free shows."

The night we were down the country was China, and it was really cool. It was so nice of Fillipo to give us his spot, we just drove in, walked down to the beach, then drove out no problem.

On Sunday we went down to the Pride parade, which was fun. I have been to pride in Toronto before which is party rama rama. I guess Pride in Van has grown a ton in the past few years, and this year there were over 300,000 people down to see the parade. We checked out some of the floats, then went down to the beach where there were vendors, a beer garden and a stage. We watched a burlesque and listened to some bands, then went home to craft it up.

We spent the rest of the week getting ready for Shambhala and Burning Man. Hitoshi bought a little 70 cc A.T.V. which is going to be converted to an art car (I'm hoping a turtle!) and we started getting all the parts for our costumes ready. It feels like we go to Canadian tire at least once a day.

We did actually do some work for a day when Hitoshi got a call to help out for a commercial. I think the commercial was for Pictionary, and they had these astronaut costumes that were in really rough shape and needed to be spruced up. So we ran around and got some materials, then took them all apart and fixed 'em up. It was fun, afterwards we went down where they were shooting to drop them off, so I got to check out what was going down. The best part was playing around in the space suits before we took them back.

We are almost finished most of our costumes, and will be leaving for Sham tomorrow or the next day. This summer is radtastic.