VanAussie Daily

Just Right

Friday, January 28th, 2011

Something I’m certainly not going to miss is some of the breakfast cereals over here. Just Right is a bland piss poor excuse for the toasted golden goodness that I remember in Australia, and Special K flakes look like they’ve been put on a Fatkins Diet, and are now pale, shaky looking things about 20% of their “normal” size.

If you want decent Special K you have to buy the Special K that has dried strawberries in it, as that has normal size flakes and the added tasty goodness of sweet petrified red flesh. Only problem is, that stuff is ‘spensive!

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Posted in Different things in Canada, Not going to miss | 1 Comment »

Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday, October 11th, 2010

Well, it’s Thanksgiving once again here in Canada. Any folks from the US who stumble across this blog post will probably say something along these lines:

That’s because Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving about a month and half before those south of the 49th. Most Aussies probably have a pretty fuzzy recollection of what the hell Thanksgiving is all about, probably recollections containing elements of turkey, some pilgrims, and cranberry sauce.

It’s actually celebrated for a various reasons around the world, but in Canada it’s generally to give thanks at the end of the harvest season.

What does that mean for Aussies in Canada? Well, for me, it’s the last of a long series of public holidays we get here in BC. Pretty much one day a month through the summer months is a public holiday, and the long weekends you get out of it are fantastic.

Also, if you’re lucky enough then you might get invited to a Canadian Thanksgiving meal, they’re generally a sight to behold – pretty much the equivalent of Aussie Christmas tucker, but in October with no presents.

So here’s to a good harvest (it was good, right?). Cheers!

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Another blog to check out

Monday, July 12th, 2010

As my blog has slowed down a little, I thought I’d recommend another blog to satiate your appetites a little, particularly if those appetites are calling for adventure shots of BC’s islands or events from Calgary’s Stampede.

I’m talking about Anna’s blog, which is all about her next adventure. Having spent over a year in China, she is now adventuring Canada whilst hanging out with a Canadian family. A great recipe for finding cool things to do

Check it out:

http://www.annasnextadventure.blogspot.com/

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Posted in Different things in Canada, Hiking/Bushwalking, scenery | 3 Comments »

Weet-bix equivalents in Canada

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010

One of the things that I went on a mission to find when I got to Canada was to find a good stand-in for my old staple breakfast cereal, Weet-bix.

Well, actually I got stuck into their sweet stuff like granola (equivalent if muesli, kinda) and their cereals… Mmm, nothing like that crispy sugar high in the morning to get you going! Captain Crunch was a particular favourite, although it really resembles nothing natural.

Then I got over the sweet things and wanted to get back to simple life, something I could have that was a good bit of low-GI energy to keep me going during the day. Although reflecting on that last sentence, I may have been swayed by advertising.

Anyhoo, I needed Weet-bix. There is no exact equivalent over here, but there are some that come pretty close. I’ve included the price in the pics, but they’re pretty damn similar anyhoo. First one I found was:

Muffets
Despite the curious name, these aren’t too bad. They’ll fill the bottom of your bowl, but they’re just a touch crispy. This means that they will hold their form for your whole breakfast, no matter how much milk you soak them in. Taste? Well… Not too much really.

Shredded wheat
A slightly larger “pillow” than Weet-bix, these will keep their shape and taste slightly bland like Muffets, but they offer a better mouth feel (I can’t believe I just wrote that) than Muffets. I have had one of the strange wheat based tendrils spear up my gum before, which I can tell you wasn’t too pleasant. The things I do for you guys!

Weetabix
Probably the closest things to Weet-bix you’ll find in Canada, these fellas have a similar texture to Weet-bix however you’ll find that they quickly disintegrate into mush when milk is added. Similar sort of taste though, just a tad sweeter. Don’t mind these and they are my current breakfast basis of choice

(Don’t worry, the other side is in English if you can’t work out the tough French translation)

Oatibix
Just to throw an extra one in the mix, these are basically the same as Weetabix, but made of Oats. They’re pretty good, have a nice flavour, but man, do they ever turn to mush faster than you can get your spoon out of the drawer after pouring the milk.

No pic of these, as Safeway was out of stock when I had the brainwave for this fantastic culinarily inspired post.

…

This was a privately funded research project, and hence that allows me to tell you what I’ve had for breakfast
And yes, culinarily is a word. I just made it up then.

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What the?!

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

This morning I was checking what documents I needed in order to get my new SIN at the Service Canada near my work (which is nothing other than the work permit stapled inside my passport) and on a whim I had a look at my actual new work permit.

There, sticking out like dogs danglies, was a spelling mistake. My last name, which usually begins with an M, had officially been changed do Cendham. What the hell?!

So I decided that I’d probably have to go back to the border to get a new one, but ended up giving their office a call when I got into work. Turns out that my name is in their system in the correct way, and they’re sending me out a new permit with the correct details in the next 10 days.

I then got to wondering, can I get a SIN number if my working holiday permit is spelt incorrectly? I headed down to Service Canada to find out and they said that I couldn’t, but I was still allowed to work while I waited for my new permit as I had a work permit, “but just don’t do anything silly.” Uhhh, what?

So, I can work, but I’m going to have to wait a while before I can get a new SIN, which means my MSP insurance may run out… Be interesting to find out what happens then.

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Renewed!

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

I’m all good for another two years, and that’s a great feeling!

After various back and forth going on as I mentioned in my last post, my new letter of introduction came through last night. That’s only cutting it a little fine, had plenty of time as my current permit didn’t run out till Thursday. That’s at least 48 hours.

Went down to see our friends at the Point Roberts border crossing after work to do the paperwork, and while I was down there they also confirmed that you have to actually leave the country (“sight the flag” I think they said, in reference to the US flag on the other side of the US building) then come back in before you can do this sort of paperwork. That means no just driving up to the border post and entering in the back way, and no cutting to the front of the line.

The guy processing my application was quite funny – it was his first WHP, so he did it by the book. Or at least reading the book aloud to himself several times and trying to work out exactly what the hell he was supposed to do.

Because he did it by the book, he asked me for every piece of paperwork he should, which was only proof of funds ($4k, I had a print out of my Internet banking) and proof of insurance, for which I pulled out my BC MSP card, which actually runs out this month as it’s tied to my current Social Insurance Number, which expires as well.

So my next job is to get a SIN, and to do that I can rock up to any Service Canada and get one there and then. Then I gotta call MSP to tell them about my new digits…

So, renewing a WHP while living in Canada? Easy!

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New ‘hood, new supermarket

Friday, April 2nd, 2010

So we’ve just moved house (more on that in a later blog post when I have more time to think about something other than the bomb shelter the place looks like) and we’ve managed to score a place that is in the “International Village”, and 5 floors above a big supermarket.

Why is that interesting? It’s an aisian supermarket! A whole world of brightly coloured strange looking packets! Wierd ass things in the milk fridge! Plucked ducks (not Plucka Duck) hanging up!

It’s actually quite cool, as they’ve got all sorts of good normal groceries for cheap, and all the vegies are nice and fresh. Then I spotted this at the checkout, and it was on special!

That’s right, Australian abalone. In a can. For $50. On special.

It’s funny, they probably come from my home state of Tasmania, but they’ve come a long way from the ones we used to catch ourselves and stick on the BBQ.

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Posted in Different things in Canada, Downtown Vancouver, Food, Shopping | No Comments »

Proof!

Friday, March 26th, 2010

I finally have proof that there are spiders in Canada!

When I was a kid, we had a series of Canadians stay with us for agricultural reasons and each and every one of them was completely petrified of spiders. We even got one a Red Back Spider Gear Knob ( a real red back set in resin and made into a gear knob)  as a going away present, and he was petrified of that.

“We don’t have spiders in Canada!” they would always say.

One of the Canadians actually stayed down in a shed that half had been converted into a humble abode. He was a brave man, keeping in mind that we were in Tasmania on a farm here, which is haunted by a species of spider so big that it can send Canadians into conniptions – the huntsman.

The first few night he was down in the shed, we heard these blood curdling shrieks… He had found the huntsmans, or had they found him?

Eventually, he learned. We’d go down there to visit and Dave would be hanging out, enjoying the sun, a pile of white huntsmans (they’re usually brown btw) in the corner. He’d found the secret method, or so he believed, of spraying the little buggers till they were white with fly spray, then sweeping them into the corner with their dead brethren. Of course, the fly spray didn’t always kill them…

So. My proof. There are spiders in Canada. Here’s a pic, try not to be scared:

Isn’t he huge! I found him marauding around the desk of my bank the other day, and he was almost the size of the blunt end of a ballpoint pen.

(Actually, there’s a huge population of black widow spiders about 5 hours east of Vancouver in Merritt, but we won’t mention that…)

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Posted in Different things in Canada, Downtown Vancouver, Musings | 2 Comments »

House hunting, pt1

Friday, March 19th, 2010

We’ve been on the lookout for a new apartment recently here in Vancouver for various reasons, with one of the principle reasons being that our current apartment was sold and the new owners want to move in. How rude. So that got me thinking about all the little intricacies that you find out when you’re looking for a place over here that are different to looking for a place in Australia. Here’s a couple I can think of off the top of my head:

1. 98%* of rentals start and finish on the first of the month. This seems to be a rule that’s been around and accepted, and on various levels it makes sense, however when many people are moving out on the morning of the first and into their apartment on the afternoon of the first, this can cause problems. It also causes problems for those who have to move out of their apartment on the last day of the month because the landlord wants to do some reno’s before the new tenants move in the next day. There’s a few people who sleep in a truck with all their stuff because of this.
2. A high proportion of rentals are apartments. I’m a Tassie boy, and where I come from, if you’re in an apartment you’re just not trying hard enough. Unless it’s a cool one. It’s the other way round here. Most houses in the price range of traveling and working Aussies are older and a bit more run down, as well as usually being massive and expensive and end up being share houses because of this. Apartments are the way to go over here, unless you can afford a “condo”, or slightly bigger apartment that might have floors and it’s own front door. If you actually own a house, it can be seen as a bit of a status symbol, as they are so freakin expensive.
3. Property is freakin expensive in the downtown areas. Our current apartment is 530 square feet (tiny one bedroom, but built in 2006) or so, and it sold for about $460,000.

I’m going to tell you a story. It’s about a boy and a girl who decided to move to Canada because it’s a fantastic idea and they’d both worked there before and loved it. This story is going to have several parts (probably three) as I’ll tell you about each apartment they’ve rented so far (or are just about to rent), how they found them, how they lived in them, and how they found their most recent one. Just to keep things sensible and in order around here, I’ll start with their first apartment in Canada.

One day in mid April, 2008, the boy and girl got off the airplane in Vancouver airport. They were bleary eyed from lack of sleep, and also readjusting to western culture again after spending two long flights on Air China with an overnight stopover in Taipei. A friend of the boy, let’s call him Gerhard, from when he had been staying in Canada had offered to meet them at the airport and for them to stay at his place for a few weeks till they got on their feet and found a place. They all went home and had curry and caught up on 10 years of news  while Gerhard and Natalia adjusted to the atmosphere in the northern hemisphere.

The condo G&N were staying in was in the Metrotown area of Burnaby, about here in fact, and while they loved staying with these friends, getting out and about, touring Metrotown (BC’s biggest mall!), they were also used to having their own space. They started poring over newspapers for apartments, trawling job websites, going through the highs and lows that come with not having work and being in a new city. In particular they had lots of free time but needed to be tight with money till they found work, which proved to be a little frustrating.

As the boy and girl had arrived in the middle of the month, and Vancouver had weird rules about apartments only becoming available on the first of the month, they were able to look online at lots of places, but getting showings was a little more difficult. The other problem was, “where would they actually want to live?” If they lived downtown, then they would be right in the center of the action, but rent was expensive and neither of them had jobs yet. If they lived in Burnaby near their friends, then rent would be cheaper and they would know someone in the area. Added to this, neither of them knew where they would end up working, so they couldn’t get a place near to their potential employer, and so they could only try and get somewhere on the public transport grid.

They chose to live in the Metrotown area. It all made sense really, as there was the Skytrain line to take them downtown quickly and easily, Metrotown was right there for anything they needed when setting up the house, they had friends in the area, and there was a reasonable potential that they might both get work in that ‘hood.

Their friends had told them that Craigslist was the place to look for housing. What?! They thought? What is this website? They had never heard of it before. So they picked up a couple of local papers and called around. Every apartment was taken by the time they called. They took the advice of their friends and looked up Craigslist and found lots of different apartments coming up for rent on the first. Three of them sounded reasonable and within the $800 to $900 price range they thought they could afford, with two only a few blocks away. They walked by the close two, and weren’t that impressed. They called and arranged appointments, and were quite unimpressed with what they found inside the two apartments.

While they were clean (mostly), each had its own faults. One was on a noisy intersection, and the other was, well… dingy and pokey and the landlady was a weirdo. They went home and re-evaluated what they could afford. How long would their savings last if they didn’t get work, but took on a more expensive apartment?

They decided to give the last apartment in their original price bracket a chance, although it was quite a walk away. They met the nice landlord out front, and he took them to the ground floor apartment. As they entered, it just felt… right. It was about 900 square feet, had a large patio, fresh paint, big living room for friends to stay over, a kitchen that did the job, and the landlord was in the process of upgrading the bathroom. It wasn’t an amazing apartment, but it was in their price bracket and as it was already empty, they could move in a couple of days early.

As their move in date came closer, they went to Metrotown and bought their first Canadian home furnishings. Namely some towels and what Canadians call “a bed in a bag”, which is a set of sheets, a summer weight (thin) doona/quilt and a couple of cushions. Cheap, but it did the job. They planned for hours what they were going to do with the apartment, argued over how big certain nooks and crannies were, how much room there was under the shower head (they were both about six feet tall, and the shower head was built for hobbits) and what they should buy for the apartment and what they could do without.

Finally it came! The day they could move in! They loaded their backpacks and took the bed-in-a-bag under their arms and trooped over to the apartment. The landlord was already there and handed them the keys. Entering the apartment for only the second time, they put down their backpacks, looked around, looked at each other, hugged, then constructed the cushions from their bed-in-a-bag into a little couch and sat down in their empty apartment. All was good in the world.

Over the next year Natalia, Gerhard and the Burnaby apartment made many happy memories together. Here are but a few memento’s:

The living room after a couple of trips to IKEA and raiding cheap stuff off Craigslist

The kitchen, including free microwave, free shelving unit and free desk

Bob the snowman on the patio

Christmas Day 2008

Some serious snow in the 2008 winter. People ask "where were you when the big snow hit?". Gerhard trying to find Bob. He's under there somewhere...

Australia Day 2009. The BBQ was Gerhard's first Canadian "luxury" purchase.

To be continued… next stop, Yaletown!

(*that’s a fact, that is.)

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