Jul 16 2022

Singapore! We’re back!

This post is back-dated to July 16th, because I’ve been too busy and lazy..

Our much-anticipated trip to Singapore finally arrived. The excitement started the night before with a mystery text message at 1:30am that Caroline and Marcus’s seats had been reassigned. What? I called Air Canada when I was up at 3:00am to enquire. I waited about an hour for a call back – everything seemed fine. We arrived at the airport, but were not able to pick up our boarding passes despite checking in online the night before. The ground crew said we had to go to the counter – whoa… that’s a long lineup. Fortunately, we were sent to a different counter around the corner since we were flying premium economy. Well…. it seems not all of us were flying premium economy – the kids were downgraded to economy and separated, Jeff and I were also separated. Anyways – it all worked out in the end, Jeff and I were bumped up to Business Class and the kids moved into Premium Economy. (It’s Air Canada.. So it wasn’t exactly luxury…) 

When we finally arrived in Singapore, my brother and sister-in-law picked us up. We were greeted by the news that my nephew caught COVID-19 – talk about bad timing when the cousins are in town. It was 2:30am by the time we settled in. My mom was very happy to see the children and was keen to give them spending money.  

The next morning my Aunt Denis visited with breakfast. We enjoyed the steamed rice cakes with preserved radish. Before we had time to digest breakfast we were off to meet Aunty Pat for lunch. Aunty Pat is very generous, she gave the kids and I spending money! Although I don’t really have anything to shop for, I guess I’ll spend it on food.  

As I am busy with work and homework, my brother, Jeff and the kids went shopping for sneakers. Caroline was ecstatic that she found Air Jordans in her size at the Nike store. Marcus also picked up a pair of Adidas at a good price in Singapore since it was on sale. 

A couple days later we visited the S.E.A Aquarium on Sentosa Island. (Trivia – my great grandfather owned two thirds of Sentosa Island back in the day before the British took over.) S.E.A Aquarium is one of the largest in the world with more than 100,000 marine animals. The next stop was the observation deck at the Marina Bay Sands hotel.. You know, the famous one with the infinity pool spanning across the towers. It was pricey to visit but the view was phenomenal at 57 floors high – and yes, it was very hot. 

We have been taking it slow – as I’ve been dealing with jet-lag and haven’t been able to disconnect from work. The kids have been binge-watching Stranger Things and Jeff has been perfecting the art of killing time. 

We made plans to visit Malacca in Malaysia – my sister-in-law helped with arranging the transportation. Car and driver for $440 return. Malacca is a UNESCO heritage site – there are ruins when the Portuguese and Dutch were in the area. Malacca is perhaps is the birthplace of the Peranakan culture. We visited the Baba Nynoya Heritage Museum – a place to visit if you are in the neighborhood. Caroline and I bought the Nyonya Kebaya – the tradition costume for Peranakan ladies – a homage to my great (great?) grandmother who was Peranakan. Peranakan cuisine is out of this world – we really enjoyed the food here. We went to the Peranakan Mansion for dinner and it was just over $100 for the 4 of us. The restaurant was simply so beautiful with the old world charm. We also wandered along Jonker Street, one of the main attractions here, filled with lots of shops, restaurants and temples in Chinatown. It was a bit of nostalgia for me – seeing snacks I used to eat as a kid. At the end of each day, we would return to the hotel with our clothes soaked right through with our sweat. 

We have a couple of days to prepare for our next trip.  

Jul 30 2021

The final stretch

We spent the last night (Wednesday) at Greeny Lake in the 108 Mile area. We snagged the last campsite with a lake view and the weather was warm – actually make that hot. The kids jumped into the lake to cool down while I tried to dry things out from our not so dry week in Haida Gwaii. Our camping neighbours had their pig with them at the campsite… In the evening Jeff and I saw 3 river otters in the lake and no one had a camera…

Take your pig camping… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We left Greeny Lake at 6:30am on Thursday to make our way back home. Just past Cache Creek on the Hwy 97S, the trailer tire blew as we were coming around a corner. We inspected the damage and moved the trailer further up the road where it was safer to swap the spare tire on. What we thought was a flat tire turned out to be worse… The suspension was damaged and there was a hole in the floor board when the tire separated.

We limped 25km to Fraserway RV in Kamloops. Fortunately it wasn’t too far and traffic was light. In addition to fixing the suspension and the undercarriage, the axle has to be replaced too. We left the trailer in Kamloops and since it was already 1pm we grabbed something at A&W and proceeded on our way.

When we got to the Coquihalla, we were looking forward to getting home and having a nice shower. Unfortunately that would have to wait.. An accident closed the Coquihalla and so there we were, sitting in the truck with no where to go…

We finally got home at 7pm – what a long day! I think our RV’ing might be put on hold for the rest of the year as the repairs will probably take months..

We’re happy to be home now – home before the long weekend.

Jul 30 2021

Haida Gwaii

July 27th

When we got off the ferry, we made our way to the campground in Masset which is about 130km away. Once we were settled, we wasted no time and visited the northern tip of Haida Gwaii. We went exploring at North Beach and there were many dead crabs on the beach – that got us thinking about crabbing… We also did a couple of easy hikes to Rose Spit and the Tow Hill viewpoint trail.

  • There are only 120kms of paved road in Haida Gwaii. This is Tow Hill Road – towards North Beach

The next day we took a ferry to Sandspit to pick up Ashleigh from the airport. Before that we visited Jeff’s cousin Robert in Queen Charlotte City. Robert is a Haida artist and knows a lot about Haida history, culture and also medicinal properties of plants. We made plans to go on a couple of hikes with him and his wife Gabi. We enjoyed our time with Robert as we learned a lot about Haida Gwaii.

One of our highlights in Haida Gwaii was crabbing. All you need is a crab license, a dip net and courage – courage to wade in knee deep water without waders. Marcus caught the most crabs but we only kept the male crabs that met the minimum size requirement. After 2 hours of wading we had 3 crabs to feast on. We returned to the campsite and prepared our crab lunch. The crabs were yummy BUT we figured out too late that we should really scrub the crabs first… Oh well, that was our learning moment…

Another highlight of Haida Gwaii was visiting Skedans, or K’uuna Llnagaay in the Haida language. Skedans is a historic Haida village that is about 90 minutes away by boat on the northeast corner of Louise Island. Enroute to the island we saw seals, sea lions, eagles and a Peregrine falcon. We also saw Orcas, humpback and minke whales – that was quite the treat to see so many different whales.

When we arrived at Skedans we were greeted by a Haida watchman. The Haida watchman for Skedans so happened to be a direct descendent of a Haida chief from a few generations back. The Haida watchmen are people who live on the historic villages to protect them from vandalism. The tour was very interesting, we learned a lot about the Haida culture and history.

While we were in Skedans, Harry spent the day with Robert and Gabi. He had a great time relaxing and going for walks. We are so grateful that they are able to care for Harry that day otherwise we’ll probably be missing more carpet… yeah, for some odd reason he was pulling out tufts of carpet.

We left Haida Gwaii on the 26th on the 10am ferry. As the water was very calm, we made it to Prince Rupert at 4pm. We spent the night at Prince Rupert and now we are back at Fraser Lake. The weather here is nice and warm – we took the opportunity to get dry. We will be making our way back home now..

Jul 23 2021

Lakelse Lake and Prince Rupert

July 18

We spent 2 days (July 15 & 16) at Lakelse Provincial Campground that is 19km outside of Terrace towards Kitimat.

When we arrived, there were only 2 spots left of which one was jus a tad tight for us to get it. The campground was practically empty – I guess all those bookings were only on paper.

While at Lakesle Lake, we visited the Nisga’a Nation. For some of us the word Nisga’a might be familiar because of the Nisga’a Treaty. The Nisga’a Treaty is the first treaty between the BC Provincial govement and the Nisga’a people.

We did a self-guided tour through the Nisga’a territory. The drive was beautiful and twice we saw a bald eagle soaring above us. One of the most famous attraction is the Nisga’a Lava Bed Memorial Park.

The lava flow is one of Canada’s most recent volcanic eruption that killed an estimated 2000 people in the early 1700. The lava bed stretched for many kilometers and there is a beautiful turquoise lake aptly named Lava lake. We also visited a small waterfall along the way and it is at this waterfall trail that Marcus pulled his groin and the whole family had to cut back our activities – but who are we kidding? We haven’t done much hiking!!! Just eating and snacking all day long…

We are now at Prince Rupert and camping at the only RV Park in town. As Prince Rupert is a deep seaport, it is a fishing town and you can spot the fishermen easily.

Dock at Cow Bay

The other day we went on a popular hike called the Tall Trees Trail. It was a nice hike despite the on and off again rain. After our hike, we picked up dinner at this place called Dolly’s Fish Market. We had the best fish and chips ever!

July 19

We checked out of the campground at 11am and had to kill a lot of time… we were to arrive at the ferry terminal at 8pm for our 10am ferry. We found street parking close to Cow Bay Road. Cow Bay Road is the main tourist area in Prince Rupert.

We walked along Cow Bay Road and before you know it it was lunch time. The vote was to go back to Dolly’s for fish and chips. After lunch we explored more of the town and walked by the mall and saw a Pet Valu with a dog wash. Hmmm… Time for someone to get a bath! We got Harry cleaned and in returned we had a grumpy dog.

We went back to the 5th wheel to kill time before dinner. We did some research and decided on sushi at Opa Sushi. Opa Sushi is a family-run restaurant that has been operating since 1998. As I did not want to be “burdened” with ordering, I decided to go “omakase” – which in Japanese translates to “I leave it up to the chef to decide”. We had the best sashimi (raw) ever and it was also very cheap compared to what we normally pay in Vancouver.

We arrived at the ferry terminal at 8pm and just before 9pm the ferry workers started loading vehicles – the loading eventually slowed down as the vehicles had to back up the ramp about 200meters to load.

Jeff had to back up the truck and 5th wheel all the way onto the ferry

If you are not able to back up, BC Ferries has a professional driver that will drive your vehicle for you. Jeff managed to back up the 5th wheel and truck – slowly but surely. Once parked, we put Harry in the trailer and we headed to the passenger decks to explore. After the ferry set sail we proceeded to our cabin to sleep. The cabin had 4 bunks and a washroom – it was sufficient for our needs and well worth the $100 “splurge”.  We woke up at 5am for our 6am arrival at Haida Gwaii.

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