So yeah, that’s been a helluva lotta walking. Yesterday I estimate I clocked around 15-20 km of walking through downtown Vancouver and Stanley Park. Not entirely intentionally, mind you – I missed a few buses and took a few long-cuts through the park. Also unintentional was my leisurely stroll through the park turning into an ascetic trial. You see, no one told me that once you got onto the Sea Wall path around the perimeter of the park, you were stuck down there for a goodly portion of the distance, nor did they tell me that there was nowhere to get food or water down there. What this meant was that I was trudging around the path for the better part of an hour having not eaten or drank anything for hours in quite a hot sun, moderately heavy pack slung over my shoulder. Fun. Actually, it wasn’t that bad but still more arduous than I’d intended. At least the scenery was terrific.

Also in Stanley Park was the Vancouver Aquarium. I don’t think I’ve been to an aquarium in many many years, so that was pretty fun. It’s small but well-stocked with exhibits. The Amazonian exhibit was particularly impressive, with these monstrously large fish just sort of hanging around. I was lucky enough to catch the beluga whales at feeding time and then see the dolphin show right after. Dolphins are nice.

I also trudged around downtown some more, stopping by Tom Lee Music to play some guitars. They had a Burns Steer in stock – now that’s a guitar only Billy Bragg could love. Depiste being uglier than an ingrown toenail, it actually sounded pretty cool. Played some “Levi Stubbs Tears” on it and had an immense sense of self-satisfaction for the rest of the day.

Come evening, I met up with my friend Andrew from university whom I hadn’t seen in over three years – went out for dinner to do some catching up and then he gave me a driving tour around the city. Swung by Main and Hastings looking to ogle some junkies but alas, they weren’t out last night. Just your typical homeless people and prostitutes – hey, I can see that sort of thing back in Toronto. I wanted to see Vancouver’s fabled heroin addicts! Oh well.

So this is my last day out west and I have nothing to do. No plans whatsoever. And that suits me just fine, actually – the past week has been non-stop on the go, so I don’t mind having a chance to kick back and rest for a bit before heading home.

At the risk of becoming a broken record every time I visit a new city, I will start things off by saying, “I like Seattle”. The ferry trip in from Victoria on Tuesday was uneventful except for the realization that I’m not quite as immune to motion sickness as I’d previously thought. There were no embaressing incidents, just some queasiness over a few patches of rough sea, but a nice way to travel especially with the view of the city coming into port.

After ditching my stuff at the hostel (which I was very impressed with, overall) I went for a quick wander around the downtown. My plans to this point had consisted of “Arrive in Seattle, ditch stuff at hostel”, so I was feeling pretty aimless. I ended up spending most of the afternoon in the Pike Place Market, which was every bit as chaotic and interesting as I’d been told. Despite being a huge tourist draw, it didn’t feel overly touristy, which was nice. One thing I will say about Seattle is the free buses in downtown from 8AM to 7PM are brilliant. For a city without a rail-based mass transit system (the monorail doesn’t count), they move people around quite efficiently.

Once back at the hostel I played some softball with the other guests and just hung out for most of the evening. Later that night a few of us tried to go out for a drink but that was a little tricky as the 19-year old German guy with us didn’t have any fake ID. It took a few tries before we found a place that couldn’t make sense of his passport and just let him in. To celebrate, we got fairly hosed. They make their mixed drinks STRONG, God bless em.

Yesterday my dorm mate and I went up to the Capitol Hill district of town (the college-esque area) for some record shopping, the fruits of which you can see over in the sidebar. I was expecting some top-notch record stores in a town like Seattle and was not disappointed. The prices weren’t necessarily better than I’d pay back home, but the selection was amazing. Their used inventories were better than the new inventories at many stores I’ve been to. I had also meant to try and hunt down Sub Pop’s offices, but forgot to write down the address. After loading up on music, it was a leisurely walk back into town. I hadn’t expected Seattle to be so damned hilly – people in that town must have buttocks of steel from walking some of those inclines. I’m talking blocks at a 40-degree angle or more. Cutting through the residential neighbourhoods to get back downtown revealed some quite nice houses and apartment buildings – older-looking but quite well-preserved by the mild weather, I guess. I could see myself living there.

We then took advantage of a hostel deal and went to the Experience Music Project dealie for 1/4 of the usual admission price. We couldn’t take the monorail to the Seattle Center, however, as it had apparently caught on fire and wasn’t running. Okay. They did give us free shuttle buses though, so at least I saved a buck or two. The EMP is a pretty neat exhibition of music history and memorabilia, though smaller than I’d expected. I guess it and the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame are constantly in competition for exhibit pieces. The costumes display was neat, though it was disappointing to see the costumes from the original Batman television show up close – those things really look like ass. I also liked seeing current indie artists getting almost equal display space as the classic rockers. Oh, and I saw Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth in the songwriting exhibit, just hanging out. Yay celebrity sightings.

The EMP was pretty much my last activity in Seattle as I had a bus (not train, as I’d originally thought – I should really pay more attention) to catch that early evening. After retrieving my pack from the hostel I wandered around a bit more, took some pictures and just generally soaked up the city. As I said, I liked the place a lot. Even though it hasn’t been particularly gentrified – I don’t think anyone quite lives in the downtown proper – there was still a lot of energy and people about. I think it helps that there are residential parts of town just outside the downtown (walkable) as opposed to being way out in the suburbs. I would certainly like to go back and see some more of the city and Washington State in general. Truly some beautiful terrain out there. Oh, and they have an absolutely kick-ass radio station in town – KEXP. It’s the sort of thing that could actually persuade me to buy a radio (they had it playing in the hostel 24-7).

And that, in greatly abbreviated form, was me in Seattle. Barely there a day but I got a lot done.

Now that I’m back in Vancouver and have had a little time to cruise the internet (though I should be getting ready to head out again), I’ve found a few noteworthy pieces that I’m going to post now before I forget.

Mark Eitzel talks to Billboard about the new American Music Club record Love Songs For Patriots (yes, they changed the title again), out October 12.

The final Elliott Smith album From A Basement On The Hill will be out October 19. Details here.

Doldrum asks nine questions of Anna-Lynne Williams from Trespassers William. Anna-Lynne just sold me a copy of their debut Anchor, so she is my friend.

I think I may go to the AC Newman show on August 8 at Lee’s. I’m hearing very good things about openers Rogue Wave. Anyone wanna testify?

Major crapola that the Toronto Star Bluesfest was cancelled. Some real quality acts were booked, and while I thought they spread themselves way too thin with by having shows stretched out across more than a week, it’s a shame people couldn’t be persuaded to go.

So are we trading Vince or are we not? I certainly hope not – sure, he’s disgruntled now, but he should at least let Babcock put a new team together and play some of the season out before deciding it’s not working. And I cringe at the idea of a franchise barely a decade old bidding adieu to a fourth young franchise-quality player (I’m talking Stoudamire, Camby and McGrady). Ain’t no good times for Toronto sports fans.

I find it astonishing that during the week that I’m barely around and certainly not posting anything newsworthy, I’m getting the most hits I’ve gotten in months. Am I to take it you guys prefer it when I’m in absentia?

Very quick one from Seattle. Is there such a thing as a public internet kiosk without a fucked up keyboard? The city is nice, very warm weather – I think that’s abnormal? Hostel is really nice, played softball with some of the guests last night. I’m finally getting past the jet lag, thankfully. Sorry to be leaving tonight, but what can you do. I guess I’ll just have to come back sometime.

Okay, keyboard pissing me off. Will get into this city more when I’m back in Vancouver tonight. seeya.

So I really like Victoria. It reminds me a lot of the town I grew up in, Oakville, which is odd because I didn’t really like Oakville. Having spent another day in Victoria, I quite appreciate the laid-backness of the town, how polite everyone is and how serene it all seems. Granted, a surplus of gorgeous weather and pretty girls in skirts have influenced my overall impressions, as have the disproportionate number of good comic book stores in the city. Really, who knew. The record stores are decent enough as well. Besides rooting around in second-hand geek stores, I also went down to Beacon Hill park at the foot of the city and climbed up to the lookout point, from which I had a good view across the straits at Washington State. Craggy state, that one. Otherwise I spent a lot of the day just sitting in the sun by the harbour or on the campus by the bunnies, just reading. Vacation-like stuff.

Also went to see King Arthur this evening. While it’s not as awful as some reviews made it out to be, I do question why it was made in the first place. Were people crying out for a more historically accurate (though I use the term loosely) depiction of the Arthurian myths? Because I can’t see the point in stripping a tale so rich in story down to it’s drabbest raw essence, and then dressing it up in a cliched Hollywood style, complete with plot holes you could lead an army through. I personally would have rather seen a big-budget take on the fiction, complete with the magic, romance and intrigue. And while I will never complain about seeing Keira Knightley onscreen, casting her as love interest to Clive Owen was just gross. He looks like Nicholas Cage and is obviously old enough to be her father. Yech.

I am still trying to shake the jet lag and will probably manage to do so just in time to head back East. I would prefer to not be falling asleep at 9pm tomorrow night in Seattle, since it’s my only night there, but that’s sort of assuming that I’ll find something interesting and worth doing on a Tuesday night on my own in a city where I know no one. Should be a party.

I’m writing this post on my friend Will’s laptop at the University of Victoria. It’s true – this place is absolutely teeming with bunnies. Rabbits rabbits everywhere, it’s fantastic. They’re not tame but not really fearful either – I got a baby one to come right up to me by pretending I had something yummy in my hand. I’m big on bunnies, if you couldn’t tell.

I got into Victoria about noon Sundaym taking the ferry over from just south of Vancouver. A nice trip across the Strait of Georgia, great view of Vancouver island and the mainland, as well as some truly swank houses on some little channel islands. Once into port it was an hour and change bus ride into downtown Victoria and then another half hour to the University campus where I was meeting up with Will. Then some rabbit chasing and back into Victoria for some wandering and a whale watching trip.

Victoria is a really beautiful city – incredibly clean and immaculately kept. It’s got that big small town charm. Everything seems really new, as though it was built in the last five years or so. I’d like to see some pictures of what this town looked like 10 or 20 years ago, just to compare. I especially liked the harbour, with all the ships and sea planes and ferries coming and going.

One of the goings was our Zodiac heading out to sea to try and spot some orcas. We were quite successful out at San Juan Island, technically in US waters, when we came across a pretty large pod of killer whales heading south. There were maybe a dozen or so in total and a couple of them put on a show, breaching high into the air. I got a couple pictures that I’ll post when I get home. I think they turned out alright. Also spotted on the trip out were gulls, cormorants and harbour seals. Very neat. Being out in the Zodiac raft clipping along at 40 mph was quite a trip, it gets damn cold out on the water. This was my first time ever being out on the ocean (well, technically not the ocean but whatever) and it was a humbling experience. Not just seeing the whales, but the sheer scale of nature out there. Really amazing.

And then after marvelling at the wonder of marine life, we went and ate some for dinner. More sushi, but this time it was really fresh, like I had hoped it would be on the West Coast. I hope it doesn’t ruin me for the sushi back home…

I’ve got another day in Victoria tomorrow that I’ll probably spend wandering around downtown some more while Will is in class. I’d like to see more of Vancouver Island, but there’s not really time to get out there. It’s interesting being on an island like this – I’m very conscious of the fact that the only way on or off is through the ferry (excepting private boats or planes). I find it a little unnerving for some reason, and it makes me feel like the whole city is a sort of gated community (helped by the fact that it’s so clean and proper). I’ve just never been on an island city before, and find it fascinating. On one hand, in case of zombie attack on the mainland, you’d be safe and isolated on the island because the odds of zombie hordes figuring out how to run the ferry are pretty low. On the other hand, if the zombie outbreak were to occur ON the island, you’d be screwed since there’d be no way off. These are the things that will keep me up at night, I’m telling you.

That’s it for now. I may not check in tomorrow unless I get some more amazing insights (zombie-related or not) about Victoria. But after that, Seattle. Whoo.