August 26, 2012

  • Mountains, mountains, and more mountains!

    Woke up very early today and the first stop we made was for Merrit. Along the way I got to take in with awe once again the mountains of BC and in the far off while crossing abbotsford I saw Mount Baker waving at me through the sunny and almost cloudless sky :) . The ride was long but I managed to read a bit of a book written by the owner of Bridgewater corp. (recommended by Calvin) on the life principles, played a bit of unblock me, and watched a movie about wall street stock markets. I guess the movie definitely gave me a glimpse of how greediness can turn people to become monsters in the financial world :( .

    The second stop after Merrit was a ginseng store, where i bought some candy and souvinirs (and learned that the ginseng in Canada can also be found in Korea and is 涼性, instead of the ginseng called 人參 which is 熱性) and the
    last spike, known for the last golden nail put on the Canadian railway by the Chinese back when BC just became part of the Canadian Federation. Along with the joy of being able to immigrate to Canada, the Chinese also suffered strong racism, cruelty during railway building, and strong taxes in order to immigrate. Although I've known this part of history ever since middle school, sometimes I really do wonder how it was like to be badly mistreated by others just because you look or act different. In a place where multiculturalism has been the norm for several years, it's hard to think that it was a place where racism used to exist. I think the closest I've encountered for racism would be in Europe.

    After the spike we basically went straight for the hotel for dinner, and the place we stayed was the Prestige Hotel. I took advantage of the time after dinner and went to work out, whereafter I showered and am writing this blog now.

    Although the trip is boring in the sense that we haven't done much, but I actually dealt with th long rides better than I thought. Partially because I was entertained and occupied by things, but also because i got time to really just sit there and reflect, remember, and think. I actually thought a lot about my past in Europe and missed all my friends so much. Almost to the verge of wanting to cry.