May, 2005
Month three
For the Love of a
Lamp...
One of my favorite local
stores
is
Murata
- a Japanese tableware and gift store a few blocks from my house.
They
basically sell everything worth buying from Japan (that isn't Manga or
electronic) - it isn't cheap, but it is high quality. The owner -
who
doesn't speak much English - recently made a lamp out of washi
(Japanese paper, generally made in the Philippines) and Bamboo.
In
perhaps the ultimate slight to a yupi, she wouldn't sell it - wouldn't
even give a price. She made the lamp for the store. She
would let me
take pictures. I purchased two roles of washi in a light pink
(cherry blossom pink if you want to be goofy) and went off in search of
the electronics and bamboo.
Fast forward to China
town. Bamboo in hand
(Eric's hand in this case), we did a little bit of extra
shopping. I finally found my short rolling pin as well as some
cheap cake decorating bits. Did I mention it was Jer's birthday
last week? A bunch of us went to the fish house in Stanley park
for afternoon tea to celebrate.
And then I spent the spare time in the next week
building a lantern.
The lamp took 30 sticks of bamboo (which I wish I knew when I bought 24
sticks in China town) and only took one piece of washi, not
both. I used a really liquid glue (watered down PVA) and I
think that was a mistake - the paper wicked it up and when the glue
dried it discolored (like a water stain) the paper. I think next
time I might use a thick paste instead. It was fun!
BC STV Rally
British Columbia's next election is coming up soon (like a week) and
this time we have a referendum on changing our election system to a
proportional vote system called BC STV. David is quite involved
in the fair vote community and encouraged us to come to rally at the
Library.
This was my first political rally so I didn't really
have clear expectations. It was a smaller crowd than I expected
(perhaps 200) but it was raining on Mothers day. The talks were
brief and generally well done. It's the first time I've
seen David Suzuki speak and it certainly does contrast with what I
remember of his broadcast personality. Rafe Mair was also
interesting to watch - he really is passionate and knows how to
speak. I like to see people with wisdom.
A Walk around the Sea Wall
Janey enjoys a
daily walk and sometimes (when I'm not
too lazy), I join here. If you see something often it's easy to
ignore it. I had a camera with me so I took some snaps.
A Day out to Manning Park
The weatherman said today was supposed to be rainy. I would have
liked to have gone on a hike but given a rainy day, perhaps a dive
makes more sense. Eric and Gabi had some time so we drove out to
Hope and Manning park. Out first stop (after picking up a picnic
lunch in Hope) was the Othello Tunnels.
Turns out they are
closed! There is a sever rock
fall hazard and they have erected a large gate to prevent you from
getting in. We poked around at the local wildlife (this
toad lived in a hole drilled for blasting the rock face) and headed to
our next destination.
Our next stop was the village in Manning Park. We all needed a
break and Eric implied there may be very good cinnamon buns
inside. We didn't really make it inside - there was so much
happening outside. First was the ground squirrels.
Second was the cowbirds. The Squirrels seem to attract the
tourists with their squeaks and the birds (which are also quite tame)
mop up what the Squirls don't eat. The restaurant had three
bird feeders and half a dozen hummingbirds using them. It was fun
to take photos.
(I've seen lots of
squirrels up here too, but there were
none out today)
We continued up the mountain only to find
the gate was
closed! We really weren't having much luck today. Very
well, we turned around and tried the lightning lakes day area.
We broke out the cinnamon buns
and very quickly
attracted some attention (including a warning from the Parks operator
for not buying a parking ticket).
Having
spent most of the day in the car, we welcomed
the hike. We walked around the lake as the sun set behind the
mountains.
Tags: flower(7), bird(5), BC fauna(3), crowd(2), marina(2), Vancouver(1)
People: Eric(4), Gabi(3), David(2), Andrea(1), Jeremy(1), Karen(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2024 to 2005 > May, 2005
Last Modified Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 at 01:02:07 Edit
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