Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 487: Vancouver, BC – Coast Guard Santa

We woke up around 11:00 today, had some cinnamon buns for breakfast and then, once we were ready, we went out for a walk.

The weather was much better today, and actually quite pleasant, so we had a nice long walk.

We walked to Stanley Park again, coffee in hand, and just had a nice long walk and chat.

Whilst we were walking back towards home, we heard loud Christmas music, as well as some loud engine sounds. We were confused, but then out at sea we saw a coast guard boat/hovercraft with someone dressed as Santa on top.

Very random, but fun!

We walked back home and relaxed, then Kim made African-Style stew which was similar to the previous one she made and it was delicious!

We watched some TV, relaxed and headed to bed at a decent time.

Kim has just a dayabd a half of work this week, and Curtis has 4 days.


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

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Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 143: Vancouver, BC – Helping Strangers

Curtis’ Day

Curtis got to work and there were a lot of new tickets, so he went through those and started fixing stuff!

He did that for a while and then looked into purchasing laptop for someone, which took way longer then expected.

After lunch, Curtis spent all afternoon seeing how his project would work on a mac as he forgot to do that!

Once he figure it out, he took some screenshots and put them into the guide.

On the way to meet Kim wwhilst walking home, Curtis was stopped by two girls who said they had a school project and wanted him to help them.

They played him some music and asked him what language he thought it was (it was Persian) and what he thought of the song. Random but something interesting!

Once Curtis finished that, Kim showed up and we walked home.

Kim’s Day

This morning Kim had the socil team meeting, so she spent a bot of time preparing for that by organising the minutes from the last meeting and arranging the talking points for today’s. Other than that Kim took calls and ad hoc tasks for some of the morning.
The meeting went really well, Kim divided up a few of the action points rather than trying to take them all on herself. Mainly because she isnt around for Halloween and thats where a fair amount of the focus went. They set up some good ideas for further into the future too!
When Kim got back to her desk she made a few amendments to the quiz she has made for the other office. This will reduce the amount of potential cheating and gives us the opportunity to do the whole quiz again in a few months if there is a want!
Kim then sat down for a quick lunch. When she got back to her desk Kim made a good start on the holiday party invites. She made a base template and had a section that is customisable per city location.
Kim then had a little impromptu catch up with her manager for about 30 minutes which was nice.

After this Kim looked at some options for the holiday party for the UK office and then caught up on emails before heading home.

Evening

We got back home and Curtis made his dinner, which was the same as yesterday.

We watched a 45 minute YouTube video and then Kim got ready to head out to exercise.

Kim’s class was fun. Its was the class closes off the month where she put all the moves she learnt into nice little combos!

Once Kim got home, she showered and we watched the next Great British Bake Off episode.


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 104: Vancouver, BC – Dean Lewis!

Curtis’ Day

Curtis had plans for the morning but he had to do some tickets and some admin and before he knew it, 1.5 hours had passed!Eventually, Curtis got onto setting up a new user, their laptop and their desk. Then, it was lunch time!

After lunch, Curtis spent the whole afternoon trying to get the virtual machine to work. He concluded that it will not work, so back to square one it is.He walked up to Kim’s work to meet her there after work.

Kim’s Day

Today Kim left dor work 2 hours early as a film crew had to set up for an interview for an employee Kim works with. On the way to worm she saw a seal, so getting up so early didn’t seem too bad!
When Kim got to work she found out that the crew would he about half an hour late so she ran to McDonald’s to grab some breakfast!
When she got back she then set up an urn of coffee and a plate of biscuits and ran it up for the 25th floor and they still weren’t there. So Kim went back down and began to tackle the mess of food and drinks leftover from the day before. She started with the drinks and was able to put some in the free drinks fridge and rearrange some of the other storage to make room for the rest.
Kim then went to the roof again to see if the crew had arrived and they had, and were setting up! Which was great news. When she got back to her desk Kim went through and saved the last 3 or 4 days worth of invoices that she neglected to do and chase for a couple from yesterday.
She then spent some more time organising the food and other picnic stuff from the day before, making sure everything was boxed up and tidied away.
Kim.
Kim and her colleague set up some time to go over the summer party and how well it went. Both of them had recieved great feedback, but came up with ways to make it go easier for us for the next time. This meeting was interrupted a little with the arrival of pizza for someone elses meeting.
Once the pizza was out in the kitchen for a free-for-all Kim was sure to grab herself and her colleague some slices before the masses arrive, we refer to it as the pizza tax! Kim the spent a few minutes on the roof before getting too hot and heading back to the comfort of aircon!
After lunch Kim finally convinced herself to finish the last bit of organising and tidying up. Then she went over to FedEx to send something that had been set up the day before. It turns out that they couldn’t deliver it as it is a PO box so Kim just had a nice long walk outside instead!

When she got back Kim spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on emails.

Pasta

We went to a nice Italian place that Kim had been to before.We both got a wine and a half portion of pasta as neither of us were that hungry and their portions are huge!

Kim got the same as she had before which is pasta with a creamy sauce, mushrooms, chicken and peas. Curtis got a simple tomato pasta and they were both great!

Dean Lewis

We got to the venue that Dean Lewis was playing at and there was a huge queue all the way around the block!We queued for around 30 minutes and then in we went.

We opted for seats rather than standing and it was a pretty good call as it was a 30 minute wait before any music!

We had a supporting act first and he was actually terrific. His name is Scott Helman and he is from Toronto.

After Scott, there was a 30 minute break and then Dean Lewis appeared! It was a great set, great lightong and he sounded excellent.

There are videos on our Instagram pages!

The theatre was sold out, around 1300 people! After the few hours we were there, we left at around 22:00 and walked back home.We got some admin done and then unwound by watching a video or two on YouTube and then went to bed.


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

Vancouver, BC

Place 72 – Day 59: Vancouver, BC – Canada🇨🇦 Day Festivities!

Music, Lemonade & Japanese Curry

We knew that there were festivities in the city today, so we walked down there, after Curtis had a morning nose bleed and then breakfast!

We got down to Granville Island which had some sort of party happening but it was rather busy and there wasn’t much going on, so we walked to the city instead. There was a giant flag, though!

The first stop was at Starbucks for a coffee and then we walked on to the Vancouver Conference Centre.

We got into the area where some things were happening and looked at the food trucks. There wasn’t much else going on in this area really, other than a couple of music stages and for some reason, the North American Irish Dancing Championships.

We walked out of here and into Canada Place, which had some more activities happening. There was a kids section with a few games and also an Armed Forces section.

We moved on from Canada Place and came across a lemonade stand, so we had to get one! It was just OK.

We walked around some more and then got hungry and fed up of the large crowds, so we walked towards our home and found an Asian supermarket which had a Japanese Curry place inside it!

Curtis got a ‘deluxe curry’ which was chicken katsu, katsu potato & shrimp katsu with rice and curry!

Kim got a chicken katsu curry.

The food was pretty great! We were going to stay in the city for another 6 hours, but we were very tired and there wasn’t much else to do, so we went home.

Firework Hunting

We sat and watched some TV until 22:20 when the fireworks were due to start and then we went outside to see if we could see them.

Unfortunately, they were just a little too far away, but we did some some fireworks in the end. And we did get a great photo or two of the city!


This Time Last Year!


Mr & Mrs Hale

Auckland

Place 49 – Day 337: Auckland – Friday Jams Live!

We didn’t do all too much until this afternoon. We had a simple breakfast, did some laundry and then go ready for the day.

At 14:00, we left the house to go to Western Springs Stadium!

We drove to Curtis’ work, parked there and then walked 30-40 minutes to the stadium as there was no nearby parking.

We got to the stadium and got right into the cue! We had premium seats (the 2nd best!) So our cue wasn’t very long.

We milled around for a while in the park before the stadium opened (later than planned!).

We were then into Friday Jams Live! This is a mini festival (6 hours) of throwback R&B music from;

  • Kings
  • Che-Fu
  • Ginuwine
  • Estelle
  • Next
  • Taio Cruz
  • Eve
  • Naughty By Nature
  • Fatman Scoop
  • Salt n’ Pepa

And finally, Usher & Lil Jon!

What an awesome time we had! This was 6 hours without a break from music and when there wasn’t an artist on stage, there was a DJ keeping up the awesome music!


Kings


Che-Fu

Ginuwine

NEXT

Eve

Salt n’ Pepa

Usher and Lil Jon at the end were fantastic and kept it going for a while, too, with a big mix of songs.

We left very happy and quite hungry! We walked back to the car and drove back home, making a stop at McDonald’s on the way.

We had a really great time, though our legs, feet and backs hurt after standing in one spot for so long…luckily we had an amazing spot to watch from. We’re very tired and confused why it was on a Sunday night, but it was still awesome!

This time last year!

Poroporoaki!

– Mr & Mrs Hale