Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Wow, it certainly has been a while since I wrote anything for the ol' blog, eh? Let me tell you what my days have been filled with the past few weeks.

Snow has fallen in Banff, and it's definitely winter here. That has brought a few changes to my routine. The biggest? I've traded by bike for hiking boots, spiffy looking North Face ones. I walk everywhere now, and even with the hiking boots I still have moments of arm-flailing terror occasionally.

The winter weather has also brought an increased dependence on hot beverages. Recently (alright, a couple hours ago) I discovered the blissful combination that is apple juice and tea. Seriously. Instead of water, boil a mixture of apple juice and water - I use an equal amount. Obviously this won't work well for every kind of tea, but I've tried it with lemon ginger, and am contemplating a chai trial next. I'll keep you posted!

The third change has been in music. I try to make a new playlist each month, and October's list was very acoustic. This is usually the case. When the weather turns cold, I'm drawn to a different sort of music than in the summer: I want jazz, acoustics, vocals. Suffice to say, I've been listening to a lot of KT Tunstall, Amy Winehouse, the Delgados, Jamie Cullum, Feist, and all the other autumn standbys. Soon I'll be breaking out the Christmas jazz, I guess.

Until next time!

Photo (cc) me

Learning to Deliver a Rock to the Button

Sorry for the relative silence again, I've been busy with life in Banff! Last night I tried curling for the first time, and it wasn't quite as difficult as I thought. Didn't have a chance to learn how to sweep, but I had a couple hours to deliver (that is, throw the rock down the ice). I've got very little accuracy at this point, but maybe I'll head back to the hacks (the block you deliver from) and work on my delivery. Who knows, maybe I'll end up joining a bonspiel (tournament) this winter! Also, I like throwing around this new lingo. Makes me sound very Canadian, eh?

For those of you who have no clue what I'm talking about, there's a video below. It was filmed right here in Banff at the old recreation centre. The town built a new one recently, and the facilities are gorgeous.

That's all I've got today, enjoy the video!

Photo by Benson Kua

Snow Days

Mother Nature has apparently decided that the West Coast hasn't had enough winter loving in the last few years. My hometown of Victoria has been hit with a considerable dump of snow apparently, as has Vancouver, and the weather conditions in Seattle, WA, have been granted an appearance on CNN.

Here in Kelowna, I'm sat at a chilly -20, though it "feels like" more when wind chill is taken into account. This might be one of the most hilarious parts of weather reports during the winter: on top they'll give the actual air temperature, and then below (usually in italics or a different colour font) will be the "feels like" temperature. Hilarious, but depressing.

All in all, though, I'm glad to be in Kelowna. Yes, it's a temperature difference of over fifty degrees from Singapore (aieah!), but people in this city know how to deal with winter. Victoria? Not so much. Cancel ALL THE THINGS.

Really, that's all I want to say. Doing that thing where I procrastinate from writing again. Heheh.

photo by me.

Music Monday: Uummannaq Song

Music Monday didn't get the jump on me this week, and in fact the most difficult part of compiling this post was figuring out which song I wanted to feature. There were a lot, trust me.

In the end, I decided to go with "Uummannaq Song" by KT Tunstall. Why? Because it's snowing again, and that makes all the difference.

The song title references the Greenlandic town of Uummannaq, and the lyrical content is much what you would expect from a song about Greenland (that's the icy one, remember. Iceland is the green one. I blame the vikings). The chorus in particular grabs me: "I could live in this town / Five cold years before I / ... / Before I head for home."

Hey! That's what I'm doing! Well, sort of. I've been living up in the Okanagan on and off since 2008, so that puts me at about four-ish years in this cold town now. And if all goes well, I'll be living here another year, bringing the count to five cold years before I head for home.

I also chose to feature this 'cause it's all around awesome. I've had a soft spot for KT Tunstall since forever, but I only just recently got my mittened hands on her 2010 album Tiger Suit. Below I've got a live video, just to prove how rad this woman is. I like the studio version a lot better, but live videos demonstrate the skill of an artist in a more pure form. That's enough out of me. Have a good week!

Music Monday: Snow in the City

Kelowna is again proving itself to be a temperamental city. Right now it could easily be one of the first days of spring, if not for the relative cold. Really, today is a warm day at five above! That wasn't the case Saturday afternoon, where the first snow of the new year started to fall. It blanketed the city in white, about two inches of the soft stuff.

Now, I know that I complain about the cold a lot. That's because I'm an Island boy: it's expected of me. But I'll be the first to admit that there's something pretty and different about the first fresh snow. I actually don't mind it or the cold for that first day or so. After that, I'm like the rest of the populace and will be overjoyed when it melts.

Which it did, the next day.

So to celebrate the first snowfall of the year (and the mercifully short visit it made) here's a track by Snow Patrol. They're the Glasgow-based band of "Chasing Cars" fame, I've sure you've heard of them if you ever listened to the radio between 2006 and 2007. If not, then here's your introduction!

I've chosen the first single from their 2009 release A Hundred Million Suns, "Take Back the City." Why? First off, I like it. And that's a perfectly valid reason. Second, I spent the weekend finally getting back into the swing of living in Kelowna. Went to a cowboy/country bar (against my will, I must add), ate waffles at the Jammery, finally realized how terrible Rose's really is, and was reminded how much I love O'Flannigans. Oh, and I crashed on a few couches, 'cause why not?

Anyway, enough about me. Here's Snow Patrol, as promised.

Music Monday: Back to the Cold

Monday has caught me off-guard, it was completely unexpected. As was last Monday (hence the lack of MM post), likely because of the whole holiday-on-a-Sunday thing. That, and I moved for the second time in as many weeks.

This time I went from Victoria to Kelowna, which, despite the significantly shorter distance and travel time, was much harder than Singapore to Victoria. I was only five months in Singapore, and the overseas travel really limited what I could take. No such luck with Kelowna, I'm not even sure when I'm moving back to Victoria. So a lot of stuff had to make the move.

As such, I'm pretty much choosing a song at random to feature today. Well, not completely at random, there was some method to its choosing. It's a track by the Delgados, a now defunct Scottish band that was one of my faves back in high school. I still like them now, but I don't listen to their music often. The song? "Coming in From the Cold," which I'll be doing a lot of now that I'm in the Okanagan. As usual, there's a video below. Enjoy, and happy New Year! Oh, and P.S., the album the song is off of is called Hate, I'm not angsty, hah.

Merry Christmas, etc