The Amazing Delivery Scooter

 

Day 103 - Nasir is a friend of Jay's sister and he provides all sorts of help around here.  It's nice knowing that he's here to help out in all sorts of roles.  He owns a phone shop right in the center of Minuwangoda.  

Usually, when he arrives, there's something or other under his seat, in a bag between his feet, or hanging off his scooter.  In fact, just two days ago, he brought an entire meal that his sisters cooked for us.  The platter of colourful rice was a half meter around.  He had a relative on the back but I really don't know how it all got here!  

Today, I had a small package as well.  He's the local version of the Wells Fargo Wagon.  My Miband 6 had a broken strap.  I should've known to bring an extra as they generally only last around six months.  I didn't pay attention to all of today's other deliveries because, well, life is all about me.

Kopiwatte (Coffee Garden) Road Walk

Day 36 - Our steps on my Mi Band activity tracker have plummeted since getting to Sri Lanka. We were walking a lot in Dubai but we've been hanging around the house since we got here. 

Today, in order to push up the stats, we walked up the road to rice paddy fields less than 2 KM away.  We brought along my drone but it was midday and the heat was a little oppressive.  We decided we'd walk back some evening and show some of the growing rice from the air.

I had to take a shower and wash my shirt after getting back to the house.   

June in New Westminster

 

Yesterday's weather played a triumphant encore for us.  The temperatures again reached 28°C with brilliant sunshine and copious blue sky.   We ❤︎ Queen's Park in our city of New Westminster, BC.  Having such a large chuck of public land in such a tiny city is a true blessing.  

    

We find the park is only a tiny diversion when driving uptown. We measure our steps with my activity tracker. So, although we only made a short 1.5 kilometer loop through part of the park, it made for a very rewarding use of our time.  It was a nice thing to do before stopping for groceries at the mall.

 

Lastly, despite the warning, we were not nervous about running into any of the park's other visitors this morning.

Yay. The Weather's Better

In case I ever ask, remind me that nice weather begins in BC about mid-May. Today was the day the heavy comforter came off the bed, so it's finally 'unofficially spring' for us.   The bushes in the back of our apartment buildings prove so.

We had felt a little cooped up lately, so as soon as we saw sunshine, we had to get outside for a bit of a walk. We decided to walk to the other end of downtown New West. We went down Fourth, and walked through Pier Park, well, what is remaining of it. Last summer, a fire under the old wharf section destroyed a good portion of the most western portion. The newer part is still fine and such a nice part of this little city.

 

On Thursdays, a shop in the New West SkyTrain station sells good-quality, discounted bread. We walked back up Carnarvon and surprisingly, my Mi Band reported we'd travelled nearly 4K.

A Low-Key, Rather-Grey Day

Jay decided we should go pick up vegetables today. For us, that means a trip to the Langley Farm Market on Kingsway. 

I didn't do a whole lot today otherwise. I did spend a great deal of the afternoon researching smartwatches. I have come to rely on my Mi Bands as I've been wearing them for years. I was ready to move to something a bit more expensive with a larger feature set. Unfortunately, I found the smartwatch ecosystems, other than Apple Inc, are in complete disarray. Google bought Fitbit in January of this year and that may end up orphaning Wear OS.  Samsung, Fossil, and a few others were on sale but I wondered if this is because newer models would soon appear. 

In the end, I learned that the Mi Band 6 has come out although not available here yet. I guess I'll wait a bit and continue my romance with the same company. I have enjoyed wearing every model.  I will be skipping #5, I guess.  With each iteration, Xiaomi adds enough improvements to make the new generation a worthwhile upgrade. More importantly, I will have spent less in total than if I'd bought a couple of Fitbits or a single smartwatch.

This is Walking Weather!

 

We do tend to do much more walking during our winters.  Today, was fairly typical as we walked to do some grocery shopping in the morning.  We also took an evening stroll to the beach along Fifth Ave at dusk.  We have been walking anywhere between 4 and 8 kilometers per day lately.

 

The Last Friday of August

The current run of weather seems perfect. 

We only went uptown to pick up a few things. Oh, and on the way there, we drove through the Victoria Hill development. It is a nice neighbourhood with pedestrian-bridge access to Queen's Park. It is only served by one community bus, so although lushly landscaped, it'd be hard to live there without personal transportation. 

I couldn't find any double-sided, safety razor blades at Walmart. This means I'll probably look around on Amazon and buy a hundred count. Wow, imagine having enough in the cupboard to last the whole year! 

After coming back, before lunch, we walked down Sixth Street.  We continued over the rail tracks on the new walking bridge, along Westminster Pier Park, and finally back to the apartment by taking the elevators. I wanted to see the distance of that little loop and my Mi Band reported it as a mere 1.1 kilometers. That's not much; however, if my daily total distance on any particular day comes up lacking, I now know I can kick it up by that distance in a flash. 

Lots of road work is taking place on 4th Street. In fact, by the time it is done there will no longer be any of the original street bricks remaining. That's a shame.  As well, it is going to be as smooth as a race track which may entice drivers to speed through the neighbourhood which is potentially a bigger shame.  I took this photo today from the balcony. Notice the clear, blue sky that just doesn't seem as though it's going to quit anytime soon.

 

Burnaby's Deer Lake Park

It was a sunny Friday and we asked ourselves where we'd like to go for a morning walk.  Jay suggested Deer Lake because it is less than 7 kilometers from here.  It felt like a familiar road because I used to travel Canada Way to get to the BCIT Burnaby campus for many years.  However, we seldom need to go that route nowadays.

We'd walked at the park many times, but had never made the complete loop around the lake.  The far end of what used to be part of the lake is now marshland.  We didn't walk all the way to Willingdon, but just crossed around the end of the lake proper.

 

It was pleasant weather as the breeze was still cool in the wooded areas.  Some folks, but definitely not hordes, were out on the trails.  Now that we're retired we prefer discovering the great outdoors on weekdays as there are far fewer crowds.

Burnaby Lake is peaceful and seems, at times, miles away.  However, the continued construction around Metrotown is merely a hop/skip as witnessed by the looming residential towers in the background of some photos.

 

  

Once we saw a coyote when walking at the lake.  Today, however, we saw mainly birds.   Our loop was only around four kilometers according to my Mi Band.  So on the way home, we topped up our EV's battery to 80% at Queen's Park in our own city.  We were plugged in only 16 minutes.

I am glad we walked where we did.

 

Hanging Around the Maytower

Day 109 - We didn't venture far from our apartment today. In the morning, we did do a little shopping to prepare for next week in Dhaka. We bought a few travel-sized toiletries and some munchies for the flights.

It seems as though Malindo Air has already made some changes to our itineraries. Rather than flying back to KUL at around noon, we'll be departing from Bangladesh at midnight. I hate short-haul night flights! This was not really a welcome change, but hey ... our schedules are pretty open ... for the rest of our lives! No need to sweat the small details.

We went out for a walk in the evening just for a little exercise. There are several new buildings coming up in the area around the Capsquare / Jakel Mall. I wonder how much they'll go for?

It was hot and muggy today, but still a lot easier to get out and about than in a wintery location. That being said, this evening, I can see we are well below our usual number of daily steps on my MiBand. We didn't hit our absolute minimum of five kilometers.

One, Two, Three and Soon Four.

I have had three iterations and just ordered the newest one on Amazon. Even if one totals them all up, the cost is still less than a single smartwatch or brandname activity-tracker.

Released during the summer of 2014, the original Xiaomi Mi Band simply had few LEDs. It was a workhorse that'd go for a month without a charge. Several years later, the second version had a fully-functional screen but not such a secure band. This model had heart-rate monitoring and sleep stats. I liked it a lot. Last winter, we came back to our place in Malaysia and my band had an empty hole. The device had come unseated while we were riding the bus. I immediately replaced it with the third model as I'd become addicted to seeing my daily statistics. I was using it the day after I'd lost the older band. This third model had a larger screen and was better fitted to its band. I just gave it to Jay to wear around to check on steps and heart rates even though he won't' be using the phone app. Jay refuses to bother with a smartphone!

I saw that the price is nearly the same for the Mi Band 4 which came out this summer. Its screen has grown a bit and had gotten a bit colourful. Supposedly, it still goes two or three weeks without needing to be recharged.

A Slow Sunday

In my continuing effort to document life, I put something daily into this space. Even when nothing extraordinary happens, something lands here. At least, even from the very onset, my eJournal and images has used pictures.



This picture was taken just inside the entrance of the Royal City Centre. It was a dark and cool day, so we didn't venture much further than uptown. At the mall, we always park on the roof, come down the elevator, and walk through Walmart. We went out to the front just to add a few extra digits to our daily step-count on my Mi Band.

Taking 'Kimchi' for a Spin

The weather at this time of year in British Columbia is the definition of fickle. The last few days have been superb but today was another story altogether! It is cold, grey, and has not stopped raining until now.

It seemed the only way we'd get our Mi band 'steps' up to the daily minimum would be to do some indoor walking. We combined that chore with a short trip in our new EV, lovingly referred to as Kimchi, and a trip to pick up some Asian groceries.

In particular, Jay wanted to buy a slab of diced, frozen lemongrass. The T&T chain is the best bet for what we needed. There's a large one in the mall in Central Surrey. While in the fresh vegetable section, we spotted fruit familiar because of our winter in SE Asia, namely: jackfruit, durian, and rambutan. We couldn't afford the Canadian prices on those items today!


This section of the T&T changed from cafeteria style to self-serve.
We put on a few extra steps by walking around the mall and through the Walmart Supercenter. We rediscovered how much larger that store is than the one uptown in New Westminster. We crossed back over the Fraser River on the Pattullo. Driving the Hyundai KONA would best be described as a blast. I think I will eventually press the button to switch from Normal to Sport mode to really feel the ultimate torque of its 100% electric drivetrain.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe

to go back into the ... supermarket!



(If the theme from the movie, Jaws, the 'DAH-dah, DAH-dah, DAH-dah' just went through your head, then you're probably quite old!)

Day 149 - It didn't feel like a Tuesday today. I don't know what it felt like, actually. We haven't done a whole lot. The supermarket is just across the street, so that is not really an outing. We will undoubtedly venture out a bit later as long as a huge, tropical thunderstorm doesn't suddenly crop up. We do try to get in our daily number of steps as counted by my Mi band. At the moment the number sits at just 2566!

I spent a bit of the afternoon writing an obituary for my dad. That is a much harder task than I thought. There are just a few rules but the writing should capture something about the person rather than being a glorified resume with a few dates. Everyone should practice writing their own and keeping a copy to share with loved ones.

Oh my, I say that yet Jay and I do not even legal wills yet! Why is it so easy to put off these things?

Persistent Jay and the AirAsia Rebate

Day 106 - We didn't go far today, as my shiny, new Mi Band 3 can attest. Today's scant 4.26 kilometers came from short walks to the markets in our neighbourhood. I do feel that our choice of the Maytower building was good. We're strategically located near the heart of Kuala Lumpur.





One interesting bit of online planning occurred today. Jay checked his AirAsia account and discovered, after more than two years, he got a bit of credit for cancelled flights.

The year he had heart surgery, we'd already planned and purchased flights for a bit of SE Asia travel. We had to cancel. We once got a bit of money as a rebate. However, it took notes from doctors, official documents, and a whole lot of online cajoling to get that bit. When they awarded the rebate, AirAisa gave credit for only the first flight on our itineraries. I think that was from Penang to Langkawi, so it was credit for possibly the cheapest sector.

Every time, Jay prompted the company, a brief flurry of activity would commence but nothing would come of it. I'd written off receiving any more. However, Jay is anything if dogged. He was writing on Facebook pages and messaging live chats via their website and it paid off. Suddenly, and without an email, AirAsia provided the equivalent of $200 dollars worth of credit on his account last Thursday. Finally getting this felt like finding a bit of cash in the pocket of something hanging in the closet!

We were sure to spend it immediately to avoid losing the refund. We booked after seeing where it'd take us and where we wanted to go. We'll take a four-night trip to Phuket, Thailand at the end of next month.


We have flown AirAsia a lot. This flight was in December 2017.

Bukit Bintang and My Missing Miband

Day 104 - This morning Jay suggested we hop on the free, blue line bus which stops out front. We rode the route to the Pinnacle and got off. This is in the Bukit Bintang part of Kuala Lumpur. There is a lot of shopping, but that seems true for most of this city.

Near the area is Arab Street where we found many Arabic restaurants. It seems a busy place for cheap hostels and hotels too. Of course, the weather was around 33°C. I say 'of course' because it is always around that temperature. Always. And of course, good weather makes getting exercise possible. Not having to don a jacket, hat, and gloves when going for a walk makes it easy too.







We made a large loop and walked back to the Pinnacle. We continued on the free bus back to our doorstep. The second part of the journey is quick and probably takes less than 15 minutes. The area where we walked is the direct view from our balcony right behind the green of Pineapple Hill (Bukit Ananas). I showed a photo in Thursday's blog post.

Just as we were coming back into our apartment, I noticed my MiBand was missing! It must have popped out on the bus or somewhere along our walk! I'd come to rely on its information about how far we walk and for how well I sleep. I used it as a watch too as I still find it too tricky to remove my phone from my pocket just to check the time. I had an original Miband, the type without a heart-rate monitor or display when they first came out in 2015. Then two years ago, I bought the Miband 2 model. It has worked flawlessly though I've been through a number of the braclet straps. I can't imagine existing without one.

So, I required a replacement and now a third model is out. I find many advantages to being in a city. One is shopping. I was able to find a Xaomi sales location right in our neighbhourhood, at the Pertama Complex. I had to pay the Malaysian list price but that worked out to be a few bucks cheaper than replacing by Amazon at home.

As it was evening, we walked home through the local night market. Hundreds of stalls sell food as well as clothes and other merchandise. We got some dinner items like roti and Indian snacks to have with dinner at home. Another day is done.

The New Westminster Quay

Walking to the quay never seems to get old.

The Fraser River is high due to the rapid snowpack melt up north. Lately, we have seen fewer trees and debris floating down towards the ocean.

I walked inside through Donald's Market, really just wanting to add extra steps to my Mi band. My 'hoofing-it' distances haven't been very consistent this month. Some days, I walk a lot but little on others.

For instance, so far today, I've only completed 4903 steps. That equals a measily 3.3 kilometers. That's not enough, but at least I didn't sit around all day. I'm glad I didn't or I wouldn't have had the chance to take the following images with my OnePlus 6 phone: