The First Saturday in July

When there are no time clocks left to dictate our existence, a Saturday morning bleeds into the rest of the week with comfortable predictability. The weekend ceases to be an escape from work and simply becomes another day to manage the household. Naturally, this meant a requisite morning trip to the Superstore to secure our groceries.

The mundane routine quickly gave way to international sports drama. We did not actually watch the FIFA match, but we kept checking the updates as Canada lost to Morocco down in Houston. There is a specific, ironic interest in seeing our home country eliminated from the tournament by the very nation we just spent the entirety of June exploring. My souvenir bucket hat has officially transitioned from a fond travel memento into a slightly conflicted piece of apparel.

Fortunately, the evening was thoroughly salvaged in the kitchen. Jay took a rather basic flatbread acquired on our morning grocery run and elevated it entirely. He augmented it with his own ingredients to transform a simple carb into a pizza-like triumph. The apartment still smells absolutely incredible.

In the end, a Saturday that started with a routine grocery run evolved into a day of theoretical sports grief and very real culinary success. Granted, calling it "grief" is a stretch; we had zero financial stake in the outcome, our patriotism is not tethered to a scoreboard, and our overall interest in soccer peaked at around the moment of the hat's purchase ten days ago.

Bet You Didn't Eat Horse Gram Today

We did.

One of the undeniable perks of living in the Vancouver Lower Mainland is the sheer diversity of our neighborhoods. Thanks to a large and vibrant immigrant population, we aren't forced to settle for the watered-down "international" aisle at the local supermarket. We have direct access to authentic ingredients from practically every corner of the globe.

Case in point: we recently swung by the Colombo Store out in Surrey to restock the pantry. It is an absolute goldmine for proper Sri Lankan staples.

For lunch today, Jay put some of that haul to good use and served up a dish featuring horse gram. If you're unfamiliar with it, don't let the slightly equine name put you off,  While it was historically used as high-energy feed for racehorses, it is a staple legume in South Asia. It’s also an incredibly smart addition to our diet, acting as an absolute powerhouse of protein, iron, and fiber.

Here’s a shot of today’s lunch put together by Jay:

LFM

Doing errands is hardly seldom a chore for us. However, when the weather is so pleasant, it was almost a treat today.  On Thursdays, we generally visit this market on Kingsway just across the border of our city in Burnaby.  They have a great selection of fruit and vegetables year-round.  When the local produce is available, it's always fresh and cheaper than supermarkets.

 

We've been going to this shop for years.  The first reference I could find in this eJournal was in 2010.  It is on a major street and gets a lot of business.  In fact, the only thing that I don't like about shopping there is the limited parking with tiny spaces.  I'm afraid others are going to thrown open their door and dent my car.

Buying, Cooking, and Eating

It felt comfortable slipping back into a dull routine.  This is how many people live, I must remember. Jay and I have only been home for sixteen days after our winter away. This morning, even though this is a long weekend, was earmarked for grocery shopping.  Our trip to the Superstore was unremarkable, yet, it was, nevertheless, dare I say, enjoyable?  

The temperature was a bit warmer than it's been.  It is convenient for us to return from winters in mid-March as we have certain obligations such as filing taxes.  However, if we were to choose a time based purely on weather alone, April would be a more suitable time to return to this part of British Columbia.

The only other photo that I snapped today was lunch. Jay has stocked the refrigerator and returned to his standard variety of cooked foods to microwave for lunch.  He keeps containers in the fridge and uses and replaces items as we finish each container of food.  Today's lunch included: salmon, a chicken drumstick, red & black rice, potato, banana squash, half a boiled egg, a bit of red onion salad, taro root, gai-lan, and eggplant. 

Lunches later in the week will be the same, but different!

Preparing for Winter

The weather today was typical for October. It was 8°C when we got up. I could feel the cold tiles of the balcony right through my slippers when I snapped the photo.  It sort of set the stage for preparation of our winter departure.  We don't fly until Thursday.

We've not started packing yet but we've finished purchasing things that'll go into the bags.  On Turkish Air, we each get two, full-sized, checked bags for free.  When going back to Sri Lanka, we buy a whole lot of things that might be hard to find or more expensive there.  This contrasts day-to-day items like groceries which are much cheaper on the tropical island when compared to Canada.

Jay always manages to finish up the produce and food because we turn off all the apartment's power at the panel.  There's no need to keep an empty refrigerator running for four and a half months.  So, Jay's become a pro at provisioning so that the food has run out by the time we leave for a winter.

Leaving for the winter involves a lot of last-minute actions.  For example, I arranged to turn off our Internet the other week, but today, I downgraded the Netflix subscription.  I wrote the 'leaving letter' that we always leave in the apartment complex office.  

I even descaled, Kevin.  He's the coffee maker and that is his name on our home network.  Kevin would complain if he needed descaling but the water here is very very soft.  I just like having the coffee maker ready to go the morning following our return in March.  I gave Kevin a new charcoal water filter too.

My journal allows me to keep track of the little things of life.  After all, they are what make up the majority of life.  It's interesting to look back on the commonplace things when life has moved on.

A Trial Before the Main Event

It's a long weekend in Canada! 

Canadian Thanksgiving always falls on the second Monday in October. It is a truer date to celebrate the end of the harvest season. Although it looks a lot like the US one, theirs is more of a run-up to the holiday season.

We, personally, have a wonderful tradition of having a large Turkey dinner with friends. It's been going for decades, at this point.  We drive to Richmond and enjoy the special occasion and the company.  A change is that we're doing it on the actual day this year. We're mostly retired so there's no reason for be up early on Tuesday.  In the past we often observed on the Saturday or Sunday.

Today, though, Jay gave us the chance for some mini-thanks.  We celebrated in the apartment with chicken, but it had some semblance of being out of the ordinary.  It was prep for the vast quantity of food and drink we'll be offered tomorrow. 

A Relaxing Thursday

 

The weather was pleasant. Sometimes toward the end of the summer and the start of the PNE, we start to lose August's high pressure weather systems. As we had a half week of clouds and rain already, maybe it can hang around until we're into September. 

Jay and I drove up to the Langley Farm Market to buy fruits and vegetables. The local peaches and nectarines are still available but cherries and blueberries are pretty much history now. 

We didn't do a lot this afternoon. Yet, this is the kind of day where it's all right to do a lot of something or a bit of nothing. We sort of defaulted toward the latter.

 

A Flat Bottom

My doctor's office called and cancelled my 12:20 pm appointment today. They said he was sick. Now, who wants to hear that about their doctor? They could've simply said he was unable to see me because of an emergency. 

Anyway, when uptown picking up a few things, Jay wanted to go upstairs in the Walmart to check what they had for small frying pans. His sister in Sri Lanka is looking for a smallish one. The market there doesn't have very good quality pans at reasonable prices. We're heading to the island nation at the start of the upcoming winter, and it's never too soon to start collecting gift items to bring along with us.

   

Jay actually decided to pick up a 12" one to use here. It was something like 30% percent off and less than CA$ 20. He had recently noticed that the ceramic surface on his most regularly used frying pan was wearing down a little. I looked in this journal to see if I mentioned when we bought the old one. Sure enough, it was purchased back in 2016. We had no idea it was already nine years old!  Seemed like we recently got it.

We have one of the ROCK coated skillets and have found the surface to be very good.

   

 The new pan has already been broken in.

I Can Have My Cake and Eat It Too

The apartment smells great because Jay made a vanilla, butter cake earlier this afternoon.

   

This one is for the traditional celebration of New Years in Sri Lanka. The actual date falls on Monday this year.  Many Asian cultures marked spring as the beginning of the year. The Sinhalese New Year has a lot of traditions and, of course, food is one of them. His Canadian version is scaled back but I still get some special foods.

I look forward to eating them. On a related note, I'll copy some data from yesterday's blood test work.  Patients can review all test results by logging onto a special web portal.  This allows patients to discuss the results with their family doctors. I was most interested in my A1c results.  During the last five years my blood sugar was sitting in a pre-diabetic range.  However, thankfully, my weekly Ozempic injections have pushed me back towards normal.

A Relaxing Dinner Out

Day 105:  We don't generally dine out because Jay is an excellent cook.  However, we thought we'd try the Sofra Istanbul Restaurant that is nearly across the street from our Airbnb apartment building.  

We ordered and they provided free tea while we waited.  I asked for a chicken shish and Jay ordered a doner burger.  We liked the food and were convinced by the waitress to share a piece of St. Sebastian cheesecake for desert.

The bill came to about CA$ 25 or less than US$ 18.  It costs more to eat out at home for sure.  In fact, just about every place we spend winters is, at least, this much cheaper than in Canada.  Some places are considerably less.  We definitely live better on less money when exploring the world.

By the time we finished it'd gotten dark.  It's summer here so that doesn't happen until after 7:00 pm.  We are in an apartment at 626 Florida Road in Durban.  There are a lot of restaurants nearby.

Take-Away Biryani / Getting the Edges Chopped

 

Day 082:  Jay and I found a nice, busy restaurant where we can buy take-away food.  We wanted to pick up a single serving of biryani rice.  We bought some once last week and found the amount was sufficient to serve both of us for three meals!  The walk-through business space is called the Eastern Food Bazaar.  It has Indian food from different sections of that continent and also food labeled as Turkish, which I think really means Mediterranean here. Some dishes are Chinese as well.  It is in the set of buildings that look very 'Gotham-like' in design.  Food seems fairly cheap here in comparison to other cities.

 

Oh, and that is not the only thing cheaper than home.  This morning, I walked to a barbershop just down Long Street a ways.  I hadn't had a haircut since before leaving home at the beginning of November.  I wait to get my money's worth, you see.  

Getting a buzz never takes a long time because I only have the sides cut short with a #1-sized clipper attachment.  When I retired in 2014, I decided that I didn't need to cut my hair often or so traditionally. 

Another Red Meat

 

Day 081: We just brought this back from the supermarket. Jay will make a stir-fry or perhaps an ostrich curry. It was cheaper than equivalent amount of chicken at home. You should bear in mind that boneless-skinless chicken breasts in Cape Town are about one half the price we have to pay in Vancouver. 

Here's the initial paragraph from Wikipedia:

Ostrich meat is a type of red meat obtained from the ostrich, a large flightless bird native to Africa. Known for its health benefits and sustainability, ostrich meat has gained popularity worldwide, particularly in health-conscious and gourmet markets. It tends to be darker than beef due to the high levels of final pH.

 

Eating and Other Habits

 

Day 041:  Yesterday, I posted the Mauritian-Chinese food called a "Magic Bowl".  It had all fresh ingredients and was reasonably priced at less than US$ 7 for a portion with about as much as I could finish.  Yet, we do not often eat out during our winters away.  The picture above was lunch that Jay made today.

 

This is a photo of the inside of our Airbnb's refrigerator.  This year we're spending three of our four months living in three different Airbnbs, the one here in Mauritius and the others in Cape Town and Durban, South Africa.

Some people mistakenly believe we need a lot of money to travel the world.  There is an upfront cost in getting to a location, indeed.  However, every Airbnb we've ever stayed in for a month or more has cost us less than average monthly rents in our home city of Vancouver.  

More importantly day-to-day life hardly ever costs more than when we're home.  Eggs, for example, are quite a bit cheaper here than in Canada.  Mauritius isn't quite as cheap as many of our destinations, but when at the market in the photo found below, we didn't spend all that much!  This is true of much of the foodstuff we've bought in most places around the globe.  

Also, while away for the winter, all of our usual fixed costs completely stop.  For example, we have no electricity bill, no car insurance, and no Internet and TV bills.  So, being away for four of five months doesn't really cost us much more in total than staying home.  It's a whole lot more educational and personally gratifying for Jay and me though.

In the Grocery Store

Eggs from plants?  Wouldn't they be like something called seeds? 

Ah yes, I see, a plant-based egg substitute!

I marvel at the number and variety of items available to consumers today.  Stores do cater to niche markets.  We may complain about the rising cost of groceries, but we're lucky to be able to buy nearly anything from anywhere at any time of year.

Our Thanksgiving 2024

Canadian Thanksgiving is now often defined by our trip to Richmond, BC.  Shinji and Ed put on a feast that has become our tradition.  Jay and I got in car at about 3:10 pm but arrived at their place at Dover Crescent early.  This may have been the first time we were invited on the holiday Monday.

Luckily, this year, everybody was in town, so we got to visit with Jiwan and Tim too.  

Canadian Thanksgiving occurs at a perfect time of the year.  It aligns directly with the fall harvest season.  During the past week, Jay and I have noticed enormous high-altitude formations of Canadian geese congregating in Vs and heading out for warmer climes.  We too will be doing something similar in a few weeks. So this special meal helps make a fitting and precious run up to the end of our summers in British Columbia.

After appetizers, we moved to the dining table and ate too much food, as is always the case.  Even though we ate our fill, I don't think we made much of a dent in the turkey.  In fact there was much more food than we managed to stuff down.

The wine continued to flow freely.  As desert, the handcrafted pumpkin pie was excellent.  The specialty chocolate pieces were heavy and delicious.  I'm sure the seat belt on the way home fit a little snugger than when getting there.

Great Weather for the Start of the Canadian Thanksgiving Long Weekend

It is the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend! In Canada the holiday is always on the second Monday of October. 

We have an invitation to the big turkey meal at Ed and Shinji's home on Monday. People here sometimes have their Thanksgiving meal on Saturday or Sunday. However, as our hosts are now retired as are most of the guests, we can easily meet on Mondays, or any day for that matter.  The flexibility is nice.

 

We went shopping this morning as usual.  It was definitely busier than on a normal Saturday.  So many people were picking up Thanksgiving things.  I love grocery shopping when all the traditional fall harvest items are for sale.

Variety is Awesome

We have a favourite shop where we buy fruit and vegetables. For years, perhaps decades, we've been visiting the Langley Farm Market on Kingsway. They get a great selection of local produce in season.

   

In a small space, they cram a whole lot of food products too, including an extensive meat selection and deli. The products on the shelves are generally specialties and they contain new products nearly every time we go. Today, these small French jams looked interesting. I didn't buy any to sample. 

We're very lucky to have extensive grocery opportunities in the Metro-Vancouver area. We're able to buy products from a vast number of our local ethnic communities. The population of the area ensures we get access to items from around the world.

Orange You Happy to See Me?

Day 131 - The hot weather continues. During the first few months we were around, there was rain daily. Now we've not had any for more than a month, although we were away for some of that. It means that we must stay hydrated. In Sri Lanka there are all sorts of fruits one can make into juice. Even this old favourite with a green-skin type of orange.

 

A few more pieces of next winter's itinerary have fallen into place.  We head home on a fifteen-hour and fifty-minute direct flight from Dubai next Monday.  Yet, it now looks as though we'll head back to the DXB in the opposite direction in November 2024.

We're planning a meet-up with the sisters, and hopefully family friend Nazeer in Dubai.  After less than two weeks they'll be returning to Sri Lanka but Jay and I will be flying to Mauritius and Reunion islands for a month or so.  Then, our plans, at this point, include a cruise to South Africa and a few months there.

I like that changes can take place but we'll just adjust and resume, much like a GPS recalculates if the original route is ignored.

Yum

 

We watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 last night on our TV. The original film was released 21 years ago.  It was harmless entertainment that I found enjoyable.

Today, I've been thinking about souvlaki. I checked my blog to see if I took any photos at a downtown Vancouver restaurant called, Olympia. It's on Denman.  I remember we ate there twice this summer.  I noticed we were there on Canada Day 2023 and again in August when had Florida Friends in Town.  I had pizza both times this summer.  

So I created the image above with Midjourney, my AI image creation site of choice.

The Sixth Duck Dinner of 2023

 

This photo was taken at the end of the evening yesterday. We had the ducks.  So, we hosted the duck dinner in New Westminster this time. This is the sixth time that our group has met this summer, two evenings each at our three locations. That's pretty good because we were away during all of June too.  We handed the yellow rubber ducks off to the Richmond gentlemen.

First, we had some appetizers.  I bought a couple of bottles of Argentinian Chardonnay. (This is because I became familiar with it during our stay in Buenos Aires last winter.  Unfortunately, I couldn't find any for $1.85 per bottle in BC.)   We experimented with the second by putting it in the SodaStream to see if we could add a bit of sparkle.  Meh, I think I'd have to make the bottle a lot colder before trying to carbonate. 

    

For a bit of exercise, we then walked to the entrance of the old Pattullo Bridge. We didn't risk our lives by trying to walk the skinny, dangerous pedestrian/bicycle sidewalk. The area will change in 2024 after the replacement bridge is in service and the 86-year-old structure is removed. The new crossing will offer a safe venue for all types of movement. After getting back, we went for a dip in the hot tub and swimming pool.

   

I served a bottle of rose that we brought back from France for the meal.  For dinner, Jay made rice and curry. There was a peanut, scallops and beans Chinese-type dish. There was also a chicken curry, some salmon and a salad. For dessert, he made a mango, peach, and lime pudding with a whole lot of fresh cream.

 

Our next meal as a group of six will occur in Richmond for the traditional Canadian Thanksgiving in October.