Sushimaa!

I'm in heaven! We finally managed to combat our severe jet lag to the point where we dragged our sorry carcasses downtown, to the legendary Kisha Poppo! They were nice enough to hook us up with their all you can eat lunch special (10.95), and we literally ate all we could. Their tuna sashimi was absolutely orgasmic, and we spent about 1.5 hours stuffing ourselves COMPLETELY silly with different varieties of sushi, miso soup, tempura, etc etc. And we didn't even make it halfway through all the possibilities on the menu - mostly because due to some mixup the waitress kept bringing us doubles of everything. OH MY!

First things first though.

We visited our friend James and spent all morning drinking chai, watching hockey and playing Guitar Hero. James is better than TV! Actually, most Canadians are better than TV. Mind you, TV also really sucks in Canada.

We actually managed to sleep until 5:30am yesterday, so our sleep schedules are somewhat normalizing. To be honest, I've never been hit by jet lag this badly - the last couple of days have been pure physical hell despite all the joy and excitement of being here. I wonder if it has anything to do with age.
Looking back, we could have helped ourselves out by consuming some melatonin supplements before going to bed, but we're already past the worst part. I'll have to get those for when my parents come visit though.

We spent six hours comparing the perks of two banks, Vancity and TD Canada Trust. Both of us really want to go with Vancity for its environmental orientation and care for the community, but when it comes down to it, it simply has less options for us. For example, Vancity does not offer any short-term high-interest GIC-s that TD Canada Trust does. That, however, is going to make a huge difference for us if we want our savings to grow. We're going to call Vancity one more time today to make absolutely sure that their options are indeed as limited as they said they were. It seems absurd, but given that it's a credit union, it may just not have the same options as a big evil bank.

We also submitted the CareCard application for ourselves. That was relatively painless - faxed it and mailed it. Now we wait for three months until provincial health care kicks in. By then we'll already have found jobs and probably have health care perks through them, so the application itself is somewhat of a waste of time, but it's something that they make you do as soon as you arrive in the province, so now it's done.

So we finally made it downtown! For lunch, we went to the above-mentioned Japanese restaurant on the super-gay Davie street. The downtown is strange - not quite what I imagined. Then again, I didn't imagine much. I was, however, expecting a concrete jungle with loads and loads of preppy people doing their business. Instead, there are a lot of trees and gardens, a delightful mix of the new and the old, and the whole area has a strange vibe to it that I cannot describe as anything else than, just, "Canadian". My brain is desperately trying to draw parallels to cities that I have been to it the past, to form some sort of an emotional reaction to the place. Vancouver is just a huge mishmash of everything though, so my brain just shuts down.

The gay district totally different from, say, the famous gay district Castro in San Francisco - the Vancouver one is way more grungy, with people shouting compliments to each other across the street, and less tourists. (That might have something to do with the season though.)

We got bus passes for a month, which cost us 73 dollars. Single bus passes go for 2.50 beginning January 1st though, so the pass is going to save us quite a bit of money.

Vancouver buses are annoying! Yes, they're electric and super clean and awesome and packed with all sorts of beautiful people from all over the globe, but they stop at every freaking corner! It takes you just as long to walk downtown, as the bus does. On a rainy day, it's quite the alternative though. Plus, on the bus you have the awesome bus driver, who always has something interesting to talk about, while everybody else is nodding.

Alright, time to start the day!