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As I'm sitting at the Tofino bus station waiting for my bus to Nanaimo [edit: well, now I’m actually in Nanaimo] I figure that's the perfect time to start writing my holiday pic-spam. (How much do I love my laptop? Me and my laptop, we're bff. All this time waiting at airports, waiting at bus depots... that has suddenly turned into productive fun time. They even have WiFi at the San Diego convention center now, which is great because you can spend a lot of time waiting in ginormously long lines.)
I’m glad I went to Tofino, it was worth the little detour. I’ve always wanted to visit Clayoquot Sound. A bit on the rainy side, but I guess that's the risk you gotta take when you want to see rain forest. Fortunately I was really lucky - it rained when I came up here two days ago, and it rained most of today, but yesterday was very nice. I took a trip out to Hot Springs Cove; one of those activities where first they make you sign a paper that basically says that if they kill you you can't sue them. So, fun. The only way to get there is by boat or plane. We went in a speedboat over open water... the thing just bounced over the waves, we were in freefall a good portion of the time. It was awesome. Like a rollercoaster ride, with whales.
We saw a humpback and a couple grey whales, but as my camera is teh crap, all of the pics taken from the boat turned out blurry. We also saw an otter, and a puffin floating right next to the boat, and a few bald eagles. And harbour seal.
One of my few pics of wildlife that didn’t turn out blurry.
The best part were the springs... hot springs with a slighty sulphury smell that that feed into the ocean. The pools were kind of rocky and slippery... if this was Germany, they would've fenced the whole place off or built it into a proper, safe pool because heaven forbid someone could take a wrong step. Fortunately this is Canada, and not everything is overregulated for the good of the citizens until all the fun is sucked out of it... But I digress. So, I discovered this last pool that was getting swept by waves from the ocean. The temperature kept changing between freezing cold and pleasantly warm. Damn, that was cool!
This is really blurry but it’s the only one where you can even see that there’s an eagle in there somewhere :P
On the way to Nanaimo we also saw: three black bears, as well as a dozen or so aspirants for the Darwin award who wanted to get real close to the cuddly bears.
The Tofino hostel is very nice... clean, new, very pretty, and inexpensive. Just don’t go there without a reservation; the whole town is completely booked during the summer months.
Here’s the great room in the early morning
And while I’m at it, here’re a few Comic Con pics. Sorry, I didn’t take any of the Stargate panel. See: crappy camera.
Here’s me :)
The one I took of Cyn is really blurry (I’m starting to suspect that it’s me and not my camera) but, heh, here’s a picture of her with Walter Koenig, who is among other things writing children’s books. He sounds like an incredibly nice guy.
Comic Con was so much fun.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jwaneeta and I finally lucked out at the hostel and scored a nice, spacious room without funky smell. We got to hang out with toysdream and thedeadlyhook again. And atomicbear was at the hostel again, and a couple more folks who are LJ-less. One of the things I love about that con is that you run into the same crowd each year, so you feel right at home.
I once more attended Michael Lovitz‘ Lawschool seminar, or what I could catch of it. Hearing about IP law, what better way to start the day. I couldn‘t get into the storytelling panel, alas. Turns out lots of people at a comic book convention are interested in storytelling.
I did get into the Stargate panels and that more than made up for that. Not gonna write a detailed write-up because it feels like a small eternity (it’s weird how differently time flows when you’re travelling – I can barely believe that only a few days ago I was in California) but they were a lot of fun. I vaguely remember laughing most of the time. Even the Q&A sessions were fantastic. First time there were no embarassing, cringeworthy fan questions. What made me happy was that Jewel Staite got a lot of fan love. Warmed my fannish heart. :o) I’m guessing there were more than one Firefly fan in the room, too, warming their seat for the Joss panel which was scheduled after Stargate. Just a pity that Joe Mallozzi and David Hewlett weren’t there, but well, can’t have everything.
Alright, I’m taking a break now and try to post this baby. The internets in this hostel comes and goes...
I’m glad I went to Tofino, it was worth the little detour. I’ve always wanted to visit Clayoquot Sound. A bit on the rainy side, but I guess that's the risk you gotta take when you want to see rain forest. Fortunately I was really lucky - it rained when I came up here two days ago, and it rained most of today, but yesterday was very nice. I took a trip out to Hot Springs Cove; one of those activities where first they make you sign a paper that basically says that if they kill you you can't sue them. So, fun. The only way to get there is by boat or plane. We went in a speedboat over open water... the thing just bounced over the waves, we were in freefall a good portion of the time. It was awesome. Like a rollercoaster ride, with whales.
We saw a humpback and a couple grey whales, but as my camera is teh crap, all of the pics taken from the boat turned out blurry. We also saw an otter, and a puffin floating right next to the boat, and a few bald eagles. And harbour seal.
One of my few pics of wildlife that didn’t turn out blurry.
The best part were the springs... hot springs with a slighty sulphury smell that that feed into the ocean. The pools were kind of rocky and slippery... if this was Germany, they would've fenced the whole place off or built it into a proper, safe pool because heaven forbid someone could take a wrong step. Fortunately this is Canada, and not everything is overregulated for the good of the citizens until all the fun is sucked out of it... But I digress. So, I discovered this last pool that was getting swept by waves from the ocean. The temperature kept changing between freezing cold and pleasantly warm. Damn, that was cool!
This is really blurry but it’s the only one where you can even see that there’s an eagle in there somewhere :P
On the way to Nanaimo we also saw: three black bears, as well as a dozen or so aspirants for the Darwin award who wanted to get real close to the cuddly bears.
The Tofino hostel is very nice... clean, new, very pretty, and inexpensive. Just don’t go there without a reservation; the whole town is completely booked during the summer months.
Here’s the great room in the early morning
And while I’m at it, here’re a few Comic Con pics. Sorry, I didn’t take any of the Stargate panel. See: crappy camera.
Here’s me :)
The one I took of Cyn is really blurry (I’m starting to suspect that it’s me and not my camera) but, heh, here’s a picture of her with Walter Koenig, who is among other things writing children’s books. He sounds like an incredibly nice guy.
Comic Con was so much fun.
jwaneeta and I finally lucked out at the hostel and scored a nice, spacious room without funky smell. We got to hang out with toysdream and thedeadlyhook again. And atomicbear was at the hostel again, and a couple more folks who are LJ-less. One of the things I love about that con is that you run into the same crowd each year, so you feel right at home.I once more attended Michael Lovitz‘ Lawschool seminar, or what I could catch of it. Hearing about IP law, what better way to start the day. I couldn‘t get into the storytelling panel, alas. Turns out lots of people at a comic book convention are interested in storytelling.
I did get into the Stargate panels and that more than made up for that. Not gonna write a detailed write-up because it feels like a small eternity (it’s weird how differently time flows when you’re travelling – I can barely believe that only a few days ago I was in California) but they were a lot of fun. I vaguely remember laughing most of the time. Even the Q&A sessions were fantastic. First time there were no embarassing, cringeworthy fan questions. What made me happy was that Jewel Staite got a lot of fan love. Warmed my fannish heart. :o) I’m guessing there were more than one Firefly fan in the room, too, warming their seat for the Joss panel which was scheduled after Stargate. Just a pity that Joe Mallozzi and David Hewlett weren’t there, but well, can’t have everything.
Alright, I’m taking a break now and try to post this baby. The internets in this hostel comes and goes...
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Bwahaha! *dies* I can relate :D
Also: hi, Astrid! *waves* :)
And nice photos! At least you managed some good shots :)
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(Anonymous) 2008-08-03 02:44 pm (UTC)(link)*waves back*
Bwahaha! *dies* I can relate :D
Seriously. Around here they've started to fence off every single little lake, even the puddle-sized ones. I generally like living in Germany and I'm all for safety-consciousness but really, let's keep some perspective...
*giggles* You know what's weird? I'm at my desktop computer now, back to typing on a German keyboard, and I'm mixing up the 'z's and 'y's still.
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Funny thing, my agent called and he's trying to set up storytelling workshops for me in conjunction with some art college or other. There seems to be a demand.
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Funny thing, my agent called and he's trying to set up storytelling workshops for me in conjunction with some art college or other. There seems to be a demand.
Yeah. You should've seen the line outside that room... and that was after the room had filled to capacity. Definitely a demand.
The idea of doing a workshop sounds interesting!
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The west coast of the Island is spectacularly beautiful, isn't it? Way back in 1972 I walked the West Coast Trail, from Port Renfrew in the south to Bamfield in the north, all along that coast. It was amazing.
Glad you're enjoying your visit to my country!
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I actually flew into Vancouver from SD, but I only stayed the night and then went straight on to Tofino - I have only five days here in the Pacific Northwest. I'm in Seattle right now, and once again, only got the one night. Wah. I would like one more day. At least I arrived just in time to go over to Pike's. (I decided to take the sea plane from Nanaimo instead of the ferry, so I wouldn't arrive too late... yup, that was a good idea :)
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