ok sorry its been a while.

A lot has happened i guess but to get it all in in one entry would be ridiculous. So due to my inability to find the time (or effort) to write this more often you will be getting a travel brouchure recollection of the past 3 weeks. I appologise. Also, I have managed to brake my camera and corrupt my memory card (losing about 200 photos) so unfortunately no photos to accompany a large portion of the following events..

So i left off from Banff. I stayed an extra night in Banff after the Lake Louise day and left off early the next morning to hitch a ride to Calgary. My initial plan was to get to Canmore as I still had 4 days before having to fly to toronto. Steve, the friendly mechanic picked me up and took me to Canmore some 30km away though on arrival i found a overcrowded tourist city with only 2 hostels which were full so i continued onto Calgary. Boy was Calgary UGLY! The city is built outwards rather than up. Situated on the edge of the rockies it is very hilly; suburbia consisted of numerous hills making the foundations for row upon row of display home houses. Grey, lifeless city with a persistant light haze blanketing its inhabitants. I found a hostel right next to the train line downtown. Calgary's only inhabitants were office clerks and construction workers, the occasional creep or homeless person lurking every nook and cranny. The city is in constant construction (built as a result of Alberta's oil sands extraction), the trains never stop running or slow down (as I discovered from my dormroom); this all seemed in vain as the observed lack of any local population was a hot topic at every kitchen table and prebed talk. My first day in Calgary was LAZY. I slept and ate and read 'The Collector' and slept some more.

Next day I met Ukraine (i don't remember his name). We went to the Body Worlds exhibition put on by Gunther von Hagens. This was quite incredible, a little disturbing. some still had their faces shown. There was even a pregnant lady on diplay, baby and all... There were all these little quotes and theories surrounding the human mind and brain as well, these and the 1920's collection of foetuses were my favourites. Ukraien and I had a littel fight about the roel of hormones and the mind on the control of ones expression of emotions. I won't go into it as this got us quite angry at each other (anger on my part as a result of Ukraine laughing in my face and patting me on the back saying how stupidly wrong I was). Prior to this the argument was actually quite sedate! haha. We then went to princes Island park to lay in the sun and watch the sqirrels. i found an old cloth placemat-green with floral sort of embroidery.

The next day was cold, rainy and miserable. I had already explored downtown and looked up other things to do but everything cost so much and all reviews from other travellers said stay away! So i found a dollar store and bought some wool, raided the hostel and found some chopsticks and proceeded to knit! Made me a bag out of the knitting and placemat. Made a few friends also. Next day was sunny and warm again!? So Mike (from saskatchewan -cant spell it!), Maude (quebec city) and I went to Calgary zoo. This was pretty good, saw many native land mammals and many exotic South American and African animals. Watched some shows put on by the staff about elephants, tigers and gorillas. Mike and Maude had never seen a auction before so we stopped into an antique auction and chilled in there for a bit. The three of us were feeling quite lethargic so we just sat around in the hostel. I'd been moved into a shared dorm were I met Take (holland), Japan, Spain, and Quebec; four guys with strong political views and most things. I liked it. They liked it that I liked listening to them discussing things. Take and I spent a nice evening avoiding autistic engineer in the kitchen (after an amusing 2 hours with him eariler) then sharing disgusted looks as Spain tried to convince us of his intelligence and made sick jokes about sleeping in the bunk above me. Nice. Japan was a revolutionist riding his motorbke around the world, and Quebec was a law masters student that like seal clubbing! :D

Overall Calgary was a strange place. No life, no people, no children or grandparents. Churches lit their neon signs hoping to replicate the bright star to signal the shepards and wisemen from afar that will never come. The trains whispered 'i think i can' all day and all night, never getting less frequent through the midnight hours; their persistence to rival the little red engines efforts.

19th August approx 230pm landed in Toronto.....

I have a lab now so more on that later.

With love

King Yin