A night out on the town

On Canada's Boxing Day (Dec.26), the biggest shopping day of the year I think, I went to Oak Ridge mall via the SkyTrain. Actually all the time here I've been making good use of Vancouver's Light Rapid Transit (LRT). Where I'm staying is situated right by one of the stations which makes moving around the city quite convenient. At Oak Ridge I wanted to buy myself an iPhone, to replace the one I lost in Barcelona. I thought maybe it'd be a touch cheaper here with the Canada/US exchange. Nope, Apple wanted $799 for the model I want and wouldn't let me leave the store without locking it to a Canadian service provider. So there goes that idea. I'll have to wait till I'm back in the States. The wireless bluetooth headphones I want to pair to the iPhone were also more expensive than what I could get them for online—that's going to be the next evolution in my skiing music system. Some 20 years ago I used to ski with a bulky Sony Walkman tape deck strapped to my chest. The thing was heavy and difficult to control (buttons were inside this case; flipping tapes was a hassle). Currently I ski with one of those postage stamp-sized iTunes shuffles and wired headphones. Pretty decent and lightweight system. However, I met a British guy at lunch who had an iPhone and bluetooth headphones—no wires! "The way of the future," he said, and I agree! I've already ordered the headphones. They should pair up with my laptop as well which should mean wireless music on my next flight to Europe.

After Oak Ridge I went down to Richmond to go out for sushi with my brother. I should have taken pics of the excellent sashimi we had but we ate it up so fast there wasn't time. I should probably take note of the sashimi I like: uni (I think that's what it was, the creamy urchin), tako (ocotpus), and the giant clam, but I forget its Japanese name. I tend to like the gummy stuff. I should have also ordered mackarel but my brother said he didn't like it. Oh, one other thing was the quail egg in warm sake. Very tasty. On the way to where I'm staying I decided to keep going on the SkyTrain to Yaletown to get to the Yale, a hotel downtown with a decent live rhythm and blues bar at street level. I had checked their schedule beforehand so I knew there'd be a band called Mud Dog playing but I've never heard of them. They reminded me of Steve Earle (e.g., the song Copperhead Road). They were pretty decent and the harmonica player was outstanding!