The weather was nice again today, sunny and not as bone-chillingly cold, so we took the subway to Waterfront and then lined up for the ferry across to North Vancouver. I snapped a picture of two guards, one Filipino and one older white dude. Of course the old white dude had a problem. “Why did you take my picture?” He demanded.

“Because you’re a great-looking dude!” I lied.

“You have to ask me before you can take my picture, you can’t just take it without asking me,” he said.

“My bad,” I said, before walking away.

The ferry trip was nice, smooth, as if the ferry was on rails. I imagine many people use it to commute on weekdays. On the other side, we walked through the inevitable market with the inevitable seagulls and the inevitable lecture on the intimate relations of bees. We then got on a bus up to the Capilano Bridge, which Chenbl wanted me to see. “Excuse me,” I started to ask the driver, but he cut me off.

“Wait til I sit down,” he ordered. I stood and waited until he had arranged himself in his seat. When he was done, he said grumpily, as if he expected a litany of problems, “Ok, what’s your trouble, sir?”

“Is this the bus to Capilano Bridge?”

“Yes.”

“Thanks.”

It was a nice drive up, through pleasant neighborhoods. The Capilano Bridge itself is a large suspension bridge and a system of walkways through the forest canopy…it’s quite impressive, and the air was very fresh, if still uncomfortably cold. Some of the walkways are transparent, and I from their reaction, I’m guessing some of the people were afraid of heights. At least no kids were jumping up and down on the thing like they do in Bitan.

After we were forested out, we got on the free shuttle bus back to Waterfront, which featured a driver with a radio announcer’s voice. Then we took the subway out to what we’d suspected was a mall near the airport. It was disappointing, and we went back to Metrotown to pick up some electronics at Best Buy. Dinner was Vietnamese near our hostel.

Tomorrow we’re going back to Taiwan. I really wish I’d met this city under better circumstances.

The place where we’re staying is home to a family of cats. We spent some time this morning after breakfast playing with them and talking to the two Mexican assistants, Ozcar and Pamela, who are a couple. They’re bright young people, hoping to see the world. The flight to Vancouver was their first time on an airplane. They have no days off and are very tired.

It was grey and rainy, so we took the subway to a large mall at Metrotown. Before we could get there, the announcer said there was a “medical situation” at the station, so we waited on the tracks for a while before proceeding.

I got my mall fix done and done at Metrotown. So done. All the little fountains, all the shops, the tepid food court…all of it. We did find a bookstore called Chapters, where I picked up Stuart Franklin’s “The Documentary Impulse”. Chenbl and I caused a little scene when we were carefully measuring out cough medicine from the bottle to my water bottle’s cap, causing a few stares and a visit by the manager. “You guys doing ok?” he asked nervously, eyeing our suspect behavior.

“We’re doing fine,” I said, staring at him. His smile faltered and he left.

I still feel awful. I’m on vacation in Vancouver, and all I want to be doing is lazing around home watching Miyazaki movies in my pajamas.

Vancouver is quite international but not terribly diverse. Lots of Asians and Middle Easterners but hardly any Black or Latino people. There’s a strange kind of tension in the air here, a kind of desperation I can’t put my finger on. Perhaps if I lived here I might be able to pin it down, but I really don’t want to live here. It’s probably just because it’s winter and I feel like shit. But still.

We had dinner at a Taiwanese restaurant because it was there.

I was feeling slightly better but still in a haze this morning as we walked down to the water and along the banks to Granville Island, which I’m assuming once meant having to cross some kind of water to access, what with the name and all. On the way we passed an encampment of homeless people, one of them pissing on a tree in the chill air, and then we were walking through an elementary school’s recess yard. Some workmen later on asked us if we worked there, “there” meaning the construction site where we were currently trespassing, and politely told us to get lost when we answered in the negative. I keep feeling like I’m always doing the wrong thing here, in the wrong place, with the wrong goals, etc. Out of sync in a way I didn’t feel even when I was in Cuba. Chenbl, however, is happy; he loves Canada, and has been here five times.

Lunch was some tasty shepherd’s pie at the Granville Market. Then we took the tiny ferry across the water and walked up to Stanley Park. Vancouver looks like the fantasy of someone who really likes blue-green glass towers, composed of immaculate little glass boxes full of trendily sparse furniture that is completely unable to reflect an actual life. Dudes threw sticks into the chill waters so that their shivering dogs would have to go fetch them. We walked over to the array of old totem poles, situated facing their modern counterparts covering Vancouver.

Ten years ago I was in Tokyo, and as happy as I’ve ever been. It was cold then, too.

A man in a business suit was bragging into his Bluetooth: “Yeah, of course we’re on the radar as you’d expect.”

“I dunno,” I said loudly to Chenbl as we walked by the marina among the pretentious people and their tiny dogs. “Do you really think we need another yacht? Isn’t 12 enough?”

“Stop it,” Chenbl said. He knows when I’m in a snippy mood. The full moon was rising over the docks as we approached the subway station at Waterfront. We took the subway to the bus/train station to ask about the bus/ferry to Victoria. The area was empty and spooky, and a man was shouting obscenities in traffic. We could have taken the subway but, but I wasn’t as desperately tired as I could have been, so we walked. It took roughly forever, and my cold was not happy.

The cold medicine I got while shopping last night worked well enough to keep me asleep all night, but today was mainly spent in nearby shopping malls and restaurants. It’s cold and rainy outside anyway, so outside of mall stuff there’s not much to do, and I need the rest.

T.I.’s “Live Your Life” was playing at the health food shop, while the disco version of the theme from Star Wars was playing at Safeway. A nice young man named Nathan at the pharmacy told me that there’s not much you can do for a cold, except wait it out.

So we ate so-so ramen and watched the nearly incomprehensible humor on TV, noting that Canadians don’t seem to trust umbrellas that much. Keebler products are absent from Canadian shelves, but I did see a few pop-tarts and Little Debbie products. Hopefully the weather will be better tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll be feeling better as well.

I’d had a bad night. My head hurt, my nose was blocked, and my cold was running full tilt when I finally got up in the morning on the day we had to leave Havana. We walked over to 5th and 8th to the Catedral Café for a nice breakfast. At the next table, a middle-aged white dude talked condescendingly at a couple of black Cuban guys. Back at our place, an 80-year-old man basked in the sun on the porch of the ruined house in front while a three-year-old girl played beside him. Our taxi to the airport was, of course, a green 50’s American car with bouncy seats to compensate for the lack of bounce in the shocks. From what I understand, the reason all of these cars have retained their original colors is that the color of a car is one of the main things you can’t change without government permission. Other things can be changed, from LED lights to Toyota steering wheels, but the color must stay the same.

At the airport, the Air Canada check-in system was down, and the long line didn’t move for an hour until they fixed it, while even the Aeroflot line next to us moved swiftly. That’s gotta hurt.

My sinuses did not like the flight to Toronto. There we got in the wrong line and nearly got involved in the U.S. fuckery that pervades even non-U.S. airports for some reason. You could tell it was the particular U.S. brand of fuckery because the agents at the gates in their little glass shed were all young blonde people dressed in full battle gear, standing in sleek black booths festooned with intimidating machinery. Fortunately we escaped the area to find an actual Canadian immigration officer, a pudgy Sikh bear who smiled warmly when he said, “It’s good to travel with your best friend.” But our misstep made dinner a hasty burger before the flight.

My sinuses, still reeling from the last flight, hated the flight to Vancouver. Although we were lucky to have a whole row to ourselves, my nose and ears were afire most of the time from the pressure changes. By the time we stepped into the cold Canadian air, I could barely hear from my right ear, and I felt like shit. I wanted to go right to bed, but Chenbl had shopping to do, so I shuffled vacantly around the store periodically waking up from and returning to my stupor until we were done and could return to our place, which is a nice old house in a residential neighborhood near city hall.

Breakfast at the hostel was a bright, help-yourself affair, full of earnest young backpackers shredding their gums with sugar-flavored Cheerios. The bright sun was a ruse, betrayed by the  bitter cold outside. Chenbl and I walked over to Chinatown, marveling at the familiar smells and signs and produce overwhelming the sidewalks there. The old Kuomintang building was abandoned, covered in weeds and neglect. Warming our hands with some hot Tenren tea, we walked over to Gastown. The whole thing would have been charming if I weren’t freezing my ass off. The famous clock was steaming (I assume it was steam, otherwise it really needs servicing) and hooted out the traditional clock melody at 2:45 p.m., after which we took refuge amid the cheap plastic smells of the local Dollar Store.

Later we walked back down to the harbor and browsed the signs elaborating on Vancouver’s shockingly sordid history of labor relations and all the awful things that happened in the process of labor reform. Seaplanes were taking off and landing on the water near a floating Chevron gas station; the remains of snow crunched under our feet. We chatted with some friendly construction workers who were busy renovating a house. Nearby, a large, forlorn heap of charred wood and plaster had apparently up until recently been a house.

Turning onto Davies Street, we stopped for entirely too much poutine before heading back to the hotel, where we spent a great deal of effort trying not to listen to an excruciatingly awkward flirting session between two young backpackers in the common room.

Then it was time to leave; we walked over to the subway and took the train out to the airport. The last few stops featured a shouty young drunk, but that was far less annoying than when we checked in and found that our airline not only didn’t know about any of these newfangled “frequent flyer” things all the kids are about these days, they cancelled our seat selections and put us in the middle seats to Toronto. The flight was overbooked, so the check-in staff asked if we’d take US$100 and a night at a hotel. Uh, no, we wouldn’t. But the line at the gate was truly egregious, a scene rife with insecurity as everyone wondered if they’d be picked to be a Sacrificial Passenger. Indeed, one passenger seemed to have already incurred the wrath of one of the flight attendants as we found out seats. “I’ve seen the way you overreact; you only have one more chance or I will have you removed from the flight,” the attendant warned ominously as the young man spread his hands in the internationally recognized symbol of WTF, man.

The whine of the engines drowned out the safety video and my cursing as my watchband broke, but we were in the air soon enough. Several episodes of Blackish later, as we neared Toronto, however, the captain said weather sucked there so we were going to Buffalo NY instead. The whole plane groaned; most people either didn’t have their passports and/or didn’t have a U.S. visa. Nobody could be looking forward to dealing with TSA asshattery; this was one of the main reasons we elected to go through Canada in the first place. The plane circled at the same elevation for a long period of indecision before they agreed that we would be going to Toronto after all, whereupon everyone cheered. After we landed, however, we taxied up to a gate that didn’t work; it was as if they were surprised to see us. Didn’t they call ahead? The crew tugged fruitlessly at the door for a while before giving up and having us all sit down, pack up, power up the engines, back out and head to a gate that actually worked.

That didn’t give us much time to make our connecting flight to Havana, so Chenbl and I booked it from the domestic terminal to the international terminal, embarrassingly specific final boarding accusations ringing in our ears the whole way, and just made it in time.

The flight to Havana was considerably more relaxed, with far fewer people and a party atmosphere. Everyone there, including the casually dressed but smartly competent cabin crew, seemed very happy to be leaving the frigid north behind. As we’d missed meals in our rush, we had some plane food that was bordering on ok. As we approached our destination, people began to change out of their heavy winter clothes into shorts and T-shirts.

Even though my mind was still demanding to know what the hell I was doing in Cuba, the warm air was an incredible relief. Chenbl changed money at a machine, and we caught a cab downtown to the Airbnb place where we’re staying to put our luggage down before heading out with Annanai, a Cuban woman who is more than passingly familiar with all of this.

Of course the old automobiles and colorful buildings are amazing, but I haven’t managed to figure out just how to photograph them sans cliché. All the taxis and buses are crowded, some of the old buildings are being brought back, and I apparently look like I’m searching in vain for a Cuban cigar. Brilliant musicians abound in the restaurants; the lung power of the trumpet players in particular is astounding. I brought my mouthpiece just in case I happen across an opportunity, but I doubt I could come close to keeping up with these guys.

We had cold chocolate at the Chocolate museum and then stopped into the Floridita bar, which was apparently one of Hemingway’s favorite drinking spots (he had many) as well as the origin of the daiquiri, and which features a larger-than-life brass statue of the heavy-set writer sitting at the end of the bar overlooking the field. Daiquiris were had, and we all left the place a little tipsy and wondering if the little straws were really necessary. The sun was setting before Annanai said we should go back to the apartment, so we got on a crowded bus back to Vedado, where our place is located.

Eric, the French-Canadian who runs the place, came out for dinner nearby, and we had a nice long conversation about his background and Cuba’s future.