As a guy, especially an logical mind engineer, I never understand why girls like to go shopping in groups. When guys want to buy something, they will do the research and consult with friends ahead of time. They know exactly what to buy before they walk into the shop. The shopping is done in less than 5 minutes, minus the waiting time in the cashier. Yet, today I have a very special shopping experience and learn to appreciate the way of girls go shopping in groups.

I found that it is more fun to shop if there are friends who share the same interest to go shopping with you. You can talk about what you want to buy on the way from shop to shop. Different shops selling similar goods are not just different in price, they have different selling style and you get different shopping experience. When you shop, you don’t just bargain for the cheapest price, you also want to build a personal relationship with the salesman. Sometimes be friend with a really helpful salesman result in much more non-monetary return than the few bucks you try to save by bargain hard. If you bring a friend along with you, you don’t just talk to the salesman one on one, so you avoid having the pressure that he is trying to make a sale. Instead you have a healthy conversation among three of us and your friend many ask unexpected question that give you new insight.  Window shopping is not waste of time, it is also pleasure to just look at things you cannot afford. For some goods, the specification cannot tell you everything. You have to go there, try it and feel it before you buy.

Finally I can relate to and start to understand why girls love shopping. Because shopping is not a girl thing, it something pleasant that be experienced by both gender, as long as you are buying something right.

Sumer is time for relaxing, so I told a long weekend off and have a get away trip with Pat in Salt Spring Island.  Salt Spring Island is about 2 hours of ferry away from Vancouver.  It is the latest of the gulf islands, with ten thousand population.  It takes about 1 hours to drive form one end of the island to another.  Salt Spring Island is a famous for its quiet life and many local artists also call the island home.  We stayed in a bed and breakfast in Fulford harbor, which is on the other side of the island, away from the village town center.  We booked the B&B quite late, but to our surprise the place very nice.  It is located on the seaside, the living room look over the harbor.  It is very wonderful experience to enjoy hot tub with beer under the night sky and feel the breeze from the sea.

  Homely style B&B

Harbor view from the B&B

Salt Spring Island is very tourist friendly, the studio tour website has maps with introduction of art studio or local farms worth visiting.  We spent 3 days in the island.  We don’t have any rigid plan.  We just take our time to visit some studios on our way to sight see part of the island.  I found the farm attraction quite interesting, as I can get close to the nature.  On the other hand, the art studios are kinda boring.  Why would I pay outrage price for junks in unknown shape and weird color

Lavender field

The tasting table at the cheese farm

Salt Spring vineyard with wine tasting

Sheep farm where you can hug the sheep and feel the living wool.

The quite local life is only part of the island’s attraction.  The nature beauty and fresh air in forest is another major attraction of the island.  Driving on country road on the island is very enjoyable, with tall trees surrounding you on both side.  Salt Spring is an island so we there are many places to enjoy the seaside.

Grave road in the forset

  Country road with Initial D like feel.

View from Mount Maxwell.

A red pier at the tip of the island

The Ganges Saturday market is selling lots of fresh farm products and local craft works.  The open theater in the village park plays Shakespeare every night.  Luckily, the girls are too tired after a long day of sight seeing, so they spare the guys from watching boring plays.  Instead we had some quiet time watching the sea back in the B&B.

Saturday market is packed

Little girl playing harp in the market

Water front cafe

Tree House cafe with live music every night

Although I am on vacation, I am not spared my duty as a Catholic.  I gotta wake up at seven to attend the mass at eight.  The church we went is the first stone building in the island.  It is over 100 years old.  The church is very small, it only has 5 rows of pew and about 20 parishioners.  The priest travel from Victoria just for the morning mass.  The church does not have any musical instrument, so pianist use his own accordion.

St. Paul Church

Staying three nights in Salt Spring Island is about the right length.  We have visited most of the island and have some quiet moments.  It will start getting bored and run out of place to visit if we stay any longer.  On the way back, the ferry is delayed for almost an hour.  Someone fell off from a nearby boat, so the ferry stopped and join the rescue mission.  Too bad that the weather is a bit rough in the weekend, so I didn’t get to swim or kayak.  Otherwise, the trip would be perfect.

Everyone has one birthday every year. When we were small, birthday is a big day to have celebration. As we get older, birthday seems lost its specialty, it is just one of the other 365 days. My friends said after turning 30, you subconsciously want to forget your age. When you are a little kid, people ask how old are you, you can answer it right away. Now, it may involve some calculation and often you make (un)intentional mistakes in the math. I guess people just don’t want to admit getting old.

This year my birthday is a holiday. It is nice to have a relaxing day. I have a simple celebration with Pat, hearty home made dinner today. I have poker party with my friends and ice cream cake last night. I appreciate everything they did for me. I do enjoy the fun and sharing of the happiness. Just that I am always wondering what is the meaning of celebrating your birthday. Why do you want to remind yourself turning old years after years? The more I think about getting old, the more I imagine I will become a old man one day. Suddenly I grasp the meaning of birthday celebration. It celebrates you have live another year! I am looking forward for my next birthday celebration because I want to live years after years. Getting old is better than being dead!

Today we have invented a new game, double foosball.  The only difference between the new game and traditional foosball is using two balls instead of one.  As we became better and better player, we found normal foosball is getting boring.  We have developed fairly good defense skill, so it is much harder to score a goal.  We have fairly good shooting and ball control skill, so the action always concentrate on one end of the table, the two people on the other end have nothing to do.  Using two balls make the game much more exciting.  Balls are flying all over in the table, and you can’t slow down the pace down by holding the ball.  The appearance of the other balls force you to stay in motion all the time.  Somehow I have special talent in this game and enjoy some advantage over my friends.  I have powerful shots from both hands and more or less I can control my two hands independently.  It is really cool to shot two balls from two bars at the same time.  In addtion, double foosball makes very good training exercise for normal foosball.  The extra ball enhances my reaction time and allows me to further develop separate hand control.