day 5: saturday 1st april 2006

we left jasper early - at least by our standards; to get to edmonton in time for lunch.

we didn't realise tt edmonton was 357 km away from jasper. at least, not until a whole lot of driving down the highway before seeing this sign.



but tt said, the highway towards edmonton made it an easy drive. divided highway, nice straight roads, 2 lanes for overtaking... a joy for ben i am sure. and coz compared to the rockies, the dry dusty albertan scenery wasn't much to look at, he could drive at a constant speed of 170km/h, except for this one time going downslope where he could accelerate to 200km/h.

yes, he was a road bully.

but anyway it was a relief to hit edmonton after close 3 hours of driving.



nice looking building. i thought this was the legislature at first, but turns out this isn't the government of canada.



wonder what it is though.

we had lunch at this restaurant chain called ricky's. famished, we were. and in the mood to try the famous grade aaa alberta beef.



voila.

me with all the food. wahaha. ooh even the chicken strips were yummy.



and if tt was not enough, i demanded ice-cream. so we walked into the marble slab creamery next door, which is like the cold stones in new york, and i bought a massive raspberry cheesecake ice-cream cone.



delicious!!!

but also fucking heavy.

after tt we decided to do a walking tour - sort of - of edmonton.

we took the subway downtown!



the inside of an edmonton train.

and me and ben on the train.



probably our most glam self-taken shot yet.

then it was onward to the city centre.

guess when edmonton was officially established?



the city square... love tt clock.



strange looking pillars.

he gotta act sae.



so i also act sae.



ooh. and look at this nice man. wahaha. can i join you?



we also found the law courts!

and being law students...



ben...



me...

and then we found the criminal law office...



next to the church of scientology.



hmm. i hope the proximity is only geographical.

we also walked into chinatown!



chinese are everywhere! wahaha.

ben with the chinese sign.



hiding his cigarette, as usually.

after the lunch and walking tour, we decided tt it was time to head for calgary 300 km away.

so goodbye edmonton...



and hello calgary!



as you can guess, it was nightfall by the time we'd arrived at calgary. also with no help from a lot more long roundabouts and illegal u-turns. we had many problems with the calgary roads, especially at night. and parking was a bitch.

so was finding a hotel. we finally settled at this really old - and i mean *really* old - hotel next to the convention centre, called the regis plaza hotel. it was established in 1912, original building and infrastructure and all.

this is how the room looks like.



really old stuff. and because it was so old tt smoking rooms were still the rage, the pillows and blankets and towels smelt of a combination of stale cigarette smoke and very very strong bleach. but hey, at least it was clean.

and more amusingly, ben said tt he couldn't stand the smell of cigarette smoke.

i told him tt thank god he is a smoker. coz if he was a passive smoker he would go mad.

we drove around the city a bit more to find a place to eat. so this is evening city scape.



yes, calgary is more of a metropolis than vancouver.

we finally settled at this 24 hour smoking diner called gerry's. it was cheap and the food was good. little did we know tt we would be at gerry's for the rest of our meals in calgary.

after dinner, it was back to the room for more cable. it seems cable it all we know at night. yeesh.