day 6: sunday 2nd april 2006

today is the day we really explore calgary proper.

morning starts off with a walk through from our hotel through to the shopping area - stephens avenue.



me with 2 statues in said place.



after tt, we decide to walk to our newfound foodie place for breakfast. ben ordered an omelette filled with bacon, sausages and ham, tt also came with potatoes and toast. i ordered 2 belgian waffles with 2 scrambled eggs and 3 pieces of bacon. very heavy stuff.

and just so you get to see how the city looks as a whole by day:



the calgary city scape.

from gerry's, it's onwards down uptown 17th avenue towards the calgary stampede park, where the annual world-famous calgary stampede takes place every year. ben makes a 45 min detour to the elbow river casino on the way there.

but yesh, we finally reach the calgary stampede park. so time for more photos.

this is me at the main entrance to the park.



and both ben...



and me with this sculpture.



look ma we were in calgary!

after tt we decide to take the subway towards eau claire market in the northeast.

so this is ben and i at the station.



and another self-taken shot. ok i think this one v glam also. :)



the train as it comes into the station. so interesting right? the train runs on the same road tt all the cars and buses travel on. it is even subject to the same traffic rules!



and me as the train rolls into the station.



so we took the train to 3rd street, and from there we walked towards eau claire market. which incidentally happened to be next to the prince island park. so yeah, we decided to take a detour to the park.

which was very pretty.

there were ducks on the half-frozen river in the park.



and ben trying to act sae again on the rock.



me on a bench in the more conventional area of the park. after we had successfully walked across the ice on the surface of the river (even though it was cracking at certain areas and i was freaking out coz falling into an icy river was the last thing i wanted to do).



anyway after walking through the park, we went through eau claire market, which turned out to be another tourist trap, and from there made our way towards chinatown.

where we saw this advertisement.



(ok. for the blind, it says: "you are a lost sinner on the road to hell." and below in smaller print: "verily verily i say unto thee, except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.[john 3:5]")

"argh no! i'm a lost sinner on the way to hell!!!"

~ cue jewel's 'who will save your soul' ~

*cough*

detour en route to hell aside, we made it to chinatown.



which is damn small actually. i think it's like what? 2 streets? max?

and from there we take a closer-up shot of the calgary tower...



and so ends our walking tour of calgary downtown.

from there it's back to the car...



ok. i can't remember what ben is doing in the back. i just demanded to take a shot of him in a different seat this time.

but anyway we decide to drive down uptown 17th avenue, one of the shopping neighbourhoods of downtown...



and then out to find the university of calgary.

and a couple more roundabouts aside, we finally see our salvation.



ok ok. this isn't the official entrance.

this is.



we chuck the car somewhere (ben says tt we do not "chuck our car, we park it". but this is my blog so i can chuck anything anywhere as much as i like), and take a walk around the campus.

we find the law faculty!



it's kind of small though. and i'm only wearing ben's oversized jacket - which fits me more like a dress - because i stubbornly refused to wear any jacket out thinking tt the weather was a nice and toasty 10 degrees... only to change my mind when the wind blew.

after some more wandering, we end up having coffee in the cafeteria of the student union building.

and yet another self-taken photo.



ok ok. this one quite nice also. :) but you can't see the cafeteria behind us.

and on the way back to the car, we saw this very pretty bird with a long black tail. 2 of them to be exact. don't know what species they are, but they are so so pretty.



from the university of calgary, it was back towards the city, to the second shopping district of kensington.

where we ended up having coffee at second cup.



and ben looks so *angelic* here it's downright scary.

from second cup, it was a walk down kensington with a stopover at a cyber cafe to check some info out and try to kacheow diana (who was unfortunately afk), and to satisfy ben's um... craving for one of his many 'C's (the others being cigarettes, chocolate and coffee) - the casino, we spent an hour back at elbow river casino.

then when i got hungry enough, we went back to gerry's for the third time for our dinner.

ben ordered the steak sandwich, a 6 oz slab of aaa alberta beef served on toast with a side of onion rings. coz i was still not very hungry, i ordered a grilled chicken casesar. anyway it was huge.

and while waiting for the food to come...



ok. ben finds my pouting highly amusing, such tt he just had to capture it on camera. sigh.

and i retaliated with more 'ben smoking' photos.



pai kia! he tried to hide his cigarette, but i have a lot of patience. heh heh heh.



and this is ben with our food...



now he looks damn greedy lah, tucking in already. wahaha.



and tt's the both of us at our now fave restaurant - hell, the only one we've been to in calgary.

even the dessert is yummy.

we ordered a chocolate sundae coz i was craving sugar...



and boy does it look damn sinful too. wahaha.

after dinner, it was pretty late already. so it was onwards to stock up on ben's stash of nicotine before heading back to the hotel for some cable and what we hoped could be a good night's rest, before our final leg.