First day back in Canada, I dusted off the clubs and went down to the driving range. It was a good feeling to swing the clubs again after a year of no golfing. After, hitting an 80 ball bucket, I met up with my parents for a breakfast at Denny's. Wow, was that breakfast every good, one of the things I have missed is a good Dennys breakfast with pancakes and syrup. It was also, my nephew's 6yr birthday, so that evening I went down to the bowling alley for the party, it was blast. Seeing all the family, having fun and bowling.

The rest of the week, I relaxed by golfing at mens night on the Wednesday, shooting a 43 on the front 9. My Uncle and Aunt flew in from Edinburgh for their holidays too (nice to have us all over there at the same time).  Went to Denny's again, this time my Uncle was craving a breakfast and I am always up for an excuse to go to Denny's for Breakfast
That Thursday evening, hit Mission Creek Course again for another 9, shooting  a 48. Which is not bad considering I haven't golf in a year.
On the weekend Saturday, we decided to hit a big course. Black Mountain Golf Course, very nice course with lots of ups and downs and really nice greens (hard hole placements). I ended up shooting a 100 for the 18 holes.

This last week, on the Tuesday, went for some site seeing around Okanagan Lake. We traveled across the lake to Peachland, had a coffee, breakfast and walked along the beach.  Then up to Fintry, which is a town that was founded by a Scottish man, who was from Fintry in Scotland (who would have guessed ;P). This town isn't very big, but it did have alot of historic buildings and some good story's about the founding and building of this town. For Lunch, we headed to Vernon for the last stop on the tour.

The rest of the week was filled with golfing and hanging out with family and friends. It's great to see Carlos, Francesca and their newest member of the family, Angelina

There are a lot of pictures that I need to organize, which will be posted up to flickr through out this week

Friday, I went to Cambridge to see Ruds, Dan, Mark, Tom and Deb. We spent the night drinking at the pub, talking about old times and whats going on now. Saturday, was spent walking around Cambridge, taking pictures and lazying around in one of the commons by the river (Jesus Gardens).

Saturday Night, I came back to London and spent the night with Eamon and Lucie. Lucie, cooked  a lovely roast chicken with all the trimmings, Yum.! Then Sunday afternoon, was spent wandering around Bricklane market, eating exotic food and listening to street music.

Sunday Night, met up with Bill and Chrissy. We went for a burger and few pints.

It was really great to see everyone again and I want to thank everyone for the places to kip.. Now, it's all your turns to come up to Dundee, so I can return the favor

Time to walk around London for a bit, before making my way up to the airport to catch my flight to Canada.

Well as I said, I have been back in Dundee for the last 2 weeks and now I am sitting here typing this at Edinburgh airport. WooHoo!! I am on Holidays for the next 2 weeks.
First stop is catching this flight to London, where I will be meeting up with good friends (Ruds, Dan and maybe some other Ninjas) in Cambridge for an evening of drinks. Saturday, visiting with another good friend (Eamon) for some more pints, dinner and catch up. And Sunday, meeting up with another good mate (Bill G - grats on Batman:Arkham Asylum) for some more pubbing. This is going to be a fun weekend, seeing lots of old friends that I have not seen in awhile.

Monday, I fly out to Canada for the rest of my Holidays to see family, friends and play golf.

Time to catch my flight !

After, work on Friday I went to another Irish Pub called O'Malleys with the PM (Kirby) of the company I am visiting and another person (Stephen) who has just moved to Shanghai  (friend of friend of Kirby's). This place was full on Irish with Irish Music/Decro and the waitresses  had even been given Irish names.. haha. I ordered the O'Malley's burger with bacon and cheese, this burger was huge, homemade and very good  not to be compared the typical run of mill Burger King burger I had for lunch (yes, I had to go check it out ) .
The specials that night were Duvel's 2 for 1, some kinda of Belguim beer, it was pretty tastey and being 2 for 1 with 3 people, we had alot of beers lined up. We ended up closing the pub and I got in around 3:00 am. My plan for the  night was to be in the hotel earlier for the early trip to Hangzhou, but oh well here's for a 5 hr sleep with belly full of  beer.

Waking up for 8:30am, which was a struggle and the head pounding, I managed to crawl to the breakfast buffet. Figured, I should eat something as the Train journey would be about 2hrs not including the 30 minute subway ride to the Shanghai train station.
Stuffing myself with noodles, bacon, ham and hash browns, I made my way to the Hongkou Stadium to meet up with Kirby. Arriving just before the time scheduled to meet and there was no sign of Kirby, 10  minutes go by, now frantically phoning, as the window to make the train was pretty short, there was no answer... Now, starting to think what to do next, he shows up, telling me about how his roommate locked him inside the courtyard to their apartment complex and he had to break the bars to get out....haha...
Now, running behind as there is a set time to make the train, the subway became out of the question and decided to take a taxi to the train station, thinking it would be faster. Things looking good,  making some time, then began the traffic jams.. everyone and there cats and dogs were out on the road, 3 lanes roads became 4-5 improvised lanes with every vehicle (cars, buses, bikes, scooters) honking/flashing lights.. this was organized chaos at its best and surprised that there were no accidents on the way to the train station, which we ended up getting too, 10 minutes before departure.

The train was state of the art, with TV's and very nice reclining seats. The journey was about 2 hrs to Hangzhou, the landscape outside on the way, consisted mainly of construction with the odd pocket of fields. The sun was out and it was looking to be a nice day. Hangzhou is a city with about 6 million people living there. We arrive after a  nice train trip to be greeted by one of Kirby's friends (Sophie) and headed outside the train station to be confronted by heavy rain, thunder and lightning.

Now being 1:00pm, Sophie takes us for lunch. Dodging rain, we head to a restaurant called 'Grandma's' where this is supposed to be some  of the best food in Hangzhou. Sophie does all the ordering for us. After drinking some of the locally brewed beer, the dishes start coming to the table. First to show up, was spicy chicken fried with peppers and spice. Next, was the pork in a sweet'n'sour sauce, a  fish dish, fried  shrimp and sweet pumpkin soup. The food here was great, like most of the places I have visited since coming to China.

With full bellies, and with the rain disappearing, we ventured to the West Lake which is famous for it's beauty.  We spent about 3 hrs walking around the lake and the scenery is stunning. I took lots of picture which can be found at this link.. http://www.flickr.com/photos/gott3d/

After the Lake,we headed to the shopping street, but before we got there, we noticed some people break dancing and a stage set up. So, we went to have a quick look. Walking around the front of the stairs that lead to the standing area in front of the stage, there was hordes of people looking down the stairs away from the stage looking at us, at this car parked at the foot of the stairs. Turning and saying to Kirby this is strange.. 10 security guys rush down the stairs to the car back door (I am at trunk of the car) and opened it and some famous person gets out. Not even 3 feet from the person and camera in hand, I start taking snaps, while the crowd are screaming and trying to take pictures with camera phones. I managed to get 1-2 photos before the person is ushered up the stairs  through the crowd. What a rush, I felt like the paparazzi for a couple minutes trying to catch the best photos I could, even though I had no idea who it was and still don't,.. lol it's been flickred tho..

After the excitement, we now went to the shopping street. This place reminded me of Yuyuan Gardens shopping area, except there were no hagglers hassling you to buy cheap stuff away from the street. Which was a lot more enjoyable.

Getting dark and having about 2 hrs before we have to get the train back, we decided to check out the stage area again to see if anything was happening, as when that famous guy that came out before, nothing was going on but a bit of break dancing. On the second returning, there were 3 people on stage doing beat boxing  on mic in the form of a concert with a lot more people gathered around. We sat and watch for about half before heading to the train station. To catch the train with a lot more time to spare 

The journey back to Shanghai was a 2 1/2 hour ride with 2 stops. Getting me back to my hotel for around 11:00pm. Man, was I wiped and tired.  Ordering room service and watching the TV show 'Weeds' (bought the box set before coming, only one English channel here ) for the rest of the night.

Today, I ended up going to Yuyuan gardens for some more shopping and just to walk around. Then spent the late afternoon relaxing in the hotel.

It's been a very fun and busy weekend

Check out more photo's at my flickr site.. http://www.flickr.com/photos/gott3d/