It’s raining.  There should be no surprise there.  And cold.  It’s late December and well into winter.

Perhaps not as cold as it could be, somewhere between three and four degrees.

We are staying at the Hilton Metrotown in Burnaby.  Metrotown is also the largest shopping mall in British Columbia.  I agree that it is large and found it to be a great way to get some exercise after being in and out of planes for the previous 24 hours.

The first discovery for the day was a trolley bus, something that I thought didn’t exist anymore. 

The second was to discover so many global brands, but how different the products are from what we can get back in Australia.  This is particularly true for cars, where we find that GM-based vehicles and Mazdas are far better than what is available to us.

The third was to discover that it seems we are almost in the heart of Chinatown, where going out an exit on the second floor takes you to a Chinese food court, with all manner of food types, and, it seems, tea bars.  It also explained why, in one supermarket we went to, signs were in both Chinese and English.

Being still tired from the travel, we don’t venture further than the mall, where we have lunch, for me, the Canadian version of KFC, which seems to defeat the purpose of trying local food.  It seems most of the food that I can see in the food shops does not seem that appetising.

Later, we go out and find a Boston Pizza with a sports bar where we indulge in a 21-ounce Molten on tap, and a lime mojito, while watching the ice hockey on the big screen and the surrounding small screens.  Ice hockey is in some world junior championships (but mostly northern hemisphere hockey-playing nations) and seems as ferocious as the NHL.

But it does raise a question: why isn’t there a female NHL?  I guess this wasn’t the time to canvass opinions in the bar.

Something else we discovered is that alcohol is relatively cheap, and get a case of Molten Canadian ale, Bacardi Black label, and maple-flavoured whiskey for about a third of what it would cost at home.  Of course, it must be cheaper than firewood in keeping Canadians warm in the dead of winter.

We didn’t try the pizza, which kind of defeated the purpose of going there.

Meanwhile, back in the room, we find the local ice hockey channel, and then, to make sure we get to see the Maple Leafs, plug in the computer so that we can test it.  Good to go.  

That’s tomorrow, tonight we’re watching the Vancouver Canucks.