601. Rockies Roadtrip | Day 16 - Arriving in Jasper

After Calgary, our next destination was Jasper. I think out of the entire trip, Jasper was the most scenic. The mountains and lakes were just incredible. We were lucky to get perfect weather every day so with the clear blue skies and beautiful blue lakes..every view was picture perfect. I didn't really edit the colouring on these photos (only adjusted the contrast a bit)..they really did look like this in real life!
The last time I came to the Rockies prior to this trip was when I was 8 years old. I don't remember much from that trip..but I always remembered Peyto Lake. It is my favourite lake of the Rockies:








During the time we were there (and I assume it still is)..Jasper was such a popular destination. We started booking our hotels and planning the trip I think 3 or 4 weeks before we arrived. For all our other cities we had booked our hotels to be right in the city centres. However, literally all the hotels and motels inside Jasper National Park were fully booked up on our days by the time we were checking for them. That had never happened to me before on any of my travels lol. The best we got was this motel in a small town called McBride...a TWO HOUR drive outside Jasper. So yes, each of the three days we were there we drove back and forth for 4 hours a day getting to Jasper and back to McBride lol. On the day we went to the icefields it was an even longer and more stressful drive..but more on that in my next post.

The motel was pretty good actually. We each got separate rooms here and at first I was so nervous it'd be a creepy old place and that I would be scared to stay in the room alone. But it wasn't bad at all. It was clean, brightly lit and (most importantly) Internet was good. I have to say it was actually a nice experience staying in McBride..something different for a change.

After we checked in, we wanted to go for dinner and was recommended a restaurant closeby. Actually probably the only real restaurant in McBride so we didn't have much of a choice. We were told we could walk there and so we did....along the highway in the middle of nowhere lol. We must've looked like the strangest hitchhikers. When we spotted the restaurant, we noticed it was across the road. So we had to go up and down a ditch on each side (which were deeper than what it looks like in this photo) to get there.

After the dinner, we walked back to the motel (up and down the ditches again) and by that time it was already pitch black. I was terrified we'd run into a bear or something.




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600. Recent Life

I realized I have not done a recent life post since I returned from vacation (a month ago already!) so here is a huge one to sum up the past few weeks/the rest of my summer. I've been extremely busy with work and social events these days, especially this week. I have recently started working on a startup company on the side with someone I had done freelance work for before (who is now more like a friend to me). It's very exciting and I really hope it will be a success. I will reveal it once we launch. So I had a few meetings this week and today had my first experience being a Cantonese-English translator hahah. I can't believe I will now be essentially working three jobs..but I actually really like what I do. I am not the best at saving money so I feel I always have to find ways to earn more to support the lifestyle I want lol. I have the mentality that what I could be saving I rather find a new way to earn even more..well it's nice to have a balance.

Tonight I went with my sister to watch the new movie, "It". I have been so excited to watch this ever since I found out it was coming out. I never watch movies on their release dates, but for this one since I was super excited I got tickets in advance to watch it on opening night lol. I LOVE horror movies. I vaguely remember watching the old version when I was younger. This one was amazing and I highly recommend it.


I went to the CNE three times this year. It was so much fun. The first time we went, my friend and I went on several rides. In the past I only go on the Polar Express but this time I was pressured to go on a couple rollercoasters which I was initially terrified about lol. I'm glad I went though and made it off alive. On the final day we went to see a bit of the air show then the skating show then walked around a bit.

I realized the CNE expands and has more and more to see and do each year. Toronto in general seems to have a lot more events and attractions now though, and (after 8+ years of living downtown) I can definitely notice an increase of tourists coming year after year which is great.



Loved the nachos, but the rainbow grilled cheese was a huge mistake.




Vegan Poutine from Dutch Fries




This was the night after I got back from vacation..Canoe for my sister's birthday diner. I will make a separate post of this whole dinner next time.






















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599. Rockies Roadtrip | Day 15 - Calgary

On day 15, we arrived in Calgary. After several days fully immersed in nature, we were starting to miss the city life. So our short one night stay in Calgary was a nice change of scenery. It's a pretty small city and very quiet (compared to Toronto) so it only took us a quick few hours to walk around the whole city. It was nice to go at a slower pace and relax for a bit though.




First we walked around the park which was right beside our hotel (Sheraton Suites Eau Claire) then from there we walked all the way to the downtown core which I guess is Stephen Avenue; a pedestrian-only street lined with restaurants and patios.






For lunch I had the most delicious lobster mac and cheese I've ever had!! Actually this was probably my first ever mac and cheese with lobster, but it was really good.

After lunch, we walked around and didn't really know what else to do. So we decided to go to our favourite spot..Cactus Club for drinks. As you know, I love Cactus Club (just had dinner there tonight lol) and in Vancouver we visited multiple times in various locations pretty much every day. However our experience here was the worst. Actually it was the worst dining service I've ever received in my life. I won't go into full detail on what happened as we did end up getting in touch with management and they were nice to rectify the situation in some way. We were just unlucky to get the worst server. I still love Cactus Club and would recommend it.

After that, we went back to our hotel for the hors d'oeuvres and cocktails hour (we had upgraded to a Club floor suite which included that). It was really nice. I brought my laptop as well to work there in the club lounge. We sat for several hours then left for some drinks at Fionn MacCool's (which was attached to our hotel) for another couple of hours where we had some nice memorable chats.

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