Two weddings and a bunch of renovations – my 2021 Annual Update in 181 photos

January 12, 2022January 13, 2022 ~ The PhotoDiarist ~ 1 Comment

Dear family and friends, it’s that time of year again when I try to remember what happened over the last twelve months and share some photos on here in an attempt to keep in touch without making the effort to reach out to each of you individually.

Most people seem to agree that 2021 left a lot to be desired, and I must admit it was tough going a second year in a row without leaving Canada even once. For those of you who expect or even enjoy my charts and graphs, here’s where I spent 2021 and how many flights I took compared to past years:

Still, 2021 had its share of neat experiences. Fair warning: this update is almost entirely composed of renovation and wedding photos, and I won’t be insulted if you choose to skip past the former in favour of the latter.

Harpreet and I were stuck in Kingston for Christmas 2020 because of COVID so we woke up January 1st, 2021 still here. We went outside a lot that month to enjoy the winter wonderland around us.

We even found a porcupine named Henrietta nesting way up high in the hollowed out trunk of a long-dead tree. I had no idea porcupines were such amazing climbers!

The insulation in our house is older than I am, but in much worse shape. To keep all the heat from escaping, I decided to update the insulation in the two accessible knee wall attic spaces, and learned that you can fit 7 packs of insulation into a 2017 Hyundai Elantra if you remove the front passenger seat.

I started my final nursing school clinical placement on a trauma unit in mid-January in Toronto, so for the next two and a half months I split my time spending 5 nights in Kingston and 2 nights in Toronto each week, putting way too many miles on my odometer and still very much disliking online learning.

By mid-February I had started actually getting insulation into the south attic space, all the while trying (mostly successfully) to avoid hitting my head on the nails sticking down through the roof.

While back in BC in mid-February, my first nibling was born – Freja! We were all very excited for Josephine and Bryan!

I rarely limit myself to working on a single project at any given time, so I also started the first part of a bigger kitchen renovation project. I tore out two built-in benches from the kitchen nook, removed the restaurant table, and began trying to install cabinets and a countertop in the cramped space. The wavy walls in this 1950s house made it challenging to get things to fit, but I made decent progress.

This is the kitchen nook when I bought the house:

Once that was torn out, I installed 3 new 20A outlets then, with much contempt for the steeply sloped floor and uneven walls, got the cabinets in.

Next, I cut two pieces of acacia countertop and scribed the edges to match the wavy wall:

Before I could complete the upgraded kitchen nook, I decided to try decorating a birthday cake for Harpreet, with one of her favourite flowers: sunflower. This process confirmed two things: eggless cakes are not easy to get right, and decorating cakes is really, really challenging. It gave me all the more appreciation for the skills of people like my sister Lisa and my friend Isabel, both of whom are cake experts. While we didn’t finish eating the cake (let’s be honest, we each had a few bites then decided to just appreciate its looks instead), it was fun trying.

A week later I had finished staining and coating the new kitchen nook countertop with a food-safe finish, and bolted the two pieces together underneath with these fun countertop connectors:

The next day Harpreet and I went for a walk and saw two beavers! Not a great photo, but we were excited, and they were cute to watch.

Meanwhile back home in BC, two more niblings were born just six weeks after Freja. Lisa and Brad had twins named Oakley and Robin!

My last hospital shift in Toronto was March 31st and I was supposed to be moved out of my apartment the same day so I didn’t get a lot of sleep that week. I did learn how to squish a memory foam mattress back down to a reasonable size that I could fit in my little Hyundai, though. I put it in a sealed mattress bag, attached a one-way valve from a space saver bag, then sucked the air out with my shop vac while walking all over the mattress to squeeze all the air out. Once it was nice and thin, I rolled it up and used duct tape to keep it in shape. The duct tape turned out to be a lifesaver because the flimsy mattress bag tore in a couple spots while loading into my car, and the mattress would have quickly expanded back to full volume inside my car if it weren’t for the tape!

Back in Kingston, the roofing company arrived to install a new metal roof since our old shingles had barely survived their last winter.

In April, I started my preceptored / consolidation placement at Kingston General Hospital, which consisted of working a little over 30 shifts with an experienced nurse, gradually gaining more experience and responsibility before being let loose on the world.

I also started putting new insulation in the north attic space in April. It didn’t look so great before I started:

Of course one renovation project seems to spawn 2-3 more, and I realised this was my chance to install a much-needed ventilation fan in the bathroom ceiling, which is directly below this attic space. So I ran more cables up from the basement then watched some videos online, cut a hole from above in the bathroom ceiling, and put a fan in.

Then, on my birthday I came home to this!

On May 1st I nervously cut a big 6″ diameter hole in the side of the house, then much less nervously ran the bathroom vent through it.

On May 2nd I fixed the recently developed problem in which every time we flushed the toilet, some of it would leak down through the basement ceiling. My temporary solution had been to place a bucket of sawdust in the basement to catch the water, similar to the composting toilet method I learned from two Mud Girls cob workshops I attended, and that eliminated any nasty odours until I could properly fix it.

On May 3rd I spotted a tree cutting company taking down some trees half a block away, so I went over and asked and they happily brought me a free truckload of fresh wood chips a little while later. On May 4th I spread them out over the part of the yard that was still flooding occasionally (see the photos in last year’s annual update if you’re curious). The whole yard smelled like a Christmas tree!

On May 5th, a couple of dump trucks manoeuvred their way around our house and left a mountain chain of fill soil, mushroom compost, and topsoil. It took me several days to spread it, but by the end of the month the formerly flood-prone areas were significantly higher than they had been and a mix of wildflowers was starting to sprout.

While I was puttering away in the back yard getting all that soil moved, hundreds of bulbs we planted in the fall started blooming in the front yard:

We also started eating outside every once in a while, now that the weather had improved.

Then, on May 17th I got a message from our roofing contractor in BC: the new roof at Bowen was finally done, only 8 months later than expected and several decades since the last time new shingles were applied. Some of you may recall a glorious photo of Brad celebrating our success installing new roof supports in last year’s annual update, a major turning point in our restoration adventure.

Having finished insulating the knee wall attics in Kingston, and with the backyard finally ready to start turning green, in late May it was time to take on my biggest project yet: extending the kitchen into the living room and bringing it into this millennium. This is what it looked like when I bought the house 3 years ago:

And this is the view from the other side of that doorway, on May 26th, before it turned to construction chaos:

I soon began cutting into the ceiling and peeling away layers of drywall and paneling that had added up over the decades during previous renovations.

The final layers came off on June 1st:

Prem was arriving in mid-June for a visit, so I put the kitchen demolition on pause. On arrival, Harpreet presented Prem with a welcome panda cake, which was delicious. I got my second COVID vaccine dose 3 days later:

Two days later I did the 560km roundtrip drive to pick up my wedding sherwani outside Toronto:

The next day all three of us drove 200km the other direction to spend the day in Ottawa, including a trip to a French tailor there for one of my other wedding suits. The weather was perfect for a day outdoors exploring the town.

The day after that we went kayaking in Gananoque, just east of Kingston.

There are lots of turtles to be seen in this part of Ontario in the summertime, including these ones lined up in Lake Ontario just outside downtown Kingston:

More local adventures followed, including a small group trip to celebrate Harpreet, complete with sashes made by Prem for the occasion and lots of photo ops.

On July 9 I flew to BC for a two week visit to do a bit of wedding prep and finally meet my three niblings. Luckily for me, all three of them were in one place when I arrived from the airport and I got to spend a little time getting to know them. I think they like me…

I also spent some time out at Harpreet’s family home in Abbotsford, and used the opportunity to measure and photograph one of Raj’s rose arbours. You’ll see why in a bit.

Unfortunately I couldn’t stick around very long in BC as I had to get back to Ontario in late July to write the NCLEX in August. That’s the national licensing exam a new nurse needs to pass in order to become a Registered Nurse. Upon pulling in to the driveway I found that the former bare soil in the backyard had grown about three feet in two weeks, colourful flowers (and some weeds) were blooming everywhere, and the entire place was alive with bees and butterflies and birds!

Between studying sessions and time spent staring at the all the flowers in the garden, I finally put handles on the kitchen nook cupboards and took the blue protective film off the doors.

On August 1st, we drove up to Montréal to look for more wedding attire for me. To fuel a long day of shopping, we started with vegan affogatos at Saison des Pluies!

I also tried my hand at making floral arrangements from the wildflowers outside. They don’t compare to the amazing arrangements Julie designed a month later in BC with the bride squad, but Harpreet still liked them.

Our Chicago Peace rose had loads of great blooms over the summer, too:

Harpreet left Ontario in August and as soon as she did, I finished cutting a big 4’x8′ (144x288cm) hole in the ceiling, built two temporary walls on either side of the existing wall to hold up the western part of the house, then removed the old wall that had divided the living room from the kitchen for almost 70 years.

Then I cut the ends off the ceiling joists and lifted an LVL beam up into the void, followed by a second LVL beam, then bolted those two beams together into a single double-wide beam, used joist hangers to connect the joists to the new beam, tapped several 2×4 studs under each end to hold it all up on August 16th, and removed the two temporary walls.

Then I listened carefully for a few minutes, heard no creaking or cracking of the house, called it a success, spent a day in online orientation for my new job, and packed my bags to hit the road again. August 18th evening I drove to Ottawa, arriving at 11pm. August 19th I wrote my NCLEX nursing exam at a testing centre in Ottawa, adventured around town a bit, and wrote and passed my jurisprudence exam online in the evening. I woke up August 20th, saw that I passed the NCLEX, paid a bunch of money, and officially became a Registered Nurse. Then I barely made it to the airport in time to catch my flight to BC, saw my sisters for a quick visit, loaded my brother’s car up with lumber, and by that evening I was on Bowen Island being stared down by a backward facing buck that wouldn’t budge.

I spent the next few days on Bowen working on wedding decor. I got all the prep work done for our centrepieces then Harpreet came out and we assembled and stained them together. They turned out to be very popular with our guests!

Harpreet also designed some fun sign shapes like this one, which I cut out and sanded for Harpreet and Prem to paint later on:

Over the next few days I found logs from the beach and forest and turned them into decor bases, sets of tealight candle holders, and place card holders.

I also turned several pieces of driftwood into succulent pot holders, and made a frame.

Some old siding we pulled off the cabin three years earlier came in handy for this piece:

I loaded as much as I could into the car and drove it out to Abbotsford where the tent company was getting things set up.

A couple months earlier, I learned that one of my groomspeople, Vania, wouldn’t be able to make it from Sweden for the weddings because Canada wasn’t allowing non-Canadians into the country due to the COVID pandemic. Luckily my friend (and former boss from my time working at a lemonade stand) Martin agreed to be a groomsperson in time to get his kurta pajama tailored for the wedding. Then just over a week before the wedding I got the sad news that another groomsperson, Nate, wouldn’t be able to make it to Canada either because of bureaucratic delays with his paperwork in Germany. His kurta pajama was ready, but he wouldn’t be around to wear it. The day after Nate shared his sad news, I saw my friend Dave, who welcomed Nate to stay with him when Nate first moved to London years ago even though they had never met. Dave not only agreed to take Nate’s place as a groomsperson but happened to fit pretty well in Nate’s kurta!

The first week of September is a bit of a blur, to be honest. Lots of driving, site prep, wrangling supplies, etc. September 3rd was a bridal celebration, complete with a fantastic juggling performance by Tim, lots of food, and a quiz about the bride on which I fared quite well. Harpreet’s lovely parents, Davinder and Raj, kindly offered to host 3 nights of events at Harpreet’s childhood home in Abbotsford.

The next evening was the sangeet, which started off with mehndi artists drawing gorgeous designs on guests’ hands. I got a simple heart design with Harpreet’s name in Punjabi, drawn by the fastest mehndi artist in BC.

Guests took loads of photos under the two arbours I built, which were beautifully decorated by friends of Prem and Harpreet. My mom and sisters really enjoyed the evening!

The reason for the frame I made a few days earlier was so that Harpreet could turn it into this:

The aunties sang songs and danced, and eventually we were all dancing.

Later in the night, Nikki asked me how much I weigh, which confused me for a moment but then she hoisted me up on her shoulders while her sister, Sonia, and Gurkirat hoisted Harpreet up into the air for a dance.

After the sangeet we had one day off to prepare for the wedding, then we headed to the temple in Richmond for our big day. The following photos are all by @ronnieleehillphotography

After a light breakfast in the langar hall, we had our wedding ceremony surrounded by friends and family:

After the ceremony, we took photos with all the guests inside, had some portraits taken outside, ate a light lunch in the langar hall, then hit the road in a 1935 Rolls Royce.

We drove out to Campbell Valley Regional Park for wedding party photos and some more portraits in the bright midday sun.

Wedding party: Tim, Sonia, Julie, Gurkirat, Prem, Harpreet, me, Stash, Martin, Jason, Dave, Danielle

After the photoshoot we had a short break to rest before the reception while Ronnie took some photos of the reception decor like the centrepieces we made with floral arrangements by Julie and the bride squad, blueberry jam by Harpreet, the truck that Heidi and Aman painted, the gazebo a group of people decorated, and the photo board I made from old siding.

Then we pulled up to get the evening started in Abbotsford:

We went to bed late that night, with phone batteries nearly dead, and slept through our alarms the next morning, causing us to miss our ferry to Galiano Island. The silver lining was that we were able to tidy up much better at the Singh residence so Davinder and Raj wouldn’t come home to a post-wedding mess. Then we caught the evening ferry to Galiano, checked into our cabins, talked into the wee hours of the morning and got a tiny bit of sleep before our second wedding day started.

In the morning, once the makeup and hair folks had done their thing, we headed down to Bellhouse Provincial Park for some morning portraits. Prem and I had scouted this location a in the summer of 2020 when we toured the gulf islands together in search of the perfect wedding venue.

Back at Bodega Ridge, the wedding venue, Harpreet changed out of her lehenga and had a much-needed nap while I sorted out a few last-minute details with the venue event coordinator, delegated some tasks to the groomspeople, and had a little more caffeine.

By 3pm Harpreet had woken up and changed into a saree, my dad and Davinder realised they wore matching outfits, and everyone was gathered up at the ceremony site, ready for our second wedding to begin.

I blame the serious lack of sleep over the previous two weeks for my inability to hold back tears as I read my vows out, but I promise they were happy tears.

After the ceremony, we took loads of group portraits, couples portraits, and family portraits. I’m really looking forward to sharing them with everyone sometime soon but here are a select few:

When Harpreet tossed her bouquet, Tim jumped higher than I thought physically possible and caught the bouquet, to many people’s astonishment.

We walked back down to the lodge for hors d’oeuvres and cocktails then a short while later everyone gathered under a big tent for dinner. We decided, instead of formal speeches, to have an open sharing circle facilitated by Stash, and we were blown away by the kind-hearted and hilarious things our family and friends shared with us.

One of the great things about having two weddings is getting two cakes made by my baby sister Lisa. We asked for something classy and floral and she came up with this beautiful artistry using edible flowers and lactose-free ingredients so I could enjoy it without getting sick. We were able to share a bit of cake with the kitchen staff and they gave it high praise, too.

Matt and Jenny kindly brought a big box of our centrepieces with floral arrangements from our Indian wedding reception over to Galiano and they were put to good use throughout the lodge:

With dinner and our sharing circle finished, we headed into the lodge for a night of good conversation and merry dancing.

After yet another short night of sleep, Harpreet and I said our goodbyes to anyone who was awake, then hit the road to catch our ferry to Mayne Island for minimoon part 1. We saw my parents again as they waited for their ferry, and we got to chat with Isabel and Ricardo who were en route to Pender Island.

On Mayne Island, we had the best midday nap ever at our rental cob cottage, then had dinner overlooking the ocean under bright pink and purple sunset skies while two orcas put on a show for us not too far off shore. This is the cob cottage where we stayed, and astute readers may notice we brought centrepieces with us here, too:

Harpreet spotted this cute tree frog on a pine in the Japanese garden:

After two restful nights on Mayne Island, we caught the ferry back to the mainland and spent a night at my parents’ place in Vancouver, before catching yet another ferry to Bowen Island for minimoon part 2.

Since the florals still looked amazing, we brought a few centrepieces to continue enjoying on Bowen, where we had made them a couple weeks earlier. We also went for some really nice walks to enjoy the beauty around us.

After a couple of peaceful nights and nice meals on Bowen, feeling much more human, we returned to the mainland so I could fly back to Ontario to work on the kitchen renovations and start my new job as a nurse on the neurosciences unit. Harpreet would catch up to me later. Most of the photos below are more renovation pics so if you’re not into that then scroll past to the end for one final wedding photo.

On arriving in Kingston I immediately got to work removing all the old kitchen backsplash tiles, chopping up the small countertop to access the pipes below, framing in a wall opening for a rangehood vent, adding more power outlets, and installing recessed ceiling lighting.

I got many splinters during this time, but this one was the most impressive in both its size and its ability to pierce so far through my skin:

By the night of October 1st I had lifted this and screwed in this sheet of drywall, with much frustration and sweat. I would definitely not recommend installing full sheets of drywall overhead without a second pair of hands or a drywall lift. Before:

After:

I decided to use cement backer board to create a flat surface for the tile for the new backsplash, because the wall was super duper uneven and it would’ve been sooo much work to get it flat. A whole lot of shims ensured the backer board sits just right.

I was running out of time before Harpreet would arrive, and I knew she wouldn’t appreciate a kitchen with nothing working, so I set to work installing a power outlet for a dishwasher, staining a countertop, and getting some base cabinets ready in order to install the sink. The floor in this part of the house rises by over two inches in just twelve feet (5cm in 3.6m) which is pretty insane, so I had to do a lot of prep work to make all the cabinets sit level on the floor.

A few days after she arrived in Ontario, we took off for a few days of adventure in the Algonquin Highlands where we went for a few solid autumn hikes, visited a wolf sanctuary and a neat sculpture forest, and even got a canoe ride in!

Back in Kingston, I installed the sink and dishwasher, mounted a bunch of wall cabinets, Harpreet helped me install the rangehood over the stove, then in mid-November I fixed the gap in the floor created by taking out the old wall. This was much harder than I expected, but I eventually succeeded, and in doing so I took a lot of squeaks out of the floor.

Once the floor was in place, I put up the last base cabinets with another section of stained acacia wood countertop, and another power outlet for the temporary microwave home.

I also officially received my bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Toronto in mid-November, although I didn’t bother attending the virtual ceremony.

In the first week of December, I tiled the backsplash. It was my first time tiling so it’s far from perfect, but we were pretty happy with the outcome.

I was scheduled to work at the hospital the nights of Dec 24, 25, and 26 so Harpreet went back to BC to be with family for Christmas. In my time off work, I finished the kitchen cabinets so we could start using them and wired up some under cabinet lighting. I left a few details to be completed later, like the toekick and soffit, in order to turn my sights to yet another project.

On Dec 23, I started on my next project: redoing the bathroom floor, which was a collection of uneven tiles, many of which were cracked. This is how it looked when I started:

Harpreet would be arriving Dec 28 early morning, and I had three 12-hour night shifts in that period, but somehow I still thought I could get the floor done before she arrived. As it turns out, the flooring under the gnarly tile had lots of black mould and rotten parts so I had to remove a lot of it and sand the rest down to good wood while running three fans and a heater to dry it out; I had to remove the old toilet water inlet coming up through the floor and run a new water line inside the wall behind the toilet; I replaced the flange that connects the toilet to the stand pipe so the toilet water goes to the sewer; added loads of extra blocking between joists to stiffen up the floor and give the toilet something on which to sit securely; installed new plywood subfloor, blue waterproof underlayment, and vinyl plank flooring; and reinstalled the toilet.

I neeeearly made it, but Harpreet arrived with the last row and a half of flooring to be laid. Still, by the time we celebrated the end of 2021 we had a new bathroom floor.

We celebrated New Year’s Eve together at home by stuffing our faces from two charcuterie board spreads:

Because of COVID, this annual update has mostly comprised of renovation and wedding photos. We’re hopeful the next annual update will feature some international travel, and it will certainly include our relocation from Ontario back home to BC. We’re looking forward to spending more time with so many of our family and friends in the coming months, and as always I’d love to hear from you about your adventures in 2021. I still haven’t replied to everyone who wrote to me last year, but I will… eventually.

In closing, allow me to leave you with best wishes for 2022, and this epic double exposure wedding shot from Galiano Island:

2019 and 2020 annual update double feature

January 1, 2021January 8, 2022 ~ The PhotoDiarist ~ 6 Comments

Dear family and friends, some of you may have noticed that I didn’t put out an annual update for 2019. A bunch of people asked me to continue with my annual updates, so this year I’m doing a quick and dirty double feature: 2019 and 2020 in review. It’s mostly photos, and there are even 2 cat pictures to look forward to!

New Year’s Day 2019 found me underneath our cabin, digging by hand and breaking very big rocks to prepare for eventually replacing all the posts that have been rotting and/or tipping over for the last few decades, like this one:

Helaine was in town so we caught the gondola up to Grouse Mountain and made an impromptu decision to rent snowshoes. Fun!

By January 10th, 2019 I was on a plane bound for Geneva for briefings Jan 11 at World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters. That night I flew down to the Democratic Republic of Congo, which I had left only a few weeks earlier.

I spent most of January to early April 2019 in Butembo, as the WHO logistics team lead for the Ebola response there. It was exhausting. On the plus side, passionfruit is readily available and dirt cheap in DR Congo so I was able to eat 10-20 every single day for months.

There was also a day when we flew into a small village that had never had a helicopter visit before, so the local school brought all the kids to see us landing.

In late February I had a week off work so I flew all the way back to Canada and caught a train from Toronto to Kingston to spend some time with Harpreet, take possession of the house I had bought a few months earlier, and enjoy the balmy Ontario winter weather.

I returned to DR Congo to find more than one Ebola centre had been attacked while I was in the air coming back, and then a second attack happened after my arrival. It was really sad to see, and made my job even more demanding and challenging for the rest of my contract.

In early April I jumped on a helicopter, with some Ebola vaccine coolers, and left Butembo for Goma, then… Germany.

Canada wouldn’t let me come home on my UK passport and my Canadian passport had not been returned to me in time by the US IRS. So, instead of coming home I flew to Dresden, Germany where I could stay with my friend Darren, waiting for FedEx to bring me my Canadian passport. Darren showed me around town a bunch, and ordered our food and drinks in German.

Darren even took me out of town to see this amazing stonework built centuries ago up in the natural rock formations way up above the river valley:

FedEx took nearly a week despite paying for the guaranteed overnight rate, so I went to Prague for a few days and did a LOT of walking and staring at pretty buildings.

The last time I was in Prague, for only a day, was in late April 2003. I had tried to travel by train from Prague to Sedlec that time, but I made a mistake and got off the train one stop later than where I needed to switch to another train. I had to wait 4 hours in a tiny little town for the next train back to Prague. This time around, with my smartphone in hand and a direct train to Sedlec, I had no trouble at all getting there. I had been annoyed for 16 years about that one missed train stop, so I was really stoked to finally get to Sedlec and see the ossuary there!

My flight from Prague to Toronto had a long layover in Warsaw, and I’d never been in Poland before, so I left the airport and had a great time wandering around town seeing a few sites and drinking coffee at world class cafés including my first ever flight of espresso shots.

When the time came to head back to the airport, I boarded the wrong train and found myself in the middle of farmers fields, with no planes in sight. I was lucky enough to get an Uber that got me to the airport just in time. The flight was delayed leaving, or I would’ve missed it.

I spent the next month in Kingston, Ontario, fixing up and painting my house to rent out, and completing two online courses in anatomy and physiology.

From late May through August 2019 I was back and forth a couple times between Ontario and BC, where I worked on renovating our Bowen Island cabin. Most of which involved the continuing efforts to stop it from collapsing into the ocean. Also, my sister Lisa graduated from UBC Nursing!

I also had to finish those online anatomy and physiology courses, otherwise my university admission offer would be rescinded.

Then I broke some more rocks.

In late June Miriam and Chris visited from the UK, and we had a great time hanging out on Bowen.

In July I broke more rocks and dug more dirt from under the cabin. I also went to Steph and Trevor’s wedding, and the aquarium.

Then I spent two weeks in Ontario searching for a rental apartment in Toronto and working on fixing up my house in Kingston.

Back in BC by the end of July I was preparing to sell my 1979 Honda motorcycle and spending some time with Aunty Jo who was visiting from Uganda.

In August I broke more rocks.

And we hiked up to the amazing driftwood mastodon!

In late August 2019 I moved to Toronto, Ontario to return to university. I started a Bachelor of Nursing degree, which should finish in June 2021. It was interesting being back in school, and having my first clinical placement in hospital starting in mid September.

Josephine came to Toronto for TIFF, so we got to hang out!

Harpreet’s sister Prem also visited, which was tonnes of fun. And I started baking sourdough in September 2019 too. It took a while to get the hang of it, but by October things were looking and tasting good.

Ontario has real fall colours, unlike much of BC, so one day we went with Tim to a maple syrup farm north of Kingston to see all the pretty leaves and eat pancakes.

In November 2019, Harpreet and Tim went to New York City without me. So I rented a car, drove from Toronto to Kingston, bought a Christmas tree and hauled it on foot several kilometres through the snowy streets, and set up a bunch of Christmas lights at Harpreet’s apartment, before returning to Toronto. She returned from her trip to her first ever real Christmas tree.

After final exams ended in December, I went home to BC for Christmas, including taking Harpreet and Prem to the Chor Leoni Christmas concert at the Orpheum.

Then Prem got a kitten!

Harpreet came out to Bowen just after Christmas and spent some time with us, including a driftwood beach adventure.

I was looking forward to 2020 but like most people, I have been pretty disappointed with how things turned out. I had one clinical placement on a paediatrics unit from January to February, then my next placement was cut short after orientation because of COVID. All our classes moved online, which has been terrible for me as I learn much better in a classroom environment than staring at a screen. Without hospital shifts to apply the knowledge, most of it only stuck long enough to succeed in my exams. Plus, 2020 was the first year since 2004 that I didn’t leave Canada and the first year since 2006 that I didn’t visit at least one new country.

Still, there have been some good times!

For example, in January 2020 I cut a piece of black walnut in half, added some legs, and got two side tables for my couch.

Then in February I finally found where the tiny red ants in my apartment were coming from – this small box of water filters. Took care of it and I haven’t seen another ant in my apartment since, so that was a win.

In March, I made some focaccia and Harpreet decorated it with a coronavirus design.

And I got these gimmicky glasses for serving cortados:

In April I saw a fox and her cubs in Kingston, and then Harpreet made me a lactose-free version of the Judge’s torte with raspberries and mint leaves on top as my early birthday cake.

I returned to Bowen Island in April 2020 because sitting in my Toronto apartment all day was not a great use of my time. On Bowen, when I wasn’t doing online schoolwork, I was able to work on the cabin or just sit outside in the forest staring at the ocean or bake more bread with fresh herbs from the garden.

There was also a group of California sea lions that hung out until the end of May. They were really fun to watch!

I also bought an ebike in April and used it to ride in to Vancouver every couple of weeks for supplies, so I was in half decent shape for a little while (my ebike won’t go anywhere but downhill unless I pedal, and 35km of steep hills is still hard on a cargo-laden ebike).

On May 31st during a storm, a boat ran ashore on the beach below our cabin.

On June 1st, at about 2am when the tide was high, I helped my brother Matt float the boat off the beach and tie it up at the dock nearby, and the owners came and got it.

In late June when the first wave of the pandemic had calmed down, I flew back to Ontario and helped Harpreet move out of her Kingston apartment. It was a big undertaking, but we got everything packed up and into storage or my apartment, using several vehicles including this cargo van and jeep.

In early July we returned to BC and a few days later we got engaged on Bowen, with some help from our sisters to organise the surprise and a 4-person celebration afterwards.

We also hired our good friend Alasdair Benson to take some engagement photos for us before Harpreet returned to Ontario.

In August, Prem and I scoped out potential wedding venues.

In late August Brad, Lisa, and I succeeded to make, scribe, and install some braces on the cabin.

In September I got to hang out with Mushu and nearly finished the roof overhang before flying back to Toronto

Back in Toronto, I had delicious vegan ice cream with Harpreet.

In early October we went up to a cottage with some friends, and enjoyed the fall colours.

By mid October my only clinical placement for the semester was already over so I moved to Kingston. We moved into my house at the end of the month and I bought my first car!

I spent a few afternoons in November digging swales in the backyard to try and channel the seasonal flooding that happens here every year into a water feature. It worked for a while.

Then we had two days of BC-style normal rain over Christmas and the swales couldn’t quite cope, so there’s more digging in my future.

Harpreet and I put a bunch of Christmas lights in the tree. This is what they looked like before the squirrels started chewing through wires faster than I could splice them back together:

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, neither of us could go home to BC for Christmas, but we still had a great time!

To round the year out, I finished this live edge cherry vanity for Harpreet as a belated Christmas present, we toasted the end of 2020, and Stash organised a zoom call for a bunch of us to play Among Us.

That’s it for this year! Fingers crossed that my 2021 annual update will have some international travel and large groups of people in it for a change!

2018 Annual Update: 10 highlights from an otherwise dreary year

January 10, 2019June 14, 2020 ~ The PhotoDiarist ~ 3 Comments

Last year I didn’t get around to doing my annual update for family and friends; this year I’ll keep it much briefer than past updates. I’ll share 10 highlights from 2018, and would love to hear what your major highlights were too!

In 2018 I was in Canada, El Salvador, Canada, Netherlands, Canada, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Canada, USA, Canada, Bangladesh, Japan, Canada, USA, Canada, DR Congo, Canada. I spent a whopping 204 days in Canada this year. The last time I spent more time in Canada was twelve years ago, in 2006, when I was still a UBC student with a reasonably full head of hair!

In date order:

January 2018: El Salvador

In January I had the good fortune of working in El Salvador for four weeks. It was my first time ever in Latin America, and I loved it. I got to take Spanish lessons most evenings for an hour after work, eat pupusas, and hike not one but TWO volcanoes on my weekends off.

February 2018: HEAT security training in Amersfoort, Netherlands

In February, I was sent to the Netherlands for a intense security training. It was really well-run, with live simulations and excellent facilitators. I can’t really say much about what happened, but I give top marks to the Centre for Safety and Development for running it so well. After the training, I spent one night in a hotel in which my room door was hidden in a bookshelf!

Learning to apply a makeshift tourniquet

April 2018: Portland bachelor weekend for Jason

In April, I took a short break from my work in Bangladesh to fly home to Canada for Jason’s bachelor weekend trip down to Portland. It was loads of fun, including brunch at a restaurant with swings for chairs.

May 2018: Tokyo layover

At the end of my assignment in Bangladesh in mid-May, I flew home via Tokyo. I had a 10-hour layover so I made the trek into the city and had a great time, including amazing coffee with these guys at Koffee Mameya, and no coffee but heaps of cuteness at the hedgehog cafe.

July 2018: Hozoulina’s wedding

In early July, Jason and Julia tied the knot at Van Dusen Botanical Gardens on a perfect day. I had a blast being one of the groomsmen during such a fun summer day and evening of adventure with such fine folks.

July/August 2018: Oceanfront paradise

A few days after the wedding, a few of us had our names officially put on title of the dilapidated cabin on Bowen Island that we had purchased a while earlier. There’s a lot of work ahead of us, but the first little bits of tidying inside and underneath have been a lot of fun. I also got to use the living room for a while to continue working on that rowboat that’s been in progress for a few years now. It’s getting close!

July 2018: Ontario / Québec summer adventures

I spent the second half of July in Ontario with Harpreet. We made weekend trips to Montreal and Prince Edward County (where our hosts Rick and Kerstin were the nicest!), went kayaking among the 1000 Islands from Gananoque a couple of times, and ziplined through the trees at Skywood Eco Adventure in Mallorytown.

September 2018: Mudgirls cob plastering workshop

In early September, I went up to the Sunshine Coast for a cob plastering workshop run by the Mudgirls. I had gone to a cob building workshop on the same site a year earlier, and I can’t wait for the next chance to go to one of their workshops. These people are really something special, and building and plastering with cob is SO. MUCH. FUN.

December 2018: Kingston winter recovery

After 2.5 months working on the latest Ebola outbreak in DR Congo, I landed in early December in Toronto and spent the next two and a half weeks in Kingston with Harpreet. It was the perfect place to relax and regain some balance after such a prolonged period of sleep deprivation and work overload.

December 2018: Christmas in BC

I flew back to BC on December 20th, in time for Christmas on Bowen with my family. A big windstorm on the 20th did a bunch of damage to the family boathouse so we spent a lot of time getting a temporary fix in place. We also played games at the house, worked on an enormous crossword, finished a cupcakes puzzle in one night, and ate a lot of delicious comfort food. A few days after Christmas we made pizzas and played games with our little cousins for an afternoon then went over to Aunty Pat’s place for Yorkshire puddings from an old recipe she’s been using for years.

Here’s hoping 2019 has more highlights than 2018 did! I fly out of Vancouver today, bound once more for DR Congo to work some more on the ongoing Ebola outbreak there, but this time as a consultant for the World Health Organization.

Layover guide: Tokyo with under 10 hours between Narita flights

June 29, 2018June 14, 2020 ~ The PhotoDiarist ~ 3 Comments

TL;DR
This post is a little lengthy. I think the level of detail will be helpful to many, but if you’re in a hurry you can click here to download the bullet points. There are also a number of important disclaimers at the end of this post; please read them and don’t blame me if you miss a flight by copying me.

Background
Every time I have a layover long enough to leave an airport and see the local town, I make an effort to do so, whether it’s just long enough to get a coffee in Amsterdam and turn right back around, or a few hours to explore Frankfurt, visit friends in Paris or London, check out Istanbul, or admire the windows of Bad Wimpfen. If I can leave an airport to have some fun, I do it.

So when I ended up with a flight home from Bangladesh via Tokyo Narita airport in Japan, with 9 hours and 45 minutes between landing and taking off, the first thing I did was start googling how to get out of the airport and make the most of my day. I’d never been to Japan before, knew next to nothing about it, but so many friends had told me amazing things that I couldn’t pass up this short chance to get a little glimpse of it.

Initially, I thought I would only have time to visit Narita, the town in which the airport is actually located, well over 70km away from Tokyo, because this is the advice that most commonly comes up on TripAdvisor and other online fora. Everyone seems to say that Tokyo is so far away, it’s not worth the trip if you’re not staying longer. However, on a whim I decided to see if a quick trip to Tokyo might actually be possible within my short timeframe. This was a rare time that Google was less helpful than usual, and I found myself only semi-confident that I would succeed, but I did it anyways. Now, having been to Tokyo and enjoyed it immensely, I felt it could be helpful if I share what I learned so the next person searching online will be able to make a more informed decision.

Getting out of Tokyo Narita Airport and storing luggage for the day
On 18 May 2018, the Thai Airways Airbus A330 descended to Tokyo Narita Airport through thick, dark, low clouds that nearly touched the runway in the cool morning hours. The landing gear hit the tarmac at 06:20 and the plane arrived at the gate at 06:34. Google Maps had told me that I could catch a 07:26 train into Tokyo, or another one about an hour later. With an afternoon flight boarding at 16:05, I had already decided that I should be back at the airport to clear customs and security one hour beforehand, so about 15:00 (3pm for those of you who don’t like 24-hour time). Narita terminal 1 is an old and relatively small airport (with bizarrely low ceilings), so I knew my walk from security to any international departure gate wouldn’t take more than 10 minutes.

The plan I made before arriving was to leave my carry-on bag at a left luggage storage facility in the international departures area before going through immigration – I figured this would allow me to get back into the airport with just my pocket contents, possibly shortening the security screening and allowing me to walk much faster through the airport. The internet told me that a QL Liner left luggage facility exists in international departures, open from 06:30. As I followed the signs from the gate to customs it became clear that I would have to go out of my way to get to the departures area, and my number one focus was to hustle through the airport as fast as I could to catch the 07:26 train, so I cancelled that plan and hoped I wouldn’t have to lug my backpack all around Tokyo.

I needn’t have worried.

At that early hour, even though I was at the back of the plane, it took only a few minutes on a series of moving sidewalks to reach the immigration area. I handed over my passport and arrival information forms. The immigration officer asked no questions; she just smiled and had a quick look at my passport. A machine with a very cheerfully colourful screen instructed me to place both index fingers on a pair of fingerprint scanners, then the camera took a quick photo of my face. The officer stuck a little visa sticker in my passport and that was that. You can read more details on the arrivals procedure and how to complete the forms here: https://myjapantips.com/2014/11/04/so-youve-landed-in-japan-customs-and-immigration/

I then walked down a short escalator to the baggage carousels. With no luggage to collect, I did a u-turn to head toward the exit. At the exit, I had to show my passport to a customs officer standing by one of those steel surfaces for bag searches; he took the customs declaration form and asked where I had travelled from (Bangladesh), why I had come to Japan (for a short tourist visit), how long I would stay (until the same afternoon), and several times whether I had any luggage to collect. His English wasn’t perfect so I’m not sure if he was asking whether I had checked luggage to collect at the carrousel (no) or if I had checked luggage that was still somewhere in the airport (yes). I just said my backpack was the only bag I was taking with me, which was the truth, and he returned my passport and said goodbye.

It must’ve been literally only about ten steps from this officer’s station to the Terminal 1 landside arrivals area where people wait to welcome their arriving family, friends, and clients. Off to my left I could see the words visitor service centre in huge letters.

Walking in that direction, there were bus service counters along the right-hand side of the hall and on the left-hand side a left luggage service called Green Port Agency Company Ltd. The gentleman working there was so incredibly happy to see me, it really started my day off well! He was very quick to accept my backpack and give me a claim tag to collect my bag in the afternoon and wish me well on my way.

Getting cash at Tokyo Narita Airport
Online searches had led me to believe that shops and the travel centre in Narita airport would all be closed until 08:30, but everything I needed was either automated or open already by 07:00. I guess I was reading the wrong internet.

From the left luggage office, I walked to the visitor service centre area just a few steps away. There I found a bunch of ATMs, including one from 7-11 (which all good trivia players know originated in Japan) which clearly indicated it was compatible with foreign cards with the Plus logo, Visa, MasterCard, American Express, UCB, etc. I took out a bunch of cash which, much to my surprise, was disbursed in 10,000 yen notes (10,000 JPY was about 90 USD / 120 CAD / 78 EUR at the time).

Buying a local data SIM at Tokyo Narita Airport to use phone data in Tokyo
These large denomination notes turned out to be a problem, because my next step was to buy a data SIM card from a vending machine so I could use data to navigate Tokyo and make the most of my time. The SIM vending machines are located just after the ATMs, as you walk toward the airport trains. The U-Mobile machine selling the cheaper SIM for 2500 yen for 7-days with 2GB data only accepted cash and only up to 1000 yen notes. Lesson learned: Try asking the ATM for either 9000, 19000, or 29000 yen and it will hopefully then give you some 1000 notes in the mix.

The second, more expensive SIM vending machine from NTT accepts only credit cards, so I used my MasterCard and coughed up almost 3800 yen for a 7-day data SIM with 2GB data. Yes that’s a lot of money, but to be honest it was still worth it. My Hong Kong layover adventure in April was severely hampered by an inability to look up information and directions on the fly; I cursed myself for forgetting to buy a SIM and an Octopus pass at the Hong Kong airport (both of which ended up costing me dearly in wasted time finding my way, and waiting in the non-Octopus queue for the Victoria Peak tram) and this time in Tokyo I refused to repeat that mistake. Note that you can only buy a data SIM from a machine – a full-feature SIM with phone call capabilities requires a more complicated registration process, but you can use a data SIM to make calls by Skype, WhatsApp, Signal, Facetime, etc so this shouldn’t be a problem for most people.

In my rush, however, I failed to take note of the obvious instruction on the vending machine to activate my SIM. It appears from the huge arrow sign in my photo above that this can be done on the touch screen, though I’m not 100% certain. More on this process below.

Buying a train ticket from Narita Airport to Tokyo
SIM in hand, I continued walking just a few more steps and saw the “Skyliner and Keisei information center” with 3 staff sitting behind the counter and plenty of English signage. They answered my questions, gave me some advice, and sold me a Keisei Skyliner same-day return ticket with free 24-hour subway ticket, as well as a Pasmo card. It’s important to tell them if you’re returning the same day or later, as it’s much cheaper to return the same day. I didn’t need the free subway pass but I knew I needed a Pasmo card, which is just a preloaded transit card (like Oyster in London, Compass in Vancouver, Octopus in Hong Kong, Presto in Toronto). Train stations in Tokyo can be crazy busy so trying to pay each time for trains during the day would be confusing and time-consuming, while the prepaid card just needs to be tapped on entry and exit.

There are actually a total of 10 different prepaid transit card types in Japan from different transit companies, which are now largely compatible with each other. Pasmo is what the visitor info centre was selling, and it worked for everything I needed. The other main card in Tokyo is called Suica and that would’ve worked for me as well. More info on the different cards here: https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2359_003.html. You can actually even use these cards as cash debit cards to pay for stuff at some shops like 7-11, and if you’re done with the card you can return it to an appropriate transit service desk (like the one in Narita Airport) to get your remaining balance back in cash.

Warning: there’s no wifi on the train! Activate your SIM before departing.
I boarded the 07:26 Keisei Skyliner express train about 10 minutes before departure, and congratulated myself on being so efficient in getting from the plane to the train in so little time without any running involved. I connected to the free wifi, sent a few WhatsApp messages, checked email, and then we pulled away from the station. As I was sitting comfortably in my seat, the wifi suddenly disappeared! Every frequent traveller knows that modern airport express trains all around the world generally have free, if substandard, wifi. Well, despite signs everywhere about the free Keisei WiFi, it turns out it’s only in the stations – so if the train is between stations you’re out of luck. My plan to use the train ride to research my morning activities and plan a walk in the gardens was shut down.

You might be thinking, “Why not just use data with my new SIM, if there was no wifi”. Well, your data SIM won’t even let you connect to the provider’s website for activation – you need a wifi connection to go to their website to activate the SIM. Even before I discovered this issue, I faced the challenge of not having anything with which to eject my existing SIM from my phone. I used to always carry a paperclip with me but had recently lost it in Bangladesh and forgot to get a new one. A local passenger on the train was kind enough to lend me a safety pin, so that problem was quickly solved.

In case you’re worried about phone compatibility with Japan’s networks: your phone needs to be compatible with at least one of the Japanese mobile frequency bands, but these days pretty much all smartphones are. My phone is an ancient 2014 LG Nexus 5 and it worked just fine. There were two instruction leaflets with my SIM. One explained how to set the APN, but in my case the network broadcasted those settings to my phone automatically so they were already correctly set when I checked. The small print on the second leaflet had one important instruction hidden around the halfway point: the website address to register the SIM online before it can be used.

So if you’re sitting on the train with a non-activated SIM, get that done quickly before departure. If you don’t have time, don’t worry too much: the same free wifi network exists at the other stations, so if you get off at Nippori or Ueno station you can connect to the wifi there and activate your SIM. I got off at Nippori station to switch to a local train for Harajuku, the part of town I decided to explore (tip: on the Keisei Skyliner, the TV screen gives very clear instructions in English for how to transfer to the local trains with your Skyliner ticket and Pasmo card). I connected to wifi and began the registration process but my onward JR Yamanote Line train was about to leave so I left the wifi coverage area to jump on the train. I could’ve/should’ve just caught the next one 5 minutes later but I didn’t know they were so frequent because I was too tired to come to the realisation that I could just google it now that I had wifi to do so… So I hopped on the train for the 25-minute ride, annoyed that I still had no access to data to see what restaurants would be open for breakfast, or how to get to the local parks and gardens for a morning walk.

Instead of getting off at Harajuku station as planned, I got off one stop early at Yoyogi because I wanted to visit Yoyogi Park, not realising that there’s no entrance to the park near the station of the same name. There was no free wifi in this station, but five minutes into my walk from the station I managed to find a very slow free public wifi connection. I managed to activate my SIM, and from then on it was smooth sailing with Google Maps directions and searches for restaurants, cafés, things to do, etc.

Adventures on foot in Harajuku

Despite the dark clouds when we landed, by the time I was walking from Yoyogi station it was so bright and sunny I was dripping sweat. I took a long walk through Yoyogi Park, then walked through …. to Omotesandō where I found breakfast and coffee. If you’re a coffee drinker and you get a chance to visit the tiny little Koffee Mameya, you won’t be disappointed – they have beans from some of the world’s best roasters, and the baristas will let you sample several before deciding what to buy. You can get whole beans to take home, or a full-sized coffee to drink in Tokyo.

Next, I headed to Hedgehog Cafe Harry for a pretty cute experience feeding a pair of cuddly animals. You can even pay to adopt one and take it home. Elsewhere in Tokyo there are similar “cafes” with cats, rabbits, otters, and even owls!

Once I got bored of holding sleepy hedgehogs, I walked a few blocks to Harajuku Gyozarou (alternatively spelled Gyozaro or Gyoza Lou) for a cheap but delicious lunch.

After eating a plate of hot gyoza, I spent some time walking through the little side streets of Harajuku filled with modern Japanese fashion and ended up picking up a pair of Onitsuka Tiger shoes.

I also had some more coffee at a little van converted into a mobile cafe, before walking back to Harajuku station in the bright sunshine to catch the JR Yamanote line back to Nippori.

Getting back to Tokyo Narita Airport
At Nippori station, I showed my open return train ticket to a guy in a booth, so that he could issue me the real ticket with my seat number on it. Within 10 minutes of starting the Keisei Skyliner journey from Nippori back to Narita Airport, thick ash-coloured clouds appeared ahead and it suddenly looked like most of the year in Vancouver: grey and threatening rain. Just my luck that I had a full day of warm sunshine for my adventure.

On arriving back at the airport at 15:01, I walked the short distance past the ATMs back to the left luggage desk to retrieve my carry-on backpack. It only cost me around 320 yen for the day’s storage.

From the luggage storage, it was a short walk to the escalators up to 4th floor departures lobby. On arriving at the top of the escalator, I walked straight through the check-in concourse to the opposite side of the large hall where there’s a big departures sign. There was a huge crowd people lined up to clear security but, with the same efficiency I noticed throughout the day in Tokyo, the queue was processed very quickly. It took only about 5 minutes to clear security. Next, I went to the immigration area where I was again processed very quickly.

By 15:32 I was already in the duty-free shops area, and by 15:40 I was sitting in the KAL lounge using my Priority Pass. Food options there were very limited compared to other Priority Pass lounges in other airports, but I had one of each of the sticky rice snacks: sea cabbage, vegetable, and sweet chicken which were pretty good. It only took me 5 minutes to walk to my gate in good time for the 16:05 scheduled boarding time.

I could’ve actually arrived half an hour later than I did and still walked onto the plane without breaking a sweat.

So despite having only 9 hours and 45 minutes from landing to takeoff, 1 hour 30 minutes travel time to Tokyo, and the same to return to the airport, I was still easily able to spend a solid 5 hours and 30 minutes exploring the Harajuku area without feeling particularly rushed.

Click here to download a printable very short summary of the main points above

Important disclaimers
If you’re making plans to visit Tokyo or any other city on a same-day layover, please bear in mind that I’m 185cm / 6’1″ and walk quite quickly, so if you’re a slow walker you may need to add a little more time to get around. I also have a high risk tolerance for arriving at the last minute for flights – if you’re the kind of person who arrives at the airport 3 hours before your flight, or you frequently end up getting extra attention from customs or airport security, then plan your trip carefully.

Before trying to exit the airport in Japan or any other country, make sure that you’ll be permitted to do so by the local government. Depending on the passport you hold, and the country you’re visiting, you may need a visa before arrival. In the case of Japan, I knew beforehand that I could show up unannounced with my Canadian passport and receive a 90-day tourist visa on arrival just by filling out the regular arrivals card provided by the airline on the flight. Some countries require additional forms, payment, or an advance application. Unfortunately, all nationalities are not treated equally and you may simply find that you can’t leave the airport at all. In the case of the UK, citizens of many countries discover too late that they are not even be able to transit through a UK airport without getting a transit visa in advance. For more info specific to Japan, see https://www.mofa.go.jp/j_info/visit/visa/short/novisa.html

Check whether your arriving and departing flights are both at the same terminal. I arrived at Narita Terminal 1 and departed from Narita Terminal 1, but if I had to switch to Terminals 2-3 there would’ve been a shuttle bus involved, requiring more time. Switching terminals at some airports, like Dubai DXB, Lost Angeles LAX, London LHR and others can take over an hour, especially if you’re not familiar with those airport layouts. One Tokyo-specific problem is that some people don’t notice that one flight arrives at Tokyo Narita and the next departs from Tokyo Haneda or vice versa, so pay careful attention when booking your trip. It’s also common to find yourself in need of a shuttle transfer between the two major Paris airports: Roissy Charles de Gaulle CDG and Orly ORY.

Also note that I was already checked in for my next flight as I was on a single booking from Dhaka to Bangkok to Tokyo to Vancouver; the airline assumes that passengers stay in the transit airports so luggage is transferred to the next plane and passengers just need to be at the gate in time for boarding. If you buy a separate ticket to get to a country and another one to leave that country just a few hours later, which is a very risky thing to do, you’ll likely have to collect your luggage and check in again for your next flight (the risk is that your arriving flight is delayed and, since you’re on unconnected bookings, if you miss your next flight then the airline can make you pay for a new ticket).