Zombie sushi and turtle sex

So, we have departed the cruise and are safely back on dry land.

First things first - we needed to celebrate my birthday. We managed to find a tapas restaurant in Barcelona that was 'created' by the same chef that brought the world El Bulli. We had no idea what to order, and thankfully our waiter came to our rescue, asked us how hungry we were, and told us he would just 'bring things'. The first course was very reminiscent of El Bulli. They looked live olives, but both the texture and the flavour were something altogether different. 

After this the food just kept on coming. We ended up with something like 17 different dishes. That included the best smoked salmon I have ever eaten...

The worlds cutest calamari hot dog...

Smoked fish...

And the worlds tastiest tomatoes (with a side of ham croquet)...

We ended up leaving with very full bellies and very light wallets a few hours later.

Saturday morning we were armed with reservations to check out some of the Gaudi sites we missed last weekend. We finally made it into the cathedral.

This church is nuts. So far they have been building it for 130 years. They estimate in modern terms they have spent about $1.1 billion dollars. One woman has spent the last 20 years doing nothing but the stained glass windows. If you ever aspired to be an evil genius or a cult leader I suspect Gaudi is someone to study. How he managed to convince so many people in Barcelona to actually invest such vast amounts of money into his crazy schemes is to be admired. 

One idea of his that didn't quite get the same level of enthusiasm was Park Guell.

Whilst the centerpiece was built, it never quite became the housing estate he envisaged, with only the display home ever being completed. Of course the 'dragon' is what everyone comes to see.

For dinner that night we decided to hit up the Japanese/Brazilian fusion restaurant near the hotel. One of the best dishes we got we decided to call zombie sushi, because the salmon looks an awful lot like a brain...

On Sunday Riin was off to see something artsy (I mad a micro sleep somewhere around the word gallery) so I decided to hit up the aquarium and zoo.

Turns out the fish of the Mediterranean are very grey and brown. Hence the hoards of European tourists around the one teeny tiny coral reef tank. The place featured some awesome octopuses.

And you could jump on a moving walkway through a massive shark tank which had a lot of tiger sharks.

There were also some great exhibits of fish eggs (little fishy babies on a clothesline).

After the aquarium I went to hit up the zoo. The animals at the zoo seemed very bored with the tourists.

Those that did not look bored were sleeping.

Or hiding. I couldn't find any of the lions, tigers, cheetahs or Jaguars supposedly in the enclosures. It was almost the great Snow Leopard incident of 2000 all over again...

Despite it being Sunday one of the elephants was still able to get an appointment with a podiatrist.

If you grew tired of walking you could hire a car to drive around.

Among the animals the birds were the most interested in showing off.

There was even the incredibly rare Chilean flamingo....which only has 2 legs...

The turtles were the other end of the spectrum. I'd go as far as calling them exhibitionists. Had to laugh whilst one poor parent tried to explain what was going on in the enclosure.

I think I spied a candidate for parent of the year at the zoo. Toddler was screaming and crying and wanting Mum's ice cream. Mum didn't want to share, so they placated the kid by giving her Dad's beer. Stopped the tears at least.

I was a little worried about the welfare of some of the animals. Are bears supposed to form at the mouth? (Can't find an answer on Google...).

There were so many different coloured birds.

My new fav bird though is the vulture. I don't think I'd ever quite appreciated how big they were.

And I think I found the smartest statue in Europe. Finally, the solution to the bird poo problem.

Vienna tomorrow!

O Canada

I have had a pretty chilled week and a half in Vancouver. Being somewhere I have been before, rather than going out and doing all the touristy things, I have really just been hanging out. So, for this post, I figured I would show you some of my fav pictures from Vancouver (at which point you are sure to work out the kind of eclectic visit I have had!).

Granville Island is one of my fav places here in Vancouver. I like wandering through the market and eating yummy things I find at the market. You have to be careful though with your fish and chips (or calamari and chips in my case).

Crazy ass seagulls will try to steal your food. I ended up acting like a crazy person and had a full on conversation with a seagull about how he was not getting any of my calamari. I won, though one of his pals came back later to have a shot at my ice cream (whatcha gonna do with coffee gelato seagull???).

Speaking of crazy ass seagulls, we had one stalk our boat last week! Chris played skipper as we hired a boat and took it for a cruise for a few hours through English Bay (I think I have that right). We saw lots of sea lions on the way, and the scenery was quite pretty.

We made two pit stops on land, one of which was for ice cream (I like ice cream, I am using it to get over the cupcakes). At that stop there were lots of folk out kayaking and stuff.

People were out near Granville Island doing the same when I was there for lunch today. Felt bad that I was eating an ice cream and watching others be energetic...not really.

Back to the crazy wildlife, I went to Stanley Park one night last week to go to theater under the stars (they were doing The Music Man). On the walk to the spot where the theater was I got caught in a turf war...between two squirrels! There was this guy (who is looking at me as if to say "you taking MY picture?").

And there was this guy...

Both were not afraid of humans and full on had a go at me. Not liking squirrels.

I did find some wildlife in Stanley Park though that I did like. I went back to the Vancouver Aquarium. Those of you who have seen my Facebook profile photo anytime in the last three years know that I played with the beluga whales last time I was in Vancouver. This time around I played with the dolphins. Well one of them anyway, a pacific white sided dolphin named Hana. Whilst I was there though I did pop back to see my buddies the belugas.

I did wonder if they recognized me and were desperately trying to give me a hug to say hello. So much so that they ran into the glass...so cute.

There were sea lions there too. Think this dude was trying to escape...

They had just opened the new penguin exhibit...

As always, the jellies were super super cool...I sat and stared at them and thought about how they would fit into my evil genius empire. I am thinking laser beams in each tentacle. Now that would be a weapon of mass destruction...

And then there was the amazon enclosure. The macaws were my fav in there...

I went for a nice wander through the park, though it wasn't the best day for it...

Today was a much nicer day to wonder around the sea wall. I even found the sea plane airport!

Oh, and today I caught the Aqua Bus over to Granville Island. 

I think that I finally found a kind of poutine that I actually like. Normally I am all for weird, deep fried foods, but even I draw the line at poutine. There were a few takeaways that sold nothing but (some advertised over 20 different types). I ate every last bite of this one...It had liquid cheese though (ewww).

I picked up some cool nail polish in Vancouver. Check this out



Sent a pic of it to a few beauty bloggers and all are a little stumped over how to use it (only instruction on the bottle is "do not shake"). Got my nails done as well. The only downside was that the moisturiser the chick used was sparkly. I didn't realise just how sparkly until I walked outside and realized that in the sun I looked like a vampire from Twilight on a bright sunny day. Can't really see how sparkly I am I the pic, but how cool are those nails?



Oh, and the cafe at my hotel had the best name

Have loved being in Canada, but tomorrow I fly to Japan! Let's see how bad my high school Japanese has gotten...

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