Canada - Jan19

Today was the day of running errands in Vernon. The most important being renewing my licence. I had forgotten my license in Japan and thus I needed a bunch of documents to prove my identity. It turns out that a Canadian passport is a form of secondary identification. So that meant I had to dig up my citizenship papers, as I did not have a birth certificate because I was born in Vietnam. That was easy because my parents had the originals in a safety deposit box; aren't they organized?

The problem was that I had a legal name change. My license existed under my given name and Richard as I didn't change it until just before I graduated highschool and I got my licence when I was 16. Why was this a problem? It was because I couldn't find the official name change certificate. I was lucky because the official was lenient and smart enough to connect the dots and matched both names on all my documents, and to realize that to get a passport I had already proved my identity with proper documents.

After getting my driver's licence renewed, we went to see our Aunt Judy and her family. She runs a local nail salon and lives nearby. She was doing great and was, as expected, very busy. It was apparent that she had expanded her services, as we noticed she was displaying signage for a hairdresser who was working as an affiliate. We visited for a bit and went to the house to see Uncle(in law) Hank and their kid Cynthia.

If you know anything about how some Eastern Asians raise their kids, then you may understand why I shouldn't have been surprised. I expected a little craziness, but I was taken aback to see how much Cynthia was spoiled. She had drawn all over the walls and appliances, broken standing lamps, her father's stereo/dvd system was in ruins, and even the TV was not spared! Maybe my mom was different, because if I pulled stuff even remotely close to that I was disciplined with a spanking. Cynthia is cute but very quiet, she only talked to her father even though my dad would ask her questions in Cantonese. Oh yeah, she's learning Cantonese from the parents and nanny and her English is non-existent at two and a half. This won't be an issue when she starts Kindergarten, though that's assuming she can socialize well... I think she and her parents may get a big surprise when she starts school.

After that we went to the Golden Crown restaurant for a family dinner. I don't really know why we go here for special occasions as the food isn't really authentic Chinese, but what do I know? At least it was decent according to Jamie, who is very picky about Chinese food authenticity.

We split up after the restaurant. Jamie and Lana went for Karaoke at the Eagle's hall. I think it was the "stand in front of 60 people" type karaoke, so I opted to go home. We had invited Tim and Tara for dinner, as they kindly drove us back from Vancouver, but they had made plans to eat with her Dad, who just lost his wife and was very lonely. Though afterwards they came to my parents place. It was like old times, we watched bad TV while chatting. This time we watched OLN and caught goodies such as Mantracker. Jason called from Prince George as well, so I got to talk to him for a while, as did T&T.

There was a little bit of socializing when Lana and Jamie returned, but we had to turn in early as we were leaving for Vancouver the next day and the weather was supposed to be very poor.