My Summer

As you can tell, summer is coming to an end. School will be starting in less than a week. For everyone, school starting back is horrible. I wouldn't be so bad if your summer was marvelous or just simply satisfying. By enjoying, I mean traveling places, hanging out with friends, stay home and relax, and NO SUMMER SCHOOL. That would be a perfect summer, but unfortunately, that only exist in my dream.

My summer was not the best that it could possibly be. Summer is always two months. How long is school? Eight months? Nine months? That's like four times the summer. So what I really think is that summer should be free of work. It should be full of relaxation and pure fun. Sending your child to school is definitely not the rightful thing to do in the summer. That was exactly how the beginning of my summer went. My mom shipped me off to summer class. I spent a full month, my whole July, on a math class. I could have used that full month, which was half of my summer, to play video games or hang out with friends. For educational purposes, that might be good. But I have got nine months of education already. The summer is the time where I take time off. With the math summer school, I couldn't enjoy the first half of my summer.

When I finally finished the summer school, it was already August 2nd. Did I mention that I have a piano exam on August 14th? For the whole first half of summer, I got stuck with a math class. For half of August, I got stuck practicing for the piano exam. That was like one and a half of my summer gone. Gone in the trash because of two things that I thought shouldn't happen during the summer. That was why I felt so relieved when I took the exam. Two months of practice all came down to ten minutes in the exam room. After the exam, I got three full days off, which mean only video games. No piano, no work, nothing like that. Just video games. After my three days up in the cloud, I finally returned to earth. I had to read and take swimming classes after three days in paradise. I had to go the wedding of my friend's cousin, but that was great. I love it. After the wedding, we took three camping trips with our friends. One was to Capilano. Another was to Mission, B.C. And the last one was to Cultus Lake, Chilliwack. So as you can tell, August went way better than July. It's not even a close competition.

My summer did not go the way I expected it to be, but you can't change it now. School starts in six days, and when that comes, I would hear people yakking about there fabulous summer, and I'll just silently slip past them. Well, I just have to enjoy what's left of the two months summer.

Squamish and Whistler

If you hear the word "Squamish", what is the first thing that come to mind? It sounds like a horrible vegetable, but it's not. It's a small but fascinating city, neighboring by Vancouver, B.C. My family and I didn't explore the city (or the town, whatever you want to call it), but we did visit a famous site, called Shannon Falls Provincial Park. Not the best-looking waterfall in the summer, but compare to all the other falls I've seen, this one totally eliminated the rest.

The second I positioned inside my car, I knew it would be a never-ending drive. I really hoped the sight that we would be visiting pay off for all the time on the car that I had to put up with my sister. I had to say that the highway was really nice. Off to my right were the mountains, and off to my left, the ocean stretched in all direction. Mountains were everywhere, and island popped up here and there every five minutes or so. Pine trees grew on both sides of Highway 99. We drove with our parents' friend, who could be a great tour guide. At one point, he spotted Grouse Mountain and Mt. Seymour looming in the distance like two huge humps on a camel. He pointed out all the sights on the way, from every mountain to all the bays and islands to our left. Horseshoe Bay was surrounded by mountains and trees; so dazzling it looked like a beautifully painted picture. As our car rounded a curve, I could faintly notice what I suspect was Stanley Park, though I doubted it, beautifully in the distance. As if reading my mind, our friend just wiped my doubt away, assured me that it was one hundred percent Stanley Park. The view was gorgeous. I already loved the highway, and we weren't there just yet.

Though the view alongside the highway was great, the drive still took forever. But of course, we arrived at Shannon Falls at last. I was expecting the waterfall to be huge and elegant. I was expecting a huge stream of water to pour from top of the mountain. I was expecting to be deafened by the sound of water. I was expecting all that stuff, but as always, I let my hope get a bit too high. Shannon Falls was neither huge nor elegant, and instead of pouring water, there was barely a stream of water. The sound wasn't as loud and deafening as I hoped it would be. It wasn't all that bad. The water was coming from all the way from the top, and as the water come down, it bounced of rocks after rocks before flowing into the calm, peaceful pond at the bottom. The water flow wasn't as big as I though it would be. It was as if someone was pouring water from a bottle. The second the lid was opened, the water came out strong and powerful, but as the bottle got emptied, it became broken and unstable. I really liked it, since it was the first true waterfall I've seen so far. I would surely come back next year, hoping to see the bottle getting refilled.

After we were finished with the waterfall, we kept heading north, towards Whistler. This drive was shorter, and the views were the same, with mountains, lakes and trees appearing at every glance. We let our friend-tour guide did what he does best: pointing out landmarks. I really enjoyed and appreciated him feeding us geographical information. If I aced my geography test on B.C, thank you. We arrived at Whistler Village in no time. We were all starving, so lunch sounded the best that circumstance. We visited a spaghetti restaurant, and since we were famished, anything would sound tasty. I gobbled down my soup as well as my spaghetti, then unable to finish my dessert. After we got that out of the way, we wandered around the place and ended up at the place with the chairlift, where you get your bike up the hill, and free roamed downhill. I found that pretty cool, though I was no professional with bikes. 

We left as suddenly and quickly as we had came. I enjoyed the day-trip as much as I enjoy soft drinks. Though on our way back, we got jammed in some horrible rush-hour traffic for more than thirty minutes. But after the wonderful day, that didn't seem so bad. You can't be lucky forever!        

Wedding

Note to self: when someone invites you for a wedding, try your best to show up and don't even think of refusing. Maybe the formal way of clothing might not be my thing, but the dinner and all the festivities really make your day. I just went to a wedding of my friend's cousin, and it really wasn't bad at all.

As I said before, dressing formally in a suit with a tie and dress socks weren't my thing at all, though this wasn't my first time dressing like that. After getting myself dressed (which took a while), my family and I left to find the place where the ceremony (no, not the restaurant just yet) was held. When we got there, I casually walked in, found my friend, and popped myself in the last row of chairs. Let's just say the ceremony was not the most exciting event that Saturday. We just all sat there and listened to a lady from the government speaking and announcing. That might have been exciting for my friend's families and siblings, but for me, I just sat there, with my feet sleeping under the chair.

When it was finally over, someone announced that there were "refreshments", which was just another word for food. At least that was the interesting part in that room. After that, I just sat around because I really didn't know many other people beside my friend, his family and mine. Then one of his cousin came to me and started a conversation, then introduced me to his brother. They were both pretty nice guys. But of course, when I was finally having fun, we had to leave.

I thought that was it, but believe it or not, my parents said that everyone in the wedding ceremony would come to a dinner. Of course, how did I not know that? More tie, dress socks and probably isolation as well. But I figured that it would be a luxurious restaurant, so at least that wasn't bad. 

When we showed up for the dinner, not everyone was there, so the plan was delayed by half an hour. When it finally started, I was starving as if I hadn't seen food for ages. I've got to say that the food was luscious, and since I thought I hadn't eaten in ages, they tasted even better. All the dishes for my food portion that the waitress served were all gobbled and devoured in seconds. I guess you couldn't worry about manner when you're famished.

When that was done, we moved on to the entertainment with the bride and groom, along with guesses among the crowd who were willing to volunteer. That was probably the best part of the night. The crowd and the two newly married wife and husband started some usual wedding games, and I had to say they were all hilarious, with constant jokes from the stage and ear-bursting laughs and cheering from the audience. I really enjoyed the wedding.

At last, we (as in all the people who were present at the restaurant) gathered all our stuff and left. I have to call it a night!