the jasper experience, part I

another unplanned out-of-town trip happened the week before last. nothing was scheduled for the coming weekend, except for a small bbq picnic on a nearby park if the weather is good. our spirit was dampened by the days of awful weather. a correspondence with a fellow photoblogger in calgary prompted me to check the weather website and it's only then that i realized how beautiful the weekend's gonna be. i immediately run in my mind a list of places that we could visit. with a disadvantage of four hour drive, and the price of fuel skyrocketing, plus the fact that we would probably spend some time in the place when we go to Banff on the labor day weekend, we decided to see the Jasper National Park. with a reputation for a scenic drive, it boasts a lot of beautiful lakes, mountains and anything a nature lover would ask for.

our first major stop was the Ashlar Ridge viewpoint along the miette road, which would eventually lead us to the Miette Hotsprings.




at the parking lot of the Miette Hotsprings park, we saw this beautiful bighorn goat sheep, wandering around, mindful of the many visitors, and providing a great photo op for everyone.


this is where we spent most of our afternoon, dipping in the hot pool, in the midst of the mountains, with cold mountain air! click here to see the view of the hotspring, stolen from nel's blog =)


with still a couple of hours of daylight left, we drove to maligne road to check out two beautiful lakes and a canyon. unfortunately, to see the canyon would require some hike. and with the two kids sleeping in car after the hotspring bath, we have to skip it. here's a sampling of the scenic road view that i mentioned above.


and this is the first of the two lakes, the Medicine Lake:


and here's a roadside view of the lake. it would be totally dry by autumn time, according to the information that we read, and here the water is now only knee high on some areas at the middle. how did i know? there were some guys fishing on the right side of the photo, which i decided not to include in the composition.


then we headed for the Maligne Lake, but since we arrive considerably late already, we didn't get the chance to see much of the area. there were some boat that i presume would take you around the lake, and to the world famous Spirit Island, but the dock is already closed. There must be a trail that could lead us to the island, but the kids are really not in a good mood to hike, and i bet it's a long one! here's a view of the lake on a very late afternoon.


it's getting late and we still don't have a place to sleep, so we headed to the Icefields Parkway(hwy 93), which is still an hour drive. we checked the Whistler campground first, but they don't have a campsite with a firepit anymore. we then proceeded to the Wapiti and they are full as well, so we drove another 8kms to Wabasso campground which i think is much better than the first two. it's 9pm and we are just starting to pitch our tent, starting fire and preparing our yummy barbecues and smokies dinner. we slept quite late, and was already thinking of the coming day. we can't wait to see more of the beauty of the place.

note: i would update this entry again to include more photos, to give you a better feel of what we saw on our whole trip. salamat!

look under the cap

i noticed that the coke bottle i bought at the c-store downstairs has a promo going on in it, win a 50" Sony LCD TV - look under the cap, as usual. after two minutes of trying to get the label off, my mind made a quick trip down memory lane, to my looking under the crown adventures in my younger years. nothing could replace those moments where there is excitement everytime you buy a bottle of coke (or pepsi) for yourself (or for someone else) on a sari-sari store(a very small version of a convenience store, for you western readers. as small as your apartment bathroom, but has everything you would ever need, from a sachet of shampoo, to chips and refreshments, to a kilo of chicken or beef, even cooking ingredients). softdrinks(soda, pop, whatever you wanna call it) companies never run out of promotion, so you're essentially looking under the crown every time you buy a bottle of their product.

back to the sari-sari, this little stores would not allow you to take home their bottle, without giving up a deposit. why? because you could sell it to those roving recycling guys, actually junkshop guys for 25c. so you would usually go home with your drink on a small transparent plastic bag(just big enough to hold a 500ml without overflowing), with a straw in it. and hey, if you didn't ask for the crown (crowns for the glass bottle era, caps for plastics), they wouldn't give it to you. so you gotta ask always! and if you have befriended a store owner who didn't care or just too busy to deal with the crowns, you could ask for them. and if you're lucky, you would have a bag-full of crowns to check.

then comes the time when you have to redeem your winning crowns, mostly just another free drink. most stores won't entertain them, so you would usually wait for the softdrinks delivery truck to come by, and claim your prize from them directly. and since they only stop on the stores who needs replenishment, you usually have to chase them to their next stop. and they don't put it on plastic bags like the stores do, so you would need a spare bottle to exchange with them (but usually you don't). what do you do now? you guessed it, you have to drink the slightly warm softdrink(they were exposed to the sun the whole day on an open truck, so you're lucky if the delivery came in the morning) right away and try to finish it before their business with the current store is over, otherwise they would take your unfinished warm drink away =( that's how it is, you were just a kid, and they were grown-ups, bullies at that! but i still consider that as part of the joy of being a kid looking under the crowns. you'd win yo-yo's sometimes, posters, t-shirts, but most of the time, just plain warm bottle of softdrinks that you have to finish in haste. oh wait, there was a time too when all you'd get where signatures and faces of the Menudo band members Robby, Ricky, Ray, Roy, and Charlie. Like an explosion! My love for you. It's an explosion! lol!

weekend highlights

friday, 8pm: lost my Rio Carbon
saturday, 10am: drove around edmonton for a handful of errands.
saturday, 12nn: got my Rio back! turned over by a very nice kid at YMCA downton.
saturday, 1pm: had a very short meet with a fellow photoblogger at West Edmonton Mall.
saturday, 2pm: headed for camping at jarvis bay, sylvan lake.
saturday, 5pm: family mini-golf at the campground. Nick managed to secure an extra free game for making a hole-in-one on the 18th.
saturday, 6pm: locked ourselves out of the car, with foods still inside and most of our stuff. Had to call locksmith for help. Arrived in 20 minutes and unlocked the car. Costed me 50 bucks! should have joined CAA earlier =(
saturday, 8pm: late bbq dinner (see above). half done burger, and lotsa sausage and hotdogs!
saturday, 10pm: first time eating at Big Moo in Sylvan Lake town. Had one scoop of Nanaimo brownie and one scoop Cafe Pecan, the best and the biggest serving of ice cream I've ever had in years! (their serving is not really big, but i haven't eaten that much before, and enjoy it). thanks to Nick and Bill's insistence.
saturday, 11pm: scrabble inside our the tent. unfinished due to tiredness and sleepiness =)
sunday, 9am: searched for McDonald's at Sylvan lake in hope of a good breakfast. the rain during the night made everything wet, it's discouraging to cook anymore.
sunday, 11 am: packed everything in haste, as it started raining again. Nel and Nick got caught on the rain while jogging and biking.
sunday, 12 nn: quick visit to the lake and some picture taking, then bid goodbye to the campground.
sunday, 1pm: one more time at Big Moo, had a scoop of Belgian Hazelnut this time. Awesome!
sunday, 3pm: stopped for a short shopping stint (by Nel) at South Edmonton Common.
sunday 5 pm: ate some taken out noodle soup from our regular vietnamese restaurant Thang Son, me and Nel's fave. We had a grand time eating, as usual.
sunday, 8pm: spent a short time with the kids at the playground. Nick did a couple of laps on his bike (enjoying so much as he only learned to ride 2 weeks ago). Capped the day at the swing, with me pushing them young fellows until they yell "enough!"
sunday, 9pm-12mn: played Halo 2!!

boy, that weekend was quick as a lightning!!

Staples price match, part II

This is my second price match(PM) experience with Staples, the first is here. I got a heads-up from RedFladDeals.com that the Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3.0 would be on sale at Futureshop(FS) starting Aug 5 at 39.95, and that Staples have it for 119.95(note: that the price have now been reduced to 79.99). If you do a quick math based on their 150% price match policy, their PM price should be a negative!!!

So I set my phone reminder last night to say "Go to staples!" at 7am (I usually wake up before 8), and I was up and ready this morning. I was checking the futureshop site and the staples site while munching three waffles to make sure that my effort would be a success. At Futureshop site, it's already out of stock online, so I hurriedly check the in-store stock. Lo and behold! all edmonton stores have them on stock! wooohooo!! Watched the clock, and jumped to the car at 7:55 (staples opens at 8am). I think I was the second customer in the store, and after searching for the item, I headed directly to the cashier and uttered the infamous line "I wanna price match it with Futureshop's"

The guy behind the counter would not allow me to PM at first because he said they are a different model. Theirs is comport edition, and futureshop's is desktop 3.0, so I led him to the shelve where their price tag says "Microsoft Wireless Desktop 3.0". And then he's like "Oh, I didn't see that.", then went back to the counter and after a couple of moments uttered "Ok, so they are the same, but I'm sorry I can't do a PM because they are now out of stock at FS. I immediately countered, "yeah! online, but not in stores". So he checked again, and finally gave up, and ask one of the lady to honor the competitor price. =)

Then the cashier lady went gaga as her machine was giving her an error everytime she tried inputting the price match amount of 39.95. She has no idea why, I guess she's not good at math =) After failing to do it for 5 times I think, she asked the other lady and the latter explained that it's because the result is a NEGATIVE! So they did it manually and since the register won't allow zero, my PM price was 1 cent! And as I'm digging in my pocket for a penny, the lady smilingly told me not to bother, lol!!

Then she said "you want your receipt in the bag?". I jokingly said "Oh yeah, so I won't have problem returning the item if I don't like it". She said "oh yeah, so you could get your penny back!"

I'm trying to prevent myself from bursting into laughter the whole time I was in the store.

150% pricematch policy means:
119.95(their price)
- 39.95(competitor's price)
-------------------------------------
80.00
x 50%
-------------------------------------
40.00 (price difference)

39.95 less the price difference equals -0.05!

Imagine getting something worth 120 bucks for free, it's like winning a small time lottery, hehe! If you think I'm kidding, look at this scanned receipt.

comment to junnie's blog

this is originally just a comment to junnie's blog at memento. but for some reason, it had grown awfully long that it's not an acceptable comment anymore, hence i decided to just make an entry for it here in my blog.

see memento's blog entry first, then the comment i was planning to add:

90 bucks for 2-pc jollibee chickenjoy? ang mahal na ah! last time i bought (less than 2 years ago), around 60 lang yata, one of my alternate lunch kapag nagsawa na sa pauli-ulit na menu sa caf namin sa WHO. and P31/L ang gasolina? oh my! konti na lang pala ang diprensya sa presyo dito sa canada.

wish ko para sa pinas? wala! sawa na ako ng kaka-wish! at wala rin naman itong maitutulong. di masamang mangarap, pero masama ang puro pangarap. ayaw ko na ring manisi, sayang lang energy ko, wala rin namang mangyayari kahit manisi ka magdamag. kilos na lang tayo, as in kanya-kanyang sikap, at walang hilahan pababa! we can't help everyone, so why not just try to help the people close to us. if each of us would do the same, everyone would eventually receive some form of help. this is a good time to believe the theory about the six degrees of separation. baka nga five lang para sa buong pinas eh =) i only have 81 friends on friendster, but i am related to 535,968 on "third degree", and this are only those people who have internet access, and presumably below 40 years old (more mature people consider friendster, i bet, as baduy or jologs!) i have more friends who i couldn't find in friendster, and i bet kung lahat sila mai-a-add ko, i would have more than millions on third degree, and definitely would have close to the philippine population on the fifth degree.

back to reality, we attended the heritage festival here in edmonton yesterday. it's a three-day celebration focusing on the multi-culturism of canada. at the filipino pavilion, the person behind the mic announced in passing on his intro that there are now 22,000 or something filipinos in edmonton. this led me to thinking that what if i could ask 1 buck from each and every one of us and donate the whole amount to a charity in philippines, that's a whopping 1 million pesos, without even hurting anyone's pocket. what if i could do that every month and have a different beneficiary? that means we would be of help to 12 charities in a year. what if we could give toonies instead of a loonie? that's 24 charities in a year, or still 12 but receiving 2 million pesos each! how i wish it's as easy as it sounds, but when i attended the independence day celebration last month, i saw far less than a thousand filipinos there. where could i find the other 21 thousand?

charities here in canada utilizes a call-center approach to asking for donations; cancer society, wheelchair society, heart society, children with aids are the names i remember being mentioned by someone talking to me on the other end of the phone line. and if they could ask 20 to 100 bucks from each one of us, why can't i ask one buck from my fellow filipinos?

i now wonder, is there any organization that is doing this right now in edmonton? if so, how many of them are out there? and where are they? how come i haven't heard of any? i'm sure if i could find one right now, i'd volunteer for some work. anyone listening? and if they have the same project, i would give 20 right away. that way they'd only need a thousand more 20's to raise a million peso.

i'm not really familiar with the charity organizations that exists in philippines, but i know a lot of our folks there need some help. from remote areas devastated by a recent natural calamity, to disease organizations, to hospital folks (the PGH pedia ward for example), to orphan homes, or simply groups of people finding ways to send poor bright children to school. i don't know how much work is needed to accomplish something like this, but i hope i could manage to find some way to (help) set up one. this is a very simple idea, and i know someone have already thought of this, so i hope they could just tag me to help them. i've only thought of this this morning while i'm composing this entry, so i hope it won't disappear, and this blog entry would help to remind me. i'm turning 30 this november, is it possible to accomplish (or at least start) something like this by that time? who knows? miracle happens everyday, according to junnie's comment on the same blog entry.

from chicken joy, to gasoline price, to a charity org. thanks for the inspiration, junnie. i hope something good will come out of this.