In Search of Kingdom Living

My first snowboarding adventure was… wait for it… legendary.

Yesterday, I went with a bunch of friends to Cypress Mountain, one of the local mountains in Vancouver and official freestyle skiing and snowboarding venue for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

I arrived there around 11am, strapped on my boots and gear and headed outside. It was a bright, sunny morning and the picturesque landscape was a perfect backdrop for my first snowboarding lesson.

So first things my friends do to me is PUSH ME around, helping me try to figure out my stance on my board, whether I’m ‘regular’ (left foot first) or ‘goofy’ (right foot first). Apparently I may be ambidextrous which proves to be a difficulty for the rest of my day. Several tests that you can administer to discover your lead foot is by taking your first step after a push (for me, it was my left foot), or what is your dominate foot used to do a hockey stop (my right foot first), and kicking a soccer ball (right foot). Anyways, ultimately I tried being ‘goofy’ the entire time.

Before we began going on any trails on the mountain (go HERE for the map), I just tried to get my balance on the board and sliding a few feet on the ground. After a few minutes, it was trial by fire as we went up the Easy Rider lift and tried to do a few things on the easy slope.

My first challenge: stand up on the board from a sitting position onto my heels. Wow, it was near impossible for me. I’m not sure why it was so difficult for me – my height, weight, bad flexibility, etc. But in any case, I couldn’t stand up straight without falling down the hill already. And of course, this results in multiple falls on my butt.

After a few dozen attempts, my friends suggested that I try starting with my face towards the snow and stand up on my toes. I did that immediately – which apparently is rather different from most people. I’ll discover throughout the day that I have some rather peculiar snowboarding traits. Another hour of falling down and getting up and I was finally able to start standing up on my heelside, and eventually do a basic falling leaf pattern on my heelside, and on my toe side.

After lunch, I practiced a few more times on the bunny hill, then off we went to one of the nice green runs called, Collins.

On the Collins run, I tried to start going from my toeside to my heelside, and vice versa. The weird thing again is that I can’t figure out my dominant foot. Sometimes I would ski down the slopes with my left foot first, and other times with my right foot. This makes turning even more bizarre, because I would turn so many different ways and apparently I should just stick to one way of turning until I become pro then I can do whatever I want. Somewhere along the way, I was able to start linking my turns, and other times I crashed hard.

Finally, close to the end of the day, I ‘graduated’ to the last green run called Panorama. This run had some nice sweeping views of the other mountains.

Now on the same run, Panorama, you have a great view of Vancouver. Too bad it was cloudy by the time I could ski on this run. Vancouver is way down below past the treeline.

I’m thankful I’m not THAT sore. Even after falling so many times, my butt’s not too bad. I was also afraid I may have sprained my wrists when falling down so many times but they’re ok. So what do I think after my first snowboarding experience? I think I could enjoy doing this as a regular sport. I love being so close to the mountains, and when I didn’t yell out in frustration from falling ANOTHER time, I found myself saying a little prayer of thanksgiving for the wonderful surroundings.

Must do this again.

I’m one month into my life in Vancouver.

It’s been quite good so far. I’ve listed out the many changes in previous blog entries, so I’ll focus on some upcoming possibilities in this new city.

First, I’m daring to live the outdoor lifestyle. As an Asian from Toronto, it’s easy to just stay indoors all day – winters are cold, summers are hot, so indoors are nice. Well not anymore. My experience snowshoeing was wondering, and the view was just spectacular. And hopefully I’m catching the westcoast lifestyle of being fit. So with that said, I’m hoping to go snowboarding for the first time this weekend. And that’s not all – I want to try outdoor rock climbing, skiing up in Whistler, hiking, scrambling (thx CY for letting me know about this funky sport), surfing on the Island, downhill mountain biking… it goes on and on and that’s great.

Second, I haven’t been involved with any community yet (church, school, or other). I’m going to make a commitment and decide to join a church by end of February and I’ll stick to it for a year. This would mean getting involved with the church and not just be an attendee. We’ll see how that goes now that I’m no longer an ‘active leader’ of a church.

Third, I started ANOTHER BLOG. I figure this blog will be more of my personal thoughts for the year, while my other blog will focus on my thesis project. So if you’re interested about what I’m studying and how it’s going, I’ll be blogging at faithandtechnology.wordpress.com

Seminary

After UWaterloo, I went to Tyndale Seminary. I started studying there because I wanted some theological and biblical help with my ministry. Initially I wasn’t sure if I should go into seminary at all – I basically took one course per term. After the first year, through prayer and discussion with others, I thought it was a good idea to go full time at Tyndale and pursue a Masters of Divinity (MDiv). 

Tyndale offers many different majors for the MDiv, the most popular being pastoral ministry. Of course I tend to go against the grain so I chose Educational Ministry. I would describe my experience at Tyndale as going to teacher’s college plus all the biblical/theological stuff. Because while all the bible stuff was important and very formative in my life, I probably learned the most when I was in the Christian Ed classes. I took courses like the history and philosophy of education, developmental learning, curriculum design, human development and learning, ethnographic research, and education for spiritual development. 

Basically, I was learning how people learn things, what it means to learn something, what is the best way to learn in any context, and how did Jesus teach so we learn best (token SS question).

So these questions prompted me into thinking about my future as a learner, as a potential teacher, which got me thinking about….

Regent College. 

I’m here pursuing a Masters of Theology – ideally a one year program that is a precursor to a PhD. So here am I just about finished my 2nd week of class. It’s looking to be pretty challenging as I dive into all the readings, weekly assignments, papers, and (omg) exams! I’m taking 3 courses right now: one on Christian epistemology (how do you know what you know), one of the history of Protestant thought, and the last course is about Christianity and technology.

I’ve met with my program supervisor and I’m beginning to learn the lay of the land. The academic plan so far is to finish this term well. Have my thesis proposal submitted in april-may. Work on my thesis from may until dec 2009. Then party until graduating in 2010.

While I’m in the midst of my thesis work, hopefully I can begin to discern whether I am suited towards academia. I’ll need to dialogue with the Regent community, and will need tons of prayer (so please pray for me).

Now, I just need to figure out what I can do to have fun around here…

The Transit System – Toronto

In Toronto, I’m used to busing everywhere. Since I was a young teen, I remember busing from my house in Markham down to TCBC, my home church. I would use the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) bus that takes me to a subway station, then go all the way downtown. The average trip from door to door would take me 1:15 hrs-ish. When I was working downtown, I took the go train from Pacific Mall down to union station, and walk the underground PATH to work. That took me an average of 40 min.

I remember one time busing down to Warden station, taking the subway to Kipling station, taking the Sauga Transit to Square One Mall, and then transfering up Hurontario to get to a friend’s house in Brampton. Took us a good 2:30 hrs.

So I think I’m well versed with traveling via transit.

The Transit System – Vancouver (compared to Toronto)

Now that I’m in Van and have a UPass, I am basically become a transit junkie. I mentioned in an earlier post that I’m hoping to bus around the city, taking my time to explore all the lil’ places that makes this city so unique.

In the meantime, here are a few quirky things that I’ve discovered.

• my first observation was that Vancouver still has many street cars running on electricity. At first I thought it was an outdated system, but also very green of them (I guess?)
• I can walk onto any ‘b-line’ bus (ie. the express buses on major roads) from the back exits without flashing my upass. I guess its similar to the go train in Toronto where they have ppl check you once in a blue moon. 
• I took the sky train (elevated subway system) and there were no turnstyles or any security system that would prevent you from taking the sky train for free. There is only a warning on the ground or a sign that says ‘now entering paid zone’… etc
• a friend told me this whole system is based on the honour system. Guess that’s one of the major ways Vancouver is keeping the small town vibe
• another friend told me the transit system loses a ton of money, and a lot of homeless are able to freely move around the city because of the openess of it all.

So which is better? No idea. Hopefully I’ll have a more informed opinion as I spend my time in Van. In the meantime, I’ll wait and see as Vancouver ramps up its transit system for the olympics and TTC tries to build its Transit City.

The City: Toronto

When I graduated from UWaterloo and went back to Toronto, I was looking forward to re-exploring the city. I love the fact that Toronto is one of the most multicultural cities in the world, with pockets of hidden neighborhoods all around you. I also loved the fact that TO has a great downtown core and I could spend a whole day just walking around the city looking at architecture, urban design, city planning, etc.

I think this love for cities, buildings and infrastructure stemmed out of my childhood fantasy of being an architect (and after helping out a friend with her architectural project, I kinda sorta wished I had chosen to go to UofT arch instead of UW math).

So while in TO, I enjoyed driving and busing to different neighborhoods. Of course I saw a lot of chinatown (downtown and the china invasion in Markham and Richmond Hill).I spent my fair share in North York, downtown, Scarborough, etc. I loved walking along yonge street, queen street, the danforth, St Lawrence Market, my walk home from church, and many more places.

For the last few years, I enjoyed reading and learning about the city of Toronto. I subscribed to Spacing Magazine. I had blogTO on my rss feed. I loved the books in the uTOpia series – one about urban issues, arts, and the environment respectively.

So now, what to do in Vancouver?

I love the westcoast vibe here in Vancouver. It’s definitely great to see the ocean on one side, and the mountains on the other.

While my parents have been visiting me for a few days, they rented a car and we drove around the city for a bit. So far, I’ve seen the airport, Regent College, UBC, Richmond (Yaohan Centre, Aberdeen, Richmond Centre), downtown (robson st, pacific centre), granville island, stanley park, west van (park royal mall), chinatown, burnaby, white rock (visiting old church friends), washington state (for outlet shopping), and kitsilano (where I live).

Since i have a UPass, I’m up for busing anywhere so if you have any suggestions on what to do, what to see, what to eat, please let me know.

Also, I’m looking for several good Vancouver websites. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

The Weather

As a born and raised Torontonian, I figured I had a leg up on these wussy Vancouverites. I mean, I actually get FOUR SEASONS. I drive through snow and freezing rain. Using a manual transmission. Going up and down hills (you try driving up steeles between leslie and don mills when it’s freezing rain).

So I constantly laugh at my westcoast friends when they say their fair city shuts down with only a few cms of snow. 

not this time.

When I arrived in Vancouver, I think I brought a lil’ Toronto with me. There’s been a record snowfall (supposedly the first time in twenty years it’s been this bad) and due to few snowplows, the streets are not cleared of snow. In fact, my first day of school, I had to help my buddy get his car out of the snow. fun stuff.

Now, several days later – there’s still lots of snow, but it’s very Vancouver-ish. It’s been raining everyday, and the temperature has hovered at around 5 degrees. 

The clothes that match the weather

Putting aside my TO pride, I thought I could withstand the mild Vancouver weather cause I’m used to winters of -20 to -30 degrees. But Vancouver has a wet kind of cold, and the rain just splashes around everywhere – in your face, down your neck, maybe even up your pants. 

So here am I wearing my newly purchased rain jacket that’s also down-filled. And what do I see? CRAZY WEST COAST PEOPLE IN THEIR SHORTS. Yes. This seems to be quite common. I’m not only referring to the joggers/runners, but many university students, people walking around downtown, even one staff at Regent. I guess this is a west coast vibe thing.

I did have one day where it was sunny and the city is just breathtaking. You have a ocean view all around you. You can see the mountains in the distance. And the temperature was a good 20 degrees warmer here compared to Toronto.

Looks like I’ll be doing a lot more walking in these rainy conditions. So if you know what kind of good waterproof,  running/light hiking shoes I should get, please let me know.