Taber, Medicine Hat, Maple Creek, Moose Jaw

Good day everyone! Jon and i had a good sleep at out $4.91 hostel. We left at around 10:45am to browse around downtown Lethbridge. It has your major box stores like safeway, london drugs, save on foods, for example. We went to dollarama to get a lint roller and bag clips. The lint roller is for my black pants which i threw in the washer and dryer with a white fluffy towel. We then went to save on foods to get more water, bread, fruit and such. Did you know that save on foods sells gas? Well they do. They also give you money back for filling up with them like superstore has gasbucks.

Jon and I left to go to Taber where there was 2 large corn stalks. This was a “big thing” which is essentially a very large thing. Jon and I are trying to take pictures with most of the big things in canada. Our first big thing was smokey the bear from Revelstoke.

After Taber, we went to Bow Island where we took a picture of a large golf club. Then we went to Medicine Hat where we took a picture of the Saamis Tepee, another big thing.

We have crossed into Saskatchewan now. Our first stop was at Maple Creek which was described as a town that looks like the Old West. It looks nothing like the Old West. It just looks old. We had to drive 8km to get there so that was a bit of a waste. We’re now heading to Moose Jaw where we’ll try to do the tour of the tunnels.

Edit: We are at the University of Regina. We’re staying at their dorms. It’s not bad. Jon said that the buildings here are quite nice. In fact, the dorm that we’re staying at is apparently better than Gage, on UBC campus. I have 2 additional mosquito bites. I’m sad!!!!! I shall use mosquito repellant tomorrow.

We stopped at Moose Jaw where we saw the Passage to Fortune tour at the tunnels of Moose Jaw. It was very sad. The tour retells the story of the hardship chinese immigrants experienced when coming to canada around 1885 for the railway. The story follows the life of Mah Lee who in China was a herbalist but when he came to Canada, worked on the railway and then in a laundry. He worked for 35 cents but half of that went to paying for his food and living arrangements. He ate and lived in the laundry where it was cramped, mold, hot and smelly. The tour was good but it’s weird saying something is good when it’s so sad. The audience (jon and I) were part of the tour and we played the chinese immigrants. This was weird because the tour guide was caucasian and she was pretending to be the laundry owner’s wife back then and was yelling at us. However, it’s part of the tour. It’s just a little weird. After seeing this tour, it definitely makes me appreciate what i have.

When we were walking to get tickets for the Passage to Fortune tour, a random guy asked us if we’ve ever heard of country music. Jon and I said yes. Then he said “good...” then proceeded to sing a country song. Jon thinks it was funny.

We ate at a local vietnamese restaurant. Actually, Jon was craving Arby’s but there isn’t one here. So we ate Pho. The soup was very different from the ones i’ve have in the lower mainland. The best description that i could think of is instant noodle soup. It tastes sort of like dilute nissin beef noodle soup. It wasn’t bad tasting. Very much edible but different. The beef ball were better here. They had bits of black pepper in it and was very chewy. Jon had beef with his noodles and it wasn’t like pho beef. It was more like normal beef you use in stirfry. The meat selection was limited. It was either beef balls and noodles or beef noodles. I told jon we should try something in different provinces and see how it tastes. It’s either sweet and sour pork, which we’ve tried in Banff or pho noodles. We’re thinking of pho noodles but we’ll see how that works out. I don’t feel that comfortable eating pho noodles in winnipeg but that’s just me.

After dinner, the restaurant (Saigon) gave us fortune cookies. They tasted like play doh. Now there are 4 things that taste like play doh: 1) play doh 2) so nice soymilk 3) cookies from quiznos 4) fortune cookies from moose jaw

We checked out the moose jaw casino. It was small but wasn’t bad looking. Jon said it wasn’t as good as he thought it would be. Jon also wants to let you all know that his new shoes are squeaky but he likes to dance in his shoes. He also said that his shoes will let other animals know we’re coming if we go hiking. Ha ha

Good night everyone! Tomorrow, we’ll explore downtown Regina, then we’ll drive into Manitoba.