Robin in Vancouver/Tour Bizarre

Robin
Originally uploaded by sinkblue.

As noted, I met Robin one very drunken night in Calgary. Since then we've spoken a bit on msn but nothing much. Knowing that he would be stopping in Vancouver on this way to Australia, I told him he had to call me up so that we could hang out . . . and on Sunday he did.
I asked him what he wanted to do, and since he replied with a lot of ambivalence, I decided to take him on a 'Tour Bizarre' of the Tri-Cities. A 'Tour Bizarre' is a tour of all the most bizarre or strange or unseen parts of a town. It started for me when Sue and I were in Prague and Sue's boyfriend's Dad's girlfriend's daughter Yana, and Yana's exboyfriend, decided to show us some things that tourists never see - a really ugly church, a crumbling building, the TV tower which had giant metal baby sculptures crawling all over it and a gross bar that only served beer in foggy mugs and their toilet was a hole in the ground.
So my tour bizarre of the tri-Cities included driving Robin around Riverview Hospital, showing him the shiny penitentionary for the criminally insane at Colony Farms and I tried to find the pig farm in PoCo with no luck. After yummy tofu and veggies dinner at a Chinese restaurant and a failed attempt to find Korean ice cream, I took Robin to the beach off the Barnet Hwy where you can climb on the remains of the old saw mill. Even though it rained, we must have meandered along the beach for an hour talking. Robin changed my approach towards beaches and rain. Along the beach, Robin was looking for large rocks until finally he disclosed his love for listening to the plunk of a large rock thrown into still water. We found that by each of us trying to throw a large rock we were creating a duo-toned harmony. If only I had a better throwing arm.
Robin had me listen to the rain both from under the branches of the trees and then from the edge of the shore. It takes a prairie-boy to help me realize how I've taken the rain for granted.
Robin could even pick up on the chirping of baby Canadian Geese behind their mother in the dark, and the splashing of some sea-mammal (a sealion?) in the water.
Wet and exhilerated, we headed down the barnet towards Burnaby. Just when I thought I had nothing left to show Robin, I remembered the giant Viking head at Burnaby North High School - that dooming horned behemoth imprisoned in the hill (welded by the high school kids). It's pretty gory in the dark.
After a good couple of yawns, I dropped Robin off at his friend's house around midnight with the commitment to meet again before he heads to Tazmania. That was the best Sunday night I've had in a while.