I had a wonderful time on my recent work trip (or maybe work junket is more correct). I had 2 days sight seeing in Vancouver, 4 days at the Sentai Conference in Banff, 2 days working in LA and 1 day of fun at Sea World, San Diego. I definitely made the most of this trip and I managed to squeeze in lots of touristy things. You can check out my photos and my trip diary here!

Hello from Canada! Yes I thought I might try and write a note on the website as I've been pretty slack with the email.

At the moment I'm in Banff which is absolutely gorgeous. The town is a beautiful snow village surrounded by huge mountains. The mountains are so imposing, I've never seen any so big (but then again I'm not exactly well travelled). They are very craggy and rocky but I guess that's why they call them the Rockies. I'm in Banff for a software conference and I actually got the "work" part of my stay over yesterday. A half-hour presentation which went very well. Everyone was impressed with our software and can't wait to get the new version. My boss Paul is here too and he is very pleased with how it is all going, which is a bonus :D.

The first two days in Banff were sunny and clear and the view of the surrounding mountains was amazing. However, today it has started snowing. It's very cold, windy, wet and slippery. The snow is fun and a bit of a novelty but it restricts movement and you have to be very careful when you're walking around. It's a shame too because I was going to go up in the Banff gondola today to check out the view. Maybe it will clear tomorrow, fingers crossed.

I also had two days in Vancouver. The first day in Vancouver, I did a tour to Vancouver Island and Victoria. I caught the ferry over (about an hour and a half), the landscape was very pretty with the reds, golds and oranges of the autumn trees. I visited Butchart gardens which is beautiful and well worth a visit. They have a number of different gardens, the original garden being the sunken garden, but they also have a japanese garden and a rose garden (and a few others which I forget atm). I also rubbed the nose of the boar at the Butchart Gardens, it's just like the one outside Sydney Hospital. Now I just have to get to the one in Italy.

In Victoria I checked out the Empress hotel, I didn't have afternoon tea there because it was $35 for cakes and scones. I did go to the BC museum and I checked out their first nation exhibit (Canadians call Indians first nationers) which showed how they lived and how they made their canoes and totem poles. They also had a number of totem poles on display outside the museum.

On the second day in Vancouver I did a city tour. The highlight was the Vancouver Aquarium where they have a baby beluga whale which was born only a few months ago. The whale is quite small (in comparison to the other whales) and is grey instead of white as it has to hide in its mother's shadow. They also had pacific dolphins, sea lions and sea otters. The sea otters were so cute, while they were asleep on their backs they hold hands!!! Reminds me a little bit of Dennis Leary ("they lie on their backs and make cute little human motions with their hands").

I have three more days in Canada and then it's off to the US to train more people and hopefully I'll get to squeeze in a visit to Sea World, San Diego and Californian Adventures, the new Disney theme park.

Love you all, having lots of fun!!!!

*hugs*