Inverbras in Vancouver

They say one only gets to fully explore and appreciate their city and its surroundings when touring around an out-of-town visitor. We tend to sometimes take the places where we live for granted, getting caught up doing the same things day after day. In the years he spent in the home country, Zexiv told me he has never been to Palawan, or Sagada, the windswept islands of Batanes, or gone diving in the protected marine-rich waters of Tubbataha. It was only in the early nineties, when his Berlin-based cousins came visiting, that he saw Boracay for the very first time, and fell in love with the place. You really need to take a step back sometimes, and take a second look around you through the curious and fascinated eyes of a tourist. We had a chance to do this when Inverbras flew into town last weekend.

It was good to see Inverbras again. I remember my first meeting with him, when he was introduced to me by Zexiv at his old camp in the Eastern Seaboard. He had taken my picture and had helped us set up this blog. We met several times since then in New York, and he has been very supportive of our efforts to re-establish ourselves here and set up a secure camp, providing us with several top secret communications devices. He appeared to have grown his hair since the last time, and put on a few pounds, not surprising owing to his long fondness for giant cans of Piknik, dating back to his college days (a close Chinese friend even gifted him with a few cans one Christmas) . On the whole though, he looked quite well.

He told us he was here for several days' meeting with several top secret operatives from different countries. We asked him what he wanted to do. "Biking", he said. We have for quite some time been wanting to explore the seawall on bicycle, but have only done so on foot, during several nature photography treks. If you have never been to Vancouver, the seawall is an amazing thing, with perhaps nothing like it in the whole world. It winds on for several kilometers, with views of the ocean on one side, and depending on where you are, views of interesting neighborhoods and Stanley Park on the other. We quickly made plans to do that in the next few hours.

Over the next few days, Inverbras, Puff, Zexiv, Mademoiselle Marie, Piper and I were able to do things we have always wanted to try but never got around to doing so like biking the seawall, eating in this Dutch pancake restaurant along Robson, and having lunch in a sunny patio of an organic foods market, which Zexiv used to always wonder about whenever he would pass it on the way to his gym - although he has bought things from there like tulips and quiche. We also brought Inverbras to some of the usual tourist haunts like Granville Island and Gastown, and to some of the different neighborhoods, shopping and people watching areas, like Downtown, Yaletown, and the West End. Of these neighborhoods he told us he liked the residential areas of the West End the best - reminded him of Maui and certain parts of L.A., according to him. He was not much into sightseeing; of all the different places he went, he told us he really wanted to do two things over and over again - bike the seawall and sit on the beach and just people-watch. I believe these reminded him of his old lifestyle in Manhattan Beach.

It was a fun visit and we look forward to Inverbras' (hopefully with Ozaymas the next time around) next one.

Indeed one sometimes needs to see his city through the unspoiled eyes of a tourist to fully appreciate it ...