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Published: January 29th 2013
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So Doug lives and works in the city of Red Deer, situated halfway between Edmonton and Calgary. We arrived there on Sunday night and walked to his place as the snow fell gently around us. There's not a while lot to do in Red Deer and I was still getting my energy back, so we were happy to laze around, lie-in, and go for short walks to the supermarket and shopping centre. One of our walks took us out onto the frozen Red Deer river - scary! It's a very flat landscape and not particularly beautiful or anything, but Doug's happy here. On Tuesday evening we went out to the local pub for 'wing night' and to meet more of Doug's friends. Steph and Corey I had met before but two others were convinced that Doug actually didn't have a girlfriend after my no-show at Panorama! I introduced the group to soju, and the craic was good but it was a quiet night as everyone bar Doug and I had work the next day.
On Wednesday we caught the Red Arrow bus to Calgary in the evening for the last leg of my Canadian tour. We were starving by the
time we arrived but luckily Calgary is easily navigable and we found our way to the main street no problem. We ended up eating in the first restaurant we came to - Milestones on St Stephens walk. The food was fantastic! It was a date night special, so we shared a started of hot spinach and artichoke dip (mmmn). Then Doug went for steak and I had Louisiana style jumbo prawns (mmmn) followed by dessert (apple pie with walnut topping) washed down with amber beer. I'm going to miss this food when I go back to Korea! Tummies happy we made our way on the C-train out a bit to our motel. We were staying in a motel! Such fun. The motel also provided us with breakfast in their reception area, so after helping ourselves we headed off downtown again for a tourist day!
Our first port of call was Fort Calgary - the old headquarters of the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) built around 1875. They had a really well set up exhibit explaining the history of the First Nation peoples, the bison herds of North America, and how an old way of life was ended by the
decimation of the herd through hunting. I can't remember exactly but approximately 3.5-4.5 MILLION bison were killed over the space of three years - crazy. They had an art project called re-herding going on so we painted our own buffalo and placed them on a giant map of Alberta. We were also able to try on mounties uniforms and wander around early 1900's Calgary. Very cultural. Afterwards we headed off shopping to the Chinook centre and I got very excited looking at teapots and trying on hats - I think settling down again might not be as difficult as I thought! We went to a really cool western-style bar called Palominos for a few drinks and dinner where I discovered the delight that is pulled pork...mmmmmnnnn.
Friday was my last day and after a relaxed morning we headed downtown to check out Calgary's Chinatown. It didn't consist of much - a mall, residential buildings with Chinese characters on them and a few random herbal shops. So we wandered around Calgary from pub to pub for lunch and drinks. We returned to Milestones for dinner and had another treat - bruschetta to start, risotto for Doug and Tunisian style chicken
for me that melted in my mouth. We returned to Palominos for one last beer before returning to the motel and an early 3:30am start to get me to the airport. I'll definately be happy to return to Canada again next year when my Asian travels are done, and Doug is still definately an important part of my future 😊
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