The First Half of the Year

Better late than never! I've been wanting to get a post up since about February and eventually kept postponing it again and again until I eventually forgot about it until today, so here we go.

In the last few months I've been keeping life pretty mellow by running the sunrun, completing my first marathon, finishing off my Red Seal, travelling to Portland/Lincoln City, and obtaining my class 5 drivers license.. but we'll just skip all of that and jump to mid May.

After almost two years of being at Hawksworth restaurant downtown Van, it was time to pack my knives up in May and move on. Instead of jumping right back into the flames, I decided to take a year away from the kitchen to immerse myself in new cultures, rediscover what daylight feels like and to simply explore a fraction of what the world has to offer.


Immediately after leaving my job Sunday night I left for a trip across Canada via hitchhiking Monday evening! I made it from Vancouver to Halifax in 4.5 days stopping in Calgary to visit Leah @ Teatro before pushing on. The purpose of the trip was two fold.
1) See the country
2) Get a sick photo of the East coast (seen here http://tinyurl.com/pgywp2d )

I then made a quick stop in Montreal before making it all the way to Sudbury before getting sick of hitchhiking and hopping on a greyhound home bound! Hitchhiking is an interesting form of travel with only negative connotations following it however after 34 rides, meeting 37 new individuals and roughly 8036km on the road, I can say that it trumps all forms of travel in one way.

The people. I rode with people from all walks and shapes of life. Anywhere from Nikki & Alex, two students from Quebec studying in Ottawa,  to Yuri & Petro  who are Ukrainian truck drivers from New Brunswick who taught me basic Ukrainian in Nipigon, Ontario. People like African-Canadian Rejean who went an hour late to work just to give me a tour of Montreal, to Lisan, a 32 year old boilermaker who drives a stick shift 1986 Volkswagon Convertible while smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee, drinking NOS, heat cranked and top down... All while rocking a toque, aviators with a blue and white poncho. The people, conversations, advice, theological debates and straight up laughter were the true highlights of my 11 day bomb across the country.. Montreal is pretty amazing too though.

Then I finally made it home, and within 12 hours went to Guu for some chicken kaarage, packed my life into boxes, moved back to my parents place, and made it back to surrey in time for Arise! ;)

Till next time!
Channy
June 17, 2014 - 142 & 86b, Surrey

P.s follow me on instagram to see all my pictures! @itsnathanchan
#channystravels

Lisan's legendary Convertible - Just past Canmore