Coquitlam

I’m sat in “Tim Hortons” which is a donut bagel teahouse place like mac Donald's, they are all over Canada and started in eastern Canada that was started by Mr Tim Horton who was a famous hockey player he started the donut chain and its success has been huge but most of its increase in size has been after his death as it is now just a brand name and in the hands of a multi national company, one think i will say is that they put a lot back into the community in the way of youth projects, they may do some other horrible things to the environment or something but on the surface it looks good on the counter.
I am amazed by the huge shopping centers they are massive and cinemas and everything to do with buying and eating, the food portions are so big i can’t finnish what they serve so I'm just eating small sandwiches from now on. I can eat quite cheaply a whole meal bagel toasted with butter and jam and a small coffee for breakfast comes to $2.65 so no more than £1.50 for breakfast then a chicken salad whole meal beget and a mug of tap water comes to $3.75 which is £2.08 then supper can be a bowl of chili and bread for $4.90 or £2.72 so a whole day for food can be only £6.30, if you go to the super market and load the fridge you could eat for even less but i haven't sorted out the fridge and cooking stuff yet.
Yesterday wednesday i checked out of the hostel and made my way back to Vancouver North were you have to take a small ferry called a sea bus, i insured the car for 6 months as doing this with ICBC national insurance is the only option if Canada was the port of entry to North America their is no other way to insure your car legally.
After doing i took the ferry south and called in to see Catherine and her colleagues at the Canadian customs office to give them a thank you card, i then got a bus to the Airport and when i arrived at the Delta hotel called Bob O’Connell and got collected by his colleague Doug who is a lovely English man who has lived in Canada for 41 years he moved to Canada when he was 26 and set up Mannix Freight service and is now in his final year of a 5 year hand over retirement sellout of the company, this is the company to collect my car form the shipping compound and unload it from the container.
The Toyota was parked outside their warehouse and looked good just like i left it, i wanted to be their to take photo’s of it being unloaded but it doesn’t matter.
I then started to get the roof tent lifted onto the roof and put the u bolts back onto it so it could be secured into position on the roof, also i fitted the external storage boxes and my Japanese fold up bike and the sixth spare tyre too all into the correct places. All of this took all afternoon and it was now wet cold and dark, i decided that without my winter sleeping bag as this is still in Scotland at home i would activate my internal capsule sleeping compartment which to many looks like it has more in common with a coffin and it takes some getting use to but it is to be a necessity and i will make the best of it, to use this i have had to remove a flat panel behind the passenger seat which allows me to pull myself up and out of the seat and strait back backwards into the 6 foot rabbit hole of a bedroom.
I had to also remove a large aluminum box with books dvd's and paperwork that i no longer need and I'm not sure what to do with as it’s too expensive to ship home so i may give some items to a charity shop and then burn the rest and post some needed items home.
So i had my first night out side the freight company in my “Rat capsule” that maybe what i will call it. I fell asleep fairly quickly but woke a couple of time when aircraft roared on take off and then at about 5 am i felt a little cold and put a blanket over the sleeping bag, a fair amount of condensation built up on the aluminum door next to my head too.`
I was up at 07.30 am started the engine to warm up the car and was happy that the front windows didn’t steam up, i am also very happy with the concept of having the opportunity to be able to sleep inside the vehicle if needs be. I said morning to Doug and Bob and drove an hour to Coquitlam the name of the blog and it is the town that i am sleeping at tonight, the reason for being here is to fix the rear cab heater so that warm air can be circulated around the cabin at a consistent temp all night then i will have a chance of success up in Alaska, i have slept in a truck cab at temp as low as -28 so i am hoping to do similar in the Landcruiser. The heater is made by Webastow and is a german company and the model is an Air Top 2000s and has not given me any problems but the heat sensor has failed so that has been replaced and is now working correctly so i hope to have a good nites sleep tonight, tomorrow they will be looking at the system under the bonnet called Thermo Top P which heats the engine when the outside temperature drops below -5 and gives me hot water and also blows warm air from the front into the cabin when the engine is off and will keep the windows frost free, this system has failed too and i think it is an airlock and a leaking coolant pipe.
Canada is very civilized and like being in the Uk so not so much of a challenge in some way’s, i have been swimming this evening in a really good community pool in Maple Ridge
and i am happy to be doing some fitness after the two weeks at sea.
My plans are to either drive south to Seattle which is two hours drive to see if i can apply for a work permit for Canada then drive east to Penticton to see where my great great grannies brother Mr Morris settled in Canada which is still in the family and is a small fruit farm then head North to Yukon territory or go east to Alberta to see Dylan and Cj the brothers from who i met in Edinburgh that also support StreetKids International as i want to return a fuel can they lent me in Frankfurt Germany sounds funny but when i was in Russia i said to myself “Right I'm going to take this all the way to Calgary” and it has helped me keep going the thought that i have carried this from their hotel to their door in Calgary over land and sea is funny.
Canada fits on two pages of my Atlas easily and Russia doesn’t so even though it may be the second largest country in the world, it feels smaller to me know and the roads are better to, i don’t think their is anywhere in the world i wouldn’t drive now.

Remembrance day in Canada. I have been given some good contacts of people to visit in the countryside, like farms and a youth project.

Vancouver

I arrived into Vancouver on Saturday morning at 07:00 and visited Vancouver city during the day and spent Saturday night on the ship, Sunday the ship left for Seattle and i made my way up into town again to the Hosteling International Downtown Hostel.
I checked in and was given room 214 on entering the room at 12:30 pm the curtains were closed and a lad was sleeping in one of the lower bunks of a four bed dorm the room smelt like the windows hadn’t been opened in ages, i woke him up making my bed and putting my stuff away and he was complaining of a headache, he decided to get up and he said “Dude” this dorm is full of bugs, he showed me bites on him and he had some blood spots on his mattress. I agreed with him that it looks like bed bugs and this was confirmed when he showed me a sample bug that he surprisingly had in a mug of water next to his bed,, mmh interesting i thought “have you told the staff” “Not yet man” I stopped unpacking and started to repack while he went down stairs to complain, on his return he told me that the dorm had been shut down and we had to move to another dormitory and i didn’t see him again, whilst i was i reception a cleaner came down to say that dorm 158 was a code “B” and i asked if this was the same problem as my room and the receptionist said yep thats the same.
Now I'm in another untidy stinking room that is really noisy next to the street and with the amount of drunks on the streets late at night yelling its not easy to get a good night’s sleep.
I sound like Victor Meldrew, how ever i must say that arriving in Vancouver was a anti climax after the beautiful countryside around Prince Rupert. People in Prince Rupert were more friendly but this may be because Vancouver is a city and people tend to be less open and more guarded in city’s as in rural towns you have to engage more with your neighbors.
Vancouver is set in a lovely location but i was surprised by the amount of litter and thought cafes and community amenities would be cleaner, i have been spoilt after being in Japan
People openly smoke weed whist walking around the streets and homeless will ask you for a Quarter to get some marijuana, you can tell their is a huge drug and homeless problem in this town in makes “Dumfries” look clean.
I will be looking forward to leaving for the rural parts of the country.
Ok I'm going to bore you or enlighten you again for hopefully the last time in a while into “Tim’s world of Red tape” The last few weeks except being on the ship have been stressful and I'm glad that now I'm in Canada i will not be shipping anywhere for a while, so hopefully i can relax. Apart from being very expensive “Shipping” the process is starting to wear me down and i am not enjoying where i am because i have to think about legal issues all the time, on arrival i felt a bit low and adding to this the rain and the constant selling attitude in shops retail greed people walking along the pavements with cups of coffee looking like lost sheep its not how i expected i would feel in Vancouver.
Things will get better i know that and Canada has to be one of the most beautiful place for mountains and scenery, so let me tell you where i am as of today importing the car into the country.
TransGlobal Logistics of Canada are handling my import into Canada and the contact has been Richard Moore and i spoke to Richard on Saturday and he assured me he would get things moving as quickly as possible he sounded positive and that pleased me.
On Monday morning and around 07:30 am i had a call from a lady in Quebec a Maria Luisa Cabanne she has been assigned to my import from Richard Moore at Transglobal, she told me that she had sent me an email giving me instructions how to clear customs myself and as to who to contact to get my container moved from the shipping terminal to a transport warehouse for unpacking, i thanked her and shot up out of bed and got a shower some breakfast and was out on the street walking to a print shop to get a shipping manifest/advice note printed out, i arrived at Canada Custom’s Border agency at 333 Dunsmuir street with all of my papers not knowing what to expect.
A lovely friendly lady by the name of Catherine greeted me and as it wasn’t too busy she took an interest in what i was doing and we chatted about Japan as she had gone their too about 20 years ago, when she went for a break to my surprise she got me a Cola drink, wow this is government customs! Second to the also helpful Prince Rupert immigration she is the nicest person to help me all trip she is a people person like me and likes to help others, it shows in people when you know they just do a job for money or some other negative motive.
Catherine told me that before we could start a soil examination would have to be completed on my car, she made a phone call to the ministry of agriculture at the port and to her and my surprise the container had been opened and the inspection had been competed and passed so i had the Soil Cert completed already, she told me that they are told in advance of any arriving cars and just get to work checking containers when they arrive.
Great what luck, she asked them to fax this certificate to here so she could start filling in my Carne de Passage as she said it would be easier to import the car via the carne, the other form i had to bring was the original Bill Of Lading which i was sent from Japan DGX and had printed of in Prince Rupert so with these items my passport the car was cleared into Canada. The carne is all stamped up and correct, secondly this means that the Hanjin shipping Advice note/Manifest had a stamp and an entry code D2-1-1
I called Maria in Quebec and she gave me the details of a company in Vancouver called Mannix Freight service, contact Bob O’Connell. I phoned Bob to tell him i was in Customs and had cleared the car, he asked me to fax the manifest to him and to send him a letter authorizing Mannix fright to work on my behalf and these documents were all drafted up and signed and faxed over to Bob within 10 minutes with the help of Catherine who now deserves a medal, I will take her a card tomorrow to thank her for her kindness.
I called Bob back who was surprised how fast i had managed to get this done and the ball was now on his court, he told me that he will fax the port control to ask for a collection slot for one of his Trucks to collect the container and transfer it to his warehouse near to the airport, he would call me on wednesday to give me an update.
I hope that the customs in the port re sealed the container. It seems to be going smoothly at the moment,, except i have just forgotten one thing Catherine gave me another form that we had to fill in called a Vehicle Import Form1 and this enables me to acquire the government vehicle insurance needed to put a foreign registered car legally onto Canadian roads.
I thanked her for all here work told her she was an angel and made my way ICBC insurance head office in North Vancouver you have to get on a short passenger ferry, the ICBC offices are not far from the North side and within the hour of arriving i was informed that i had to complete an Overseas Tourist Certificate APV272 the price for this insurance is fixed at just under $6.00 canadian dollar a day which is over double what i pay in the Uk and Triple and more the triple Japan and Russia but for some of the younger folk it may seem cheap, i decided not to do any more paper work as if i took the insurance out it had to start on that day and not when my car would be on the road so i told them i would return in a few days time.
I have had enough of writing now so I'm going to go.
I want to thank: The Canada Border Services Agency, especially Catherine you are great!!!

I'm dodging bed bugs in the not so clean youth hostels in the Vancouver central area. Canadian customs are being good to me though.

First night in Vancouver last night and tomorrow will start to make progress into getting the car out of the shipping container.

I have arrived in Vancouver and will be staying on the ship tonight, lots of work to get the car onto Canadian roads next week.

I have arrived in northern Canada for a 24 hour stop in Prince Rupert before sailing down to Vancouver.