Sunday, May 11, 2008

Grandma's 80th Bday Day - Day II

Today's plan was to go to Lake Louise (2 hours or so away), and have brunch at Fairmont. Then be around Banff and enjoy yet another day of scenery.

In order to make brunch, needless to say waking up early was a requirement. So once again, trooper Mson woke up bright and early and hopped onto the car to snap some pictures along the way, and also to continue the much needed beauty sleep.

So two hours later, we arrived at the Fairmount. The service was pretty good, and you can definitely tell it is a classy place. There was a harpist harping away, and the maitre'Ds moved tables away for us so we can snap some family pictures. To top it off, when we asked for crab tools and all they had were the nutcrackers, the server at a later time brought out some crab meat all peeled out of the claws. Talk about going the extra mile!

But I guess that's what is expected at $50/per head (excluding tax and gratuity)! Even though it was a buffet brunch, it seemed a bit pricey for me. Throughout the meal, I kept recalling how for $60, I could get a sizable all seafood (oyster, crab, shrimp) appetizer, a beer AND a seafood entree for dinner. Or for $45, brunch at Salty's on Alki. BUT, the older folks seemed very excited and enjoyed the meal at the place, and that is not something money can always buy. So I guess it was worth it afterall :D!

After lunch, we took yet another round of pictures around Lake Louise, then I bid farewell to a few of my cousins and aunt as they started to head back to Calgary to catch a flight back to TO. After the farewell, the remaining troopers continued towards Vancouver direction to go deeper into Banff/Jasper.

It seemed like this scenic tour requires quite a bit of driving. From one scenic spot to the next, there was quite a bit of driving involved. But I guess better the car do the walking than I :). At each spot, snapped a whole bunch of pictures. I ended up taking a little less than 200 pictures on this 2.5 day trip to Calgary!

Eventually, we headed back to Calgary to have dinner with grandma. After dinner, we went up to grandma's place for a little bit. Apparently I was suppose to have been there before, but didn't remember at all. Seeing this place, it reminded of a lot like residence. It had all the basic necessities (bed, couch, dining table etc) but not really all that much decoration or extra niceless. But I guess the more stuff you have, the more cleaning you would have to do... so it's probably better to have just what you need. I also heard a few stories from grandma this night, which was pretty cool. One thing though is that the place was really warm!

And with that, the Bday Wkend comes to an end....
Some Photos of the Calgary Weekend

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