Canada 08/09 – Whistler – Day 4

Day 4 started early – 7:30am – but soon turned into a late start. We got up and out of bed, only to decide that today would be our non-skiing day, of which we had to have two of due to our ticket arrangements. The forecast was for ongoing snow with high winds, and pretty poor visibility – while it seemed like an obvious choice, unfortunately tomorrow promised to be much of the same, so it was actually a difficult choice to pick the worst of the two.

We returned to bed for an hour or so, and got back up at about 9:30am. We had breakfast and then got ready – with the news that the other members of the OnSno team would not be joining us here in Whistler. This is certainly the most unfortunate news we had received while being away, but for the safety of all, was probably the best move.

We got ready a little slowly, and were only just finishing up when housekeeping arrived to clean the room. We got out of the way, and headed for the shops along the main village street. It was snowing relatively heavily, although the flakes were no where near as big as they had been last night. Ed had suggested that we would not need our ski jackets as it was supposed to be warmer than it had been – and we would just be ducking in and out of shops all day – but unfortunately, it was cold as the snow fell, and we were all a little colder than we would have liked.

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We started working our way up the left-hand side of the street, going into any shop that looked interesting – but we were looking for a few specific items that helped guide our journey. Shop after shop after shop, seeing some interesting things along the way, but no luck in finding the items that we were searching for – some more thermals for Pip, a turtle fur for Ed, and a few other things we had been asked to find.

The heavy snow outside meant that every time we left a shop, we froze again between leaving one and entering another. Even after being outside only for a matter of seconds, we were covered enough to need a good pat down to remove the thick white layer that had developed. We got about half way along the left-hand side before deciding that it was time for a snack – a Cinnamon bun to be precise – but this was easier to think of than actually find. No luck at Starbucks, or even a few of the smaller coffee shops, but soon after we tried a small bakery we had found a few days before. Although this bakery seemed to sell only sweet food, this was exactly what we were looking for.

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After a short break, we continued on our search and completed the left-hand side of shops – that’s left-hand side when heading towards the mountain base. By the time we got to the end of this line of shops, and had looked inside a number of hotels along the way, we were getting hungry – it was about 1pm by this time. We decided to continue on, and started on the shops on the opposite side – but we still hadn’t purchased anything at all yet. We only got some of the way through these shops before the hunger was too much for us, and we decided to find something to eat. La Brasserie was the restaurant of choice – a nice little place that we had eaten at last year and quite enjoyed. Both Ed and I snacked on a club sandwich – which was really more of a complete meal rather than a sandwich – and Pip on spaghetti and meatballs.

The snow continued the whole way through lunch, and we watched the snow fall heavily on the street outside while we ate. We joked about the usefulness of the Village Hosts outside answering questions, and a number of other activities being performed by village staff as the snow bucketed down. By the time we had finished lunch it was after 2:30pm, so we didn’t have long before the ski lifts would close, and it would get dark outside. We continued from where we left off, and finished the shops on this second side of the street in a much quicker time.

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We returned to the hotel at about 3:30pm, with no successful shopping in hand whatsoever. None of us could believe that we had spent nearly an entire day shopping, and bought absolutely nothing. Either we were looking too specifically for those certain things we didn’t find, or not enough excited us to the point of actually purchasing anything. Once back in the room, we sat down and watched a little television while just resting our legs. We had planned to see a movie at some stage today, with the most convenient screening being at 4:30pm. This gave us just under an hour to relax.

At 4:15pm, we headed for the Village 8 Cinemas – a set of 8 cinemas that were underneath the Mongolie Grill and other buildings in Whistler Village. We had never actually gone to see a movie here before, but had often thought about it in the past. We had decided to see ‘Yes Man’ – the latest flick starring Jim Carrey. It was a good movie, enjoyed by all, but especially Ed who had some vocal laughter most of the way through.

Following the movie we decided to grab some dinner – even though it was only 4 hours after we had eaten lunch. While we looked at the menu for a number of restaurants, we decided on some Avalanche Pizza which we had walked passed numerous times and caught the aroma of. We placed an order, but unfortunately there was a wait on the pizzas, so we decided to return to the hotel room and pass the 30 minutes there. On the way, however, we picked up two 1/2 litre take-home packs of Cows icecream – the best kind.

When 7pm came, Ed offered to make the quick walk and retrieve the pizza. He returned soon after and we all enjoyed the tasty choice in the comfort of our hotel room – on the couch. The rest of the evening we took it rather easy, and although we had planned to have a spa like other nights, we simply couldn’t be bothered tonight. Everyone was in bed relatively early, after some Skypeing and other tasks around the room.

While it was nice to sleep in a little this morning, and do something a little different rather than skiing again today, it wasn’t particularly relaxing shopping at the pace we did, and we may have to revisit some locations to actually make some purchases. Tomorrow we hit the slopes again, hopefully where it won’t be raining as a number of locations have predicted. With any luck, today and tonight’s snow will continue all night and provide us with great conditions to glide over tomorrow.

Hopefully it’s not too hot back there, and that you’re all enjoying yourselves during these first few weeks of 2009. Keep reading, and sending through your comments – and don’t forget to check the photos!

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