Five-Pin Bowling in Canada, eh?

Nothing speaks to the celebration of United States Independence Day like leaving the country. I have nothing against the holiday in and of itself, but being in the middle of fireworks "ground zero" every year has gotten really old. Not to even make mention of the semi-literate morons who have no qualms about lighting anything that makes a loud noise for a week on either side of the fourth, regardless of what time of day or night it is. And North Snohomish County has far more than their fair share of these Rhodes Scholars roaming the streets like zombies.

The view from the bridge: Granville Island

Last year we headed to Tacoma, a surprisingly wonderful experience. This year it was Amtrak to Vancouver, Canada for two nights. Vancouver has become one of our favorite destinations. It's a very multi-cultural place with an exceptional downtown vibe. Officially, more than 70-thousand people live downtown and at any given time it seems like 30-thousand of them are out walking their dogs, riding their bikes, or engaging in actual exercise that half of all Americans seem to be allergic to.

Because it's such a melting pot, one can find shops and restaurants that represent all corners of the globe. Colorful neighborhoods such as Kitsilano that we spent part of a morning roaming through are a good example of that. We were so busy roaming around some places that were new to us that we didn't even have time to hit the usual places such as Chinatown, opting instead to take the Sky Train to the heavily Asian-influenced suburb of Richmond for a very well-prepared and tasty dim sum session.

BowlingJoe with ball and pin: kind of like our game but smaller

A uniquely Canadian activity that we participated in was Five-Pin Bowling. This game was invented in Canada in around 1909. It's similar to the bowling we know in the U.S. yet different in, of course, the number of pins (which also carry different "point"values) and the fact that you get a maximum number of three shots per frame. The ball and pins are also considerably smaller and a perfect game is 450 as opposed to our 300. I won't bore anyone with all of the terms and rules, but if interested, click on the link in the first sentence of this paragraph.

What were my scores (he asks himself rhetorically)? Let's just say that it took me a while to get used to this game but I managed to show continuous improvement. They were 116, 139 and 172. BowlingWidow's numbers also improved and she even threatened to beat me midway through the last game. But I just simply couldn't let that happen.

Video: BowlingJoe gets a rare 5-pin strike!

Before we knew it, our time was up and we had to head back to the train station. Oh...and one more thing. I'd be remiss if I failed to mention the brewpub situation in Vancouver. It's not nearly as vibrant as the scene in the Seattle-Portland area but there is one gem that pours a hoppy IPA and a smooth Guinness-like-but-with-more-body stout: Yaletown Brewing in the hip and up-and-coming area of southeast Vancouver. Honorable mention goes to Granville Island Brewing Company located on (go figure) Granville Island.