Banff part 1

Banff had been the place I longed to see. I always saw a picture of people enjoying the hot spring there and I secretly wanted one if I was there but eventually, I didn't do so. I'll let you know why, so start reading here.

I went to the gathering point as indicated. All I could see was a Grayline Coach, so I tried to find a guide and asked. It's not that easy to spot out who the guy was but eventually, I found it and knew that's the tour I joined.

So the tour comprised 29 people joining either 4 or 5 days' Rockies tour. As long as it reached Jasper, an additional 10 people joined the tour bus to see Banff.

Of course, everyone expects such a tour should have mainly old, retired people but there was also a group of students who enjoyed their time at the back of the coach and were dying to see the Rockies. What else in the group? A straight couple and a lesbian couple who are in their twenties. A "gay" couple - well, I realised that they are not a couple later. One of them is married and one of them should be gay.
I travelled alone and there was another British girl Lisa who was more or less the same age as mine and travelled alone, too.

The guide was a young tall handsome guy called Bradly. He reminded everyone to remember his name as "Brad" and related himself to "Brad Pitt". He's an English teacher and works as a tour guide from April to October. He told me that he will go to teach in Korea. Obviously, he wants to travel around Asia when he's teaching in Asia.

DAY 1
The first stop was a small town called "HOPE" where the guide highly recommended the Blue Moose coffee shop. The baristas were dedicated to coffee making and made us wait for a while before we got our coffee. The lunchtime stop was a restaurant in Kamloops that had a good view of the small town. The view was good but the menu was very minimal.

I realised that most of the people came from Australia on this tour. Maybe the Australian dollar is strong and the US dollar like HK dollars are miserable, so here come Australian tourists in Canada.

Lunch was not too bad but I started to have trouble figuring out the 15% tips. I know it's a rule to tip 15% but I still feel like being ripped off for such an amount of tips on top of the 15% tax.

Anyway, it was a scenic ride to Valemount. We saw Coast Mountain and Columbian Mountains and couldn't stop taking pictures here and there. You could start checking out my pictures here while you're reading below and other parts of my travel journals.

Valemount combines two words - Valley and Mountains. Most of the tour groups stay there overnight as Banff is an expensive place to stay. The motels around the area are not impressive at all but the backdrop behind them is much more impressive.

Few restaurants around the place but the big lunch already fed me well and I totally forgot my dinner and spent my time walking around. I didn't know how Canada had established a close connection with Koreans. They are everywhere. Some settle there and many are tourists. Korean restaurants are very popular, too.

A river where salmons swim in the right season was located opposite the road. Apart from motels and B&Bs, only a few restaurants were in the area and nothing else. But what we cared about was the Rockies surrounding us. I could simply see the Mountains outside my motel room.