Late April, Harry and I took a ferry across False Creek to Granville Island. The ferry was adorably small with a column in the middle for the yoke. Its simplistic interior reminded me of bicycles and other Tools for Conviviality (even though I know boats are notoriously difficult to upkeep).
I was charmed by their slow waddle. Here are some doodles.
On the last day of my last trip to Kenya, I went to watch a polo game. I knew nothing about polo and was excited for the novelty.
The spectators adorned clothes reminiscent of what someone attending the Kentucky Derby might wear (minus the hats). While people dress in all sorts of fancy attire in Nairobi, I had not yet seen that particular style. It was a neat fashion fusion.
As for the game itself, I still had no idea how it was played but clutched my chest whenever the horses and their riders came close to colliding.
It was delightful diversion before a grueling flight back to North America.
On my last trip to Kenya, I decided to take a discovery flight lesson in Nairobi.
I have a slight interest in aviation and before the COVID pandemic, I took a couple of flight lessons in Colorado.
Having no leads, I began by searching for and calling flight schools. Eventually, I got managed to schedule a class with Ninety-Nines Flying School.
Ninety-Nines Flying School is based out of the Wilson airport in Nairobi. Wilson is a commercial airport serving many regional airlines. I was super excited to both be flying in Kenya as well as flying out of a commercial airport for the first time.
On the day of the flight, I arrived early and Pressly greeted me warmly and showed me around Wilson airport from an operational perspective. Pressly worked at Ninety-Nines Flying School, has a private pilot licence, and is aiming to get his commercial pilot license. He told me awesome stories of learning to fly and the process of getting licenses in Kenya, which turned out to have the same requirements as the United States. The only difference was they didn’t require tailspin recovery as a maneuver.
When the clouds cleared, Pressly walked me through the pilot’s entrance at Wilson and introduced me to Captain Madara, ready with a Cessna nicknamed “the Beast”.
The Beast flew smoothly. We circled around Nairobi and saw some stunning views. (The picture doesn’t do Nairobi justice.)
Captain Madara was excited to learn I had some prior flying experience and asked if I wanted to try some maneuvers not yet covered in my prior flight lessons. I said yes.
He accelerated the plane downwards to create G-forces and which felt like gut-wrenching drops during heavy turbulence.
He also stalled the engine and performed stall recovery.
Returning to the airport, Captain Madara exchanged controls with me and guided me through landing.
I couldn’t stop smiling when I stepped off the plane. It an amazing and heart-palpitating discovery flight.
A couple of friends and I took the bus from Kigali to Gisenyi in March. There were a couple of conflicting guides on how to get to Gisenyi from Kigali so I’m writing this down for any similarly curious travelers.
From the Nyabugogo Bus Station in Kigali, you can hop on a Ritco bus which will take you to Gisenyi by way of Musanse. See this blog post for photos.
Ritco buses are government run, leave very punctually at the half-hour, and use paper tickets with QR codes. You can buy tickets at the bus station, so no need to buy in advance.
The journey is 4 hours with several stops for restroom breaks. You get to course through the spectacular hills of Rwanda against the background of upbeat Nigerian pop music.
Google Maps thinks there are two bus stops in Gisenyi. In reality, there’s only one: the one next to the DRC border. The other stop is a nondescript location far from hotels and difficult for taxis to locate. Don’t make our mistake! Disembark at the blue dot.
A crow built a nest outside our window and a couple of days ago, it laid eggs!
It has been simply delightful watching our crow friend and we’re looking forward to hatchlings.
Nairobi feels different than when I left in 2020. Many shops and restaurants closed. A lucky few expanded.
I was heartbroken to discover metal gates shuttering Silk Noodles and Canton Snacks near Argwings Arcade. They were my favorite Chinese restaurants.
Michael noticed one Google review mentioned Silk Noodles had relocated. So last evening, we ventured out to find the new Silk Noodles.
What we discovered was a Chinatown!
Chinatown was a massive complex filled with restaurants and specialty shops.
The main grocery store stocked authentic ingredients. They even had zha cai, a vegetable I’d struggled to find in Vancouver!
Dinner at Silk Noodles was delicious, as always.
My coworkers and I went to Kereita Forest a couple of weeks ago.
We went on a scenic hike and were pleasantly surprised by a beautiful waterfall.
I also went ziplining for the first time, flying over tree tops and gorges. It was terrific!
Harry and I moved to Vancouver! We’re back in a big city again!
I’m so excited about that selection of restaurants and culture amenities.
Can’t wait till we’re out of quarantine.
The FAA issued me a student pilot license!
I’m not flying much these days but still cool!
For a long time, I’d thought GIMP had bad support for tablets. Aside from feeling a lot of kinetic dissonance from the choppy feedback, I saw multiple mouse cursors. One cursor was from my laptop touch pad and another from my Wacom stylus. The two moved independently and stylus cursor disappeared every time I navigated away from the canvas.
I searched a lot for GIMP tablet configurations and Wacom drivers for Linux, but turns out it was a Wayland issue.
Gnome with Xorg solved everything!
Hope this helps whoever else stumbles across this.
Caret Dash Caret 