Today was basically show the tour group how great the city of Kelowna is, or as the guy at the place we ate at for lunch called it, “Blue Hawaii.” When I woke up today my head was aching from a lack of sleep, so I tried to make up for it on the bus! Our first stop of the day was the apple orchard. We all got stuffed into a hay wagon driven by the 9-year-olde kid, Ali, on our tour group. After the tour o the orchard, we all got led into the shop…let the buying begin. The moms, who yesterday said they wouldn’t buy anything at an apple orchard, found all sorts of delights to look at and come home with. The one really cool thing they do at this orchard is that they tattoo apples by only exposing certain parts to light. Cool…

Besides ginseng, the other product of Kelowna is famous for (this city was supposedly named one of the best cities to live in) is wine. The winery had a wonderful view of Lake Okanagan, which is home to this “monster” named Ogopogo. We saw supposed pictures of it during lunch, but it was probably just a big fish.

Well, inside, at the bar, this white guy introduced the house wines to us. To everyone’s amazement, the guy spoke fluent Chinese, better than me (dang I suck). The guy spent like 3 years in Wuhan or something, that’s why. I wasn’t supposed to take a glass, but I did…I didn’t drink though. We learned all about wine etiquette and they let us sample three different wines (one ice wine).

After the sampling Eric and I moved over to a piano in the bar, where I found a book of pop music…basically just started sight reading songs from “All My Life” to Oops!…I Did It Again (strange…yes).

For lunch we went by the lake at a Chinese Restaurant called Seven Seas. Strangely enough, we didn’t get any seafood. The owner of the restaurant gave us this whole talk about the town and his experiences. After reading this article that was plastered on the restaurant window about the owner being a tour bus guru, I realized a lot of the stuff was contradictory…sketchy.

From there it was on to the same rest stop we had stopped at on the way up (I slept on the trip there) and on the bus we watched Moulin Rouge. At the rest stop there were a bunch of teenagers on another tour group. Why can’t there ever be any other teenagers on my tour bus? Always stuck with one friend and a bunch of adults for the past three years. Oh well, I survive.

Once we got to the hotel, same one as on the first night (we go full circle), we hailed a taxi and sent my grandmother home. I’ll see her again for my brother’s wedding. It was nice to spend time with her over these past few days. I had never really spent any time with any of my grandparents and now I only have one. I’m sure she enjoyed spending time with us just as much as us with her.

Tonight’s the last night and I have a room all to myself. Have to wake up at 5am tomorrow so I’m going to go shower and then to sleep.