Banff Day 5

monday, may 18

we all slept in today. yay!
finally a night which all of us slept soundly because Amy's not snoring!
hahahahaha~
we went out for a bit of shopping in town (in Banff, of course) because it started snowing when we were having breakfast.
all of us bought a lot of stuff, and i think i'm currently broke... did some last minute shopping too.
forgetting that it's Victoria Day, the post office was closed so we had to find a place to get some stamps.
after all that, we decided to finally step into the Banff Park Museum. it's really a natural museum with lots of specimen, but it's still pretty cool.

for lunch, we went to a nice pub restaurant called Wild Bill's Legendary Saloon. here we had some "exotic" stuff.
Eric ordered the Buffalo burger with soup and hot chocolate, Paul had the Chicken BLT Club House with soup and hot chocolate, Amy had the Wild Boar burger with mashed potato and hot chocolate, and i had the Elk burger with fries and hot tea.
to be honest, our buffalo, wild boar, and elk burgers all taste the same.
maybe it's the grill that made it just taste like charcoal.
but the food's great and the prices are really good for the amount of stuff that we got.
we were all hitting the wall at the end of our meal.
but we had to order the Banana Changa for dessert, and it was a good choice.
it's basically banana wrapped with a tortilla flour crepe and deep fried, then drizzled with honey, other syrups that i can't remember, and sliced almonds.
it was delicious!
i couldn't finish my 1/4 because i'm totally full, but i would if i had that little extra space in the stomach.
i also managed to wrote 6 of my postcards in the restaurant~

after that we went out for a walk down the nearby Bow River.
the trail leads to the Bow Falls, but it's quite a long walk with the time we had on hand.
i guess we spent waaaaay too much time on shopping.
we turned back to get back on the car to drive up the Sulphur Mountain for hot springing.
that's when we found out we've got a parking ticket.
yes, a parking ticket in Banff. it is possible.
$30 for parking at a 3 hr parking, no parking after 6pm.
but we get a $10 off if we pay the fine promptly. isn't that a great deal?
$20 for a parking ticket downtown, where can u find such a great deal?

anyway, we went up the mountain and soaked in the Banff Upper Hot Springs for a good 1.5hrs.
that was the most relaxing part of our trip.
but it's rather cold today, because of the low pressure system. and that's why we got snow today till the late afternoon.
so when we were not in the pool, it's just so damn cold, especially when the wind is blowing.
still worth it to soak!
got pretty dark when we left - which is like 11pm, when they close.
couldn't get a nice picture of the non-streaming fall that brings the spring water to the pool. guess i'll have to go back next time for that!

the guys feel hungry after soaking, so we decided to go get something to eat in town.
turns out everything was closed, even McDonald's closed early.
but i managed to spot a pizza/sub place which was still open.
it's a good pick since the food is nice and the price is right!
the guys each had a foot long sub and Amy & i split a pound of wings. since they don't have any hot drinks, we all decided to pop it up.
a nice conclusion to our stay at Banff.

in the morning we'll have to wake up early and finish all the unfinished food down in the large freezer in the hostel.
then off we go to do some last minute stuff in town like post cards and stuff.
and lastly we'll be on our way into Calgary to fly home.
let's hope we'll have enough time to look around in Calgary.