The UBC experience

 Hello there,

Yesterday, I went to the University of British Columbia or UBC for short, to be more specific, the campus based in Vancouver, with my family. It was not very fun walking around in negative 9 degrees Celsius but we persisted on. Well, it wasn't that bad, most of the places we visited were indoor anyway and even if it was outdoor, the visit was brief and fast. Ok, enough talk, let us begin. 

First, I want to talk about the Beaty's Museum of Biodiversity. What is it about? Well Biodiversity. Everything from animals to plants. Almost every single organism is presented some way or another. Some more significant than other. If you look from the outside, you'll see a big skeleton, what did it belongs to? Not a Dinosaur but a Blue Whale aka the "Biggest animal on Earth". The whole skeleton is around 80 feet long (24 meters) and it is enormous.

The Blue Whale

That Blue Whale skeleton originated from Prince Edward Island and travel all the way across Canada to hang here in the museum. It is considered the "Biggest Blue Whale Skeleton in Canada The effort of which was documented into a documentary on how they got it all the way across Canada. Quite fascinating, really. The museum contains a whole lot of things. From the Blue Whale to the tiniest ant, they have it all. But my favorite part was to try and read all the scientific name set for these organism. Most of them are quite easy to read and most of them belongs to another languages. So the way the museum is set up goes something like this. The entire thing is on the floor below and they got rows upon rows of shelves containing the name of the organism and the images. The farther down you go, the name get more complicated. But they have some orders, Mammals, Bugs, Fish, Plants and so on. If you go to the very end, there is a place where you can look at samples of things. They are all dead but it's still very weird touching a squirrel. Once you gone through all the animals and plants, you can either: Be done and go or watch a very cool documentary about the Blue Whale that hangs above. If you choose to go, then skip this and read the paragraph after the next paragraph. If you decide to stay and watch, then continue reading. 

So, how did that Blue Whale gets there. It has a name but I forgot so I'm just gonna call it Blue. So Blue is a Female Blue Whale. Some facts about Blue Whale. They're the largest animal to ever live, larger than the Dinosaur. Their heart is about the size of a normal car, like the Mazda 3, and they beat around 5 to 10 times per minutes. Quite slow. There are around 10 thousand of them left on the planet. So how did Prince Edward Islander find Blue. Well, in 1987, a Blue Whale washed ashore in the Northwest Coast of Canada. The Local folks wanted to bury it. Then in December 2007, the museum was still under construction and they want something unique, big to attract visitor, Their idea? A Blue Whale. So they sent a group of researcher to PEI, inspect the carcass, and in May 2008, a whole expedition team went to PEI, and dug up the Blue Whale, remove the flesh and assembles the bones. Then comes the hard part. The degreasing. Blue Whales store fats and oils in their bones and the fats and oils were still there when they dug it up. All that will smells very bad in the museum so they must get the oils out. That was easier said than done. The team spent more than a year degreasing the bones and in April 2010, Blue finally arrived at the museum for installation. And that is where it rest till now.

After looking at the beauty and horror of nature, we went to have lunch. We went to this restaurant call the Kinton Ramen. The Ramen was delicious and when we went to pay, I wanted to give them 5% tip but the machine is too dumb to understand how that supposed to work because it was put in Cents. Not Dollars, CENTS. So I did not look correctly and put in 5 cents. I am probably now on the banned list of that restaurant. 9/10, good ramen, bad paying option. 

After running away from the restaurant, we went to the Museum Of Anthropology. What is Anthropology? You asked. Well, it's the following.

Quite simple honestly. So what do you do there? At the Museum of Anthropology. Well, you look at Human artifacts way back from when the Egyptian were still building the Pyramids up until the invention of Light Bulbs. Quite fascinating. It really tells a lot about the history of mankind and how we goes from dumb cavemen smashing rocks into rocks to intellectuals coming up with brand new idea everyday. Not all idea is good but if it's original, then people might take some interests. So what is there to see. First thing, they do not allow backpack of any kind inside the museum. I don't know what they fear, a bomb? Thievery? Something else? But they are very strict and they will give you 25 cents to put your stuff into some lockers. So you go in, free of your bag and have a look around. If you look from the outside, the museum doesn't look that big. But don't trust your eye because walking and touring around all the artifacts is like walking in a maze. Just when you thought you're done. Wrong, there's 20 more shelves full of face masks and pots to look at. By the time you find the exit, it already has been half an hour and that's not even the whole museum but merely a tiny fraction of what is really presented. See they put all the room in specific theme. Like, artifacts goes in one room, dish go into the other and souvenirs at the end. The point is, it is very well organized. You even get a map but don't even bother trying to understand the layout. At the very end, souvenirs. I found a really funky knife.
Funky knife

After that, you went back to the bus stop and went home. But, have I ever told you that how long and painful waiting for a bus can be. Especially in negative 15 degrees Celsius temperature. After that, it was a smooth ride home and the whole trip was 9 hours long. I definitely dramatize some of the things in here to make it more, interesting, to read. Like the whole trip was more like 8 hours long but who cares. So, what does it say about UBC. Let's not forget that UBC is a University. But it might as well be a city because it has everything a city need to be a city. It has a hospital, a college, restaurants, parks. Everything you can think of. There were a lot of students walking around because, well, it's a University Campus. So what do I think of UBC. Magnificent. Worth noting that Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau studied here and graduated in 1998 and we were able to find him in the Alumni wall so that's cool. It is very cool, it has the education, the needs and if you have the will power, you can and will succeed at UBC. Final rating: 10/10

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