What to do on the weekend

This time we only had a short week, because of Family Day. Even more reason to get outside, as you probably did not get that tired from this week. You don’t want to go back to your country and say that you haven’t seen everything, right?

For some of us the weekend already starts early, because we are going to Kelowna today! Kelowna is a beautiful city in British Columbia where you can do a lot of activities like hiking, skiing, snowboarding and snowtubing. However, you can also do other things if you don’t feel like being active on our mini vacation. There are several food and wine tours in Kelowna and there are a lot of opportunities for shopping.

Even though you are not joining our trip, it does not mean that you should stay at home. Vancouver is a very lively city and there is lots to do here as well. One of the great activities held in Vancouver is Winterruption. This event is a winter arts festival that takes place on Granville Island. It already starts on Friday and will take place till the end of the weekend. During this event you can watch a lot of great performances on dance, music, film, arts and crafts. As it is on Granville Island, which is known for its public market, you also have enough choice regarding food.

There are several sports games during this weekend. On Saturday, the Vancouver Giants are playing against Red Deer at 7 pm at the Langley Events Centre. The Canucks are also playing this weekend on Sunday. They will play at Rogers Arena at 7 pm. When you are in Canada, you should definitely go to one of these games!

Are you more into movies? Vancouver got that covered too! For only $2.99 you can watch MVP: Most Valuable Primate at some Cineplex theatres. The movie already starts at 11 am, so you probably should set up the alarm. However, going to the movie for such a cheap price is normally not possible in Vancouver, so it is definitely worth the try.

Enjoy your weekend and see you today or next Wednesday on PuB NiGHT!

– Iris

INTERNeX International Exchange
International Village,
Suite 2077, 2079 – 88 West Pender Street
Vancouver, Canada -V6B 6N9-
Web: http://www.internexcanada.com
Email: pr@internexcanada.com

 

Review: PuB NiGHT at the Tap & Barrel

Last night was great! Thank you all for coming to the Tap & Barrel yesterday! We had an amazing night!

Tap & Barrel is a combination of a restaurant and a pub. It has a few locations in Vancouver; we went to the one in the Olympic Village. From the pub you have an amazing view over the city at night. The Tap & Barrel also has a lot of different kinds of beer and wine on tap.

The night started of with some food and drinks. After 8 everybody slowly began to join us at the table. All the people that are joining the Kelowna trip were already making plans for the weekend. And hearing everybody being so enthusiastic about the trip made me really happy! I am also really looking forward to it! Some candidates of my old INTERNeX group are still here and a lot of new INTERNeX candidates arrived and it was nice to see all of you connecting and becoming one group! After a night of talking about the trip and a lot of other stuff some of us went to the Met to close off the night with some karaoke!

I had an amazing time yesterday and I hope you all did too! We are looking forward to this weekend! See you tomorrow at the Greyhound bus station or at next weeks PuB NiGHT!!

– Janel

INTERNeX International Exchange
International Village,
Suite 2077, 2079 – 88 West Pender Street
Vancouver, Canada -V6B 6N9-
Web: http://www.internexcanada.com
Email: pr@internexcanada.com

Practical information on Kelowna

Only two more nights and then it’s time to go to Kelowna! The biggest part of the trip is already clear for most of you, but we wanted to give you some extra practical information.

Friday
On Friday the bus will leave at 6:00 pm from the Greyhound station at Station Street. However, you will need to be there an hour before, so at 5:00 pm. We will meet up in front of the station. If, for any reason, you won’t be on time, please send Janel a message. If you don’t have her contact details please let us know and we will send it to you.

If you have your own skies or snowboard you can take them on the bus, but you do need a bag for them. Besides that you are not allowed to bring alcohol, glass or metal cutlery in your hand luggage. For a full list of what you can or can’t take, please click here.

The bus will arrive in Kelowna at 11:45 pm and then we will have a twenty minute walk to the motel (so please keep that in mind when packing your luggage). Most of you probably just want to go to bed by then, so we don’t have any plans after that.

Saturday
On Saturday we have two groups: the skiers/snowboarders and hikers. Janel, Tess and I will go with the skiing group to Big White. The shuttle bus that we need to take to Big White will leave at 8:00 am and the bus stop is 15 minutes from the motel. So we will have to leave around 7:15 am. This is the only bus that goes up, so if you are late we cannot wait for you. The bus back leaves at Big White at 4:00 pm sharp from the Happy Valley Parking lot, in case we lose track of each other during the day. Again, please don’t be late since these will be the only busses going down. If you bring your own skies this will cost you around $120 including the shuttle bus and lift ticket. If you need to rent skies this will cost you around $160.

For those who want to join Iris to visit the market and hiking, she would like to leave at 10:00 am. For more information on what she is planning on doing, send her a message. If you would rather do something else on Saturday you can always go and do that too!

We have a room with a kitchen, so if you would like we can use that for cooking dinner together or we could always go out to find a spot to eat. After dinner we would like to have a few drinks and enjoy the night together as a group. 🙂

Sunday
On Sunday we have a wine tour planned and we already know who is coming and who is not. For those who are coming along, we are being picked up at the motel at 10:30 am and we will be back around 2:30 pm. The tour takes 3 hours and we go to 4 wineries. Since it’s pretty early, please make sure you have a big breakfast! Janel, Iris and I are joining the wine tour and Tess will go do something else. So talk to her about the other options on Sunday. The wine tour costs around $75 dollar and needs to be paid Friday on the bus.

The bus back to Vancouver will leave at 6:00 pm and arrive at 11:00 pm, we have to be there one hour before like we did on Friday.

Packing list
To make the packing a bit easier for you guys we made a little list of things you definitely don’t want to forget on this trip:
□ Bathing suit (we have a indoor pool at the motel)
□ Skies and ski clothes (if you’re planning on going skiing)
□ Walking shoes (if you plan on hiking)
□ Clean underwear 😉
□ Toothbrush
□ Passport
□ Credit card
□ Cash
□ Phone + charger
□ Student card (Big White has student discounts)

– Danielle

INTERNeX International Exchange
International Village,
Suite 2077, 2079 – 88 West Pender Street
Vancouver, Canada -V6B 6N9-
Web: http://www.internexcanada.com
Email: pr@internexcanada.com

Almost time to go to Kelowna!

We hope you are excited to go to Kelowna, because we are! Here is a small update on the Kelowna trip for you about some practical things.

In a bit more than a week we are starting our adventure to Kelowna! We booked rooms with 2 queen size beds in a beautiful motel. This means you are going to share your room with 3 other people. We even arranged a kitchen in one of the rooms, so we can cook as well. In this way, you can save some money, which you can use for all the activities in Kelowna! Do not forget to take your swimsuit with you, if you would like to take a swim in the hotel’s indoor swimming pool. This is a great way to relax after an exhausting and fun day at the Big White or any other activity that you did on Saturday. For the ones who do not have any internet subscription, the hotel has free Wi-Fi available for all guests.

There are shuttle busses going from the city of Kelowna to the Big White, so that is at least one worry less. A round trip on this shuttle bus only costs $25. There are also other attractions near by the hotel. If you really want to go shopping, you can go to Willow park shopping centre, which is only a 13 minute walk from the hotel. A bit further, you can also find the Orchard Park Shopping Centre. Next to this shopping centre is Mission Creek Regional Park, which is a nice park close to the hotel. However, you can also take one of the beautiful hiking trails a bit further away from the hotel, such as Mill Creek Regional Park, Crawford Falls or Knox Mountain Park. They are all easy to reach. However, it takes a bit longer to get there by bus. All of them are great hiking trails and really worth your time. Of course, you can also take the bus to go to Lake Okanagan or to go to one of the wineries in the city centre.

Still interested, but have not signed up yet? No worries! There are still a few spots left, so sign up as soon as possible!

-Iris

INTERNeX International Exchange
International Village,
Suite 2077, 2079 – 88 West Pender Street
Vancouver, Canada -V6B 6N9-
Web: http://www.internexcanada.com
Email: pr@internexcanada.com

Smart Saver Vancouver

 

As this weekend was quite expensive for some of us, it might be a good idea to save some money again. Especially now that there are a lot of events and trips coming up.

An app that will help you save money is Checkout 51. Through Checkout 51, you can save money on certain brands. This is how it works: sign up via the internet or download the app through the App Store or Google Play. After this you make a photo of your bill and upload it at this app. If the amount of $20 has been reached, the company will send you the money. Our PR member, Danielle has been using the app in the Netherlands as well and confirms that it really works. The app has different offers every week, which will be changed every Thursday. You can see these offers at the app or at the website. One of the current offers, for example, is buy 3 Pringles and get $2 back. There is one catch though, for some of the offers, the items have to be on the same receipt.

You might have passed it already while going to our office in the International Village Mall. This is of course about the one and only Yoko Yaya! Yoko Yaya is a Chinese store where you can get almost everything you need. From beauty products to kitchen wear, you can find it there. A lot of their products is only $2, so if you just moved in, this is the place to be!

As most of us cannot survive the morning without a coffee, this offer cannot be forgotten. If you buy a cup of coffee at Tim Hortons, you can win several prices such as a television, a car or a coffee. Most people only win a coffee. However, me and Danielle had the bad luck to not win anything at all. This is mostly a chance to save money for people who buy coffee anyway and therefore have the chance to save money. Furthermore, the coffees at Tim Hortons are not even that expensive, so it might be an idea to check it out anyway.

Try to save as much money as you can, so you can spend it on our Kelowna trip!

– Iris

INTERNeX International Exchange
International Village,
Suite 2077, 2079 – 88 West Pender Street
Vancouver, Canada -V6B 6N9-
Web: http://www.internexcanada.com
Email: pr@internexcanada.com