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Hello and welcome to bonus episode number 166 of the Q-Lips English Podcast.
How's it going?
I hope you're doing okay.
Thank you for clicking play and joining me for this English study session today.
My name's Andrew and in our bonus episode series here what I do is I just tell you some stories from my everyday life and I hope by listening to these stories you'll be able to build your English fluency of like we're just hanging out having a conversation, like you're catching up with an old friend.
To accompany this episode, there are some free study tools available for everyone.
There is an interactive transcript and a vocabulary glossary.
You can Get them just by clicking the link in the description.
They're awesome study tools that I think you will find very helpful.
Plus, if you're a Q-Lips member, then you'll also get a comprehension quiz and a huge shout out to all of our Q-Lips members out there.
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We couldn't do Q-Lips without you.
So thank you so much for your support.
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Okay.
So in this week's episode, I'm going to tell you about my upcoming trip to Canada.
To be honest, probably by the time you're checking this episode out, I will be in Canada or I will have already returned from Canada.
But at the time of recording, I haven't left for my trip yet.
So I'm still excited for the trip.
It hasn't started yet.
And I'm going to tell you about the things that I'm looking forward to.
So without any further ado, let's just jump right in and get started.
I made some notes here.
I'm going to go through them with you.
And, of course, maybe this one is the obvious one, but I'm obviously very excited to see family and friends.
That is the main reason I go back to Canada in January in the middle of winter, when the weather is not so great is to see family and friends.
To be honest, if I didn't have any family or friends in Canada, then I would spend my time where I can travel to go to different places.
I would love to visit Brazil.
I would love to visit Africa.
I would love to visit, like so many different countries around the world, so many different places around the world.
However, I go to Canada to see friends and to see family, especially family, because I'm To be honest, in my hometown these days I don't have too many friends.
I know it sounds sad.
You go back to your hometown and you don't have too many friends there.
Most of my friends have left my hometown.
They live in different places around Canada.
So these days when I go back to my hometown, I usually end up spending time with my brother and his friends, which is kind of funny, but he's got a great crew of friends there.
And so often when I'm back in Kelowna, my hometown is called Kelowna.
When I'm back there then I'll hang out with my brother and we'll usually go out once or twice with a group of his friends.
And he's got some really cool friends as well.
So yeah, it's nice to do that.
At least he's got some people, so i'm not a complete loner.
When i go back to my hometown i do have some friends still in my hometown, but to be honest, you know people are working.
It's kind of a vacation for me right, i get to go back, but the friends that i do have are working and they have families and So yeah, sometimes I'm able to see some people, sometimes not so much.
So we'll see about who I hang out with when it comes to friends, but definitely my family.
My parents live in Kelowna.
My brother, as I mentioned, he lives in Kelowna.
And my sister, she doesn't live in Kelowna, but she's going to be visiting at the same time as I am.
So we'll all be in the same place at the same time.
A mini family reunion.
Unfortunately, my wife won't be able to join me.
This is a solo trip.
She would rather visit Canada in the summer, I think.
And I agree with her.
It's a much better time to visit is in the summer.
So I'm just going to do a quick back to Canada and back to Korea one week trip by myself here.
Like I said, mainly to see my family and hopefully some friends as well.
So I'm looking forward to that.
Also, I'm looking forward to, well, I was looking forward to doing some winter activities.
Canada is a winter country.
Most of the country has some pretty nasty winter weather, but that's not all bad.
There are some nice things that you can do in the winter winter sports skiing snowboarding skating, ice hockey tobogganing, cross-country skiing, the list goes on and on.
There are some great ways that you can take advantage of Canada's awesome huge, amazing wilderness and nature in the winter, even though maybe the weather temperature is a little bit cooler.
And when I was talking with my brother and telling him that I'm going to be visiting, he asked me if I wanted to go to Apex Mountain, which is a local ski mountain around my hometown.
If you like skiing or snowboarding, then my hometown is an awesome place because there are maybe three four, five mountains in really close proximity, within an hour or a two-hour drive, and they're really really nice, good mountains with great snow and just good facilities.
So he asked me if i wanted to go to this mountain called apex mountain, which is just closer to a smaller town called penticton, And he said first of all we could go skiing or we could go snowboarding.
But they also have this thing.
I wrote down exactly what it's called.
It's called the Ice Skating Adventure Loop.
I did a little reconnaissance and research on their website.
The Ice Skating Adventure Loop, which is a one kilometer scenic trail through snow, dusted trees in a mountain forest and it is like an ice skating loop.
So they've turned this big.
It's almost like a road that goes through the forest that they've turned into ice and you can just ice skate through the forest on this loop, and that sounded so cool to me.
According to their website, it's open until 10 pm and it's all beautifully lit in the evening.
So you can ice skate through the winter forest at night.
And it just sounded so magical.
And I saw some photos on their website too.
It looks really, really just beautiful and cool.
And I love ice skating.
Ice skating is really fun too.
Yeah, he asked me do you want to go to Apex Mountain and do their ice skating track that they have set up?
And so I was like, yeah, totally, let's do it.
However, when I was researching for this episode and finding that information about the ice skating loop, I checked their hours and I saw that it's currently closed due to warm weather.
It's really not cold at all right now in Kelowna.
The weather is like four or five degrees Celsius.
I don't know if I'll be able to do it.
If we get a cold snap before I arrive, then maybe I can do it.
But if it's like this warm weather, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do any of these winter sports.
Ice skating seems out of the question.
Maybe skiing or snowboarding.
Maybe cross-country skiing.
Depending on how high you get into the mountains.
Sometimes the temperature is considerably colder in the mountains.
So we'll see.
But for now, the one that I was really looking forward to the ice skating adventure loop, doesn't look good.
Hopefully the temperature drops.
So we'll see how that pans out.
I guess on the flip side, if it is warmer, that's great for my other hobby, which is running.
And yeah, if it's like four or five degrees out, that's pretty good for running.
So I could just run instead of skate, perhaps.
We'll see.
What else?
Okay, the next thing I wrote down was shopping, shopping.
Now, if you're a long-time Q-Lips listener, you'll probably know that I don't really like shopping.
I don't like going to shopping malls.
I don't like shopping for clothes.
I don't even really like going to the supermarket or grocery shopping.
In general, I try to save money and not spend money.
However, I do like shopping for some things.
I like shopping for like used things, vintage things.
So used records, used books.
I like going to thrift stores.
I like looking for household goods.
Plates and mugs and cups and lamps and cool old electronics, like all of these things.
I do like shopping for these things.
And my hometown is pretty good for this kind of thing.
There are lots of different thrift stores.
There are a couple of decent used record stores.
And a little way away, in one of the neighboring towns, a town called Penticton, close to where Apex Mountain is, There is a really amazing used bookstore.
And in fact, the bookstore is called the bookshop.
And I got this little blurb from their website.
It says, the bookshop is one of Canada's largest used bookstores.
Over 5000 square feet of floor space provides for the display of thousands of new, used and out of print books covering almost every subject imaginable.
So yeah, this is a real gem of a used bookstore.
I haven't been there for several years but I always really enjoy visiting there and it's nice.
You know, i live in a non-english speaking country and i gotta give credit where credit is due.
At a lot of the major bookstores here in seoul they do have a fairly decent english language book section.
It's definitely possible to buy english language books in seoul, no problem.
And of course you can buy any brand new book off the internet, no problem at all.
So I don't really ever have an issue buying new books in Korea.
However, this kind of used bookstore is just a totally different ballgame.
It's totally different.
You have, like vintage books, old books about all kinds of topics like ranging from gardening to cooking, to automotive repair, to military history, to fiction to non-fiction and everything in between and yeah, a lot of really cool old vintage books.
So i'm gonna see if i can convince somebody to drive me down to penticton.
It's about An hour drive from Kelowna to Penticton but I think it's worth the drive to go to this bookstore.
And if you're ever in the area, I definitely recommend checking it out.
It's just, yeah, this really magical space.
It's jam-packed with books from floor to ceiling.
And yeah, if I do go, I'll make sure to take some pictures so I can share them with you, because it's a really special, cool kind of bookstore.
So I want to go there.
Looking forward to that.
And what else did I write down on my notes?
I wrote foods.
Yeah, food that I can't eat in Korea.
So foods like poutine.
Poutine is a Canadian fast food dish that comes from Quebec and Canada.
It's just very simple.
It's just French fries with a gravy on top and then cheese on top of that.
Not very healthy, but very delicious.
Looking forward to eating some poutine.
Pierogies.
Pierogies are like this dumpling that comes from Eastern Europe.
Not sure which country claims them as their own, but I think they're eaten maybe in Poland and Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe europe as well, and there are some really, really good pierogi restaurants in my hometown because there are a lot of immigrants that come from that eastern european area, so i love them.
It's like a dumpling made out of flour and inside is potato and then sometimes some cheese or onion or different things on the inside Delish.
I'm looking forward to eating pierogies.
It's already making my stomach rumble just thinking about them.
Ah, and also there is this greasy spoon diner called the Pepper Pot Grill, which is actually very, very closely located to where I went to high school.
It's just across the road from my high school and a greasy spoon this is slang that refers to a small cheap, unpretentious diner or cafe known for simple hearty, often fried comfort food like a full english breakfast or hamburgers that are served quickly and at affordable prices.
I got that little definition from google, so thank you, google for the full, nice definition there.
But yeah, there's this greasy spoon restaurant, the pepper pot grill, near my old high school that serves up a great breakfast and actually a great lunch as well.
It's got this really kind of cozy, classic Canadian interior as well.
And yeah, it's a great place.
So I want to go there for either breakfast or lunch.
The last time I went there with my brother was right around maybe 1130 or 1145 in the morning, kind of around brunch time.
And I was really conflicted about what to order.
Should I order breakfast or should I order lunch?
Because they have these delicious breakfasts, but they also have really delicious sandwiches and hamburgers, that kind of thing as well.
And I think I went for the breakfast last time.
So maybe this time I'll go for the lunch.
I do remember that after my last visit to the Pepper Pot Grill, I walked away buzzing because the server kept coming to our table and refilling our coffee mugs.
And so I probably drank like four or five mugs of coffee while I was sitting there.
Bottomless coffee, we call it.
The server always comes around and gives you a little refill and pops you up so that your cup is never empty.
And as a result, I ended up drinking a ton of coffee and it was very highly caffeinated coffee.
And so I was like well, so maybe it's better if I stick to the lunch menu and lay off the coffee for round two of the Pepper Pot Grill.
Anyways, I'm looking forward to that.
And finally, I also wrote that I'm looking forward to checking out several bakeries.
There are some great bakeries in my hometown and especially European bakeries.
As I just mentioned, we do have a lot of immigrants and people who migrated from Europe to Canada, and some of them became bakers.
And so there are these great like European style bakeries in Kelowna, and I am on the hunt for cinnamon rolls.
Cinnamon rolls, I love them.
They're delicious.
It's just like a piece of bread with cinnamon and sometimes some icing on the top.
However, I find the icing to be rather sweet, And icing is the kind of frosting that goes on top of maybe, a cinnamon roll or cake.
It's that kind of sweet top layer that's made with sugar and water usually, sometimes cream cheese as well.
To be honest, I'm not really a huge fan of icing because I find it too sweet, but I do love a cinnamon roll or a cinnamon bun.
Pair that with a cup of coffee and...
You're in heaven, in my opinion.
It's delicious.
So I'm really looking forward to trying to find Kelowna's best cinnamon roll.
Now I do have to say that here in Korea the bakeries are really, really good and there is delicious bread that I can get here in Seoul.
However, it's really hard to find a cinnamon bun or a cinnamon roll in Korea.
I almost never, ever see them.
But occasionally I will find them.
And whenever I do see one, then I always buy it because I love them.
I haven't really found a good one yet.
If you're a listener in Korea and you know of a delicious cinnamon roll, then let me know, because I'm always on the lookout for them.
But I do think I'll be able to find a delicious one in Kelowna.
So I'm looking forward to that.
And yeah, I guess those are my main things.
Usually I would talk about ice hockey.
Usually at this time of the year I would be in full ice hockey mode and I'd be just super stoked to go back to Canada and watch ice hockey, maybe in a pub, maybe with my friends, or with my brother or my parents.
And probably I'd even try and go and see a live hockey game as well.
But not this year because my favorite team, the Vancouver Canucks, this year they are terrible.
They are dead last in the National Hockey League.
There are 32 teams in the National Hockey League, the NHL.
And out of the 32 teams, the Vancouver Canucks are number 32.
They're 32 out of 32.
In English, we say that is dead last.
When you're in the very final position, you are dead last.
So...
Terrible.
They're on a nine game losing streak as I record this right now, which means they've lost nine games consecutively in a row.
And they're also on pace for the worst season in 27 years.
So yeah, just terrible.
So I got to say my passion for ice hockey is not very strong right now.
I'm not really feeling it.
And again Yeah, I'll probably turn the games on, but I'm not going to be sitting there cheering for a team that's not doing very well.
I'm kind of a fair weather fan in that regard.
Fair weather fan is someone who is really passionate when the team is doing well and doesn't really care too much when the team is not doing well.
Unfortunately, I'm kind of a fair weather fan these days.
However, I am looking forward to the Olympic hockey.
This is the one hope that I have for hockey this year because my Vancouver Canucks are terrible, but I'm hoping praying, that we get some awesome hockey at the Olympics.
And yeah, if Canada can win the Olympic gold medal, then that will redeem the terrible Vancouver Canucks. season this year so that is my one hope for ice hockey yeah but yeah i i'm not really looking forward to like going to a game or anything like that this year just because of how terrible the team is doing All right, so that brings me to the end of my story and the end of this episode.
Thank you for listening all the way to the end.
Pat yourself on the back.
You did a great job.
You got some English listening practice in today.
You got some English into your brain.
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Listening is great, but speaking and writing is also part of the process.
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So make sure... to check it out and join us over on Discord if you haven't yet.
Okay, guys, that's it for me for now.
Please take care and I'll talk to you in the next episode.
Until then, goodbye.
