Didn’t have a great sleep overnight. I slept for 3 hours only, waking up and needing to blow my nose quite often. This led to a blood nose, which I’d had a bit during this holiday but this was really bad. I went through a quarter of a toilet roll during this trip. By 6am I has got the nose to stop bleeding but then my sore throat started to get drier and worse. Not an enjoyable night. It was raining constantly as we came into Vancouver station. In the end it rained all day too.

I caught a cab to the Ramada Hotel Downtown and checked in. I wasn’t feeling too good so I took some Tylenol and lay down. By around 4pm I was feeling worse, with a really bad head cold and sore throat, so headed down to the closes pharmacy (London Drugs). It was overcast and raining, but it was even more depressing seeing the number of homeless people. When I was in Toronto, I saw about two every block, but here I passed about 4 groups in the 5 blocks, and they were in groups of 6-8.

The pharmacy was very large and sold all sorts of retail things, much like a pharmacy, newsagent, grocery store, camera and music store all in one. They even sold 12inch vinyl records (which are apparently back in favour for people who listen to music). I purchased some Dayquil, Nitequil, Ginger Ale, the day’s newspaper, and then I headed back to my hotel. On the way I took a couple of photos (GoPro wide screen so it looks like birds eye). I think these will be a great idea for the Volunteers Room of the Karratha Health Campus which has just started construction. We’re bound to have medicinal marijuana legalised in Western Australia in the next 5 years. What a money earner it’ll be! Medicinal marijuana, bongs, cookies, and all other implements. There are 3-4 stores that sell the implements in the 5 blocks I walked, but only one that sold marijuana itself. It’s actually not fully legal yet across most provinces of Canada, but there are stores that trade, knowing that legalisation will occur soon. It’s then up to the local police to decide how to manage this.

I took some medicine (from the pharmacy, not the marijuana store), lay down on the bed, and read the newspaper. I then turned off the lights and turned on my audiobook to listen to. By 7pm I was feeling worse so I took some sleeping tablets and went to bed. After a couple of hours I went to sleep.