I woke up in the morning to go to work. At this point in the trip, my days would start at 7am. Hohyun slept in and woke up a few hours after I did, then tried to transfer dashcam footage onto my hard drive, which was, unfortunately, giving us a hard time. We ended up asking for a late check out just so we could wait for the files to finish transferring, which worked well for me since I had a couple of meetings to take while we were waiting.

At the beginning of the trip, we told ourselves that we’d buy all our high ticket electronics in Alberta since the taxes were so low here. Since the hard drive was giving us a hard time, we decided that we didn’t want to risk potentially losing future footage so we went to buy an SSD. Our hotel was located very close to the West Edmonton Mall, so we decided to go there, feeling 100% certain that Canada’s largest mall would have what we needed.

#1: West Edmonton Mall

When we got there, we did a drive-around the mall to find the closest parking to The Source. The whole drive around the mall took almost 10 minutes. As this was happening, we were getting hungry, so we got Jollibee and ate it in the car while watching Superstore. We went inside afterwards and I was overwhelmed with the size of the place. There was a lot of one-way signage inside to promote social distancing and we passed by an ice rink, an amusement park, and a water park, which was all inside the mall. They were all closed due to covid. Unfortunately, The Source didn’t have what we needed, so we left to go to a Best Buy near downtown Edmonton since that was where Hohyun was taking us to see things anyway.

Earlier in the trip, my friend Makeda (who I also met in Trois-Pistoles) had seen my Instagram Stories and messaged me asking about the trip. She’s from Edmonton, so she was able to give us really good advice on things to do and see if we had the time. We wanted to get a comprehensive walking tour of downtown, so she suggested we park at the Kinsmen Rec Centre and walk around.

It was really wet, cloudy, and rainy, and Hohyun (for whatever reason) decided to make us bushwack up this steep hill to get to the main road. I was a bit annoyed by it, but what made me actually mad was that there were actual stairs that we could’ve used to get to the main road. The views from the bridge walking towards the legislative building were amazing, but the weather made the walk really wet and cold.

#2: Alberta Legislative Building

This place was located in the middle of a park (probably a legislative garden of some sort), which we had to walk through to get to the front. The building was under construction, and 1/3 of it was covered in a huge white sheet. The weather didn’t help with the views either. It looked like there would’ve been a fountain in the area right in front of the legislative building in normal times. The building was obviously closed and we left as soon as we were done with our pictures.

#3: Walterdale Bridge

This was recommended for us to do by Makeda because of the views, and since we’re both suckers for a good view, we knew we had to go there. It was on the way back to the Rec Centre anyway. The bridge looked pretty new and also had great views of the skyline. On the side of the bridge next to the rec centre, there was a really great viewpoint that we both had to stop at and take pictures of despite the weather. We got into the car to go to the next place.

#4: Muttart Conservatory

This place was supposed to have a really nice botanical garden, but it was closed because of covid. We parked the car there and walked up to the gate and discovered that there was a side path that you could take to get onto the roof, which we did. The views from the roof were incredible, and we had a blast taking pictures while taking in the skyline. We realized we had to leave for Calgary soon to not make it in super late, so we headed out. We were fumbling around in the car with the MicroSD card since we were trying to transfer files onto the hard drive on the road, and Hohyun dropped it in my car. We spent quite some time finding it (it’s still somewhere in my car today) but realized we absolutely had to leave when it started pouring (and because it was 6pm).

#5: Edmonton City Hall (and Churchhill Square)

We were passing by this on our way out and had to stop. We were not expecting any of these places to be open and only stopped here to take pictures. The rain was really pouring at this point and we were both soaked when we got back to the car.

The drive to Calgary was around 3 hours and was straight south. It was pretty flat and there weren’t too many cars on the road. We got into Calgary just in time to watch the sunset, which was magnificent because the rain had just stopped. We stayed at the Centro Motel that night, and Hohyun was able to request a room on the ground floor so we could move our stuff in/out easier.

Since it was so late, we were pretty hungry. We wanted to do what we did the day before (go to Safeway, get a bunch of fruits and veggies), but the Safeway had just closed. We had to go to McDonald’s, so I decided to take the opportunity to try the BTS sauces from the BTS meal. We also played Mario Kart on my Nintendo Switch. After that, we were still hungry and got Denny’s since it was the only other thing open within a reasonable driving distance. We then ate, put on some Netflix, then went to bed.