Visitors from Taiwan.

My friend/co-worker (from summer's bat study internship) is recently in Vancouver for a conference. So several of us locals were showing him and other Taiwanese friends UBC and Granville Island this Saturday.

We showed them the gardens, the forever-constructing faculty buildings, the libraries (in construction as well), and the clock tower (not in construction, but perhaps in the future), which are all fine and touristy, but I would rather show them the beautiful Pacific Spirit Park or even the beaches because they are more interesting than the man-made structures (to me, at least). Too bad, maybe next time.

A tropical fish-shaped cloud.

In the afternoon, we went to check out the artsy vibe and Emily Carr "University" (?) in Granville Island. It was a bit more interesting than UBC because we saw different art workshops and unique designing stores, and we definitely were entertained by the robot street performer (especially my friend who was stuck in a handshake with the performer for several minutes).

Biology-wise, I saw a Great Blue Heron and these two beautifully-colored land snails. I want to say they are Striped Snail (Monadenia fidelis) but I am not too positive because they look like the ones in my hand-drawn field guide but not too similar with the online pictures.

The field guide says M. fidelis is "typically brown with one or more dark and light bands" and the body should be "black and red" (which we couldn't see). One interesting fact is that this species has a garlic odor, which should be interesting if I picked them up, but I didn't. Too bad. I'll see if I can confirm their identity by tomorrow.

~Edit~
Never mind the garlic odor. Hugh (of Rock Paper Lizard) proposed the identity of Grove Snails (Cepaea nemoralis) and I think he may be right. Thanks, Hugh.

Hope the weather will be nice tomorrow because I want to go to Nature Park tomorrow!
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