I ran a FundMe campaign to do this trip so that I could give a presentation about Bitcoin Cash at the 2026 UBC Blockchain Summer Institute, which had a class of roughly 60 students primarily from Universities in China, South Korea, and Switzerland, with a small number of US and Canadian attendees as well.
I flew into Vancouver and immediately transited to the Queen Elizabeth park to check out the view and see the little domed tropical aviary. I popped inside for a minute, but decided to instead head over to the nearby Hillcrest Aquatic Centre for a quick visit to its (busy) gym, and some relaxing hot tub/sauna/swimming time.
After that I transited to the New Westminster Youth Hub for a meetup and art vendor event that happened to be starting that afternoon. I met a few people, played some Mario Kart 8, and browsed the vendors - picking up some stickers, a sticker book, and a sonic comic - signed by the line artist! - as gifts for the kids.
A few hours later I made my way to an old friend who offered to let me stay at their place during my visit, which was great to catch up and resulted in a 'Zoo BBQ' dinner of "something that walks, swims, and flies". They also had not seen the movie Project Hail Mary yet, so we ended up giving it a watch, and their opinion was (correctly!): "amaze amaze amaze!"
I also paid him, a long-time crypto skeptic, in BCH for letting me stay. 😊
The morning of the lecture I woke up at 5:30am and began the 2 hour transit. Most of the trip I listened to BCH-related content, including a live interview of BitcoinCashOG on LetsTalkCrypto which hyped me up a bit for my own talk.
After walking across campus and dodging construction I found the building!
I listened to the first lecture and following interview, then gave my own talk. I recorded it, but forgot to start recording until a minute or so into it - you can tell I'm nervous, or at least I can 😅
However, the talked seemed to go decently, and you can listen to it below. After this I had lunch with Victoria and Tim, the professors from UBC and the Switzerland University respectively, and we talked more about crypto and Bitcoin's history.
Overall a good trip I'd say! I spent the rest of the day traveling back to the airport and editing the audio recording, converting the slides, and finished uploading the above video to YouTube just before boarding the flight back home.
Thanks again to the FundMe contributors for making it possible!