Wow… I cannot believe that this is our last day on the Canadian World Harmony Run.

Today we had an amazing run through Vancouver, starting on the crossing of Burrard and Pacific Street towards Stanley Park.

We had lots of runners and walkers cheering us on the way and making wishes for world harmony.

Stanley Park is a very beautiful park in the centre of Vancouver, a runner’s paradise.

The winding path led us along the English Bay.

The flora in Vancouver is very green and fresh, tall and beautiful trees, flowers still in bloom.

The colorful autumn leaves are flying and swirling in the playful wind

We met a wonderful group of international travelers from Australia, England, Germany and Asia and had a small ceremony for them.

We continued along the path, passing the yachts. On the other side of the Bay we could see the tall glass buildings, downtown Vancouver, and the Convention Centre.

Our next stop was by the Totem Poles where we met a group of students from Carleton Elementary School, who were on an art class outing with their teacher Scott Macdonald. They joined us for a few rounds of our World Harmony Run Song and passed the Torch along. The children eagerly offered their wishes for world harmony and a greener and better world.

\

Upon presenting our World harmony run pamphlet to their teacher, he recognized the founder of the run, Sri Chinmoy, and that he himself had participated in few of the Self-Transcendence Ultra Distances Races in New York City. Then we happily introduced him to Abichal, who is our 3100 miles champion. What a small world!

The final stretch of the run was crossing the Lion’s Gate Bridge.

In the evening we had a wonderful dinner with our friends from Vancouver and Victoria at a Greek restaurant where we shared lots of funny experiences from the run. We are looking forward our next run across Canada in 2010!

Gautami

A closing note from Yuyudhan, team member - photographer and now an honorary Canadian, from Minnesota, USA.

Canada’s Heart-land

I joined the Canadian portion of the World-Harmony-Run about midway through their journey in Winnipeg. Upon landing I knew I was in a foreign land, something felt different a kind of welcoming, of belonging, something I could not put a finger on. My first thought was that I was just happy to be back on the World-Harmony-Run after spending three and a half months on the US portion, but it was different than that.

Later that evening we visited some friends for supper and conversation, I felt so…Happy. Why did I take so long to come up to Winnipeg to visit? This feeling felt so right!

The next morning I was officially back on the team. We visited schools, met with Mayors, towns people, and we ran, for 2 weeks we ran across the prairie, into the mountains. My stereo type image of Canada was being challenged. I joked about the weather, about it being warmer in Canada than back home in Minnesota, the Canadians apologized. In America we hear about ‘Minnesota nice’ but from what I was witnessing Canadians were nicer than us, they apologized for that also. The small towns were vibrant they didn’t looked like they were under the cloud of America, they were happy.

I started to feel a bit out of place, I did not order exactly what was on the menu, I had to be difficult ‘water no ice’, ‘hold the cheese, I don’t do cheese’, and I did not start my sentences with ‘I am sorry’ nor end them with ‘A’. Canadians looked at me like I was from down south below the border,  like they felt sorry for me, but they were to polite to say so.

Yes they were out to get me, to convert me in some subtle way only Canadians can do, ways so deviously quite, friendly, and polite that it would be hard to resist, try as I might. Than I caught on to their ways, It was so obvious why had I not seen it before? Canada not only showed me her heart but opened it up to me, and I ran in. Yes that was the feeling I had, I was in the heart of Canada and feeling at home.

Yuyudhan
Minnesota, honorary Canadian 

– Medur Wilson

Distance: 396 km

Team Members:
Abichal Neil Spencer (Wales), Amy Liberson (Canada), Anvita Winter (Canada), Blazej Neradilek (Czech Republic), Elke Lindner (Germany), Gautami Sykorova (Slovakia), Prapti Jensen (Canada), Sunanda Minarikova (Czech Republic), Tanuja Konecna (Czech Republic), Wilfred Rupp (Canada), Yuyudhan Hoppe (USA)

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

Gallery: See more images!