Vancouver
11th October 2010
After enduring three weeks of almost constant rain on the Gold Coast and
only a couple of days with sunshine (I know tough life right) I could
not help but think it was just a prelude to the weather I would be
experiencing once in Canada. On the day of my departure I was half
thinking that my flight would not even get of the ground as it was
bucketing down with rain and there was huge winds threatening to put a
brief hold on my departure but my concerns were soon eased and the
departure screen had my flight as an on time take off...now at this
point it hit me that I was actually heading overseas and it was full
steam ahead. The flight was uneventful and after four movies and a
couple hours of sleep we were landing in Vancouver..."ladies and
gentleman thank you for flying with Air Canada the current weather in
Vancouver is 6 degrees (I had to convert from Fahrenheit) and
showers", this is the sort of weather I am to expect until I arrive in
Whistler and the snow starts falling. As I was going through customs all
the Australians had to go through immigration and get there work visas
approved, I had no problems but I had to have a bit of a laugh as a
young guy next to me was being asked by the immigration officials about
his long criminal record and why he should be let in the country and the
kid couldn't understand how Canada would know about his history in
Australia, not sure if he got let in but he was questioned for a long
period. It was 8am Monday morning and as it happens it was a public
Holiday...Canada's version of Thanksgiving which to my surprise it is a
different day to America, I jumped on the subway and headed for downtown
and to my hostel, "The Cambie". I had to trek 10 or so blocks to the
hostel and during that walk I encountered roughly 10 or 12 homeless men
begging for money most were harmless and would leave you alone if you
said "sorry I ave no change" but there were a couple I'm sure were out
of there minds on some sort of illegal substance that I did my best to
steer clear of. I made it to my hostel with no hassle and was able to
check in early and as it was a public holiday and pretty much nothing
was open I decided to catch a few zzz's that I had missed out on in the
last 24hrs. I woke around lunch and decided to do some exploring, I hit
Granville Street which is the main road through downtown Vancouver and
where all the action would be on a non-public holiday day. After a few
hours of wandering the streets I headed back to the Cambie around late
afternoon, just in time too as was Monday Night football (big event) and
also the Vancouver Canucks were playing a home hockey match. So for my
first night I settled myself into the downstairs bar for pints of
Canadian beer (kokanne, Moosehead) and a plate of buffalo chicken wings
and hung out with two German guys, a Czech guy and two pommie girls. The
bar got fairly rowdy as the Canucks won and I got a bit on the
intoxicated side....oops.
12th October 2010
I woke up the next day a bit hazy but nothing I
hadn't experience before haha, the day ahead I spent trying to organise
a SIN number, bank accounts and finding a cheap phone nothing too
exciting but the the weather at least was not raining and only overcast.
I made it back to the hostel for a free pasta dinner at 5pm which was
surprisingly quite tasty for a free meal, after the meal me and one of
the Germans (Frederick) went around the corner to the Amsterdam Cafe
(you can guess what happens in there) haha. We were sitting next to this
older guy who was explaining to us how to roll a master spliff and then
demonstrated how to smoke it properly...quite a lesson in smoking the
herb if your into that sort of stuff. He then was telling us how he was a
lawyer for a big law firm in Vancouver and he was explaining the
hard-ball negotiating skills he employs when dealing with clients... I
think he had smoked a bit too much of BC's finest!! He was a bit of a
nut. We then headed back to the hostel for a few quite beers nothing too
big.
13th October 2010
I woke up early the next day as I had planned to do a bit of sightseeing, I ate my complementary "Cambie Breakfast" (eggs, bacon, grits, sausage) and headed out. The day was magnificent, blue skies with not a cloud in sight, and my first destination was Granville Island where there are all these interesting markets to forage through. Spent the morning there wandering the isles for any cool trinkets to buy and had a pulled pork sandwich for lunch, yummmmmy! After the lunch I headed to Stanley Park for some open air natural beauty. I spent the afternoon walking around this magnificent park (its definitely a must do in Vancouver)admiring the great views over the ocean and the oddly shaped totem poles scattered around the place. It was getting late by the time I had done a fair bit of exploring, if I had more time I would of liked to visit the Vancouver Aquarium to see the belugas as it is also in Stanley Park, maybe next time!I made if back to the hostel and picked up a sixer of Pacific Pilsner beer (it was the cheapest) on the way. I sat in the common room eating my Vegemite sandwich and drinking my beer with an American guy from Kansas City (Sam), we polished of 6 beers, talked shit and pondered what to do with the night ahead. He suggested we go to this Karaoke bar as he new a bunch of Canadians that were going and it should be a good night. We decided to walk it as we thought it was fairly close, but as it turns out it wasn't we took a short cut through Chinatown where we came across several crack-heads shooting up in an alleyway and a block away police and ERT helping some guy who had obviously overdosed on something and needed help. A bit shocking but apparently quite common in that part of town, anyway we hiked about 20 or so blocks and 45mins later we finally made it to the bar. It was packed and some girl was on stage nailing Whitney Houston's bodyguard song, very impressive for a karaoke bar, it was at the point me and the American agreed we were i no way going to sing with that much singing talent to compare to haha. Anyway we met up with his Canadian friends, four guys in some sort of band they had the token Asian keyboard player and the lead singer was a Kings of Leon look-a-like, also three Canadian girls who turns out were absolutely wild. The American and I got stuck into $3.20 Molson pints and I tell you what the next day I would find out why it was so cheap (my head was thumping!!), the night was heaps of fun but from what I remember I didn't get on stage and sing but one of the Canadian girls did and she wasn't too shabby. The bar closed at midnight so we decided to move on to a club on Granville Street called Roxys, on the way one of the girls just wiped out a massive joint. God knows where she was hiding it, apparently almost everyone in Canada likes the BC grass everyone seems so casual and liberal about it. I'm not sure if it is legal or not but there are cafe's where you can take your own stuff, roll it and smoke it but you can't buy it. Anyway, we jumped into a taxi and headed to the club when we got there a live band was playing so as you can imagine the dance floor was calling. 3 or four jager shots and a couple of rye and cokes later it was time to head home. Don't remember the walk home but I made it back to the hostel in one piece, what a good night!!
